Robert Greene: How To Seduce Anyone, Build Confidence & Become Powerful | E232

Robert Greene tells Steven Bartlett how a chance meeting with a book packager in Italy at age 38, after a string of 80-odd unrelated jobs, led to The 48 Laws of Power and changed his life. He reframes power as an internal sense of self-control rather than control over others, argues that everyone wears social masks and carries a shadow side, and breaks down seduction as being outer-directed and attentive to others. He explains that real confidence comes from accomplished skills, not bravado, and that mastery requires patience through tedium because the brain learns by doing and repetition. The conversation closes with his account of the 2018 stroke that paralyzed his left side, the depression and plateau that followed, and the gratitude, meditation, and connection that now sustain him.

• By 37-38 Greene was depressed with suicidal thoughts, broke, and worried about himself before a chance meeting with a Dutch book packager in Italy.
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• The packager offered to pay him to live while writing half the book; Greene borrowed money from his parents to write the treatment.
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• Greene admits confronting his own dark side: 'You have a dark side. You're a narcissist,' coming to terms with his irrationality, grandiosity and aggression.
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• He cites Errol Flynn as numerically the greatest male seducer, estimated to have seduced close to 3,000 women, whose secret was a relaxed, confident calm.
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• Bartlett reveals he was rejected by nearly every girl he pursued from 16 to 22 because he was faking confidence that others could read through.
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• In 2018 Greene had a stroke that put him in a coma and left the left side of his body paralyzed, ending his swimming, hiking and mountain biking.
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• A wasp sting plus forgotten blood pressure medication and a prednisone prescription combined into a 'perfect storm' that caused the stroke.
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• His wife was beside him in the car and forced him to pull over; he says 90% of the time he was alone and would have died.
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• The 48 Laws of Power has sold over 2 million copies in the US and is selling faster now than ever before.
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• Jay-Z was the first person Greene ever saw quoting the book in print, in a Playboy interview, followed by 50 Cent and Drake.
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• Greene paraphrases Malcolm X: absolute power corrupts, but absolute powerlessness corrupts even more.
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• The origins of narcissism he cites come from psychologist Kohut: children develop self-esteem to compensate for reduced parental attention.
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• Highly charismatic figures like Marilyn Monroe (an orphan) and JFK came from very bad childhoods and had to fight for love.
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• Greene tells the story of Milton Erickson, who at 19 was paralyzed by polio able to move only his eyeballs, and became the greatest reader of body language.
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• Greene explains the 10,000-hour idea, noting it is just a number, and that 20,000 hours can make someone almost superhuman.
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• Greene has meditated every morning for over 12 years, practicing Zen meditation, and says he has never missed a day.
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• Greene recently had dinner with Stevie Wonder and watched him improvise on piano at his recording studio; Innervisions was the first album Greene ever bought.
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