Joe Rogan Experience #464 — Robert Greene, Aubrey Marcus Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! So I had to have you in here, man. Wait a minute. There are people out there that are dirty and mean that you need to know about. I was a writer. Very much so. he could go in and rescue him and become the director on the project. But in the meantime, That's why this bad shit is happening. It can. He wasn't going to confide that this was going on. That's my interpretation later on. So

4:17 You got off light, pal. would pretend power hungry. It was the first time I ever did any acting at all. Like, you would say something about, Like, I've seen, it was really interesting to watch. because you're an ugly fuck he would feel like really subtle about it you know he'd be like who picked out Luckily, he's dropped off the face of the planet, fortunately.

6:27 Oh, several come to mind. this is one of the reasons why this guy sucked. This is a big fucking guy. You know, like how to be aware of it and then reverse it. Yeah, I would probably today respond very differently, but when I was in my early 20s, it was scorched earth. I just said a very... You're touching upon the subject of my next book. And so there are these laws of human nature

9:32 understand where people's behavior comes from and not be surprised by it anymore. Are actually crypto cunts. Okay. What a name. Those girls are fucking badass, man. I love Pussy Riot. I'm a huge fan. Even if if their music sucks and i don't even know if it does it probably does And we've used that word power in the wrong way. and we want to have control and power over the people around us, the events that go on in life.

12:43 That's where we come from. You know, where chimps have some strategy, people didn't even know that chimps ate monkeys. They engage in warfare against other chimps. They would have food around that they were giving the chimps. the argument that when you create a civilization and it's not just tribal and it becomes a zero-sum He'll be on the 11th. acres, more hectares of land

15:27 these games begin and the tighter the resources in that civilization, So he was trying to debunk the notion that it's only at the advent of agriculture where It happens with sables. where there's sort of these canned It's one of those African deer-like creatures with big crazy horns. Yeah. And I've always felt that when we look at the time frame when it comes to greed, when it comes to all the motivating factors

18:51 constantly getting this release of in front of them and fucking honking their horn, my teeth at me in a car. You're not in front of them. Fuck you. all the human interaction is missing. like what do you read comments do? Do you read comments on blogs? especially who you surround yourself with on a regular basis. is sort of recognizing these traits so that you can move away from them?

22:21 such as our propensity to feel envy. The propensity to feel envy is basically at its yourself to others, to find your own value, your own self-worth from within. So when you started reading all of these self-help books and started recognizing that there was themselves? And these books were essentially dishonest. They weren't confronting the fact But for instance, I have a chapter in there about how to create a cult.

25:27 So when you're writing about creating a cult, following, and therefore... to benefit from it. Well, you'd want You know, once you... Right. Hundreds and thousands. So whenever they're creating this false dichotomy of us versus the nonbelievers, That tribe over there, they're evil. Whether it's a group of Mac users or, you know, whether it's whatever the fuck it is.

28:26 Come on over to AT&T. all these dead people it was like does that guy even know he's in an ad he's dead this is weird It doesn't discriminate. You're right. We were one of the weakest animals in Africa. They weren't really giving a shock. which is our ability to engage in groupthink feel incredibly powerless and No, there were two professors who were friends, and they kind of did.

32:58 think. Manfield, Mass, I think it is. It's this outdoor venue, and there was a lot of crazy shit going on. because the guy, I forget what the guy did, if he ran into this guy in the street, We have this us versus them dynamic. And you can take some of that back and then chart your course with your own intent, I think he's busy. I'm going to, you know, push you around and I'm not afraid.

36:18 who were incredibly brave, who would be on the front line of battle, take bullets flying past not me. I'm not afraid. I don't have these problems. No, you do have them. Let's confront Have you ever taken mushrooms, Robert? And then it's like, oh, yeah, that's it. How did you do it? find a nice safe place. The traditional peanut And you don't want to vomit it because then you're not going to get the trip.

39:07 But if you vomit later in the trip based on it trying to clear your body, you, it kind of connects really the real world, with 50 Cent? Yes, sir. Now, what was the motivation behind that? Well, basically my early books, And dealing with these sharks in the music business how manipulative these people could be. And so they gravitated to the 48 Laws of Power.

41:56 Were you born in a field? Most people in Hollywood were getting so angry with him and so angry about the games that they never took a step back to figure out, oh, this is the strategy that this guy applied. And then from there, it's like really. I agree, it's pretty fucking smart. Let's say she wrote it. They use that for not just the music business, but Hollywood.

44:26 one country. It's in 16 an eye in those industries. But it's weird. Wow. Look at you, you bad motherfucker. for Kurt Cobain's death. You know? Off track, obviously. the mastery of their craft and this whole craft, this business sharkiness is this other whole skillset that it's, you know, challenging Well, it depends on what business you're in and what point you are in life.

47:37 If you are, then you're going to want 48 laws or maybe the strategies of war. you've got all sorts of great creative ideas, but you're never going to the next step and Now, you wrote The Art of Seduction But the truth of the matter is, I'm more about the long term, how you can take that woman, or it can be a woman seducing a man, obviously, and get and play a mind game on her.

49:36 of it, you're fucking proud of that shit. or just an encounter, And I'm getting you to play on that. I'm showing you how to get those resistance levels down and give room to finagle your way into their head. And the converse, of course, too, which is a lot of people are getting these things played upon them constantly. something like The Art of Seduction says, oh, she's using law number seven as her primary means

51:51 The drama. Yep. Mastery is basically a book that's trying to get away from all of the political stuff I've described in my previous books. Or their parents were mean to them. have these built-in excuses for why they can't do what they want to do. Like, give me some of these excuses that you hear. There's open mics right now. The line has no idea about your age. The line is there. The microphone is on for an 80 year old man. If an

55:02 But you're already creating this insurmountable She was just the kind of kid you see who's just banging their head against a wall. that point. That's really the reason I put it in there. If somebody like that can overcome Be the person. hero in the movie do right now? Do that shit. And it works. It works with some people. Other I was just playing this over-nice person

57:40 And so he told me, he's like, But then as soon as someone's not nice back, say, all right, good luck. It's one of the most important things to have in this life. They want this. I don't know. Are you fun to be around? And do you not have that quality? So everybody has a different style. You can blow hot and cold. You could live 46 years on this world.

1:00:53 What you're saying, it kind of reminds me of what you talk about. Whatever makes you that unique individual, wired in a unique way. They've done these really interesting studies on newborns, infants one month and your way of thinking and your whole spirit, you are going to fucking succeed in this life. You're going to create a business. That's what the book Mastery is about.

1:03:44 and getting on drugs. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You were good up until that point. I lost you. Yes. unhappy. But the goal of your to explore, to have some adventures, you can think he's great or not. Now you don't have the mental freedom to take a job for half that price is because of their parents. which is like, what is going to make you the most happy in doing and being? And when you're in your

1:07:16 Yeah, he's found success in doing it, Yeah, but you're absolutely right. things that like I would hear all the time when I was starting out in stand-up comedy is my mom years and really kind of hated it. And at one point, an editor had lunch with me and he pointedly to the chance to do a book, I suddenly, the heavens blew open for me. Yeah, a book. I have

1:10:20 What are those things in life that you don't like? No, no, not at all. And then they keep thinking that they have to repeat the same thing that they did. they start to suck it's a real issue like with some of the greats I won't I think he's just a crazy pervert. I thought he was much funnier back then than he is now. I was saying that the sound of clicking, I was putting something on Twitter,

1:12:59 because he's fucking terrified to go on the internet if he googles Woody Allen I telling you you're not going to make you'll never be a champion you'll never you know start on the That's right. I have a story in the book of Freddie Roach. He was one of the modern masters you doing this? Your brother is so much better than you. That got him really pissed. So he went back into the gym and

1:15:28 It's over. And he decides, hey, I'm going to maybe help this one guy out who's not getting any attention right now. And he slowly realizes that training is the ultimate job for him. He can do all the mind games that he loves, and he can give these years of experience. I'm too old, et cetera. It's not a't know what my path is. I can't figure it out. I'm too old, etc.

1:17:57 It's not all rosy. If you don't feel the lows, you won't appreciate the highs. I would be the biggest fucking loser of all time now. It's not yours. what you've got left over, then you buy a lottery ticket. It's it's a mad mad. The way you appreciate money, I got out of school and I didn't know I started a marketing company. We don't need to go down.

1:21:10 that. I didn't really understand it at that point. But if that would have been successful and worked, Maybe so. Like I was hanging out at the comedy store once and my friend Kelly Kirsten very funny stand-up comic Then I ran into her many years later. But I'm talking to her, and she's like, I don't know why it's not working. dollars the secret is real well there's a person out there that drew a picture of a fucking castle

1:24:22 we believe it because of that. In other words, we want to believe that God will grace us if we perform certain rituals or that we can make a lot We are immediately attracted to things that offer us some kind of pleasure or reward. It was a challenge. There wasn't much creativity involved, etc. But if you keep doing this for five years, ten years, as opposed to all those immediate rushes that our culture tries to peddle.

1:26:53 Like, look, nobody likes sleeping in more than me. But my point is, when I have something that I have to do, when I do it, if I don't want to do it, it feels even better once I've done it. Why I got into archery. The arrows in the bullseyes and shit. Yeah, you're talking a lot about Zen philosophy where it's these moments where you have this really mindless shot that you take in archery

1:29:33 at hand besides dealing with the other skilled person you're you're going to be diminished you but if you fight a real master and you have anger, because he's just so much better. Unless that, but when you have two Mike Tysons, you know what He fought a master when he wasn't a master anymore. which is what a lot of coaches would do, And some players could use the anger a little bit,

1:32:03 This was in 17th century, 18th century Japan. He was reacting against all the Zen practices that were going on in Japan that were trying doubt, misery, the Zen master hitting you over a head with that stupid stick every time he saw If you don't have any teacher with an actual stick, you better believe that life itself will handle that. a leopard will come and eat us.

1:34:18 brain process that we all have to go through in order to reach this point where we've mastered our environment, whatever that might be. The other school is more active. the sound of one hand clapping, So the idea being that this preposterous question becomes sort of a pattern that your thoughts go into and you become empty because this pattern becomes – you say it over and over and over and over again.

1:36:59 And so at that point, you realize that mu means everything. It's trying to cut you off from that chatter in your head, Not terrible, but he wasn't good. He's like nine years old. So he decided he was going to That's the worst thing you can have. these other exercises where he could train himself to see almost behind himself, or at least way over for him. It was sure it was a lot of pain. But by the time he got good, and he was in high school,

1:41:36 young people are disconnected from what I call the pattern that our brains were built for. I'm sorry, it just can't be done. Mike Tyson was one of the smallest heavyweight champions Mike Tyson's, in my opinion, You know, they've worked through that almost tempers your spirit as the main thing that's for rape. who become so selective in what they're trying to do

1:44:35 Maybe. I don't know, man. I don't know that guy. It's like a path. But I'm sort of showing you the various steps that get you there. And as Aubrey points out, understand what other people's feelings are, how to handle the assholes that will inevitably You were talking a lot about meditation. Oh, they were around before that. I think that was because the movie Altered States.

1:47:45 Exactly. you could get into one. And through talking about it on the podcast, the entire industry has got I think I was in yesterday. At least an hour. You have no idea what an hour is. especially edible marijuana, which provides a much more hallucinogenic effect. through the experience of complete freaking out, there's lessons to be learned. In fact, it's the only environment like it on Earth.

1:50:20 keep you from having an isolation tank. What's she trying to do? No. That's all right. So you're not hearing anything. Of course they do. I remember that. but maybe after 20 minutes or 25 minutes you get to that state. I've gotten high, like legitimately high from yoga to the point where not i want to say intoxicated like And there's something to it.

1:54:10 of swimming with my kids and we play around but when i do laps like fuck it's fucking hard yeah where you're like, I just can't do this anymore. Well, then you'd get radioactive. That is a beautiful patch of water, though, by the way. Do you find that you can hallucinate? You know how in dreams, I don't even want to try and put it in words. about these very vivid images of demons that he had when he was a child. He was so afraid of them

1:58:06 I don't know if you're familiar. Was this in the early days of language? But if you read books like about Buddhism, But I think that that's sort of the idea of the demons. In that path, you reach this very visual point in the experience, which is generally, it can either be incredibly beautiful or it can be incredibly hellish. I get a lot of people asking me about these trips and And for them, that is, who haven't done it very much, they focus very much on those visions.

2:01:46 Well, that's really similar to the Zen meditation because you're going through, let's say I meditate for 35, 40 minutes. That's it. And if you half-ass it anywhere along the way, you don't reach that spot. know why this anxiety is gnawing on your inside. You never can figure out what you bring to it. No, I, every morning I wake up and I meditate, uh, for 35 minutes.

2:03:46 You can pull your legs up in that spot? And then I'm not usually writing because my books I do these note cards, and it's the note cards that's excruciating. That's like the Bill Bradley I've loved him since I was a kid. and bring some order in basically a... And then he didn't get laid enough. silver i think silver had some use in some of these things

2:07:21 ago by the way they wrote about it so they had language. Yep. You know, what we were talking about earlier about the evolution of civilization and the amount of time, the very brief window between us and when we were animals in relationship to the length of time that things have been alive on Earth. It's hard for us to really wrap our heads around,

2:08:54 well, I mean, Just like we were talking about the battle between discipline and success, the battle between being uncomfortable and doing things that are hard to do and reaping the rewards of that. Wow, that's amazing. They were just making shit up. they had uh they were taller that's a known fact before agriculture uh we did not have certain Well, they say that there are – that's the average.

2:11:23 Nothing like the internet to be able to show that You know, I mean, there is no life that's worth living if everything is, you know, like that Alan Watts video, if we could make everything absolutely perfect and nothing is a surprise and there's no resistance out there. It doesn't become what it is. It's not as rich anymore. It's not filled with the magic that life can be. I mean, pick us off is part of that resistance. And the fact that

2:12:51 Sorry, dude. I think it's compared to the people who got into agricultural settlements after Cro-Magnon. um but when i came back to what you were saying there in the preface to mastery i try and say with the internet, with iPhones, with all the other things that are making it so much harder for us to focus. you do or you start to suck. And that's what happens.

2:15:26 Why? It's true. You see that big old smile on Einstein's face? scientifically ever. That guy was, he was, excuse me, he was a, you know, a very unique individual. And that uniqueness, I'm sure there was some motivation behind that, not just the scientific motivation, but the actual natural motivation to be exceptional for breeding purposes. I'm nobody.

2:17:14 and then once you have that new special, in music so be rough it's not it's great it's rough but it's great yeah the but there's no ultimate mastery. in your job. There's no golden age. There's a path only. Yay. He's trying to become famous instead of focusing on whatever art form you choose to make you famous. But learning, learning is what gets you high.

2:20:07 and how you can learn so much from that. and maybe even in 84. because I was such a huge fan the comedy store when mark was a young kid and he told some amazing stories about just the amount of substances mark hung out just destroyed him he never recovered from that yeah coke and alcohol i mean that killed his brain In fact, it's often the opposite.

2:23:05 after that and did his better work after that much better work that's because to create something really into heroin. There was a lot of alcohol involved with a lot of those guys as well. if you're looking to gain something. casino and just gamble it away in a night so that he was desperate and hungry again. Well, I call that death ground. No safety net, no escape route.

2:25:43 You might not make it without the net, but you will not make it with the net so there's that there's that i i i I'm exhausted. I just can't do it. I got on this high where thoughts were just coming to me and my dreams and my, you know, I'm having sex. You know, Hunter Thompson wrote Hell's Angels. Have you ever seen... I could have written it Gonzo?

2:27:58 The documentary just from a couple years ago? Yeah. It's not a 10. Oh, nice. Yeah, it's those It's a metaphor. And then this fury of fucking teeth gnashing, slamming against the keys. You do. One, it's famine thinking. incredibly common and I think it's gross I think it disrespects the audience first Like, say, if you had a very particular subject The same shitheads like that actor that I told you that would like to go up to my friend

2:31:59 I bring him to open for me because I want to be in a hilarious state before I go on stage. Yeah. But it's not because I want to die. But also, I want people to know how good these guys are. that ever stepped foot on earth joey diaz and i would bring him on stage like that all the time You need greatness around you. The universe has... They figured it out a long time ago, shithead.

2:34:45 I have my own Bill O'Reilly story. You don't see anything. just rip me to shreds. About what? And I was so expecting the opposite that I was like – So he, like, made me look like I was supporting. like a softball interview where we were just, you know. was. Yeah, and I find it in that position, but I think that having I've come to, the more Receding and gray.

2:38:50 the intense speech warning the people about the military-industrial complex Unless he's totally full of shit, which I'd like to think that he's not. And, you know, people yell over, yell, yell, Did you ever see Jon Stewart on the firing line years ago? Some special offers for getting the book mastery. What are you talking about, man? You'd be completely shocked.

2:41:09 slash joe. Yes, I got it right here. I'll put this up on Twitter right now. Copy link Explain what? how he did this, plus bonus content and stories For those of you thinking about reading Mastery, I've read it, and it's been an invaluable tool, along with own personal power. Clichés are real, ladies and gentlemen. Robert Green, you're a bad motherfucker.

2:43:16 On the top of the page in the referral box at checkout for more savings. He's a fucking awesome dude, and he's goddamn smart and hilarious.