MBA1228 Must Read: The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene

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The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene Robert Greene is one of my favorite authors and he's most known for his best selling book the 48 Laws of Power which has sold more than 1.2 million copies. One of my other favorite books of his is Mastery. So when I heard he has released a new book, the Laws of Human Nature, I said I gotta get my hands on it and I was not disappointed. The Laws of Human Nature takes an in depth look at the many aspects of the human condition. Things we often overlook or don't acknowledge. He highlights how by nature we are often narcissistic, irrational, shortsighted and prone to compulsive and aggressive behavior. He highlights how this has come about. Where does this come from? But not only be aware of it, but to be a master over it. How to not let those aspects take control of our life. I absolutely love this book, but it was a big one. It's a big, big book, but it's must read material. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you my favorite takeaways, my favorite insights. You're going to love it. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Now you might be asking, what's in it for me? What does this have to do with my business? Understanding the laws of human nature? Well, you are the most human in your business. You're the leader. And there's certain aspects about you as a human that you need to be aware of because it's going to affect the decisions you make and ultimately the business you build. I mean, who doesn't want to make better decisions? And this is really the essence of this book, to understand the self. So you can really make the best decisions in any moment. If you're the founder of a company or the CEO of the company, this is really the main role you have to make decisions. Everything else can really be hired out. But the decisions are what shape the business and you need to make sure that they're solid. No matter what's going on in your life, in your business, the way you're feeling physically, mentally, emotionally, you need to be aware of your state and make the right decision regardless. Now, I found it very interesting that he starts the book talking about how we're all prone to irrational behavior. You know, we like to think that modern human beings are clever and highly rational, right? But the truth is we tend to make a lot of our decisions based on emotion. The emotions we feel at any given moment, which means are often pretty irrational. When I was reading this book, I realized, wow, I thought I was a pretty rational person more than most. But when I look back at some of the examples he gave and the examples in my own life, I was like, oh, maybe I'm not. There's a struggle between your emotional side and your rational side. And it's been going on for ages. And it's just part of our DNA. And the reason why you need to be aware of this is because whenever possible, you need to increase your reaction time. You need to be able to really get back to yourself and not make a decision based on the heat of the moment or the emotions you're feeling at the moment, whether you're aware of them or not. There are emotions happening at all times, positive and negative. You have to consider all possible biases that are influencing your decision, even positive ones. We might be over ambitious because we're feeling great today, or overly pessimistic because, hey, we had a rough morning. But there are other biases and influences at play here. Confirmation bias, where we tend to seek out information that supports our prejudices, our already known beliefs and conviction. Bias that leads us to believe that the stronger your emotions are, the more it must be true. Wow. I so feel that that's true in my own self, that I often feel very passionate and very strongly about something, but it doesn't make it more right or more true. It's just how I feel about it. But it doesn't end there. He talks about appearance biases where we believe that someone who looks appealing, whether they look attractive or they look like they're wealthy, they must somehow have a good character or can benefit us. There's also group bias, which leads us to believe whatever a group somebody is a part of, you're more likely to like them or agree with them. In today's world, people feel that way about celebrities. Our biases can easily lead us to bad decisions. So it's always good to be skeptical and analytical and curious about different viewpoints, to actually seek out viewpoints that are not your own, in fact, the opposite of your own. That way your thinking is balanced and it's not based on emotions or your biases. Now, Robert Greene is not saying to be some sort of emotional robot when it comes to making decisions. But he says you're bound to make better decisions when you're feeling calm, when you're not too high and you're not too low. Be aware of your state, be aware of your biases so you can add them to the equation when you're making a decision, so you can consider them and know that these truly exist, so you have them in mind when decisions are made. Another great insight from this book is how he highlights we're all narcissistic to some degree. Now, this is kind of hard to hear sometimes. Hey, I'm not a narcissist. I'm, you know, I'm a caring, giving person. He stresses that we should judge character by actions and not appearances. He asks the question, what do you know for a fact about this person or that person? He says it's natural. It's part of our human nature to be somewhat narcissistic, to worry about ourselves. It's part of our survival mode. Now, we're not Talking about deep narcissists, which are usually people with a faulty sense of self, where they see other people as extensions of themselves, how they use other people so they can benefit. But what he's saying here is that notice when you're making decisions, when you're doing things in life, when you're taking action, why are you doing this? At some level you might make a choice because it just makes you feel better. It's like that confirmation bias. You want to take care of yourself, you want to protect yourself rather than take a risk. So when you make a decision, you got to ask yourself, am I doing this because it makes me feel better? It's the easy way out because you're going to protect yourself by nature. Sometimes we avoid risk because we just don't like the way it feels. Sometimes we avoid the hard decision, the hard conversation, the hard choice, because hey, it's hard. So we need to accept this. We have to accept that this may be part of our makeup and adapt accordingly. This is a really tough insight and chapter in the book because it really questions your self and your motives when you make decisions. And you got to come from an angle of, hey, I want to improve, so I got to be critical of myself. I and that's not always easy. Another really brilliant insight in this book is in a chapter where he discusses how everyone is prone to being short sighted and defensive. You might wonder why so much money and attention goes towards fighting terrorism while global warming, which affects all living things on the planet, is trivialized. The reason is very tied to human nature. You're far more likely to react to something that's right in front of you right now. Something that's really affecting you in a major way is in this moment. This is shortsightedness. And it goes a long way back to when we had to survive based on immediate concerns such as finding food or water or avoiding violent predators like a saber toothed tiger. So by nature we want to kind of deal with the immediate problem right now, the thing that is right in front of us. But problems that are far down the road that may affect us in the future don't have the same sense of urgency. Have you ever had a really busy day with like 10 appointments and you're like, how did this day get scheduled? You did it, but you just kind of said, hey, that's months from now. I can book those things. I have plenty of time in the future. That's future Omar's problem, right? That's because of being short sighted, not realizing tomorrow will come and you're going to have to deal with it. But to perform at your best, you need to recognize the tendency to neglect the big picture in favor of her immediate concerns. It's far better to adopt a far sighted perspective, so when you're making a decision, step back and calmly consider the problem and its effects long term, not just short term, and make a decision based on that. He also mentions that when you're making decisions and you're considering this, you should also know that an option is to do nothing. That sometimes is the best option, he says. Western culture often considers doing nothing a sign of weakness, but in Japanese and Chinese cultures there's they recognize its strategic wisdom, they think it's wise to wait and see what happens, and even in their military strategy, they like the idea of letting the enemy wear themselves out. It's a great perspective to have and to consider in your own life, even if you're not at war. Another fantastic insight is when he discusses preventing self sabotage by employing a positive attitude and avoiding repression. Do you ever feel like you're cursed or perhaps doomed for failure? If so, it's likely due to certain unhelpful traits that you need to recognize and get under your control. When you look within yourself, see what's repeatedly causing you the same negative outcomes. Can you turn things around and avoid these things from happening over and over? Is this somebody you speak to that puts you in a certain state? Is this something you read or is it watching the news look back and trace your steps? He says that believe it or not, the main contributor of self sabotage is a negative attitude. Your negative attitude causes you to force yourself to fail. You sabotage yourself and you never give yourself a chance to win.

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Today's must read episode the Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene. This is a masterpiece. This book is fantastic. To be quite honest, it was really hard for me to cover every amazing insight from this book because there's so many, so many more. Like everyone's prone to feelings of grandeur and we should be brought down to our own reality. That's a great, great chapter. He also has a chapter on conforming to group mentality and a feeling of false sense of entitlement. But one I do want to touch on before we wrap up is all human beings are aggressive by nature, but controlled aggression can be put to good use. He says we all have some level of aggression in us. He says our aggressive nature helped make us the dominant species on the planet. He says we shouldn't try to repress this part of our personality as it would lead to passive aggression. Repressed anger can also show up as an internal voice that projects that aggression inward towards yourself. It's better to accept healthy levels of aggression and find ways to put it into good use. The first step is to recognize where the aggression comes from. It might be due to some insecurities, domineering parents, a trauma from your childhood, or wanting to control your environment. Once you understand your aggression, we can direct it towards a productive ends like using it to fuel your ambitions or realize your goals. You can use it as energy to be tenacious and fearless in pursuing a higher purpose. You can use it as energy to live a healthy lifestyle with exercise. The key here is just to recognize that this is in all of us at some level and we need to use it to our advantage. Guys, there's so much I can cover in this book, but I want you to pick it up and read it. It's a whopper of a book. It's huge, but it's well worth the read. Check out the Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene and you will not regret it. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe on whatever you use to listen to podcasts, whether it's Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Castbox, we're on them all. By hitting subscribe you never miss an episode. It will download and be ready for you when you're ready to listen. All right, before I go, I want to leave you with this. The Laws of Human Nature is a big book. It's nearly 500 pages long and it could be intimidating but I really recommend taking it in steps. Basically the length of two books. So if you normally take a month to read two books then that's how long it's going to take you to read this one book. Another great strategy is using audible, getting the book on audio and listening to it on your commutes when you're at the gym between tasks. Some of us, we kind of just avoid these huge books but there's gems in them. Don't be intimidated, attack it and just allow a little bit more time to enjoy it. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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