Robert Greene on Reading, The Laws of Power, and Detecting Lies | Knowledge Project Podcast Archive

Greene maintains productivity through specific routines: daily rigorous meditation for approximately eight years, daily exercise (including long-distance swimming, hiking, yoga-Pilates), and three hours of writing per day, which are sustainable because they prevent the mental work from killing him and maintain freshness.

“I do have routines as you asked. I I meditate every morning. I've been doing that now for about eight years. Um very rigorous long meditation every morning. Um it really helps clear the mind... I exercise every single day even if I'm sick... I just do three hours every day of the writing cuz it's about all I can stomach. And the rest of the time I might take notes think or I might just go online and and read mindless stuff just to just to you know, decompress.”

Machiavelli developed the concept of 'effective truth'—not listening to what people say about themselves (their words), but instead observing their actions; Greene applies this principle to historical figures like Pope Rodrigo Borgia (a rapacious warlord despite claiming religious authority) and Pope Julius II to identify their true character regardless of their stated positions.

“You don't listen to people's words. You you look focus on on their actions. And then nonverbal stuff obviously is very important... the old thing that Machiavelli called the effective truth, uh, which he applied to the Pope of this time. I don't listen I don't listen to what the Pope says about religion and Christianity and goodness and stuff. I look at his actions. And his actions are he's a rapacious warlord, um, referring to uh, uh, Rodrigo Borgia who was the Pope one of the Popes at the time.”

In relationships, complete transparency may be desirable for ultimate honesty and connection; however, in general and in business contexts, saying less than necessary remains an important principle; different laws apply in different contexts and situations.

“I understand in the end you want to be honest and you want people to know who you are. So, in a relationship, that's you don't want to always say less than necessary. I get that. That's very true, but in general, uh people are not mysterious enough and there's tremendous power in talking less.”

Walter Isaacson is a fine biographer, but even his book on Steve Jobs—despite being written by a skilled author—is shallow because Isaacson was rushed to complete it after Jobs' death and therefore didn't achieve deep psychological understanding of the subject; this exemplifies how time pressure produces surface-level biography rather than depth.

“I I I like Walter Isaacson. I think he's a very fine biographer, but you know, even like the Steve Jobs thing he's he's rushed. He's got to write it because it she just died. And like he he I don't really feel like when I read that book, I understand the the the man, Steve Jobs, that well. It was kind of shallow. It was really skimming on the surface.”

Greene deliberately designed The 48 Laws of Power to be timeless by mining all cultures and periods of history to uncover something genuinely real about power, making it less tied to contemporary trends so it would remain relevant across generations.

“I designed the book to be timeless. Um I you know, I looked at a lot of history. I kind of mined all cultures and all periods of history to sort of give it a feel like um I've uncovered something very real about power. And so, it's not timely.”

Greene credits meditation—specifically 90% Zen meditation which involves observing one's own thoughts as if from outside oneself—with significantly helping him control emotional responses, develop distance from his programmed reactions, and respond more deliberately rather than reactively to situations.

“The meditation has helped me an awful lot in controlling my emotional responses. 90% of the meditating I do a practice a form of Zen meditation. And what you're doing is it's hard to concept to relate but the idea is you're thinking of your thinking as if you're a a spectator of yourself...And so you end up having distance from yourself”

When engaged in intensive book projects, continuous daily thinking about the subject matter causes ideas to percolate unconsciously throughout the day and in dreams, with the most valuable ideas often arriving during routine activities like showering or going to sleep when the conscious mind is not actively working.

“when you when and when you do it every day. There's no letting up is um you'll be taking a shower or you'll be going to sleep or you'll be dreaming and ideas were constantly coming to you and the book the chapter just starts getting deeper and deeper and deeper because you're thinking about it all the time.”

Greene approaches writing a book by keeping research open-ended rather than closing it prematurely, constantly discovering new material and perspectives, which keeps him excited and energized and creative in ways that predetermined frameworks would not.

“when I'm starting to research, I kind of cast a wide net cuz I don't really know exactly what the book is going to be and that's There's a lesson in that and then any project you need to keep things a little bit up You have to keep things open-ended so that you're just constantly discovering. And that keeps you excited and energized and creative.”

The underlying principle Greene extracted from Napoleon's flanking maneuver is that approaching people indirectly has tremendous psychological advantage and power because people unconsciously expect direct confrontation, making an unexpected approach from the side psychologically more potent—a principle he applies across business competition and personal interactions.

“the idea then of that I pulled from that chapter on the flanking maneuver of Napoleon is that when you approach people indirectly um it has tremendous psychological advantage power. So, when you hit people from the side with an attack um there's no punch that's more powerful in boxing than the one that comes from the side and is unexpected. Um it has relevance to if you're planning to counter a rival in in in your business.”

Good books should make you feel the writer's brain matter flickering on the page with energy and aliveness; good books feature characters and ideas that come alive; dead books have authors without energy and subjects that don't come alive, and if a writer brings energy and aliveness to the process, it shows in the writing.

“A good book is you can feel it alive. You can feel it vibrating. The character comes alive. You can sense the brain matter of the writer is like it's like flickering on the page... And a dead book, it just sort of the author doesn't have any energy. The person they're writing about doesn't come to life. The ideas have no sparkle to them. Um so, you have to I I talked about this in mastery. If you bring energy and aliveness to the process, it shows in your writing.”

Greene argues that the most universally applicable law across his 48 laws is law 48 ('Formlessness'), which paradoxically holds that all 47 laws can be essentially ignored and should be subordinated to being alive to circumstances, flexible, and adapting to every specific situation rather than mechanically applying predetermined rules.

“it's an impossible question to answer. And so, the answer then, because it's an impossible question to answer, the answer is law 48. And that paradox means law 48 is formlessness. And that means all 47 laws are can be kind of nonsense and you should just ignore them and you should just be in the moment and not go into situations thinking of, 'Oh, I better do law 41.'”

Greene deliberately chose not to adopt digital note-taking systems like Evernote despite their searchability advantages, because he finds that writing by hand—with fountain pen on physical cards—engages his cognitive process more deeply than typing, creates a visceral material connection to his work, and allows him to manipulate multiple cards simultaneously with his fingers in ways computer screens cannot.

“why don't you use an electronic system...Because I'm an old guy...I don't advocate this. If I could do it digitally...I probably should...But I will say this...when I'm going through a book and I'm taking notes and I'm sprawling with my fountain pen on a card, I'm actually thinking more deeply than when I'm sitting there typing stuff on the computer...having it in a box, 2,000 cards that I can now shift through with my fingers and I can I can move the cards with incredible speed”

Greene's systematic research process involves marking passages while reading, then weeks later creating index cards organized by thematic chapter headings, with multiple cards per book allowing him to accumulate thousands of organized note cards that serve as the foundation for chapter development.

“I read the book uh fairly carefully...As I'm reading it, I make little notes in the margins...I go through the whole book and then I later, maybe a couple weeks later, I go back to the book and put it onto note cards...at the top of the card I'll write envy or grandiosity or you know, whatever the chapter is...I end up with thousands of note cards...All organized by theme.”

Greene defines the distinction between 'lifetime' and 'deadtime' as the difference between time that belongs to you (where you maintain agency and consciousness) and time where you're owned by others and operate unconsciously without purpose or creativity.

“The worst thing in life that you can have is a job that you hate, that you have no energy and that you're not creative and you're not thinking of the future. To me, you might as well be dead. Well, yeah, it's like you know, you could put it this way...a live time, to go expand a little beyond what I wrote, is time that's your own. Nobody tells you what to do. Nobody is commanding you how to spend it.”

Understanding yourself—your unique qualities and weirdness—confers immense power because it enables choosing careers that fit your individuality and avoiding people who drain your energy because they don't share your interests.

“the power of that is immense because now you can choose a career that fit fits your your weirdness, your uniqueness. Now you can avoid people who are just going to suck your energy because they they're not interested in the same things you are.”

When hiring or evaluating candidates, the critical skills are examining their resume and what they've accomplished combined with carefully assessing how they interact with other people and whether they will be toxic to a team or organization.

“if you're hiring someone then this is a critical skill and then you really need to focus on their resume and what they've accomplished. But you also need to focus on how they interact with other people. Um, and whether they're going to be toxic or not.”

Greene describes book writing as physically and mentally demanding intellectual labor more exhausting than physical labor, leaving him after just three to four hours of work completely depleted and unable to do anything but watch television to decompress and vegetate.

“they're very physically demanding. Um in that I'm going through very, you know, I'm thinking about it night and day. And if you've ever done mental labor like that, it's more tiring than physical labor. Oh, yeah. You you end up like three or four hours and you you just like a vegetable and all you can do is like watch you know, cheap entertainment on TV just to veg out.”

People have a strong taboo against acknowledging the darker aspects of human nature, preferring to think of themselves as angelic creatures, which creates an appetite for unvarnished accounts that acknowledge aggression, manipulation, and narcissism as real human traits.

“people have a tremendous taboo about this. So, uh we want to think of ourselves as as these just wonderful angelic creatures. Um but there's another another reality out there. And um it's kind of delicious to sort of immerse yourself in something that's not what you normally read”

Even in unpleasant circumstances, Greene argues that maintaining conscious engagement with the situation—asking questions, studying people, preparing for future change—transforms the time from dead to alive, making study and learning possible even in difficult jobs.

“Well, what can I study? I can study people. I can ask questions to some of the customers that come in at 2:00 in the morning. I can kind of be alive to my circumstance, my situation. I can go home and read books and I can prepare for that time when I quit. Now suddenly you own your own time.”

Greene maintains that understanding unvarnished reality about human behavior and motivations is essential to making effective decisions, and that people who can perceive reality more accurately operate with significant advantage over those who ignore uncomfortable truths.

“it seems like a large part of making effective decisions boils down to dealing with that reality. How do you go about making sure you are dealing with reality?”

Greene's approach to physical problems is not to let them stop him but to work his way through them—actively solving problems rather than accepting limitations as final constraints.

“I have a physical problem. I'm not going to let it stop me. I'm just going to work my way through it.”

The second zone of reality is understanding other people by recognizing that most people see others as projections of their own emotions rather than as distinct beings with their own perspectives, and that practicing empathy and genuine listening enables connection to other people's reality rather than one's own emotional projections.

“You don't really know them. Because you're not listening. You're not paying attention. You're not asking questions. You're the the other people in your life are just projections of your own emotional of your own emotions. So, stop and think about them and try and not project and try and get inside their skin. And try and understand why their world from their point of view.”

Greene reads broadly across disciplines when beginning research—including biographies, anthropology, psychology, and psychoanalysis—before narrowing into specific biographical subjects, and he distinguishes between good books (which show deep effort, subject mastery, speculative thinking) and bad books (which repeat a single idea or reflect only the author's prejudices).

“a lot of what I read are biographies, but in the beginning I'm also reading material about human nature. In this particular case, reading about anthropology and our roots and a lot of books on psychology and psychoanalysis...what makes a great book is the fact that the writer you can tell has put a lot of effort. They know their subject really well. They've thought about it deeply. They're not afraid to speculate...bad books start off with a kind of an interesting idea and that's it. After the first chapter, you know what the author is going to say”

The third zone of reality is understanding cultural, business, and historical context, which requires knowing the zeitgeist and competitive landscape, and without this contextual awareness it becomes very difficult to create products, businesses, or work that successfully connects with where people actually are in their current moment.

“If you don't understand the times that we're living in, the zeitgeist, it's very hard to create a book or a business that taps into what where people are right now. So, you have to know the cultural environment, the climate, the world we live in. Um you have to know uh the business environment.”

When thinking of an ending point (e.g., destroying a rival's market position), working backward to determine the path requires examining not just reactive moves but strategic positioning that's independent of the rival's immediate actions, generating advantage over those locked in reactive escalation.

“if you keep reacting to what your opponent is giving you in this rivalry to get market share, uh you're never your mind never rises high enough above the battlefield to come up with a reasonable plan that actually um is more strategic and involves things that aren't just reactions to what your rival gives you.”

Most books about power that Greene encountered were unrealistic and unwilling to confront uncomfortable truths about human behavior, motivating him to write a book that exposed the manipulative and hidden language that actually operates in offices, politics, and other areas of life.

“I had an idea about power, Machiavelli, mostly because a lot of the books out there that talk about power in this world, I feel like really unrealistic. They're very wary of the truth. And the truth is as I discovered in all my different jobs is that uh people are are can be very manipulative. They don't show it. It's all a sort of this hidden language that goes on. And the books don't really expose it in in in in any way that's practical or that's real.”

When asking questions of others, people must avoid being intrusive or heavy-handed, recognizing that people naturally love to talk about themselves and their interests, and that the art involves identifying what each person wants to discuss and creating an elegant conversational approach that brings out their story without appearing investigative or burdensome.

“you can be very you can very easily become irritating and intrusive...People love to talk about themselves...There's a way to make to do it where you're not so intrusive...There's an art to asking the kinds of questions...There's always a an elegant way to approach the subject.”

Achieving emotional control requires recognizing patterns from past mistakes, understanding that getting angry or emotional is destructive to one's life trajectory, and making a deliberate decision to practice distance from emotional impulses through practices like meditation.

“learning to control that because of mistakes you've made etc...just kind of kind of what's going on...sometimes, you know, as you get older that's it's easier...you try not to have that happen. But you know, as you get older you get more perspective, hopefully.”

Greene paraphrases law #4 ('Always Say Less Than Necessary') to mean that excessive talking signals nervousness and insecurity, whereas talking less creates mystery that generates curiosity and allows the speaker to learn about others' weaknesses and desires while remaining powerful through inscrutability.

“the more you talk, the more likely you are to say something stupid...in a nonverbal way, people who talk a lot indicate kind of nervousness and insecurity. So, you look a bit weak. Um And if you kind of hold and your tongue and you only say kind of slightly enigmatic things, people start wondering...The less you say, the more mysterious you are, the more interesting you can become.”

Law 29 ('Plan All the Way to the End') addresses the human tendency to get locked in the immediate moment without thinking far enough ahead, what Greene calls 'tactical hell,' where people remain reactive rather than strategic and never rise above to plan more than one move ahead.

“it's basically that you're not thinking far enough ahead. You're locked in the moment. Um very human thing. It's actually one of the chapters in the human nature book about how the shortsightedness and how we're always reacting to what people are giving us. I call it in one of my blogs, I call it tactical hell. You're locked in tactical hell.”

Greene paraphrases law 41 ('Avoid Stepping Into Great Men's Shoes') to mean that following exactly in someone else's footsteps or attempting to repeat their approach is dangerous because you'll be perpetually compared to and overshadowed by your predecessor, and that the solution is to establish an original direction.

“what happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after ever...if you're replacing him or her. That's a dangerous position to be in...you're always going to be compared to the person who came before you...you don't want to be lost in other people's shadow.”

Greene criticizes contemporary book production, claiming that more bad books are being produced now than perhaps ever before, largely because authors are distracted, working other jobs, and not investing sufficient thought into their work, resulting in shallow, surface-level writing that doesn't attempt to understand the deeper psychology of subjects.

“what makes a bad book and I I hate to say it, but there are more bad books being produced now than I think ever, but I could be wrong on that. Um bad books start off with a kind of an interesting idea and that's it...The reason books are like that is people are very distracted these days. They're not They have other jobs. They're teaching. They're doing whatever. They don't put a lot of thought into it.”

Contemporary culture encourages radical transparency through social media, where people share details about their meals, dating life, and daily activities, which Greene argues is neither great nor interesting, and that cultivating mystery and strategic discretion about one's life is more powerful and attractive.

“we live in a culture of transparency and Facebook where we want to tell our people everything. We want to tell them what we had for breakfast...And you know, what kind of clothes we like to buy. Is it We think that's great, but in fact, it's not so great because it makes you seem very banal and familiar...I don't really want to know where you went to lunch this afternoon. It's not interesting...Cultivate some mystery in your life.”

Greene's consulting work with powerful people in music, politics, and business—including 50 Cent—has enriched his understanding of power dynamics by allowing him to observe his laws reflected across different harsh environments and has made him more sophisticated in his knowledge of the power game.

“I began to consult very powerful people in music and politics and business began to seek me out for advice. I started talking to them, meeting them, actually working as a consultant. And it was an eye-opener to see um to see my laws reflected through their world um and to see kind of the harsh environments that a lot of people live in...it's enriched uh my knowledge um of the power game”

Greene believes a cultural failing of the contemporary moment is that people assume they know everything due to access to Wikipedia and smartphones, when in fact most people don't truly understand themselves, the world around them, or other people, and the corrective is to return to a stance of intellectual humility and active questioning.

“I think the worst sin in the world today is people feel like they know everything. They they've got Wikipedia, they've got their smartphone, they've got they can figure anything out. And I want this essay that I write to return you back to your ignorance. Uh, you don't know. You don't know about the world.”

Greene argues that continuous distraction and ongoing social engagement short-circuits unconscious idea processing by forcing the brain to focus on external stimuli, making sustained deep work impossible without deliberate elimination of competing demands.

“if I'm continually distracted, I'm going out every night, that kind of short circuits the process. And um it makes me think of other things. So, I don't want to think about other things. I just want to think about the subject I'm I'm dealing with.”

Greene argues that the greatest power a human can have is the power to ask questions, and he is planning to write an essay exploring this philosophy, suggesting that questioning—of oneself, of others, and of circumstances—is more fundamental to human capability than almost any other skill.

“I'm going to be writing an essay soon if I can ever get the time to post it about a single power that's the greatest power any human can have and that's the power to ask questions. And I'm going to derive a philosophy around it”

Observable signs of authenticity and genuine capability include quietness and seriousness rather than excessive talking, people who admit they're not always right (versus those who appear infallible), and comfort with uncertainty—all of which contrast with bullshitting behavior.

“A kind of a quietness, a seriousness, uh, people who kind of admit that they're not always right generally are signs of uh, of the non-bullshitter.”

The Oracle of Delphi's inscription 'know thyself' captures an essential human wisdom; self-knowledge is the foundation for effective living and decision-making.

“It's just has immense power to know who you are. Uh those those were the words inscribed on the threshold of the Oracle of Delphi, know thyself.”