Episode · My First Million · 2026-11-11
Robert Greene on My First Million: books mentioned (Nov 2026)
Robert Greene almost died. Here’s what it taught him about living
Get Sam's top 9 books for entrepreneurs (+ his reading strategy): https://clickhubspot.com/rhagt Episode 881: Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) and Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) talk to Robert Greene about living a more meaningful life.
Shaan Puri recommended Mastery by Robert Greene, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene and others, and discussed The Law of the Sublime by Robert Greene and The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and others. Sam Parr discussed The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland. Robert Greene recommended Dying to Live by Susan Blackmore, and discussed Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Law of the Sublime
Discussed“You wrote this new book, Sublime. And it's interesting because if I look at the books you're popular for, you're famous for, you've got 48 Laws of Power.”
Where to get it
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The 48 Laws of Power
Discussed“in I think it was 48 laws of power. I forget which book it was, but you there was one story that I might be butchering, but I think you said that um like some of the first bits of writing ever discovered was about one generation complaining about the next generation saying they're lazy.”
Where to get it
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The Escape Artist
Discussed“I am kind of messed up. I like reading a lot of like World War II and Holocaust books and me too. It's crazy. Like there's this one called um The Escape Artist and it's one of the only guys to escape from uh Awitz.”
Where to get it
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Man's Search for Meaning
Discussed“Well, there was a man Victor Frankle who wrote a book, Man's Search for Meaning. Very famous book. He was in Awitz. He was in a concentration camp and his he later became a a psychotherapist”
Where to get it
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Mastery
Recommended“I have felt this way. you're going to think that uh this is too grandiose and ridiculous. I have felt that with 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, Art of Seduction, Art of uh maybe maybe Art of War, but for sure um it sounds like Sublime and 48 Laws of Power as well”
Where to get it
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The Art of War
Recommended“I have felt this way. you're going to think that uh this is too grandiose and ridiculous. I have felt that with 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, Art of Seduction, Art of uh maybe maybe Art of War, but for sure um it sounds like Sublime and 48 Laws of Power as well”
Where to get it
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The Art of Seduction
Recommended“I have felt this way. you're going to think that uh this is too grandiose and ridiculous. I have felt that with 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, Art of Seduction, Art of uh maybe maybe Art of War, but for sure um it sounds like Sublime and 48 Laws of Power as well”
Where to get it
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Dying to Live
Recommended“There's a very great book I enjoyed a lot but by a skeptic and I'm not a skeptic but I like reading all the different aspects. This book called Dying to Live by this woman I think it's Susan Blackmore is her name.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (19) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing The 48 Laws of Power
“You wrote this new book, Sublime. And it's interesting because if I look at the books you're popular for, you're famous for, you've got 48 Laws of Power.”
Passing The Art of Seduction
“You have seduction, another one, control. Mastery, another one about control. And it seems like Sublime is saying the almost the exact opposite.”
Passing Mastery
“You have seduction, another one, control. Mastery, another one about control. And it seems like Sublime is saying the almost the exact opposite.”
Plugged The Law of the Sublime
“The other thing is, and I talk about this in my Sublime book, we're gifted with this brain that is one of the most incredible amazing things in the universe, this insane product of evolution, the human brain.”
Passing The Law of the Sublime
“So, uh I I normally tell people like you only have to listen to a few minutes of Robert Green to realize that all the information that he's getting for his books, which are amazing, by the way, is from reading tons and tons and tons of other books.”
Plugged The Law of the Sublime
“And in the book, I try and make it clear the things that science is uncovering about the strangeness of the world that we have been born into. You're you're born you're kind of thrown into this world and when you're a child, you're 3 or four years old, you don't understand it.”
Plugged The Law of the Sublime
“So I have a chapter in the book about childhood because as I said when you were a child the world was naturally sublime was I mean unless you had a very troubled childhood don't get me wrong but for most children the world is naturally weird strange and wondrous right and I have exercises”
Plugged The Law of the Sublime
“One of the I have a chapter in there uh I think people are going to relate to most because it's similar to my other chapters. It's called measure yourself against the immense and the impossible.”
Plugged The 48 Laws of Power
“I met a man who was the book packager who asked me at one point in Italy if I had any ideas for a book and I kind of improvised what turned into the 48 laws of power and he ended up paying me to live while I wrote the book and we became partners on the project.”
Plugged The Law of the Sublime
“And the purpose was for me to write one more large book, The Sublime, despite all the physical limitations that I had. and that I I was stay I was kept alive for a reason to write this particular book.”
Plugged The Laws of Human Nature
“What drives me crazy with these techn these new technologies is that I wrote a whole book laws of human nature about how humans have a dark side, irrationality, grandiosity, envy, shortsightedness, you know, on and on and on.”
Plugged The Law of the Sublime
“Yeah, I I have uh I had to write in notebooks for the the Sublime book and I had two notebooks. I'd write in one and then I would rewrite it in another notebook. Uh literally rewrite word for word and edit as I'm rewriting it.”
Passing Mastery
“Well, um, so I wrote it in one notebook, I edited in another, then I'd go back and and rewrite it that way. Then I'd go back probably four or five times. Then when it finally seemed decent and not suckable”
Passing The 50th Law
“You you had a near-death experience. You hung out and wrote a book with 50 Cent who had this kind of near-death experience. There was a guy who came on the podcast that was he had studied a lot of people who had near-death experiences.”
Speaker Robert Greene almost died. Here’s what it taught him about living 2026-11-11 Listen at 41:37
Plugged The Art of Seduction
“I, you know, I thought Phil Jackson kind of embodied that. So in in the art of seduction, I tried to literally kind of define charisma because as you say, it's kind of an is this intangible thing and how do you actually describe or where does it come from?”
Plugged The 50th Law
“Well, confidence is by far the most charismatic quality that you could have. Um, as you may know, I spent um six, seven months uh with 50 Cent writing the 50th law, my fourth book. And 50 has intense charisma.”
Plugged Mastery
“I wrote a book called Mastery and it's about mastering your career, mastering your profession, reaching that level where you almost don't have to think, where you just have a sense, a fingertip feel for what's going on.”
Passing The 48 Laws of Power
“I mean it's it's a lot of some people are going to be disappointed because they want the 48 laws of power part two. I understand that uh it's not the most sellable subject, but my strategy is you write a good book, you put all of effort into it”
Plugged The Law of the Sublime
“I mean it's it's a lot of some people are going to be disappointed because they want the 48 laws of power part two. I understand that uh it's not the most sellable subject, but my strategy is you write a good book, you put all of effort into it”