EP #4 How to Create a Successful Life w/ Tony Robbins

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What gives people energy at any age besides physical energy? The psychological, spiritual, emotional energy that drives someone to do something unique is to find something they care about more than themselves. There's only so much you'll do for yourself because it doesn't. It's not that hard to get yourself to the point where you're comfortable and you're okay and you're fed well and you're in the world we live in today. Even if you want to live off somebody else, it's possible to do that.

And a massive transformative purpose is what you're telling the world. It's like this is who I am, this is what I'm going to do. This is the dent I'm going to make in the universe. Welcome to Mindsets and Moonshots. Today I'm excited to be speaking with one of my dearest friends on the planet and the incredible entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, a philanthropist, a coach of millions worldwide, the incredible Tony Robbins. Tony has a 40 plus year career in creating breakthroughs and transforming lives. He's coached and consulted with some of the top athletes, entertainers, thousands of top CEOs and four US presidents. He's a founder, partner, investor in over 1,000 privately held companies. And as is fitting to the spirit of this podcast, Tony has an incredible moonshot to provide over 1 billion meals to needy individuals by 2025. And it's probably worth noting something else important. Tony is a new dad. Tony, good to see you, buddy.

Good to see you, Peter. That's quite an introduction.

Yeah, well, deservingly so. And I love our friendship and our partnership. It's appropriate we're doing this on Labor Day.

Of course, of course, of course.

And I work my butt off 24 7. And you're the only person who works 28 7.

You do.

And I am curious having a New daughter, increasing the scope of the family. One thing we talked about in the past was I asked you on stage, we were having a conversation. I said, tell me about your thinking on work life balance. And you said, no such thing. It's work life integration. Do you remember that?

Yeah, of course. You got to think about it as, you know, labor. What is labor? You know, for me, labor is an expression of love other than my absolute direct love with no other filters. My labor is the greatest love that I can give somebody. It's my mind, it's my emotion, it's my spirit and soul, as it is with you. And I think so. That's why it's fulfilling. And when I say, you know, I remember interviewing Mary Callahan Erdos when I was doing Money Master the Game. You know, she manages, you know, businesses of over $2 trillion in business with a T. 2.5 trillion, I think it is now. And I asked her about this, and she said, you know, I used to come to the office with my dad, who was a financial planner, and sit behind his desk, and I was so part of his life. And she said, you know, here now I run two and a half trillion dollars. And she said, but at the same time, I'm, you know, JP Morgan, the head of this company. I do the same thing with my daughter. I have this great time with her.

And.

And I really look at, as, you know, it's an integration, it's not a balance. I mean, think about balance. Imagine a teeter totter, a seesaw, and you and I are going to play the game of life as balance, okay? Once we get it balanced, how long before one of us is, like, bored enough, we want to do something, jerk this thing around to feel alive, Right? But for me, it's been a really interesting time. I don't have a thousand companies. I have 110 companies. But we are doing $7 billion in business across all these different industries. And I have thousands of employees. And I. I love the challenge of all that. And it's certainly been different now. Cause I have five kids and five grandkids. But, you know, my oldest daughter is 48. My youngest is 17 months. It's a different world, but I love that, too. It's caused me to have more gears, you know, to find parts of myself that I've got to step in and be even more present in a different way. It's been the most exciting and fulfilling thing in my life so far. Here I love all my kids, all my environments. Just the stage of life. Doing it is really special.

I mean, a lot of entrepreneurs don't realize doing anything big and bold in life is hard. And it's going to take a lot out of you and it's going to consume everything you've got. Especially if, like you said, it's full of love and passion and it's your highest expression in the world. But how do you deal with all the demands? It's like at the end of the day, you know, you've got a 17 month old, you've got a family, you've got, you know, and you're on an airplane. How many days a year?

Well, a lot differently. I'm going to tell you what. The part of why I have a daughter right now is because of COVID Because we were, we wanted to do this for about 10 years. But you know, most of my life I've been on the road continuously. So of all these homes all over the world, but rarely at any of them. You know, an average city, an average year I'd have 115 cities. I do. Most of these are multi day seminars anyway, to give you a sense, as you know, I'd go to 14 to 16 countries, some of them two or three times, like Australia. And so literally I was home very little. I spent more time in the airplane than anywhere else. But thanks to Covid. And it was not a thanks initially. I mean, when I started getting the phone call and you know, we're supposed to do this big event in San Francisco and they call up the governor says you can put 10 people here. I was like, what? 10 people? You know, we got a stadium for 15,000 people. But then, you know, next thing I knew, it was all over the world. It was London, it was Australia, the whole world. Just like Domino's. And so I was like, my first approach is we're gonna Vegas. They'll never shut down Vegas. They shut down in Vegas a week before we went to the event. Let's go to Dallas, let's go to Texas. I know the governor, he's never gonna shut that thing down. You know, they kept open Costco and they shut down the churches there. And it was just wild. So I saw people doing webinars and I was like, oh man, I'm used to a stadium. The energy, I can't do this. So I built this studio and we have 50 foot high ceilings and 20 foot high LED screens. 0.67 highest resolution. 53.

It's amazing.

It's unbelievable. I can now see people in their home. And now my seminars are 25,000 people. We've done four seminars with over 800,000 homes. There's over a million people in each one. I never dreamed of having that impact. So because of that, I can come home and be with my daughter. I probably wouldn't have done it. So the technology shifted things for me.

Do you think you would not have had her if you didn't?

I wouldn't have. We kept putting it off and saying we just can't do it with the lifestyle we have. And yet I was so addicted to the lifestyle of helping people all over the earth. And it's my mission. It's what I'm made for. It's not a mission statement. It's how I live. But now I'm able to reach even more people.

Hey, thanks for listening to Moonshots and Mindsets. I want to take a second to tell you about a company that I love. It's called Levels. And it helps me be responsible for the food that I eat, what I bring into my body. See, we were never designed as humans to eat as much sugar as we do. And sugar is not good for your brain or your heart or your body. In general. Levels helps me monitor the impact of the foods that I eat by monitoring my blood sugar. For example, I learned that if I dip my bread in olive oil, it blunts my glycemic response, which is good for my health. If you're interested, learn more by going to Levels link. Peter Levels will give you an extra two months of membership. It's something that is critical for the future of your longevity. All right, let's get back to the conversation in the episode. So that's one of the conversations I really want to get into, because my mission, as you know, is inspiring, guiding entrepreneurs to go bigger. Right. And I think entrepreneurs are the means by which we make the world a better place. Entrepreneurs are individuals who find and solve problems. And the more of them finding and solving problems. And the challenge is it's not an easy lifestyle. I mean, you've had nothing, but, you know, it's hard. It's 24 7. It's picking yourself off the ground and going, I am curious your advice for that entrepreneur who's having that debate and that challenge between private life and having a family or what I say is that when you're starting a company, you're going to spend more time with your co founders than you are with your wife or your husband or your kids. A lot of time. How do you deal with that?

Well, in my case, it's relatively easy because my wife is the executive producer of our lives. Sage is pretty extraordinary. Traveled everywhere together. We did everything together around the clock. And it just made us deeper and richer. Because as much as we love each other, our relationship is also based on a common mission of serving humanity as much as human possible. Not making that statement and saying it to the world, but the way we lived our life, that was most fulfilling and still is. So I don't, you know, my sons have been involved, my daughter's been involved. They've all been involved in the business throughout my life. And that's where that work life integration happens. But I also think not everybody's made to be an entrepreneur. And I don't think. I think today everybody thinks that's what they want to be. But, you know, we all have different. We're talking about Labor Day. We all have three different kind of gifts of labor that we could give and we can develop all these skills. But there's a nature in most people. And the first level is that skilled producer, like that person who's like an artist. I don't mean an artist like just painting. You know, some people are artists with software. Some people are artists in fashion. Some people are artists in negotiation. Like they're the best in the world at what they do. They're extraordinary. And artists do things because they want to see the impact. They want to feel that they want. They would give up the money for the impact in most cases. You know, some people are more manager leaders. These are people that love. They don't love the individual building the product or the service. They love managing the process, the people and the processes. And they love that systematic approach to things. And then there's some people that we're all entrepreneurial if you're in business, but a true entrepreneur is in it truly for the risk. You know, I remember I was with Steve Wynn and he invited me to come to Macau to see his new hotel he was just building. And, you know, it's the most extraordinary $2.7 billion hotel. And I got to be there before the doors open. And he's showing me everything and, you know, explaining me that there, the average bed is five times larger than Vegas. And how he has these suites he showed me where they literally don't have to deal with anyone else. The entire suite is like a mini, you know, casino. And. But he's.

I asked him, you can gamble in your sleep.

Yeah, exactly. All the way around the clock. You have to deal with a riff raff, you know, type of thing, right? And so I said, well, you know, in every business, there's an 80, 20 rule. I said, you know, what's the 20% of your business that produces 80% of your profit? And he goes, tony, it's more extreme than 80, 20 in my business. He goes, There's 50,000 people that produce 80% of my profit. These are the big whales. And he said, so I've hired people who. All they do is take care of them. And he goes, they all play Bacharach because Bacharach is a game where the odds are really close. The. It's the closest odds you have to any other game to being close to being with the house. But the house still has a slight advantage. He goes, but, Tony, what they don't understand is the more they play, the more those odds multiply in my favor. And he goes, so we have people that make 3 million, $4 million in a weekend, but they could also lose 4 or 5 or 10 million. He goes, I have people. All they do is live for this. So why am I telling you this story? Because to give you an idea, I remember I said, well, let's watch. After everybody opened the doors, you're seeing people mesmerized by the building and everything else. And we go up, and he says, let me show you the high rollers table. And I watched the guy, no lie, in probably 13, 14 minutes, lose $10 million right in front of me. My gut's torn up, and I'm not even the owner of the casino. I could never own a casino. I'd have to give up the guy, Steve, just smiling from ear to ear. And all of a sudden, the guy turns around and sees us standing there. He goes, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Can I have a picture? And, you know, I hear this every day of my life. So I said, sure. And he hands me the camera, and he goes, no, not you. With Mr. Nguyen. He's like, steve, I believe I went to your Vegas place. Everything's so different. You are unbelievable. Guy lost 10 million dol. And he's hugging this guy, Steve Wynn, Right? So what I really want people to get is it doesn't matter what you do. But a real. That's an entrepreneur, somebody who'd lose it all, step back up and do it again. Ted Turner's done it. Anybody's done it. You are not necessarily made for entrepreneurship just because you have an interest in it, just because you have a passion. I think you need passion. You need to know, where's the marketplace you're going to serve that has that impact. And then you got to look at competency. You got to say, what competencies do I have? What skills do I have? So for me, I'm an artist at my core. I will be on stage for 12 or 13 or 14 hours. I don't have to work another day of my life. Why am I here? It's the fulfillment of seeing the impact in these people's lives. Now I became an entrepreneur. I got all these companies, but part of how I did that was I got other people that were entrepreneurial in it because I would overspend over, deliver over everything, and they'd say, well, does the customer care? And we developed great partnerships in that. So over the years, I developed those skills. But under stress and under excitement, you go to your nature. So the question I have for you is, who are. Are you more of an artist that, like, you're in it for the impact alone you're gonna have to bring. You might ask yourself, who am I and who do I need? You might have to bring an entrepreneur in to scale that business with you who can take those kinds of risks. Or you might need to get a manager leader. If you're an artist, if you're a manager leader, you're looking for great entrepreneurs to join and you're looking for artists who make that company work. So I think it's really important not just to say, I have this giant goal, but to be honest with yourself about your nature. Cause in the end, if you have these great goals and you're not fulfilled, then what did you do it all for? It was just for positioning, which was ridiculous.

And there are very few individuals who do anything big and bold on their own. It's building a team and it's knowing what you can do and so forth. Let's drill in on the next question, which is, and I'm really. I feel a lot of energy around this, which is a lot of entrepreneurs are doing things that are not impactful enough. Right. That are. The joke I make is they're building another photo sharing app, and it's like they're the world's biggest problems, the world's biggest business opportunities. When I say that people get it. But how do you get folks to be willing to take the risk to go and do something that actually can make a dent in the universe? If you're the entrepreneur in this equation, if you're the individual who has those skills, you've built something. But how do we encourage them to go bigger?

Well, I think you don't have to encourage an entrepreneur to go bigger. That's the nature of an entrepreneur.

But it's not just about revenue. It's not just about making money.

I understand how you talk about impact. You're talking about impact. You and I are completely aligned in this area, as you well know. And I think your idea constantly of, you know, billion, you know, the biggest problems are the billion dollar solutions. Right? This is the opportunity that's there. I just don't think that's everybody. I think encouraging. Here's the difference, Peter. I used to think everybody should have their, you know, change the world and so forth. I don't think that anymore. I have a different mindset. I'm looking for who you are and let's help you get what you really want. And there are people that are unbelievably driven, who will take just giant risks, who will not sleep, Elon Musk, who will be there on the floor and will go and change the world. That is not everybody. And I don't think everybody should be encouraged to do that. Because although B is disappointed, you know, right now, as you're listening to this podcast, whether you're one of those people or not, there's nothing you and I are gonna say that's gonna make a difference for that kind of person other than to encourage people as an entrepreneur to say, why not do something that'll be meaningful and size and scope and the economics. Right. The meaningfulness is what the end's gonna matter. Cause the money goes away. There's only so many islands, homes, trains, planes, automobiles, you know, things you can do. It all comes down to what is your life's meaning, what have you given, what have you grown, what have you experienced, what have you delivered? And so I think we can call to that. But I think you do the best job of it by showing what's possible. Peter, you do so many great examples of showing how technology can really solve a problem for a billion people and make you a billion dollars or more. And I think you're probably the best at it. And I don't say that just to compliment you on your own podcast. I think you are. But I have a slightly different exposure, which is those people are going to do it. I can help tweak it with them, I can sit down with them, I can show them another opportunity. I can get them hungry for more meaning. Because after a while, when they made enough money with widgets, it's pretty. Damn.

Yeah. I call. I call it success to significance. Right? How do you take the success you've had? Whether it's capital or Resources, relationships, whatever it is, and put into service of a significant impact. So let's talk to those people right now. Let's talk to the people who you are. Entrepreneurs who are wanting to do something. And I was there, I was finishing medical school. My mom and my dad are like, peter, take over my dad's practice, go become a physician. When are you going to start do your internship or residency? No, that's not what I want to do. I want to go and build this. And that was space. Kind of crazy. But the individuals who are facing their parents, their husbands or wives, or loved ones who are saying, that's way too risky, you know, why aren't you becoming a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or joining that, you know, big blue? What's your advice for them?

My advice is pretty simple. On this one, is like, if you have enough passion, you're not going to let anything stop you. You need to fan that passion. You get around where it's better. You got to get around people that have delivered on their passions and let that rub off on you. Even when people say, I'm trying to find my purpose, get around where it's better and let something hit you. And because you know, role models make it real, you can have a dream or a vision. I mean, again, Peter, I'm not just throwing compliments away how much I love you sincerely. But what you've done with XPRIZE is the perfect example of that because you've shown it can happen again and again and again. It's not a one time thing. We can take a vision, we can inspire enough people to compete and we can transform an entire industry, whether it's space or whether it's, you know, solving hunger or whatever the case may be. So I think for those individuals who the piece for them to do is constantly fan the flames. You have to see, feel, experience what it is you really want. And you know, I think for some people, finding that purpose or that drive sometimes is to do the opposite. It's like when people say to me, you know, I don't really know what I want to do for a living. I say, oh great, describe the job from hell. Tell me who you write down, who you wouldn't want to work with, what you wouldn't want to do for a living, the environment, you never want to do it. And you cannot believe the amount of energy that comes out. When people start writing all the shit they hate. And when the energy's out and they've written all that they don't want, then I say, okay, write the opposite. And you have the job from heaven, or the business from heaven, or the relationship you don't want. Right. When people are so frustrated. Tell me everything you don't want. Right. Okay. Now there's energy going. Because the only thing that's going to get you to execute is energy. And if you sit in your head, there's low energy in your head. If you're sitting talking to other people about what's possible, they'll have the best of intent, but they just don't want you to be disappointed. But disappointment is part of entrepreneurship. Disappointment is part of life. Disappointment drives you or destroys you. You gotta pick. And if you immerse yourself over and over again in what it is you want, you'll start to have pull instead of push. I mean, those are the two types of motivation, right?

You and I both know that we gravitate towards those who are celebrating society, right? We wanna be that NBA All Star. We wanna be that. It was the Wall street dream. When I was in high school and college, all my smartest friends went to Wall street to become investment bankers, like, or lawyers. And I was like pulling my hair out. It's like such a. For me, it was an empty and meaningless job. It was moving money around. It was basically just making money on the heels of folks who are changing the world. And ultimately, it's how do we create the ability to celebrate individuals? Who are those change makers? Who are those entrepreneurs that are. It is Elon. It is Marc Benioff. It is other individuals that you and I both know. So I want to light the fire for folks to say, you can make a difference in the world. You can go work on something bigger versus just falling into the normal pattern. Any thoughts there?

Well, again, I think it's. I have a slightly different point of view. When I was growing up and developing myself and starting to succeed on decent scale, I had these really specific goals that I was trying to target. I knew precisely where it was on the mountain. And then as the years went by, I began to have a different approach. My approach was let me figure out the direction I'm heading, what I really believe is there without having to walk into the one individual meeting person, economic situation, whatever. And when I get to the mountain, I'll climb over it, I'll dig under it, I'll go around it, I'll enjoy it, whatever the case may be. And I think that today people are so obsessed with something way out there that for some people, it's too soon. I mean, let's talk about what it really takes to make a business go. Every single person who is a true entrepreneur has to go through what we call the threshold of control multiple times. The threshold of control is like if the people watching or listening snowboard or ski. And let's say you're intermediate, advanced, or you're a beginner, and one day you're on a new mountain, and you miss the wrong turnoff, and you're on the green slope or the blue slope, and there's a double black diamond right down below. You look down and you go, I'm gonna die. There's no way I can die on this thing. So what do you do? You got two choices. One choice is you realize you're beyond the threshold of your control. And so what you do is put your ass against the mountain and you hang on a claw for dear life so you don't fall down that cliff, and you work your butt down there slowly to try to survive the other. All right, I have got to turn. I've never done this before. And you literally focus only on the next turn. The next turn, the next turn, the next turn. You don't focus on getting down to the bottom of the mountain. It's too much. You focus until you do those turns. And by the time you're done, the double black diamond is your little. You know, you own it. It doesn't own you. Right. It's a completely different experience. So in my businesses and yours, I can remember coming home from a business meeting or an event I'd done, and there were 11 employees I had at the time in this tiny little office. And they all met me at the airport as I landed. I thought, wow, this is so cool. Well, they're all here to tell me they love me, but we're gonna quit. Cause the lady running the show was just terrible treatment of people. And she was saying, the company's gonna go bankrupt, and she was paying herself and somebody else and not paying other people. And I came home and found out. I fired the lady and found out that she had spent all the money, gave it six months in advance to herself, another person. And we had no cash flow. I needed $50,000 to keep the doors open. Now, $50,000 then would be like 10 billion plus the day. For me, it'd be a much, much, much larger number. I couldn't imagine beyond my threshold of control, right? And so I remember I was trying to. I tried one thing and another, and somebody offered me an opportunity, this network marketing thing. And it was like, oh, my God, this is not what I'm about on my integrity. And then finally, I had this idea. I'm going to call this guy who was a gentleman, who was a stuntman in movies, and he only got a couple deals. And I worked with him, turned him around, and got his psychology straight. And he had, like, 10 straight big movies, big movies, made a ton of money. So I called him and I said, Look, I need 50 grand. I don't know how I'm gonna pay it back, but, you know, I absolutely will. And sure enough, he loaned me the money. And by the way, about 10 years ago, I obviously paid him back way back then I tracked him down to get another 50 grand. Just remembering how incredible it was, you know, at that stage. But it was one of those thresholds. Then I had one years later where, you know, somebody sued me. I didn't do anything wrong, but you can go through a lawsuit, cost you two, $3 million, and they're like $3 million then was more money than I could dream of. And then I had a business partner, years later that I was partners in a company that had 1.6 billion in EBITDA.

And.

And there was an offshoot of that company going through all the details. And the partner was supposedly a billionaire, and he had no money. And two of my other partners got in trouble. So I signed this deal joint and several. There's $150 million in debt. And so I needed. I had to come up with $150 million. That was inconvenient. I didn't have $150 million, but I figured it out. That's how I got to being in a position now where, you know, I could do 7 billion in business because you go through those thresholds. So I think it's wonderful to have that giant goal, but I think most entrepreneurs still have to crack their teeth on whatever is the threshold in front of them next. And each time you do and you become more confident, you become stronger. It's like the food. You know, originally I was, you know, trying to figure how I could feed two families. You know, I was just. Just beginning. My family was fed when I was 11 years old at Thanksgiving. I never forgot it. I want to feed others. So I fed two families. Then it was four, and then it was eight. And then I got my little small company involved, and then eventually got to 2 million people a year. And then about eight years ago, I was, like, writing this book on finance, and I'm interviewing these billionaires, and I'm watching Congress wipe out food stamps called the SNAP program. Now so much so that I think it was six and a half billion it took so that every family that needed food would have to give up one week's worth of food every month unless you and I stepped in. I was like, well, how many people have fed in my lifetime? I found it was 42 million people. I didn't even know the number. I said, what If I fed 50 million people in a year? What if I found, you know, 100 million people in a year? What if I fed 100 million people here for 10 years? A billion people. Well, that was seven and a half years ago. I'm coming up eight years. I'm two years ahead of schedule. We're 940 million meals right now. And so now I'm working on a hundred billion meal challenge. I'm finding 100 other people. I know you're going to be at the.

I'm going to be your dinner.

And I'm looking to find. I've already got four people putting up a billion meals. So I've already 5 billion meals more than I've done in 10 years.

All right, we're going to, we're going to take this conversation someplace else that I have a lot of energy around, my friend. Which is, which is there, you know, there's something like 2700 billionaires on the planet right now. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. And the, you know, the top 100 have more money than, than most nations on the planet. And so you and I know a lot of ultra high net worth individuals, a lot of billionaires. And one of my biggest challenges is what the hell are they doing with their capital. The notion of everybody sitting on their money to make more money versus using that to make a dent in the universe, to use Steve Jobs quote. And it really pisses me off. I want to go take out a full page New York Times ad and say, these people are solving the world's problems. These people are buying bigger yachts. And so I would love to explore how do you think this is going on? What is it that there are very few people as Marc Benioff, you and I know he's beautiful. He's backed so much research in health, tech and biotech and changed the world. And then there's folks like Elon Musk who's betted over and over and over again Martin Rothblatt, another dear friend who's done extraordinary work just taking moonshot after moonshot. And then there's the tops of the for the top of the Forbes list. And I've had this conversation with Steve and Kip Forbes and the family there. I said, you've gamified wealth retention. It's like you don't want to drop from number seven to number 70 by giving away that. It's like it really. So advise me here. How do we help incentivize those individuals to really use not just their capital, but their resources, their intelligence, their relationships to go make a bigger dent on the planet? What are they going to do with it at the end of the day?

Well, you know, here again, Peter, I used to feel exactly the same as you do. In fact, we've had this conversation before, privately, at a different time when you were raising money for the X price on the health side, on the longevity side. Right. Like, what's wrong with these people? And the only reason I can answer is not because I'm so smart, but because I believe. I talk to very smart friend of mine who's been one of my dearest friends for the last 30, 35 years, and that's Peter Guber, who I know you know well as well. And Peter was saying, tony, you're. You're being pissed off and stressed at people. And he goes, it's not consistent with all the other things you do everywhere else. You try to understand them, you try to appreciate what drives them. He said, that's why you're so effective. But you, you have low tolerance because you're willing. You know, I've given away 17% of all I've earned in the last 10 years to give an idea, not 10% of the gross revenues I've made. You know, it's like I'm disproportionate to what I do. So I think everybody else should be. He goes, not everybody is. He goes, here's how I think he should look at it. And ever since he told me this is how I look at it now, he said, okay, I want to know what it is that is their hot button, and I want to deliver that. Instead of saying, oh, they should do this so they can save children, you know, let's say, for example, you have 28,000 kids now that I've saved that are trafficked. I mean, one child in a traffic situation chained to a bed. Well, seeing this, you'll just. You'll be altered forever. So it's like, I have been altered.

Yeah, People don't care about that.

They don't care about that.

Underground Railroad.

Yeah, yeah, Underground Railroad. But many organizations, they're one of them. But the most important thing is he said, some People do things because they want their name on the hospital side of the wall. Some, you know, on the building. Some people do it because they're guilty because they didn't earn their wealth, and so they want to get rid of the guilt. Some people do it because they care about the children. Some people are going to do it because. And you have to figure out what those are. And instead of being mad about it, you got to say, what is their hot button? And that has helped me immensely and raising capital, because I don't have the judgment anymore. They should do it for the reasons I think they should do it. I'm obviously, I feel strongly about saving people in a variety of areas. Food, water, air. I mean, everything. But I also now see everybody's got their thing. Everybody's got their passions. We got their insights. And all I want to know is, what's their hot button? So they'll contribute. I don't care about if it's for the right reasons. Who's the right reasons? That's my judgment. It's their reasons I need to get into. And I think when you do that, you're more effective. You're unbelievably effective in raising capital for businesses, and you've been really effective on the nonprofit side. But I think you can't. Here's my belief. You have a hard time influencing people when you're judging them. And the bottom line is, if you're not judging them, you can influence them because you can take the time to understand what their needs are and meet them. And that's what business is. And so philanthropy has to be looked at, I think, through the same light. And that's what I do today. And the number of people that I've been able to engage and involve now has gone geometric compared to when I just thought they should do it and got frustrated.

And let's be clear. I'm not judging on what they should do. It is do anything, do something.

Well, you know, still judging.

Ah, okay.

All right, then you're wrong. You and I have come from the same place, but it's like. Like your values are. They should not be building more of that. But some of them are going to build that, and they're going to give it away. Some people are going to build that, and they're applying all these jobs. I mean, you got to remember, there's so many. If a bumblebee goes and it's trying to get the nectar, God arrange something pretty cool, it doesn't know it's getting what it wants. But it's still playing a role in something larger. I mean, you know, the pollen sticks to the legs, and that's how we have more flowers. So it's like I have a different mindset about it now. It's like, if that guy keeps all the money forever and builds up his businesses, who cares? That capital and those businesses are still providing jobs and opportunity. But I'd like to find a piece of his heart. I'd like to figure out what he's passionate about or get him introduced to something that once he experiences it, or she. They go, oh, my God, I never knew it was like this. Or I never knew it felt so good to give in this way of my time, my energy, my intellect, my emotion, or, and. Or my money. And that it makes it more fulfilling while you're doing it.

Yeah. The conversation I had was actually around an idea we kicked around of the impact pledge. I said, the giving pledge, right, which is Gates and Buffett, is I'm going to give half of my money to a nonprofit while I'm alive. And it's like, well, you can't take it with you. So you don't have that much of a choice. And this is where I was complimenting you. It isn't just your capital that you're giving on your billions now to hundreds of billions of meals. It's your capital and your intellect and your relationships and your time. And so the question is, how can we incentivize those who've got the means to really take on leaving the world a better place, making an impact? And I agree. Listen, I'm a capitalist. I'm a capitalist libertarian. More jobs, more businesses created, Fantastic. But at the end of the day, it's how do we get them to call their shots and make a larger impact? Is it just finding that heartstring or is there any other way? I mean, if the Forbes list gamifies wealth retention, is there an impact list to gamify making an impact on the planet? What ideas do you have?

Yeah, I think anything that can tap into those different needs. Some people do things for the need for significance. Some people do things for the need for connection with other people. Some people do it to grow. Some people do it because they just want to contribute. Some people do it, you know, because they want variety in their life, and it's a new thing for them. So instead of, like, having one universal approach, I think we have to have multiple approaches. But gamifying impact, I think is would certainly help those who like a measuring stick and want to be Known for the level of measuring stick they've developed. And that's one type of person. But I think also it's like again, I think I have a slightly different approach than I did with maybe I was 50 or 40. And that is, I have no difficulty finding plenty of people that want to play at this level, at this stage. I think more and more people do. And I think as things get more difficult, it tends to wake people up to what's most important to them. And I saw, you know, winter is, it's here, but we haven't hit the worst part of winter yet. We've had some financial winter. We're going to have a lot more difficult times. And the one good thing I remember I was sitting down with President United States President Clinton years ago and went to Camp David with him and he was complaining to me. I remember I was like 31 years old and I really liked him, but he was just whining. It felt like to me, I'm making my judgment in those days, right? This guy's the most powerful guy on earth and he's complaining because no one understands what he's doing. It was at the time when he was really ineffective in the beginning and the Republicans had taken over both the House and the Senate. And he was on and on and on. And I remember just looking at him and saying, well sir, I said, think about it this way. You have to decide what you gonna make your focus be. And it's gotta be something that other people are inspired by. The things you've done that you say no one notices, it's cuz no one's inspired by it. What are the targets you're gonna set? They're gonna make this more alive and more real. And I think today the other thing he told me, the reason I thought of the story was he kept talking about, you know, he was the first president where there was an external enemy. So for the first time in that short time, we didn't have terrorism, we didn't have the Soviet Union, right? So like now we're fighting amongst ourselves. And I've always said, you know, Reagan even said this. It's like if there was ever a time that America come to the world would come together as if some alien group came in exacting us, we'd all right, but there's something about bad times that will also make people come back together and unify and start to look at how they can serve something beyond themselves. And you look at where World War II and you see some of the, some of the Best entrepreneurs in the world there who gave up a lot of what they had for the war effort to turn things around. I think the times that are coming will call to people to give more of all sorts. The entrepreneur, the business person, the general population as well. It'll create an alignment. That's why we have seasons. Winter gets rid of the old stuff. It's tough as hell and it makes you grow. And then springtime is the reward, and then summer's the test, and then falls the reward. It's this alternating cycles that human beings go through and society goes through and history goes through.

And for the entrepreneurs listening, now is the best time to be looking for what your company is going to be. Right? Some of the most extraordinary companies on the planet were born out of the dot com bust, or the 2008 real estate bust, or out of COVID So if you're looking to do something, you want to step up to a bigger game, look around, find out what the needs are, and help reinvent the industry that you're passionate about.

If you look at the Fortune 1000 and you think of the four seasons, financial seasons we go through. There's springtime when things just grow like crazy. It's easy, you think you're a genius. It's really the times that are going. There's the summer when now you planted all the seeds and it's hot, it's not working so well. There's the fall when all of a sudden everybody's reaping, somebody wants to give you a mortgage even though you don't have a house. And then there's the winter where it looks like nothing's working and it's all falling apart. But winter isn't forever. You know, no pandemic is forever. No war is forever. It's a season. And if you do well in winter, you'll stand the test of time. So of those four financial seasons, if I showed you the Fortune 1000, more than 60% were born in one season of the four. It's not balanced. And I don't care whether it's Disney during a depression or whether it was Apple during a recession.

Uber, Airbnb.

Yeah, we can go through them all. So it's like this is your time. And I always tell people there's two businesses. You got to always be working on the business you're in and the business you're becoming. Because if you don't focus on the business you're in, you're going to be attracted. All this cool, exciting stuff over here and you know the cash flow to get there. Right. Or if you just focus on the business you're in, someone's going to be out there preparing for the future that you're not prepared for and they're going to take you out. So it's really that balance as an entrepreneur that really will make you successful over the long term.

Yeah. If you were going to start a company, what would you start? Do you have any ideas of where you want to go? I know you don't want to start another company, but some of the challenges that you'd go after out there. Any place in particular?

I think for me I would look at healthcare obviously, as you and I already are, and I would certainly look at finance, which has to be changed. It's abusive the way it's currently set up and people don't even realize it. The level of power that's concentrated in a few people because people don't know what 1% means. Sounds like nothing. But, you know, compounded interest, compounded fees. I would, I would be looking those areas and I have been educating people in both those areas so they can make better choices through my books and educational programs. But I think they're there. And then there's the use of all the tools that are coming. Nanotechnology, obviously, AI. We all know what's coming and what's here. But as you know better than anybody, we're at the base of that, we're at the beginning of the beginning, the beginning of what's going to happen in those areas. And I'd be looking for an industry where the technology is multiplying rapidly enough to solve those problems that are not really solvable today.

Do you know, 100 years ago, at the turn of the last century, when electricity was coming online, the entrepreneurial engine was taking something and adding electricity. It was like a hand drill, an electric drill, a hand dishwasher making an electric dishwasher and so forth. And we're going to see the same thing, I think in AI, AI in particular, where AI is to be applied to everything. And yeah. So let's turn towards a subject that you and I both have.

A quick question. I want to ask you a quick question. So what's your view? And I know you have a mutual friend who's predicted the timeline on this, obviously with Ray, but what's your view about where AI is right now in terms of consciousness? I mean, we all heard the story of the gentleman who works for Google and we heard the take backs from Google and he got fired. You know, what's Your view about where things really are. And have you talked. I haven't spoken to Ray about it. I was curious what Ray's thoughts are, if you know.

Yeah. I have spoken to Ray at length, and he'll be with us Both at a360. You'll be there this year. We can talk about it. He's still holding the 2029 as human level AI. You know, Elon came out a few months ago saying 2025. Now, we both know he sort of is. He hasn't hit all of his targets, but let's get. Once he's anticipatory. Yes. So the second half of this decade. Now what's interesting is AI is a field that's 50 years old. And the idea of the Turing Test came about some 40, 50 years ago, and it was originally going to be just testing a system by typing at it. Could you, in a typing communication, tell if something was a human typing back at you or computer typing back at you? And I would argue to a large degree that old style of Turing Tests, the systems today, can most definitely pass it. But we move the bar up. Yeah, we've moved the bar up significantly. And I am anticipating, and I am betting that we'll have human level AI by the end of the century. End of this decade. Sorry. And the question is, how does it change your life and your world? It changes everything, right, in terms of your employees. But the thing that people haven't pulled in is there's a lot of work going on in quantum technologies right now in quantum computation, which is moving very quickly, which is going to itself, advance the whole field of AI. So it's fun. It's fun and exciting, and it scares the shit out of most people.

It does. And they gotta be prepared because so many jobs are gonna disappear. New jobs will be created. But there's that timeline difference. I mean, we were all farmers 200 years ago. 80% of America's farmers. Now it's what, 2%? We provide food for the whole world. So it's like. It's much more efficient. But in that timeline that took, you know, 80 years of transition, now the transitions are so quick, I think it's gonna be a bit jolting. Yeah. Okay.

You and I had. You and I almost started a series of conversations on technological unemployment. Remember that? We were fearful of, and we didn't. And the challenge is that today there are, like, two job openings for every unemployed person. It's never been this much.

But also, the job participation rate is through the floor. It's not Just the opportunities are there, right? People have dropped out of the system, and a lot of women have dropped out of the system. And now for millennials, there's the new phrase, I'm sure you've heard about this silent quitting, which is, how do I do the absolute minimum amount of work to keep my job? And so there's a psychological difference that it isn't just an economical difference or environmental difference.

I tell this story. I mean, this fear of technology causing mass unemployment isn't new. I tell the story that there was a letter written by a number of Nobel laureates and top scientists sent to the United States about the impact of automation on the finance market, on destroying all of the jobs in finance. And that letter was sent to Lyndon B. Johnson back in the 60s when the first computers came out. But of course, we got more bankers than ever before. So the question is, you've probably seen all the stuff that's coming out on Dall e and Dall? E 2. I mean, it's extraordinary. So it's going to be about human AI partnerships, at least for a time being. The other thing I think about is that there's a lot of people who are doing jobs which they didn't dream about doing when they were kids, right? They're cleaning bathrooms, they're making beds, they're waitressing. And at end of the day, how do we partner with AI to uplift those individuals?

I think everybody who cares about the future and cares about their kids for the future has to understand that there's no way to predict what's going to happen. It's already accelerating so rapidly. So the one thing you can control is your ability to learn. And the things that you have to learn are three things, three skills. First, recognizing patterns. It is the basis of human progress. If you say, why is humanity where it is today instead of still out there, hunter gatherers trying to find food and survive? It was one pattern, recognizing the pattern of the seasons, understanding. There's this thing called winter. And if you plant during winter, it doesn't matter how hard you work, you don't get rewarded. There's only a specific. There's a right time for everything. And so the pattern of that recognition allowed us to stay in one place, plant, grow, have communities, cities, nation states. I mean, it was one of the most profound changes in humanity. Well, there's also seasons of a human being's life. And if you're going to be successful, you have to recognize those seasons. And second, skills. Learn how to use those seasons because it's one thing to recognize so things are no longer just chaos. Like, you know, looking at where we are right now with the world. You know, you study Ray dalio's work of 500 years of studying, you know, of history of different, you know, countries growing and then declining and what occurs. It's very predictable what's happened. It's not like, oh, my God, what's happening. No, this is a predictable pattern. Now what are you gonna do to use it so it doesn't use you? And so that's the same thing in your own life. What season are you? Are you in the springtime of your life? 0 to 20? Are you the 22 to 42, where you're the soldier society, and you're testing what you were taught as a kid. You're deciding what you want. You're finding out life is much more complex. You're not gonna be a billionaire and the president, United States, and simultaneously all these relationships. Yeah, I have to start figuring this stuff out. Oh, I gotta raise the. Oh, my God. Are you in that 43 to 63 range? Where. It's the power years. If you grew during the previous two, are you in that 64 to 84, to 104 to 124 right now, where you're the mentor society. But if you. If you can teach your kids and yourself to recognize patterns and to use patterns, then you'll get to the third level, which you'll start to create patterns. And those are the people that shape their world, their life, their family, their community, their company, society. Right? And those are the three patterns. And if you do those three, it won't matter what AI does, it won't matter what goes on. You will be there. It's like Warren Buffett the other day was. Was doing his annual conference, and people asked him about inflation and said, what do we do? And he said, the thing you gotta do is invest in yourself. Because if the currency goes to hell and we're using poker shells and you're the best lawyer, you're the best scientist, you're the best business person, you're gonna get the premium of whatever is you're available. And they can't tax your skillset as your skills grow. So I think we all have to grow our skills. We have to know where the world is going to some extent, meaning the mountain, direction of the mountain. We know the precise place, and we got to recognize patterns, use patterns, and start to create patterns of our own. And that'll put you or your kids in control of their life. No matter what change happens around them because that's the learning experience.

Let me add one more thing to that, which is rather than becoming an expert in the technology, because technology is changing constantly.

Yes.

It's becoming an expert in the problem. Right. Understanding the root cause of the problem. Because then you can apply the next level of technology and next level of technology to that. So I think that's a, that's an important thing to.

It's like the same thing in a business. You don't fall in love with your product or your service. You fall in love with your client because you understand who they are. The products and services are going to change so rapidly today. I mean, I had a Sony Walkman that's old. I am. And that damn thing was around for 22 years. They changed the color, the shape was the same product. Now you got a 90 day life cycle to a six month lifecycle on most products for itself knocked off by four other companies. Right. So it's much more competitive today.

Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying this episode. I'll tell you about something I've been doing for years. Every quarter or so, having a phlebotomist come to my home to draw bloods to understand what's going on inside my body. And it was a challenge to get all the right blood draws and all the right tests done. So I ended up co founding a company that sent a phlebotomist to my home to measure from 40 different biomarkers every quarter, put them up on a dashboard so I can see what's in range, what's out of range, and then get the right supplements, medicines, peptides, hormones to optimize my health. It's something that I want for all my friends and family and I'd love it for you. If you're Interested, go to mylifeforest.com Peter to learn more. Let's get back to the episode. All right, I'm going to turn us towards a, a topic of common passion and love which is longevity and health span. So I'll set the setting. You and I are at the Vatican. We're at the UNITE conference there. We're having an X Prize event I invited you to and you're giving your keynotes and I'm giving mine. I'm on stage with heads of different religions and in the audience is and scientists and in the audience are like four or five hundred scientists from around the world interested in rejuvenated medicine and all of this. And I ask an innocent question, which is how many of you here would like to live to 120 years old. And I am shocked.

It was crickets.

It was crickets. It was like a quarter of the audience raised their hand and I'm like, wtf? I mean, what's going on here?

Especially since the very people that you were talking to, so people have context, were creating some of the greatest breakthroughs in cancer breakthroughs and stem cells. I mean, what they were bringing looked like miracles. And yet when you brought this up, it was crickets. And you remember what I said to you? You were stunned. I was not stunned.

I was. Yeah, you were not.

So what?

So tell people listening why you weren't stunned.

Well, I wasn't stunned because I said, peter, most people's idea of 120 years old is decrepit and broken down and, you know, not, not the quality of life. I think more people care about the quantity, quality of their life than the quantity of their life. And so you. And you can match them too. That's different. If you said, okay, who'd like to be under 20? If you could have total insurance, you have all your cognitive capacities at their highest level, you'd have your physical capacity, strength, mobility, everything else. You'd look damn good. You could have a great sensual life, still be alive. You can be stimulated at all levels. Then people might start saying, well, I don't know if I believe it, but if that's possible, I'm in. But I think most people with the minute they hear age like that, I mean, one of the great gifts for me is some of my best friends, now that I met when they were like 45, and they're 18 years my senior. Like, you know, Peter Guber's 80 years old. As you know, he's one of my dearest friends. You know, you look around and you see somebody like Steve Wynn, he's 80 years old. And, and Peter today, I meant, was like 47, so now he's 80. The guy owns the warriors, the Dodgers, the LAFC football. He's a regent for UC, for the UC system. He teaches at UCLA. He makes movies. I mean. I mean, the guy does more today at 80 than he did when he was 47 or 50, supposedly in his prime. Same thing with Steve Wynne. And you look at Ray Dalio, I think is 74. 70, 75. So you need role models that'll have a quality life. Like, you look at Peter, you never think he's 80 years old, you know, not in a trillion years. You know, people think he's late 50s, early 60s, Max so I think I would tell people, goals are great. You know, raising your standards, wonderful. That's the first step in anything. Raise your standard for what you're committed to, what you want to have, whether it be how long you're going to live, the quality of your life. But we got to make that standard real by having role models. And then you need rituals to back it up that actually make what those role models do. What do they do that you want to do as well? That's the way I look at things. But you're right, most people, they just want to get through the. You know, most people also aren't engaged in life enough. They're like, you know, I think 70 or 80 years is enough for me. But you and I are like, we don't want to sleep. We've both learned to sleep a little bit together, but we don't want to sleep because we're so excited. But not everybody is in that place. And I think getting more role models, though, is really the key for people to see. And the stuff that. But it's coming out now. Like the thing you sent me the other day where you could take off almost a year of age by those injections you were talking to me about the other day. It was pretty amazing.

So I've changed the way I phrase it now, which is how many of you want to have the aesthetics, the cognition, and the mobility you have today for the next 20, 15 years better than today.

Some of them pretty shitty today.

That's true. So let me ask you, you a question. I think you know my answer. But how old? If you could have your cognition, aesthetics, mobility that you have today, or even better, how long do you want to live?

As long as I could. As long as those things could be intact. I mean, for me, especially now, because I remember I was telling my wife, I'm not having, you know, I've got five kids and five grandkids, but when I still had four kids, I was like, I'm not having a kid past 50. I'm not going to show up when you be 70. Well, now I'm going to show up and be 80 at my daughter's high school, you know, graduation. But so I got more reason, more incentive to live long time. Also because my kids are young and old and grandkids and everything else between us. So for me, I mean, 120 has been proven again and again as the number that most humans seem to be able. Not most humans. A few humans have been able to live to. I think with the technology and the changes? Well, you remember the number. What was the number for the average lifespan? 100 years ago, 150 years ago?

Yeah, it was. It was about 40. And it's increased significantly. I remember one of the conversations we had at the Vatican. I had one of the senior rabbis was on my panel and he talked about the biblical history that Methuselah And Moses had 7, 800 years, but then humans did some wrong things in God's eye. And he said, you should only have 120 years. I said, okay, I'll take 120 years and then I'll renegotiate after that. But. And it's interesting. I mean, can you feel. I mean, I'm sure you can, the palpable speed at which this field is moving?

Oh, you know, David Sinclair's work is some of my favorite work. And anybody who hasn't looked at his work, we have it in our book together. And he's become a dear friend for both of us. I think he's the cutting edge because what he's really showing us is that we can become younger as we get older, meaning that we can literally not just slow down or stop, but perhaps reverse the aging clock. That, to me, is the most exciting thing of all. And I think it's so much money and so much energy is being poured into this by some of the wealthiest companies and wealthiest individuals in the world because they don't want to just have what they have now. They want to extend that life as long as they have in a quality way. And I think people just don't know about it. So one of the reasons that we wrote Lifeforce and one of the reasons I was inspired to do it in the first place was I want to get this out here because from the time that a clinician has the breakthrough to the time it shows up and your local doctor, on average is 17 years. I mean, so we try to accelerate that by showing people it's here now, you can go do this right now. People just don't know. And there are tools that can change people's lives, but you got to get people educated so they know.

So I have a question for you. I had an interesting conversation with Elon about this. We were at SpaceX and we're talking about whole slew of things that he said. So what are you up to these days? And this is about five, six years ago, I said, I'm really focusing in on longevity. I didn't call it age reversal back then, which is what the terminology is right now, because we're really trying to not slow and stop aging, but reverse aging. But I said, I want to add. I've been pretty consistent. Add 20, 30 healthy years, and then during that time we'll reach other technologies and add another 20, 30 healthy years. And he said, I don't think we should. He said, I don't think people should live that long. I think the old guard needs to die to make room for the new guard. And he was in his early 40s. My response to him was, you'll probably change when you get older.

But I am saying, if I'm seeing enough satisfaction When I'm 35, I want to kill myself. And now there's 75 doing it. Right.

So I am curious about that, because I don't buy that. I mean, I see young individuals, especially in the defi world and in the AI world, independent of age, coming in and disrupting industries. Do you feel like, I mean, we have people like Putin and others who we'd love to have gracefully disappear, but at the end of the day, how do you feel about that? Do you agree with him at all? Is there any context that you agree with there?

I understand the context. The context is, you know, you don't want certain families, power, individuals staying in power so long and basically suffocating something moving up. But your point is well made, which is if you really have something unique, if you have something grand in its impact, they can't stop you. I mean, you know, Hilton's been around for 115 years and Airbnb, our buddies over there, you know, have surpassed their market value by $20 billion, and they don't own a single hotel room. Right?

And Hilton and, you know, Western Ford versus Uber.

Right? Same thing. So. So I understand, but I understand the nature. There is a sense of, are you messing with nature? Because there is a point. And so I personally don't know if living forever is the solution or not. I don't know if that's what people would really want. But I think extending the quality of life and the length of it so that the wisdom could happen. Because a lot of history, you know, if you study the patterns of history happen. Cause when the old guard dies, like the World War II generation dies, everybody's idea of war is very different. They don't know what it's really like. All these other wars we fought since then are nothing by comparison. Right. Or the Civil War. Right. And people are talking about a civil war right now. Why? Because the people who went through the Civil War have been dead for so long. There's no living person to tell you, are you insane? Let me tell you what you like. More people died there than any other war we've had, right? So I think there's great enhancing the length of time I personally think is wonderful. But is there a natural time for a transition? I mean, you know, Ray thinks you'll download your consciousness into the computer and that's really possible. But I think life as we know it has a cycle, but I think it certainly can be lengthened and with the same reason you got into the first place. Tell people how you, what you thought about the whales, what got you thinking in this way in the first place.

So I'm in medical school, I'm running a space company, but fourth year medical school life is intense. I see this television show on long lived sea life and that species of whales, bowhead whales, are living 200 years, Greenland sharks living four or 500 years. And I'm saying to myself, if they can live that long, why can't I? It's either going to be an engineering problem or a software problem. And so we're going to solve that. And I really think it's this decade, the next decade, that we're going to have the tools to do that. The thing that people don't realize is it's been a slow, steady progress. But the last decade has been this massive inflection and the acceleration with big data, with AI, with tools like crispr, that we're beginning to understand, to quote David Sinclair, why we age and maybe why we don't have to. And so Ray talks about something called longevity escape velocity, that today, during a decade, we're adding on average two years per decade. But there's going to be a point at which we're adding a decade per decade and then more than a decade per decade. Now, interestingly, Ray's prediction for that was we'd have that in the next 12 to 13 years. I asked George Church and I wrote about this in our book Life Force. I said, when do you think we'll hit longevity escape velocity? And he's a conservative Harvard professor geneticist. And he said, in the next 15 to 20 years. And that blew me away. So the interesting thing is, if you believe you can be healthy over the next 20 years, let's margin it 25 years. That means you're going to be intercepting new technologies that will extend your Runway and you're intercepting more and more.

I mean, it's basically if you're under the age of 50, you're gonna have the probably have the opportunity to make those choices. But what will be interesting, though, Peter, will be this.

I'm hoping it's under the age of 65 for both of us, pal.

I'm with you on that. But here's the interesting thing. Not everybody's life is so meaningful that they wanna live longer.

Yes. This is the other point I wanna hit on. Right.

This is the piece for me. It's like when people keep talking about these things, it's like it comes down to human needs, human psychology, human emotion. Do they have a compelling future? You know, anyone can deal with a tough today if they have a compelling tomorrow. But if today is not compelling and tomorrow's not compelling, who gives a damn about whether living longer or not? And unfortunately, if you look at our society right now, in the middle of winter, psychologically, and so many people being medicated today. Right? And these medications don't make you get out of pain. They just numb you. Right? All these. I know you saw the SSRIs. The whole studies are coming out showing the whole philosophy to our SSRs doesn't work. They just came out and talked about it, doesn't do anything, and yet they're still selling them. The science is that it was meta studies. So it's like, it's crazy to think about this, but today you got all these people that, you know, have committed suicide. You have the largest number of overdoses, 100,000 plus, than we've ever had in the history of this country. There is a psychology about the future that is. Has to shift because being healthy is not compelling. If you don't think the future is worth living for. For.

Yeah, I think that is one of the most important. I talk about having a longevity mindset, and I'm curious what your thoughts are around what that would mean, but one of them is actually having a bigger future than your past. Yeah, please.

I was going to say, I think it's what gives people energy at any age besides physical energy. The psychological, spiritual, or emotional energy that drives someone to do something unique is to find something they care about more than themselves. There's only so much you'll do for yourself, because it doesn't. It's not that hard to get yourself to the point where you're comfortable and you're okay and you're fed well and you're in the world we live in today. Even if you want to live off somebody else, it's possible to do that. So in most modern countries. Not everywhere, obviously, because we're having huge problems because of COVID and because of Ukraine, in terms of feeding people in many parts of the world right now is that's why I'm doing this Hundred Billion Meals Challenge. Not just the Billion Meals Challenge, but if you look at this, we're really missing for most people a sense of what am I here to serve beyond myself. Because our society, and it's no one's fault, social media, the science of it, has made us so self oriented. And the self is never happy or fulfilled. You're happy and fulfilled when you're not thinking about yourself. When you're serving your kids, you're serving your family or your community or some mission or your business or something you're going to live for. But as long as it's just you, you won't have the energy or desire or drive to do much else again. You'll only have push motivation, which is coming from pain or pleasure versus pull motivation, which is something larger that leaps you out of yourself, out of your own individual psychology and into a level of consciousness of service, which is where people are most alive.

You know, I always said I had my two, my twin boys, Dax and Jet, when I was 50, they're 11 now. And I said that's part of my longevity mindset therapy. Right. And the same for you and your daughter.

Right?

It's like such a drive. Yeah, for sure.

No question, no question.

You know, the power of the human mind. Another Amazing mutual friend, Dr. Mark Hyman, he tweeted yesterday or the day before, he said having a loving, connected conversation with someone will turn on genes that shut off inflammation, stopping inflammation with your thoughts. Talk about the power of the mind and a longevity mindset to, I think people can will themselves to death and will themselves to life.

Well, we know that's true. We know that from witch doctors that, you know, somebody comes and they point the bone and the person has a heart attack and they die because the absolute certainty that this is going to cause them to live or be a certain way. But I think the longevity mindset to me is really about a life of meaning. That's what I was alluding to here. It's like, what is gonna give your life the meaning it isn't gonna be happy every moment. Happiness is bullshit. Happiness comes and goes, right? But what lasts is meaning, a depth of meaning that makes it all worthwhile. It's like sometimes you and I get together of people that we love or we've succeeded. Most people, when you're thinking about things, we're talking about things. If we're not talking about what we're creating for now and for the future. We think about where we are compared to where we were. And you remember those tough times. And they're like some of the most joyous things. Cause they provide contrast. Like, in order to have a foreground, you need a background. And I think what we really desperately need, to have people get a better sense of it today, is like, what is gonna give my life greater meaning? What is gonna make me wanna get up early and stay up late and feel fully alive? To me, that's the most important thing. And relationships are the base of it all. Because, look, you know, it's been said a million times in corny ways, you know, when no one's on their deathbed saying, I wish I spent more time at the office. But it's just all the studies show that the longevity comes from having those meaningful, loving relationships. It's what gives you joy. And it's so sad today that so many people are turning away from the concept of family. So many young people today because they've been convinced the world is gonna end. You know, climate change is gonna destroy us. I mean, look, if you really look at the statistics and where we are, we're not past that point. And if you look at human history, how many times in your lifetime we're both over 60, have you seen the end of the. The world, the end of oil, the end of everything, right? And it's like, it's never been true. I remember CNN was talking about just two years ago, three years ago, the Barrier Reef is destroyed. And now the Barrier Reef is growing more than it ever has in the last 30 years, right? In Australia. It's just like we look at things in this little shape here, and we also forget that the Earth has warmed and cooled many times before, before we were here, and the world's doing fine. The real question is, how will we adapt and how do we make sure that we still create a compelling future? Because so many young people today, they don't even want to have a family because they go, what am I going to bring these kids into? It's winter. You need to grow during winter.

That was the turning point for when I wrote the book Abundance, it was a conversation in a coffee shop and a guy and gal were having conversation about whether they should bring a child into this world because it was so bad. And I was like. I was like in my own mind, I was like, what world are you seeing? This is the most extraordinary world of opportunity ever. There's nothing we can't do. Now, the challenges, of course, people.

Here's the thing. People have nothing to compare it to. It's like interviewing these college students about America. I'm so embarrassed of it. Where else have you been? Nowhere. Like, if they've never traveled anybody else. I was in the Soviet Union when it was still the Soviet Union. I've been down in South America and some of these countries that are on the edge when they were really on the edge. So it's like, I know what. What it really means to have socialism or what it really means to be in communism. They have no reference. They just have what they believe about where things are. And their belief is being colored by the environment and by social media and by the current media. And I think it's up to guys like all of us who see a better future to show people what's real, what's true, and to create some contrast for them. They have no contrast. Right now, we are living with less violence than any time in human history. Steven Pinker did this great study, and over the last X number of centuries, it's been about 15% of people that have been directly involved with something of violence. Today, it's 0.006. But, you know, we see it today because it's right there on your phone. It's right there in your face. It's there every single moment. We have less violence. We have longer living. We have. We have a world where we got more people out of poverty than ever in human history, even though there's still poverty and huge challenges.

We have these. Everything in your hand. You know, it's crazy because we're bombarded by the same murder over and over and over again in our living room. And it just hits our amygdalas and it's insane. You know, showing people that better future, showing the potential of that future is really going back to our first conversation on entrepreneurs. Would I really want those listening to us to internalize and focus on it's how do we create a vision of that future? And really, that's a little bit of where Xprize is going. It's like, this is from a first principle thinking this is possible in energy in the future. This is possible education and health care, and we can uplift every man, woman and child.

No question. No question. I'd say to those people also, especially the ones who've built some resources. It's like, where else are you gonna go? I got to a point, I can remember maybe 10 years ago where it's like, if I wasn't doing this for My passion. What would I be doing this for? I've outdone everything I ever dreamed of. And there's no thing that I want, you know, planes, automobiles, and none of that drove me anyway. Impact is what's driven me. So, like, okay, well, I'm gonna reach millions more people. How do I make that game bigger? And that's when I started setting these goals. Okay, I'm gonna feed them billion people. That is a worthy goal. On top of all the hundreds of millions or billion people I've had a chance to touch in other ways, let me provide food to them. And then I remember I was in India and I saw these kids dying of waterborne diseases. So easy to solve. And so now I provide water for a quarter of a million people a day in India. And I got the goal to go to a million. Then, you know, I was fortunate enough to get my own plane. I was like, I'm conscious about what that means. It's like, okay, how many trees is that? That's 5,000 trees a year. So I planted some 71 million trees on my goal to 100 million trees already. But not just trees. Building farmland and showing people in Africa how to create these forests, these areas where they now have a new crop every month instead of once a year. How do they go from $1.25 a day to $12? It doesn't sound like much, but they're rich in their community and they're not trying to cross the desert and dying. And when one crop doesn't work, they're still there. You know, it's like. So I go, okay, air, water, food. Okay, how about freedom? How about all these kids right now? The slave trade is the largest it's ever been in human history. Nobody wants to talk about it. So ugly. It's the fastest growing crime because they get to use it over and over again. They don't have to send a new drug. They use that child over and over again. It's insane. So, okay, now we got 28,000 children on the way to 50,000 children want to free. It's bigger than the city I grew up in. That was the target. But these goals, you know, I want to create a community. Where do people gonna live? I work with a 3D company. We built 100 homes in Mexico. People there showing a lifestyle and showing all these NGOs, what's possible, how fast you can build a home in a day. So all the things that I've been doing here, from the planting of the trees to the food, to helping people on the health side, they give me more juice than my businesses did. And then that gave me more reasons. I mean, I donate more now, today than I would have dreamed of even earning at one stage. And it gives me the reason to make the business, business even more successful. The companies I'm in, as well as look for businesses where I can have the highest and largest impact possible. But you got to find the buttons that are going to get you, and you got to discover what it is. And when you get around something, like I said earlier, something will strike you. But if you stay in the same box, doing your business the same way every day, around the same kind of people, the same kind of thinking, you might do well. But are you going to be fulfilled? Are you going to be driven? Are you going to be excited? Are you going to have a sense of meaning? You need to find something big enough and bold enough, as you have done, Peter and I have done, and the people we love have done. That really will get you to maximize who you are, because in the end, the only thing we get to keep is what we've given.

This is the juice I wanted for people to hear. Right. Because it really is inspiring them to pursue that life of meaning, to. To make a bigger impact on the planet, to use whatever skills or treasures or tools they have to go and do that. Because you have a choice where you invest or your time. All of us have today the same 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, how many days in our lifetime. It's how we spend that time that we can choose and make a difference in. And we have the ability more than ever before to impact the world's biggest problems, uplift individuals. Whether you're doing it directly or you're doing it by the company you choose to work for or where you. You donate your money. And I think that sense of impact, there's nothing more important. Now the question is, what percentage of people are living that life of meaning.

And impact, do you think, without guessing a number and making it up? A very small percentage, unfortunately. Right. But I think it's a larger number at different stages. I think right now there are so many people that have gotten to learn helplessness, you know, where after a while, when you teach, you know, you take that little elephant, you know the metaphor, it's a little baby elephant, and they tie a rope around it and they drive it in the ground and it tugs and it can't pull it now. It's a big elephant. It could take the whole damn tent down. It doesn't even try. I think the COVID experience has conditioned a lot of people to accept a life far less than what they desire or deserve. But I also know there are other people that are gonna lead the way and show what's possible. And that's how life changes. You know, how do we go from no one ever running a four minute mile to Roger Bannister doing it and 46 days later another guy does it. And now there's over 200 people have done it. Because when somebody shows what's possible, that's what drives the species to find the people that are hungry enough to say, if that's possible for them, I can do it too, or I can do even more. And I think that's the secret to human progress. And by the way, if people listening, if we were to summarize the whole thing, in the end, what do you want to have? You want to have a meaningful life? You want a life that feels really joyful, happy? Where does happiness come from? Progress. Progress equals happiness. I don't give a shit where you are. If you're not where you want to be physically and you just start working out and you lose a few pounds and you start feeling better, you're going to feel alive. If your relationship isn't where it was, you attack it. You're going to feel more alive if you're doing it around your finances. Whatever we do, progress is everything. And think about it. When people achieve their goal, whatever the goal is, no matter how big it is, they feel great. For how long? Six months, a year, five years? I don't think so. Most people somewhere between six hours and six weeks and then they're on to the next thing. And the reason is because we're made to keep growing. If we don't grow, we don't feel alive. And that's what progress is. When you grow, you have something to give. When you have something to give, your life becomes meaningful.

Along that line, Tony, a gratitude mindset, you know, I think for entrepreneurs in particular, having a gratitude mindset is one of the things that allows them to play at the level they play consistently. Because they're going to be hitting the floor a lot of times.

I think you need a daily practice. First of all, you gotta see why, because it can sound so positive, thinky. But if you really, if you look at all the studies, what are the two emotions that destroy most people's lives? Their businesses, their relationships, their happiness. You know, what is it? It's anger and it's fear. And anger and fear have an antidote. And the antidote is really simple. It's called gratitude. When you're. You can't be grateful and angry simultaneously. That's the beauty. You can't be fearful and grateful simultaneously. So I think people need a daily practice. And I do too. And there are all kinds of ones. Mine, I call it priming. And in essence, what I do every single morning, the first thing I do, I go do my physical things. My cold water, my workout, exercise, and then I sit down And I do 10 minutes. And I do it as 10 minutes. Because if, you know, if I said 20, you might say, you don't have time. But if you don't have 10 minutes, if you don't have 10 minutes for your life, you don't have a wife, right? So it's like most people can do 10 minutes. And a lot of times it goes more than that because it feels good. But what I'm doing is I focus on this step. I first make a radical change in your body to get yourself out of the place you're in. I'll do like Breath of Fire. Thirty of those breaths, in through the nose, out through the nose, explosively, right? And you do that over and over. Like I do three sets of 30. Now my body's changed, I just do three things. Three minutes on what I'm grateful for, a minute each on three specific memories. Something in my life that's happening today or has happened, and I see it, feel it, and I step in like I'm there. Like not remembering being on a roller coaster over there. Like remembering going over the front as you're dropping down. You know, being in the experience, that's what makes it associated and connected. And it changes your biochemistry. And when you stack three of them, it'll actually change your heart and brain rhythms. Has been proven by a variety of studies, Right. You'll literally see them working together. You get in this oneness kind of state. And then I do just three minutes of what would be like a prayer or a blessing for the best of me to be used that day. And then sending that blessing from my heart into all those I love, starting with my children, my family, my friends, my co workers, all the way out to people I'm gonna serve. And while that may sound airy fairy, there's been plenty of research shown that when you go into a state of compassion or love for others, including strangers, it rewires your brain in a different way. And then the last three minutes, I do what I call free to thrive. I spend a minute each and think of something I really want to achieve, but I don't think about wanting to achieve it. I see it as done, complete and celebratory in my body, like it's actually happened. Convincing my brain that it's already there and I'm done. And in 10 minutes, I have primed my brain for an extraordinary day. If you don't prime it, it's gonna be primed by the news. It's gonna be primed by what somebody tells you. It's gonna be primed by the first challenge put in front of you. So I think using gratitude as a daily practice is really critical. If people wanna, they can go to tonyrobbins.com priming it's free. There's a video that will guide you through it if you want to do it. Or you can just do your own version of it.

Yeah, And I've done it a dozen times at all of your events, which I commend to everybody. They're extraordinary, especially Date with Destiny, which has changed my life decade after decade. Buddy. I want to turn to a final conversation around moonshots. And I define a moonshot as going 10 times bigger compared to when the rest of the world is going 10% bigger.

And.

And you are an individual who has taken a number of moonshots over and over and over again. Obviously, what you're doing in feeding. What's the target now? 100 billion.

100 billion? Because I'm 100 billion right now. Yeah. 100 billion.

Yeah. It's not 10x, it's 100x. The psychology of allowing yourself to let go of the past, of what is rationally doable, and going for something insane is super hard for people to do. And it's, you know, at the end of the day, the day before something is truly a breakthrough. It's a crazy idea. And most of us don't embrace crazy ideas. Institutions don't embrace crazy ideas. Corporations, governments, and so forth. It's really that individual who's got this vision of what YouTube or Airbnb or Uber or SpaceX or Tesla or whatever. These companies, they're crazy ideas until they're made to happen. And. And we have a large number of entrepreneurs going after moonshots.

I'd like to tell you what I think gets in the way. I call it the tyranny of how. You gotta avoid the tyranny of how. When Martin Luther King or John F. Kennedy, use either example, John F. Kennedy goes out and says in front of the American people, we are gonna put a man on the moon and return him to Earth safely in this decade. And the people of NASA are like, what the f. There's no way. So what did he do? He knew what he needed to do as the leader of this country, and he knew why. The why was the Russians were beating us in space, nuclear power was happening, and it was concerned about their ability to destroy us. This was not like, I think we should do this. It's like we have to surpass them in our technology to protect this nation and continue to lead. And so when he put those irons in the fire, everybody said it couldn't be done, but it did. When Martin Luther King got up and said, I have a dream, and he shared that dream, he didn't have any clue how. In fact, the how wasn't clear. And while we're still improving in that area, you know, we've had President of the United States for eight years, was African American. That was unheard of, unthought of. It couldn't have happened without his dream first. So it's like what I tell people is when you set a goal and it's really big and what happens? Immediately your brain goes like, I'm gonna do this. And then your brain goes, who are you kidding? Cuz it goes into the how. I don't know how to do this. I've never done it before. And whenever you've not done something before, you have no certainty. When you have no certainty, that produces uncertainty, which leads to fear. The fear I'm not enough, Fear I won't pull it off. Fear I'm going to fail. And fear is the enemy. Fear is the only enemy here. So how do you deal with that? You first get so strong on the what and why. What is it I really want and why do I want it? With enough reasons. I always tell people, reasons come first, answers come second. If you have strong enough reasons why to do something, you know exactly what you want and the target is exciting enough, you're going to go there. So the guys at Airbnb did not have a vision for where they were when they started. You know, they were just trying to pay their bills. That's what they wanted people to understand. They didn't have enough money, so they put mattresses on the ground and there was a conference in town. They were trying to sell it. You know, it looked like a failure of a business for the first five years, but, you know, here we are, 10, 12 years later, and it's unbelievable. So when I first started setting some goals, I can remember I was Sometimes just putting wine in the sand. I was at a. At a grade school in Houston, Texas, 30 years ago. I was 30 years old. And I'll never forget, they asked me to come and speak to these kids, to inspire them. And then they put on this little mini program for me for each grade about how they'd applied my technology. For the first graders, second graders, third graders. It was moving at the end, I got up and I said, they told me to come here to motivate you, and I'm not a motivator anyway. I said, I'm more a strategist. But I said, you motivated me. And I was. I was like, I tell you what, I don't want this to end. You sixth graders, you're going off. You only had one year, but the rest of you got many years of this ahead of you. I said, I'm gonna arrange to pay for all of your college educations as long as you do a couple things. I did this on the spot. I just remembered seeing this guy in. Where was it in Harlem who decided to pay for the college educations of these kids. But I said, you know, but I don't have a college education. But I think it's invaluable for you to have the experience of it. But in order to get it, there's a couple standards. You have to keep a B average, and I'll help you get mentoring, and you gotta give me 25 hours of community service. Now, these were kids from the lowest of low incomes, single families, mostly African American, Hispanic. And I remember the people, the kids didn't. They cheered, but they didn't know what the hell it was. The school system thought I was proselytizing. I was some, you know, some cult that was doing it, wasn't doing it. I wrote, I signed contracts for this. This was an amount of money back then that was beyond what I thought I knew how to do. Wow. I knew what and why, and I did it. And I coached those kids. They're called my champions of excellence. And, you know, guess what? Now they're done. Lawyers and teachers and. I mean, they've got kids and children. This is, you know, gone on for 30 years. Now they're at a different stage of life. But same thing with feeding. It's like, okay, I started with two families, then four, then eight, then got to a million. Then when I came up with this idea, I remember, it's like, okay, I found out how many people I fed in My lifetime was 42 million. Like, what if I fed 50 million people over the next five years, that took me a whole lifetime. It's like, what If I met 50 million people in a year? Holy shit. What if I met 100 million people in a year? What if I did 100 million meals for 10 straight years? A billion meals. The level of excitement of that, the energy of that, the focus of that and the why, the impact, the lives, the people got so big I didn't even know how. I was just like, I'm gonna do this. Then I started to figure out the how, what's the numbers and so forth. But I left the other be so large before the how showed up. If you bring how into the early stage of the conversation, it will kill your dream, it'll kill your goal, because you don't know how. In the beginning, how will be revealed. If you will put your ass on the line and have strong enough reasons, the how will be revealed and revealed often in multiple steps. So now I'm closing in. I'm at 945 million meals and I'm like, whenever you have a goal, as you're approaching the end, don't wait to the end before you set the next one. Because it's a game to make you keep growing. It's like the purpose of goal is not to get the goal. The purpose is what it makes of you as a human being.

I love that. There's a great Joseph Campbell quote that hits it. It goes. A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation. As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm jump. It is not as wide as you think.

That's cool. I really love that and I think it's true. But you gotta put yourself in the line. You gotta give up the how initially. Then you put your head in the the how once the what and why is so compelling. And you bring some other people on with you who also now see that vision. And that's how you build something that matters. And that's, that's what you've done your whole life. Peter, you're a perfect example of living truthfully, buddy.

Thank you. Thank you, brother. I love you too. You know, most many people may not know that you in your theme of helping to feed the world, you co funded one of our X prizes, feeding the next billion along with the royal family out of Abu Dhabi. And the goal there is reinventing how we produce food, right? Instead of we have one third of the non ice land mass of the planet that is used for livestock. I mean billions of pigs Chicken, fish. It's insane. And as we're raising the level of standards of living for the world, we can't afford to produce more high quality protein that way. So we've asked teams to create, in this case, chicken and fish from stem cell grown meats or vegetable equivalents. And incredible response there. I have a question and that prize, hopefully we'll see the semifinals very shortly, in the finals within the next year and we'll reinvent the food delivery program so food can be delivered in downtown Nairobi or Detroit or Chicago or whatever the case might be. One of the food miles which costs a significant percentage of the cost of food. What other place in the world or challenge if you were going to, if I was going to say, Tony, I've got full funding, an entire prize ready to go for whatever topic you want. What's another place that you would like, love to see entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists around the world focus on solving what's another grand challenge out there?

To me, I think I helped fund one of those and we made great progress on it. But I want to see it at a different level and that's education. Because when it comes down to it, if we can provide the food and the water and the basic safety and so forth, then it really comes to people being able to create the future themselves. And I think in order to do that, in the world that we're in right now, the Internet is worthless if you can't read and write and do basic things, arithmetic. And as you know, we're still in a world where, you know, 250 million adults are illiterate. I mean, we're, you know, quarter of a billion, and we're gonna bring on what, another couple billion, three billion people on the Internet soon. So I know we've done that initial prize and we've got some technology in that area, but I'd love to see that also tied with something that ties to emotional fitness. Not so much emotional intelligence. You know, emotional intelligence. Intelligence is a, is a capability, right? You know, like you can be a smart person and not act very smart. Right?

We've seen that.

You know, when I think about fitness, I think it's a state of readiness. Like, you know, you can know what to do and not do what, you know, you gotta bring it up, you gotta make it active in your nervous system. And I, you know, one of the reasons I did the project I did with Stanford where they did that study on us, which is produced in the Journal of Psychiatry, is that, you know, right now we have an epidemic of depression in the world. I mean, it's insane how bad it is and how much we are dependent upon these drugs and that people self medicate in so many ways today, whether it's using Prozac or Zoloft or it's cocaine or whatever it is that they take, meth or cigarettes or some distraction. I think we're living in a world where we've been trained to do that. And the studies show how terrible it is. I mean, the guys from Stanford showed me, the meta studies show that only 40% of the people that take these drugs and go through therapy get better at all. And the average improvement is 50%, which means they're half as depressed as they were. Now, some people get totally well, but it's a small percentage. And so there was a study done about three years ago, Johns Hopkins, where they used, you know, psilocybin as an active psycho drug, psychographic drug, and they gave them cognitive therapy for a month and they got results they'd never seen. 53% of the people 30 days later were not depressed. Well, they decided to use that same study, duplicate it with the same control group and do My Date with Destiny. Because they had two people from Stanford that were clinically depressed and came back and they weren't. They said, we don't have any data on this. So they did the study and it was so profound, they didn't believe it. And so to cover themselves, they sent the information out two different organizations, double blind. 30 days later, 100% of the people. This is no exaggeration. It's in the Journal of Psychiatry, double blind studies. 100% of the people had no depression symptoms. 19% had suicidal ideation before they came in. None had suicidal ideation after just six days. All we did in those six days is train people to develop a way of looking at life, a philosophy of life, a set of strategies, a set of beliefs and values that would allow them to deal with the issues that are around them. It's kind of like you wouldn't take a standard car on, you know, a desert 1,000, you're going 1,000 miles in the desert, or one of those ones through Saudi Arabia where they're out in the desert and they, you have to have a special piping, special tires. We need to reengineer our psychology for the modern world where change happens at a whole different level. So I'd love to see that education not just be how to learn, but also how to enjoy a life that is meaningful, which includes contribution at its base and a Way to find the good and what's going on. Because what's wrong is always available. It always has been, it always will be.

And it's getting easier. And it's getting easier. Easier to be available. There are two things here. One is when you and I went to elementary school, whatever it was 50 years ago to today, very little has changed. It really is pathetic that so little has changed in that. And your daughter is going to be getting ready to go into that cycle in the decade ahead. And I think about this with my 211 year olds that I just find what they're teaching and how they're teaching and they go to the best school here in Santa Monica, as far as I'm concerned, is still. It is a travesty that we've not reinvented the educational process.

I agree 100%. 100%. And I think there are people working on it. But it's like why aren't we using the best teachers? I know, you know, there's a couple of models like this already being tested. Use the best possible teachers and then the time that they're doing at school is where they're being helped. That's where their homework is. The lesson could be at home, they're watching and taking notes and doing those things now, not now yet because we still don't have full enough Internet and so forth. But the direction is why would I average teachers or weak teachers to teach me when I can get the very best on earth to teach my son or daughter? And you know, in my daughter's case, you know, I'm fortunate enough to done well enough in life and business, help enough other people that have got the economics to say no, she will be homeschooled and she'll have the best teachers on earth because they're available. And I think that's the direction things are going. And also the cost is absurd. The government, especially this, I'm not being political. But to give a trillion dollars away to a small number of people that are professionals and when all the people that didn't go to school because they couldn't get the money or have it, you know, to have a plumber being paid for or taxi gap driver being able to pay for someone who's getting an advanced degree or a degree that doesn't mean squat and mention all the people like you and I who went to school and paid for the school and did it on their own, I mean this is absurd. But that's why we have the problem. We do. Cuz they know it's being guaranteed by the government. I mean, when a country, you know, one of your beautiful Schools, has a $53 billion basically annuity, they're really just.

Schools insane.

With private equity attached to it. You know, that's what they are.

No, I know, but this is. When I go back to the issue of billionaires giving away their money, it's like, really, does Harvard need another billion dollars? I mean, honestly, do they really need that extra billion dollars?

Or Stanford? They're all great schools, but the truth is they are not. They're not putting students out there that are being productive in the world. Let them reimburse these students instead of the plumber or the electrician.

So you hit a couple of points. I want to come back to you. The point you made about is called the flipped classroom. We had the Khan Academy where you at home at night, you learn about trigonometry or about history. And then in school it's a conversation and doing the work with a teacher there. And it really is. And we're seeing open classrooms around the world from the top universities and the other side, we talked about the notion that human level AI is coming, the notion of how do we enable AI to be the best educator. And by the way, the cost of that is effectively going to be zero, just like Google is, right? It's the cost of electricity. Now you and I have talked about creating AI versions of ourselves and you've invested in a couple of platforms looking at that. And we should catch up because I've got a new company I want to share with you that's going to digitize me and should do the same for you. But the idea of having the knowledge that you've, you know, taking what you did with Date with Destiny and how many people are typically in date with destiny with you?

10,000.

10,000.

And now we do it, we do it digitally now. So we used to do 5,000, but now people can participate from the homes around the world. So we double.

And people get a huge amount by just being in the conversation and doing the work. And I commend it to anybody. You have to go through this. It is a life changing experience on so many fundamental levels. It's interesting. I thought about how much I wish I had done it when I was 20, let alone 30 or 40. But if you're 50 or 60 or 70, when's the best time to do it? Tomorrow, in this next cycle. But the ability to digitize yourself and the best leaders, educators, coaches, therapists, whatever it might be on the planet and making it available to an individual has the potential. I mean, when we talk about mental illness and people who need help, it's this technology that I think has the biggest potential impact.

I agree 100%. I've made several investments in. And I'm right now in negotiation with another company. So I'd love to. To hear when you're talking about. But the ability to really true, true AI of true interactivity. And it's not just me. I mean I can do that for individuals, adults. But instead of me working with eighty thousand, a hundred thousand, a million people as a group, being able to individually 24 hours a day, 365 be there for them and screw me, have you have Ray Dalio, have all the different great leaders in the world be the teachers for people. That's where education is going to go and it's going to drop the price through the floor. We're still going to want to have the experience of being together in some locations and doing things together. But I think it's going to be a mix of these things and I think it's going to change things. Right now it's the worst investment you can make for most people. I mean there's. For some people, it's great. Depends on what you get educated in, obviously.

And what the quality take the time, let alone the money you would have spent and go and do an internship with somebody, go and be an apprentice. You know, I have a number of people who are my strongest Strike Force members who intern with me and they're in everything, in every conversation, you know, a number of them. And it's like there's no, it's, it's, it's ridiculous. Current college education, we. And we have to differentiate between learning and socialization.

Exactly. I'm saying the socialization you're still going to want to do and are going to shared experiences and so forth. But I just think it can be done so much more efficiently and this is not sustainable. And you know, we can't just keep quote. You're not forgiving a trillion dollars or half a trillion dollars. You're making other people pay for it. I mean, how can you possibly justify that except to try to get votes? I mean, it's a political move. It's not a move that's based on what's right for society. And those things are, they're piling up. That's why we have the economic challenges we have. We're a little bit like Rome right now. You know, you study Rome and Rome just got to a point where they couldn't sustain financially what they built. We're getting close to that. If we don't turn things around.

And anyone who's listening, who has energy around some of these challenges, whether it's in health or education, consider that's where there are incredible businesses to be built. We're going to reinvent the entire education system and healthcare system is going to be disrupted. Those are the two biggest systems. Finance is there too. Government not far behind that are going to collapse and be reinvented. And so the question is, do you have a vision of what that was, would look like, how you can uplift and help people? We're going to demonetize, democratize, dematerialize schools. It's going to be in AI, it's going to be in the metaverse, it's going to be personalized where I get the education the way I want the education. Do I want it visually, auditorially, experientially. It's going to be meet my needs. You know, it's going to be a classroom of one where the AI knows whether I learned anything or I didn't, did it hit me or did it miss me, instead of a classroom where half are bored and half are lost.

But in the meantime, while you're waiting for that beautiful future that's being built, make sure you take control of your kid's education right now. Make sure you don't just shift that off to somebody else. There's a few things in life that you want coaching from others on, but you need to make the final decision. If it comes down to how your children are going to be raised or their education, if it's coming down to your health, if it's coming down to your finances or what you're going to believe spiritually, these are areas that good to get coaching, but you have to decide because if someone else is sincere, but they're sincerely wrong, it's gonna destroy your life, whether it be health or whether it be relationships or whether it be your children. So there's plenty of great tools available right now. And because you know I'm now with a 17 month old, right, My daughter, it's like I'm immersing myself in all these different forms of education. The things that are appropriate for her now and the things that are coming, they're available so we don't have to wait for this beautiful, compelling future and we can all participate in creating it as well. But I'd say don't stop right now just because you're busy. Make sure you get those things in that matter most to those you love most.

Brother, thank you for spending Labor Day with me.

Seems totally appropriate.

Give my love to Sage and family. And thank you for all that you do. Thank you. I don't think people realize the extraordinary scope with which you bring meaning to not just your life, but so many people around the planet. It's a pleasure to call you a brother and a friend.

Thank you, Peter. I always love our time together. Give your little boys a big hug. Your lady, too. And I'll see you soon, brother.

Take care.

Bye. Bye.