“This Is The Most Important Subject I’ve Ever Covered” - Robert Greene - #1162

“I thought, this is really interesting, but I knew there was no market for it. It was kind of a weird book, and I intended after the war book, this was going to be my next book, The Sublime. I was going to shock my readers with something totally unexpected. I hired a researcher. I started doing it, and then 50 Cent trotted along and said, let's do a book together. And so I pushed Sublime aside.”

“And so I pushed Sublime aside. I made the 10th chapter of the 50 Cent book about the Sublime, about how he nearly died from the gunshot wounds and, you know, his near-death experience. And then from 50 Cent book, there was a chapter about mastery.”

“And then, you know, I had my quote-unquote near-death experience. And suddenly, you know, God was telling me this is the time you need to write a book on the sublime. No more putting it off because it was a sublime experience to come that close to dying.”

“Why get interested in writing about the sublime at all? Well, a lot of what happens with humans and what goes wrong with them is on a deep psychological level and level of consciousness.”

“So I wrote the 48 Laws of Power when I was 39, essentially, and I'd been pretty much a loser up until then. Parents about to give up on me, their son who can't seem to hold a job for more than a few months.”

“And so now it's time to like write a second book. And the pressure on me is to kind of just kind of create another version of the 48 laws of power. And because it is, it's doing very well. And people, so I decide, I mean, seduction is kind of related to it, but it's not what my publishers wanted.”

“Every single day, I get about 12 emails from scammers saying, Robert, I read the 48 laws of power is wonderful. What struck me most about it was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I am the curator of a reading group in Greenwich, England, and I want to help get your spread your book to my 10,000 readers.”

“Have you ever read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman? Who? What? Philip Pullman. It's a kid's book series called His Dark Materials. It had the subtle knife in it, the golden compass.”

“And there's these themes of sort of Adam and Eve. There's a male and female protagonist and they're both quite young and they fall in love. And as they fall in love, they hit puberty. And as they do that, all of this stuff happens in the universe.”

“and, you know, his near-death experience. And then from 50 Cent book, there was a chapter about mastery. So I turned that into the book Mastery. And then, I don't know, human nature. Anyway, I just got totally sidelined.”

“What's your advice to people that wish they had more bravery when it comes to committing what they feel they know is true inside? Well, I talked a lot about that in the book Mastery. So what I tell people is you could go on through your 20s and your 30s following a career path that makes you money, that gets you a family, gives you stability, but isn't quite you.”

“I hired a researcher. I started doing it, and then 50 Cent trotted along and said, let's do a book together, and so I pushed sublime aside. I made the 10th chapter of the 50 Cent book about the Sublime, about how he nearly died from the gunshot wounds and, you know, his near-death experience.”

Our IdentificationSaid as “the 50 Cent book”. We believe this refers to The 50th Law.

“This isn't who I am. And I remember I got to do that book with 50 Cent, which was, you know, an unusual opportunity to say the least. And the first version of the book was canceled because it wasn't good.”

Our IdentificationSaid as “that book with 50 Cent”. We believe this refers to The 50th Law.

“Humans created it. It's something we have invented. And what I talked about in the laws of human nature is human beings have a shadow, have a dark side. Everybody has a dark side. Even you, Chris Williamson, has a dark side, I'm afraid to say.”

“it to be is a good first step. Well, you know, I wrote a book on human nature, laws of human nature. It's about 560 pages, kind of dense, no imagery. It's kind of first glance, it looks incredibly intimidating.”

“Have you ever read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman? Who? What? Philip Pullman. It's a kid's book series called His Dark Materials. It had the subtle knife in it, the golden compass. So it must be 30 years old.”

“And it's one of my favorite book series. And I actually read it, listened to it, I guess, in the wrong order. So I listened to The Subtle Knife First, which is the second book. And it kind of makes sense. The third one makes no sense at all. So you have to listen to read the first two. But anyway, in this world, the children are born with daemons.”

“slash modern wisdom. That's shopify.com slash modern wisdom. I spoke to David Dada, you know, Way of the Superior Man author. So illustrious, longtime author. And did his first podcast interview in over a decade, I think, a few months ago.”

“What's his name? David Deida. Writes a ton of papers. Deida, D-E-I-D-A. Okay. Deida. Way of the Superior Man is a very, very, very popular book from about 30 years ago, 20 years ago. Anyway, he starts off computer science, AI, and then he decides that he is going to leave that.”

“to us, right? You're going to smoke a pipe? It's an e-pipe. It's when I feel like I'm pontificating and getting really close to something that's a great high-faluting idea. I like to sit here and do this. Oh, please. So my father smoked a pipe.”

“And she wants to go back to where she was during her stroke. And so she wrote a book about that called My Stroke of Insight, about how she found her ways somehow logically as a scientist back to those sensations she had during her stroke.”

“this is really interesting, but I knew there was no market for it. It was kind of a weird book, and I intended after the war book, this was going to be my next book with the sublime. I was going to shock my readers with something totally unexpected. I hired a researcher. I started doing it, and then 50 Cent trotted along and said, let's do a book together, and so I pushed sublime aside.”

“And because it is, it's doing very well. And people, so I decide, I mean, seduction is kind of related to it, but it's not what my publishers wanted. It's not what my partner wanted me to do. But it felt like something I, it felt connected to my soul.”

“Have you ever read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman? Who? What? Philip Pullman. It's a kid's book series called His Dark Materials. It had the subtle knife in it, the golden compass. So it must be 30 years old.”