Insight
Greene: Social authenticity is a myth because human interaction requires role-playing
“Nobody is ever authentic. It's a myth. It's bullshit, in fact, and it kind of is annoying because to be a human being is to be social and is to wear a mask, is to be an actor.”
Insight
Greene: Managing egos and politics is 90% of the career game
“Ego, politics, playing, you know, making other people look good. That is 90% of the game, especially when you're starting out.”
Insight
Greene: Supplying fantasy and illusion grants immense social power
“We want to be led. We actually want to be deceived. We want illusion. We want fantasy. We want pleasure, and so you want to be the person that's supplying that fantasy, that's giving people that pleasure, because if you do, it gives you a lot of power, right?”
Insight
Greene: Indirect communication is more powerful than giving direct instructions
“If you can be clever, and you can kind of indicate, and you can kind of send them in a certain direction, it's a much more powerful form of communication.”
Insight
Greene: Only about 5% of people intuitively understand power dynamics
“If I had to put a percentage on it, and I've thought about this, and it's not scientific by no means, I think about five percent of people actually understand these laws intuitively”
Insight
Greene: Business is merciless and predatory competitors circle entrepreneurs
“As an entrepreneur, this business that you created at this very moment, there are vultures circling around. We're going to buy your business out and crush you because that's how business works, right? It's a merciless environment.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Greene: Society will abandon authenticity for social role-playing within 20 years
“In 1020 years people are going to react against that and they're going to be more into fantasy and role playing and wearing those masks and having fun in the social environment.”
Insight
Greene: Failing to use leverage signals weakness and invites future exploitation
“When you have leverage in a situation, in any situation in life, you have to use your leverage, and what a lot of people do, they're afraid of the leverage that they have. They're afraid they're going to offend the other person. They're afraid they're going to…”
Insight
Greene: Overexposure on social media destroys a celebrity's aura within a year
“And I say, if you do too much of that, I'm not going to use her name, People will become so familiar with you that you're gonna lose that aura of being a celebrity. They're gonna take you for granted, and you might shine for a year with being out there and hav…”
Insight
Greene: Relationships inevitably fizzle without constant mystery and surprise
“If you dress a certain way that seems a little bit out of character, not completely out of character, you go, wow, you need to do that in a relationship constantly, otherwise it's just gonna fizzle, all the energy's gonna go out of it.”
Insight
Greene: Dangerous narcissists do not perceive themselves as manipulative
“People who are like this, they don't think that they're narcissists. They don't think that they're evil. They don't think that what they're doing is manipulative, or they're even operating by laws. These are just things that come naturally to them.”
Insight
Greene: Power requires soft influence because ruthless aggression creates vindictive enemies
“If you're alienating everybody, if you're crushing all of these people, if you're just having lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, there, there'll be a bounce back effect where you won't have many allies next time you're in trouble, right? People will resent y…”
Insight
Greene: Self-awareness separates seductive figures from anti-seductive ones
“So a seductive person is self-aware. They're self-aware of their body language, Of, you know, the clothes that they wear, of how they talk. The anti-seductive person has no self-awareness.”
Disclosure
Robert Greene handwrites drafts after a stroke left him unable to type
“I've always handwritten my first drafts. Now I can only handwrite because I can't type. I used to be a very fast typist. Now I can't because of my stroke.”
Disclosure
Robert Greene: Held 50 to 60 jobs before writing 48 Laws
“Prior to writing the 48 laws of power, I was not a successful person, I have to admit. I had 50, at least 50, 60 different jobs.”
Robert Greene