How To Seduce Anyone, Build Confidence & Become Powerful

The Origins of Power: From Outsider to Master Strategist

Robert Greene opens up about how his path to writing The 48 Laws of Power began not from a position of strength, but from feeling like a perpetual outsider. Growing up, Greene worked over 50 different jobs — from construction to Hollywood — and this breadth of experience gave him a front-row seat to the dynamics of power, manipulation, and ambition that most people never see. He tells Steven Bartlett that the feeling of not belonging was painful, but it forced him to become an acute observer of human behavior.

Greene explains that his books emerged from a deeply personal need to understand why some people thrive while others are crushed. He studied thousands of historical figures — from Louis XIV to Abraham Lincoln — and distilled their strategies into actionable principles. The key insight: power is not about domination, it's about understanding the game being played around you.

The Art of Seduction: Why Emotional Intelligence Wins

Greene challenges the common misconception that seduction is about manipulation or trickery. True seduction, he argues, is about creating such a compelling emotional experience that people are drawn to you naturally. This applies to business, leadership, and personal relationships equally.

The core principle is decentering yourself. Most people enter interactions thinking about what they want. Master seducers flip this — they become intensely curious about the other person's desires, fears, and unmet needs. Greene describes this as "entering their spirit" — understanding someone so deeply that you can offer them exactly what they're missing.

He warns against the modern tendency toward transactional relationships. In an age of swipe culture and instant gratification, the ability to be patient, to create mystery, and to build anticipation is extraordinarily powerful.

Human Nature: The Patterns That Never Change

Drawing from his book The Laws of Human Nature, Greene outlines several patterns that have remained constant across millennia. Humans are driven by self-interest but need to believe they're acting from higher motives. People are envious but hide it. Everyone wears masks in social situations.

Greene's advice is not to judge these tendencies but to accept them as reality. Once you understand that everyone — including yourself — operates from a mix of rational and irrational impulses, you can navigate social situations with much greater skill. He emphasizes that self-awareness is the foundation: you cannot understand others until you understand your own biases, triggers, and blind spots.

Building Unshakable Confidence

When Bartlett asks about confidence, Greene rejects the idea that it's something you're born with. He describes confidence as a muscle that strengthens through deliberate exposure to challenge. Every time you put yourself in an uncomfortable situation — giving a speech, confronting a difficult person, starting something new — and survive it, a small deposit is made in your confidence account.

Greene shares his own experience of being broke and unknown into his late 30s, working menial jobs while writing his first book. The years of struggle gave him a resilience that no amount of early success could have provided. He argues that people who achieve success too young often become fragile because they haven't built the psychological infrastructure to handle setbacks.

The Dangers of the Modern World

Greene is deeply concerned about what technology is doing to our ability to think deeply. He argues that social media creates a superficial understanding of power — people mistake followers for influence, and attention for respect. True power, he says, comes from depth: deep knowledge, deep relationships, deep self-understanding.

He also warns about the epidemic of passivity. Many people consume content about success and power but never take action. Greene stresses that knowledge without application is worthless. The people who transform their lives are the ones who take his principles and actively experiment with them in real situations.

Vulnerability vs. Insecurity

One of the episode's most powerful moments comes when Greene distinguishes between vulnerability and insecurity. Insecurity is self-absorbed — it's constantly worrying about how others perceive you. Vulnerability, by contrast, is an openness to the world and to other people. It's the willingness to be honest about your flaws and struggles.

Greene reveals that his own vulnerability about his health challenges (he suffered a stroke in 2018) actually deepened his connections with readers and followers. People responded not because he projected strength, but because he was honest about his pain. This, he says, is the paradox of power: showing your humanity makes you more influential, not less.