The #1 Mistake That Kills Your Power Instantly | Robert Greene

[0:00]Power is pure psychology, pure psychology. People rise to positions of power. It's not about things that they've actually done. It's about psychology. If you want power in this world, you have to be strategic. You have to think in terms of power. The game of power is to play on people's psychology. They think that they're helping themselves, but they're really advancing you. trying so hard to please and trying so hard to be nice, secretly indicates that you're actually very weak inside. Absolute power corrupts, but powerlessness corrupts even more. So if two people walked in here and one of them had the appearance of power and one of them didn't, how would they be carrying themselves? How would they be speaking? A lot of of our idea of a leader and power is non-verbal stuff. A powerful person in a meeting is kind of relaxed. They're kind of like this. They can put their bodies anywhere. Other person is like all tight and nervous and aware. A powerful person has a directed focus. A weak person is like looking around, touching their hair, touching their face, it's a sign of insecurity. A powerful person is able to look at everybody in the room directly, whereas somebody who's weak is always kind of averting their gaze. These kind of cues that people give off that show that they've inwardly feel secure and powerful, and it kind of emanates outward. There's a law in there. Act like a king to be treated like one. If you feel like you're a king or a queen, people will believe that you are. And I have this story in there of Christopher Columbus, who was like the son of a grocer, but he convinced all of the kings of Spain that he came from nobility. It was a total con game, and they believed it to be, but he carried himself like that. He believed it, and they gave him all this money to go and explore America. So you can fake it till you make it. You can't do a degree, but at some point it'll catch up to you if you can't deliver results. So if it's all just make believe, if it's all just hype, if it's all just appearance and optics, you won't get very far because you have to end up producing. People have this misconception of power, they think it has to do with, you know, CEOs and presidents, and it's kind of ugly and dirty. I have a much different conception of it. It's something that has to do with your daily life. Much in our lives, we cannot control. You can't control disease. You can't control the people that you meet. It's by chance that you met your wife and you fell in love and you ended up marrying her. You kind of fall into jobs. There's much in life that is way beyond your control, but there is a margin that you can control, and it's mostly about your relationships. It has to do with your children, your spouse, your partners, your colleagues at work, your bosses. And the feeling that you have no control over them, that they can do whatever they want, that you have an idea and you want to sell it to them. Or you want somebody to stop their annoying behavior, they're completely oblivious. They won't listen to anything you say is, to me, the worst feeling for a human being to have. And then there's one other aspect, probably the most important aspect that I'm forgetting here is power over yourself. Self-mastery. 'cause a lot of the problems that you have in life, you can't really control yourself. You're subject to all these emotions, these moods, these things that grab you, that obsess you, that possess you. Your mind has these recurrent thoughts. You have no self-control and it drives you crazy. You have a habit you want to get rid of. You take some program, some class, and three months later, you're back at it. So the sense that you can control yourself to a degree, and the sense that you can have some influence over people is power. And the more you have it, the greater the feeling you have because you can get avoid that helplessness that makes all of us kind of crazy. If you want power in this world, if you are fighting for a cause, if you want some kind of justice, you have to be strategic. You have to think like that. You have to think in terms of power. People just don't give themselves up. Men are not gonna give up all their control in a place like Hollywood. You have to hit them. You have to be strong. You have to be forceful. It's a power game, and I can't stand people who are naive, who think that just being themselves, just being virtuous is gonna get what they want in life. If you're gonna fight for something, you have to be able to meet the enemy on their terms of power. Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone, you can intimidate and win. Once it slips, however, you are vulnerable and will be attacked on all sides. Never let others define it for you. I'm somebody through my whole life loves playing games like chess, backgammon, sports, poker, whatever. There's also a psychological element in it, particularly when you're playing poker and you're bluffing. The psychology starts entering into the picture in a game of chance. And because he bluffed before and he's got that look in his eye, I'm gonna fold. You don't realize that so much of the game of power has nothing to do with data and you being better person at something. A lot of it is pure psychology and intimidating people and winning before you even enter into a battle. So, if you have a reputation, you carry it with you. Power is pure psychology, pure psychology. The CEO of a company, it's not like baseball. You have a good batting average or OPS. You're gonna get in the lineup, they're gonna bat you in the cleanup spot. Life isn't like that. People rise to positions of power is not about metrics. It's not about things that they've actually done. It's about psychology. They know how to play the game, and they know how to play the game of psychology. They know how to appear. They know how to play the optics. They know how to intimidate. They know how to say less than necessary. This is the game of life, the game of power. The rules are a little bit nebulous. You play by mastering these little psychological bits. One of them is your reputation. Power is a complete social game. It's pure psychology. It's creating the appearance of power. It's making people like you, making people want to be on your side. And if you're a bully, if you are forcing people. If you're telling people what to do, it's like you create a counter reaction, and they secretly resent you and they're gonna work against you. The game of power is to play on people's psychology to the point where they do what you want them to do, but willingly of their own volition. They think that they're helping themselves, but they're really advancing you. It's a very subtle game. Where you think what you're doing is helping you, but in fact it's having the opposite effect. You're talking too much. You think by talking a lot, you're gonna impress people with all of your knowledge and all your intelligence, and in fact, you're making yourself look weak and insecure. Always say less than necessary. Law number four. Knowing how to deal with people is not easy. Nobody hands us a book when we graduate college saying, this is how it works. People are very tricky. They never tell you exactly what they think about you. They smile, but they're not really on your side. And so you have to be very alert, and you have to understand the subtle nuances of the game of power. Do not be naive. Do not be a naive yokel like I once was when I entered Hollywood. Thinking that if I wrote it, I was gonna get credit. The law of the jungle is that there are vultures out there who are circling around you at every moment wanting to take your work and eat it up for themselves. They're scavenger. And so the best thing to do is to understand the dynamic. Understand that people are gonna take credit for your work when you're younger, when you're starting out. If you look at people giving speeches, politicians, or newscasters or comedians who seem so eloquent, thousands of people are writing all of their material. Comics aren't writing their own jokes. They have a team of writers who are writing their jokes. Newscasters aren't writing their reports. They have all these researchers doing it. That's how the world works. Don't be stupid. Understand the dynamic. And yes, when you get to a position of power, you're probably going to be using that yourself anyway. You've got a team of people doing it for you. You don't put their name on every single thing that you do. That's just the way the world works. I'm trying to open your eyes to the way of the world and not make you not so damn naive. If you're the pleasing type, your whole strategy in life is pleasing other people. Getting them to like you, which is a quality that a lot of people have, men and women. It doesn't come from a place of security. It comes from a place of deep, deep insecurity. You don't understand really who you are. You can't control it, and so you're always trying to please people. We can sense, we can smell people's insecurities. Trying so hard to please and trying so hard to be nice secretly indicates that you're actually very weak inside. You want to be nice, but you want to be strategic about it. Sometimes I don't want to be nice. Sometimes I want to create boundaries. Sometimes I want to pull back. You're in control. You're strategic. You know when to use absence and when to use presence. Everything is about power. The idea that you don't want power. That you say, oh, I'm not interested in that. I'm all about truth and justice, and what's good for humanity. That's a form of power, I'm sorry to say. You are seeking power over other people. Everything you do, everything you breathe in is a desire for power, is a desire for expansion. Look in the mirror and admit it, and let's get away from the negative connotations that we have with it. Yes, power can be used for bad purposes, but as Malcolm X said, absolute power corrupts, but powerlessness corrupts even more. So the feeling that you don't have any power is even more corrupt because it makes you passive aggressive. It turns you into these warriors who think they're doing something, and you're not even aware of what you're really after. Hey, before you go, remember this. Power isn't loud, it's subtle. It shows in how you sit, how you look, how you stay calm when others are shaking. Most people fake confidence, but real power reveals itself under pressure. And here's the truth nobody tells you. Life is a psychological game. Reputation, silence and strategy are what actually move people. If you stay naive, you get played. If you understand the game, you start shaping it. So watch closely, say less and master yourself. 'cause that's where real power begins. Just one last thing. I see messages from people who didn't realize they weren't subscribed, so take a second and double check. It's a simple, free way to support the channel, and if you're here often, you're already part of this journey. I really appreciate you being here. Stay sharp, and I'll see you in the next one.