Robin Williams' Suicide & Complicated Greatness
The Tai Lopez Show
Tai Lopez
4.8 • 6.9K Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2015
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For today's Book-of-the-Day I was reading Emily Herbert's, "Robin Williams - When The Laughter Stops."
It made me think deeply about human happiness.
The book lists different theories on the reason for Williams' suicide: money problems, bad marriages, drugs and alcohol, being bullied as a child, an absent mother, Parkinson's prescription drug side effects, a highly sensitive personality, and addiction to video games.
He struggled with demons his whole life.
Here are my notes:
1. You can't be delusional: "One of Williams' tragedies was that, although an exceptionally intelligent man, he couldn't see the truth about himself."
2. Video games made his depression worse: "Dr. Douglas Gentile says, 'I was expecting to find that depression leads to video gaming. But (our study) found the opposite. Depression seems to follow the video gaming. As kids became addicted the depression seems to get worse… I think it's truly co-morbid - where medical conditions are intertwined."
3. Physical exercise helped his depression: "Robin Williams took up cycling… And the more he cycled the better he felt… Physical exercise helps anyone with depression…" Williams' said, "Cycling saved my life… "
4. He knew how to change the world: "No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world. "
I don't know the answers to these hard issues but I know there is much to learn from mentors who achieve great things like Robin Williams did.
P.S. My favorite Robin Williams joke: "If women ran the world, we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days." HahaLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Robin Williams is reading this book for the book of the day, crazy about his |
| 0:06.0 | suicide and what led up to it, what made him great, you know, I always say there's |
| 0:12.9 | things to learn from anybody who achieves greatness, you know, no matter how |
| 0:18.0 | complicated their life was, this guy had a complicated life, so I was just reading |
| 0:22.3 | this today and I thought I would, people always ask me to share my notes when I |
| 0:28.4 | read. What I took away, you know, first of all, was there was no one could |
| 0:35.4 | figure out the exact reason that this guy committed suicide. Like, was it money |
| 0:40.5 | problems? Some people, you know, those conjecture, money problems, he was on |
| 0:44.6 | some prescription drugs for Parkinson's that had a side effect that was |
| 0:49.3 | suicide, which is kind of crazy for a side effect. He was having money |
| 0:54.2 | problems, even though other people said no, he had $50 million still in his bank |
| 0:58.7 | account, but he was always paranoid and worried about losing money. So, you know, |
| 1:04.0 | he had a crazy childhood, he was made fun of bullied, he's kind of a chubby kid, |
| 1:09.6 | he never could connect with his mother, he wanted a stronger family, but whatever, |
| 1:14.0 | we've all been through craziness and it made him funnier, you know, if you know |
| 1:18.7 | the story of Robin Williams, he was on top A game here in Hollywood for, I don't |
| 1:23.9 | know, 30 years, 40 years, and I thought when I was reading it, was there anything |
| 1:32.6 | practical that applies to people that, you know, I'm not a famous comedian, one |
| 1:38.4 | of the things that was pretty, I wrote down a few little notes, I'll read to you, |
| 1:42.5 | whenever I read by the way I take notes, I use ever note. So, the author said, the |
| 1:51.9 | author is this Emily Herbert, she writes a whole bunch of biographies on people. She |
| 1:56.4 | said, number one rule, one of Williams tragedies was though, all the one |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tai Lopez, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Tai Lopez and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.