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Shadowing practice: Robert Greene's Life Advice Will Leave You Speechless

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  1. And is there a strategy that young people or really anybody that feels lost or aimless in their life should and is able to deploy to find their purpose, to0:00
  2. find the direction, the thing they should be aiming at?0:11
  3. Well, you know, you have to get out of this way of thinking that so many people have, which everything has to be simple and linear, and I'm headed in0:15
  4. this direction, there's got to be a solution, like I'm hacking my way to the truth.0:25
  5. Life doesn't work that way.0:29
  6. Life is very complex, so I can't give you a single track answer to finding your life purpose, you as an individual, but I can give you kind of clues.0:31
  7. I can kind of direct you towards certain paths that have worked for me and that have worked for hundreds and thousands of other people who've become masters or very0:41
  8. successful in their field.0:50
  9. And the first thing is you have to go inward.0:53
  10. So you have to resist the pull that our culture gives you.0:57
  11. You have to also really want this.1:01
  12. That's probably what it really comes down to.1:03
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  1. Are you unhappy?1:06
  2. Are you frustrated?1:07
  3. Are you hitting kind of rock bottom?1:08
  4. Is this a turning point in your life where you realize if I keep going this way in five years, it's going to be really serious.1:09
  5. Okay, it has to be important to you and you have to have a sense of urgency.1:16
  6. And with that sense of urgency, you have to make some decisions.1:20
  7. And one of the decisions that's absolutely essential is to pay less attention to what other people are doing, to pay less attention to what other people are saying, to1:24
  8. pay less attention to what people are telling you you should be doing, and to go inward and think about yourself and think about what you love and what your1:33
  9. interests are.1:41
  10. They have nothing to do with what people are doing on social media, the things that grab you that excite you deeply inside in a way that's almost irresistible.1:42
  11. Now, for me, I can say that it was always been writing, okay, and I just couldn't figure out what kind of writing, but there's also things like when I1:51
  12. ever read anything that has to do with ancient history, particularly the origins of humanity, hundreds of, you know, tens of thousands of years ago, I am so excited, I2:01
  13. can't, I can't, I can read every single article about that, every discovery that takes place in Africa about our origins.2:12
  14. It just puts my mind in a spin to think that this is who we were 100 ,000 years ago, and this is who we are now.2:20
  15. I want to know more.2:27
  16. That's like this, one of these things that hits you in the gut.2:29
  17. Well, the people out there, you have that, there's something like that.2:31
  18. You had it when you were a child, you had it when you were two, three, four years old, five years old, and you've lost it because you're listening too2:34
  19. much to other people.2:41
  20. So it's kind of like archaeology would be the metaphor.2:43
  21. You have to dig and dig and dig and find those bones and those relics and those artifacts from your past, the things that really excite you, as well as2:47
  22. the things that you hate.2:56
  23. Now, if I were to go, you know, kind of do a reverse engineering, which I do with a lot of people who are successful like yourself, I could go2:58
  24. back and kind of find that with you where that hit you because you had a particular path that led you to doing these podcasts.3:06
  25. I know it wasn't a straight line, you deviated, you were in some other job that you hated, and then you slowly found your way.3:13
  26. Each of those stories, there's a lesson for people, right?3:21
  27. And that's what I compiled in Mastery.3:24
  28. But it all begins from a sense of urgency.3:27
  29. I can't go on this way.3:30
  30. I have to find something that I love.3:32
  31. When you're 20 or 21, maybe you don't feel that urgency because you're so young, you know, you look good, you have lots of energy, the world's kind of open3:34
  32. to you.3:43
  33. But you have to be careful because time passes really quickly those years in your 20s that go by faster than you think.3:44
  34. And if you turn 30 and you never thought about this, and you're kind of been wandering around trying things, it starts to get a little difficult, a much harder3:50
  35. for you.4:00
  36. So it's better if you have that sense of urgency when you're 21 or 22.4:00
  37. And the other thing I would say is you don't learn anything if you're not excited by it.4:06
  38. So you have to have a sense of fun and adventure about this.4:13
  39. So discovering what your life's task can't be this dreary, boring thing that Robert's advocating to do when you, oh, I have to spend time with myself, I have to4:17
  40. look, you know, do a journal, blah, blah, blah, no, it's fun.4:25
  41. It's an adventure trying different things that fit into this general shape of what you were destined for.4:28
  42. It's a blast.4:35
  43. You know, when I was in my 20s, I had more fun than anybody.4:36
  44. I had an amazing time.4:40
  45. It was the best years of my life.4:41
  46. I was trying all sorts of different things.4:42
  47. I was exploring, I was traveling, I had adventures.4:44
  48. So I don't want your life to be boring.4:47
  49. I want you to learn, I want you to have adventures, but you have to have a sense of direction, a sense of purpose to guide that kind of those,4:50
  50. those different adventures that you go on.4:56
  51. Do you think it's harder to find your sense of purpose and what you're deeply connected to as you get older?4:59
  52. Yeah, I think so.5:06
  53. Your mind gets a little bit more rigid.5:08
  54. You think you know all of the answers, right?5:10
  55. But what happens with a lot of people, I also get correspondence from or let's say turning 40 or even a little bit older, and they're coming to those crossroads,5:13
  56. is it's even much more painful than when you're in your 20s, because there's a sense of regret, there's a sense that you've wasted your time.5:23
  57. And to get back to a path that will suit you can be very difficult as you mentioned, but there's also another side to that, which is you probably have5:31
  58. been learning some skills in your life.5:43
  59. You've probably have had some experiences that have changed you, because when you're 21, 22, you don't know the world.5:46
  60. You don't know people, you think you know everything, but you don't know anything, right?5:52
  61. You've never had any experiences in life.5:56
  62. You never had to suffer.5:57
  63. Maybe you have, but not really suffering like you do when you get older.5:59
  64. Okay, so you're 40, you've had tough experiences, you've been hardened, you've got, you know, you're not so fragile, and you've learned things.6:03
  65. If you change your mindset at that age and you go, I'm going to take what I have, my experiences, my skills, what I've learned, and I'm going to redirect6:12
  66. it towards something more exciting for me, then it will work for you, right?6:21
  67. But as you say, it can be harder because you're more set in your ways.6:26
  68. And you've built a life, you've built a network, you've built a reputation for being this thing, whether it's lawyer, doctor, dentist, whatever it might be.6:30
  69. And so there's an element of shedding that might have to occur, shedding people, shedding a city that you live in, shedding a way that people know you, an income,6:38
  70. and that's deeply difficult.6:47
  71. And I think some people would prefer the certain misery of their current situation to the uncertainty, and the shedding that occurs when they go in search of something else.6:49
  72. Yeah, but I mean, the pain that you feel when you get older, and you know, we humans have very active minds.6:59
  73. We're gifted with the most powerful organ in the entire universe, the human brain.7:09
  74. The billions of possible connections in our brain is greater than anything in the entire universe.7:14
  75. It is the most amazing instrument, and our brains are very active.7:20
  76. And when you get older, and you don't have anything to put your brain on to, and things are slowing down, you don't realize that that's making you depressed.7:24
  77. You don't realize that the fact that you haven't been able to fulfill what you were meant to fulfill is actually the source of your misery and unhappiness.7:34
  78. You will blame it on other people, you will blame it on the world, you will blame it on politics, you won't look at yourself and realize that it comes7:41
  79. from you, and the sadness comes from you and the fact that you're not maximizing, not exploiting this gift that you were given.7:48
  80. So it might be difficult to shed all of that.7:57
  81. But I've talked to people, I'd say more like around 30 years old, who say, Robert, I'm at this horrible job.8:01
  82. I'm in a fast food place or something.8:11
  83. I don't remember what it was, or I'm a barista, whatever.8:13
  84. I'm so unhappy.8:16
  85. I have a wife, and I have two kids.8:18
  86. What do I do?8:22
  87. Right?8:23
  88. And so I go into their misery a little bit, and then I say, okay, let's first figure out something that you think you would really want in life, something8:24
  89. that will have an income, because you have to pay for your wife and your children.8:34
  90. You can't just go off and write poetry or become a rockster.8:38
  91. You have to support yourself and your family.8:42
  92. What could that possibly be?8:44
  93. And we dig, and we dig, and we dig.8:46
  94. I say, all right, we have an answer, a kind of an idea.8:47
  95. I want you to do this following.8:51
  96. I want you to carve out two hours, or as much as you can at night, where you start exploring this field on the internet, and you start considering maybe8:53
  97. going to night school, okay, and taking classes that change this course.9:03
  98. And then I want you to think of five years where you're going to be a goal, five years ahead.9:09
  99. And they tell me overnight, just having that has changed them.9:15
  100. Suddenly, from their depression, they have hope, and they feel a million times better, and they have energy.9:20
  101. Just from realizing that there is a possibility, it's going to take hard work, but there is an answer.9:25
  102. There is a place to go, and so it changes it when you have some sense of direction.9:31
  103. There'll be so many people listening to that now, and they'll be thinking, I have a plan, I have an idea, or at least a kernel of an idea, but9:37
  104. I've spent the last three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months, two years thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking.9:46
  105. And not doing?9:54
  106. And not doing.9:55
  107. People stop me all the time, and they'll say, Steve, I'm thinking of starting a podcast.9:57
  108. And I'll say, how long have you been thinking about this, but lost two and a half years?10:01
  109. Yeah.10:04
  110. You know, I talk in mastery about something called, a concept called learning by doing.10:05
  111. And back in the Middle Ages, they used to have an apprenticeship that you would go through.10:11
  112. Seven years, you would learn to be a craftsman, right?10:17
  113. You'd first go from being an apprentice to a journeyman to a master.10:20
  114. By doing things, the brain learns.10:24
  115. But if you never do anything, you're never going to learn.10:27
  116. So if you suddenly said, I've been thinking about a podcast, I would say, get off your ass and start the podcast tomorrow.10:30
  117. And it fails.10:38
  118. You have learned so many things.10:40
  119. You've learned more in those three months of failure than you have been two years thinking, or five years of getting an MBA from some school and putting yourself in10:42
  120. massive debt.10:52
  121. Learn by doing, learn by failing.10:53
  122. Why is planning and procrastination that comes with the prolonged planning so tempting for people?10:56
  123. Like, why do we love to plan, plan, plan, plan, plan?11:04
  124. Because you're afraid of failure, quite honestly.11:07
  125. I mean, Freud has a word for it in German, airfolks angst, which means fear of success.11:11
  126. Because this is something that afflicts a lot of adolescents.11:19
  127. Because if you're successful, you now have responsibility.11:23
  128. You now have a reputation.11:27
  129. You now have succeeded and your next venture could fail.11:29
  130. This pressure that comes with trying something and putting your name out there.11:32
  131. And if I don't ever try anything, if I don't bother, if I blame the world, I blame my parents, I blame my education system, I blame my partner, this,11:38
  132. that, and the other, then you never have to worry.11:46
  133. You never have to have that responsibility.11:48
  134. You never have to have that fear of success.11:50
  135. And that holds people back.11:53
  136. So it's easier to not do anything and stay in your little bubble and go, God, if I only, if only I had had money, I would have written this11:54
  137. great novel, I would have done this, this, that, or the other.12:03
  138. It's just crap.12:06
  139. You're trying to delude yourself and you're afraid of actually putting your neck out on the line.12:07
  140. That's what it comes down to.12:12
  141. It's a common syndrome among adolescents.12:14
  142. I was reading, I think it was the book, The Courage to Be Disliked, and it was talking in one of the sections about how some people would like, they12:17
  143. prefer to live in the like realm of possibility.12:25
  144. And the realm of possibility is the space you live when you declare to the world that you're going to do something and be something, and before you actually do12:28
  145. it.12:36
  146. So when I tell my friends, listen, I'm going to become an actor, for example, the year and a half where I go around saying that I live in the12:36
  147. world of possibility where there's been no feedback to disprove me yet, which is nice.12:43
  148. But I'm kind of getting the credit for being the type of person that's aspiring to change.12:48
  149. And that like realm of possibility before you get feedback or try to be a good person.12:52
  150. It's a very nice place to be for some.12:56
  151. It is, and it's very addicting and it's kind of a narcotic, but the thing is, so you've got this realm of possibility, which you could become anything.12:59
  152. I could become an actor.13:08
  153. I could become a great novice.13:09
  154. I could become a CEO.13:11
  155. I could be Elon Musk the second.13:12
  156. But the way the world works is you don't achieve anything unless you have limits.13:14
  157. Having limits and hitting that wall and that resistance is what makes you learn is what makes you great is how the human brain functions.13:20
  158. And what I mean by that is, let's say you're learning the piano.13:27
  159. You can't just start out playing anything and just doing all the notes.13:33
  160. It's very limited what you can do.13:36
  161. And you have to go within those limits and those walls and learn the first things first, and then those walls start to expand a little bit, but you're constantly13:39
  162. pressing against limits.13:48
  163. And those limits make you stronger and stronger.13:49
  164. It's like when you're swimming, the resistance in the water is what makes your muscles bigger, right?13:52
  165. The resistance of limits is what makes your brain bigger, makes you more successful, makes you learn.13:58
  166. But if all you do is live in that nebulous world of possibility, you're never developing, you're never getting any muscle, you're never getting any strength, you're not developing life14:03
  167. skills.14:13
  168. It's a tough world.14:14
  169. So even you know that, people can be very cruel.14:15
  170. It can be very mean spirited world.14:19
  171. You have to have a thick skin in this world.14:21
  172. You have to develop some toughness.14:22
  173. And you develop that toughness by trying things out and by failing.14:24
  174. And if you fail, you know, like my wife's in the film business and we know a lot of actors.14:29
  175. And actor, you know, we think it's all glamorous, but it's actually like 99 % rejection.14:36
  176. People are constantly rejecting you and they're rejecting you for things that are, you have no control over like your looks, you know.14:42
  177. And so what separates the actors who succeed and the ones who don't are those that have a bit of a tough skin.14:50
  178. They don't take that rejection, oh, I'm so, I'm so unworthy.14:56
  179. I hate myself.15:00
  180. Oh, the world's so awful.15:01
  181. They go, all right, I'm going to go on to the next one.15:02
  182. I learned what wasn't working there.15:04
  183. And you develop some toughness.15:06
  184. If you don't develop that toughness, you're never going to get anywhere in life.15:08
  185. And you get it by trying and trying and working at it.15:11
  186. And when you're in that sort of first chapter of your professional life, is there anything from all of the work that you've done, the writing that you've done, that15:14
  187. a young person should be trying to acquire?15:23
  188. And I say that, should they be aiming at knowledge, skills, reputation, money, network?15:26
  189. Definitely not money.15:33
  190. Definitely not reputation.15:34
  191. Perhaps, I mean, yeah, reputation or fame.15:36
  192. Perhaps network can help.15:41
  193. But what you really want to do in this world, in the 21st century in our decade is skills.15:43
  194. You want to be learning skills.15:49
  195. The more skills you have, and I mean true skills, I don't mean trying something out for a year, and then going on to something else for another, I mean,15:52
  196. getting real skill at something, right?15:59
  197. Whether it's in computers, whether it's in the arts, in any field, real skill.16:02
  198. And then if you can develop two or three skills by the time you're in your 20s and still have some fun, the world is going to open up to16:08
  199. you because what you're going to be able to do when you turn 30 is you're going to go, I can take that skill that I learned in computers, I16:15
  200. can take that skill I learned in media, and in creating a podcast or weather, and I can create a business that's going to combine the two in a way16:22
  201. that no one has ever thought of because I'm a unique person.16:31
  202. The world will open up to you.16:35
  203. Skills are the gold of the 21st century.16:37
  204. And if you're seduced by money, if you think about money, you're doomed because that's not what matters in life.16:41
  205. Because let's say you have two job offers.16:47
  206. One is that Goldman Sachs opening position for 150 ,000 a year, and one is at some startup for 30 ,000 a year, and you're living in New York, and16:51
  207. you're going to be starving, you're going to be sharing a miserable little flat somewhere in Bushwick, whatever.17:01
  208. Take the $30 ,000 a year job because you're going to learn so much.17:07
  209. You're going to be hands -on.17:12
  210. Whereas in that other job, you're going to be lost in there.17:14
  211. You're going to be among hundreds of other young people, and you're not going to have responsibilities.17:16
  212. Here you're going to have responsibilities.17:22
  213. So money is not what matters to you because when you're in your 20s, you can starve, you can live on less food, you can have it a little tough17:23
  214. because you're young.17:32
  215. I know myself.17:34
  216. I was very poor.17:35
  217. I lived in London.17:37
  218. I had a job in London in 1984, I believe, 1984, and I was making, I think it was 30 pounds a week, maybe it's less than that, was by17:39
  219. starting salary.17:50
  220. And my girlfriend at the time, the only thing we could eat was turnips and cauliflower.17:52
  221. Cauliflower cheese was our main dish, but I was 25.17:58
  222. I can handle it.18:02
  223. So you can handle not making money and learning because that's what's most important.18:03
  224. I don't think many young people in that first season of life realize how long life is.18:08
  225. So we try and take shortcuts.18:14
  226. We try and get to the money as fast as we can, but you're telling me to take a longer road, which is the acquisition of skills, even at the18:17
  227. cost of some of those short -term rewards that are very tempting to post on my Instagram.18:24
  228. Yeah.18:28
  229. Well, I mean, also, you look at somebody like Steve Jobs, I can relate to that because he wasn't interested in money at all.18:29
  230. It was never the motivating factor.18:37
  231. It's never been my motivating factor.18:38
  232. I wanted to have fun and I wanted to be successful and I wanted to be able to write.18:40
  233. He wanted to design the most beautiful pieces of technology in the world.18:46
  234. It ended up, he was like the richest man in the world at the time, but he never cared about money.18:51
  235. It wasn't what motivated him.18:56
  236. I never cared about money and now I'm not as rich as Steve Jobs, but I'm doing fairly well because it'll come to you.18:58
  237. If you play the game right, if you learn the skills when you're young and then you develop your own business, by the time you're 35, you'll be making four19:05
  238. times what you would have made at that Goldman Sachs job.19:14
  239. That's how the game is played these days.19:18
  240. Starting your own business, being an entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur is the most powerful position you can attain for, aim for.19:21
  241. Some people aren't destined for that.19:28
  242. It's not in their DNA, but to me, that's what we should all be aiming for, to be your own boss because personally, I hated working for other people, but19:31
  243. being an entrepreneur, starting your own business, one that has a niche in this world, you're going to make all the money that you'll ever need.19:40
  244. If you love the Diary of a CEO, Brandon, you watch this channel.19:48
  245. Please do me a huge favor, become part of the 15 % of the viewers on this channel that have hit the subscribe button.19:50
  246. It helps us tremendously and the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests.19:57

English listening practice with a fast British podcast interview

This clip is a British podcast conversation. A host asks Robert Greene how a young or lost person can find their purpose, and he answers at length, working from a general idea down to concrete questions. The recording runs at 204 words per minute, faster than 65% of the catalogue, so your ear has to keep up with a real interview pace, not a slowed down teaching voice.

It sits at B2. There is no small talk here, the guest moves straight into an argument: stop looking for a single simple answer, go inward instead. That makes it good english listening practice for anyone who already handles short sentences and wants to follow a real speaker building an idea over several lines, the way podcasts and interviews actually sound.

British English pronunciation practice inside Robert Greene's answer

Three lines from this interview are worth slowing down for, because of how the speaker builds and breaks his own sentences.

  • "Life doesn't work that way." A short, flat statement dropped right after a long buildup. Say it with the stress on "work" and a hard stop, that contrast is the whole point of the line.
  • "Are you unhappy?" followed by "Are you frustrated?" and "Are you hitting kind of rock bottom?" Three questions in a row, same shape, rising pitch each time. Good british english pronunciation practice for question intonation that keeps climbing instead of resetting.
  • "one of the decisions that's absolutely essential is to pay less attention to what other people are doing, to pay less attention to what other people are saying, to" One long sentence with the same phrase repeated with only the final verb changed. Practise keeping your breath and pace even across the repetition, that is what makes it sound natural rather than read aloud.

English speaking practice: a line by line plan for this interview clip

Work through this in order rather than jumping around, the argument builds line by line and the pace rewards a fixed routine.

  • Start at line 5, "Life doesn't work that way." Shadow this line on its own first, five words, one stress, before touching anything longer.
  • Move to lines 13 to 15, the three short questions. Record yourself and check that your pitch actually rises on each one instead of flattening out by the third.
  • Take line 6, "Life is very complex, so I can't give you a single track answer to finding your life purpose, you as an individual, but I can give you kind of clues." This is the longest sentence so far, break it at each comma before trying it whole.
  • Finish with the sentence in lines 19 and 20 about paying less attention. Say the repeated phrase twice at normal speed, then once more matching the recording's pace, that is the real test of whether you can hold 204 words per minute without dropping words.
  • Once those four hold up, run the whole opening straight through as english speaking practice, no pauses, matching the host's question and the guest's reply back to back.
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