Tony Robbins’ SECRET to Overcoming Fear & Reaching Your DREAMS

He's the world's most famous performance coach. He's advised everyone from Bill Clinton to Serena Williams, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Oprah. His live arena events sell out months in advance. Mentor me, Tony.

I'd say the common thread of anybody that I work with that's successful— financial, athletes, people in politics— it's hunger. You know, you and I both know intelligence is a pretty damn valuable tool, but there are a lot of very smart people who can't fight their way out of a paper bag. And then when you find somebody who has that hunger, the hunger that doesn't go away, that hunger to be more, to do more, to give more, that hunger that never ends, you know, that's how you get these people that are the best in the world at whatever they do. And so if you can, I think everybody has that hunger, but for some people it's been asleep for a long time because they're afraid. They're afraid that I'm gonna get hungry, I'm gonna try, I'm gonna fail. And so it's human nature to protect yourself from the fear by just lowering your expectations. But one of the things I've learned is you get what you tolerate. You get what you tolerate in yourself, you get what you tolerate in your life. And sooner or later, we sometimes hit a point where we say, not another day, not another hour, this is done. I'm not walking this way, I'm not talking this way, I'm not living this way, I'm not gonna be in this relationship anymore, I'm gonna change it. And when people do that, that's the beginning of a breakthrough. Failure is part of life. I mean, the difference for me though is I look at failure as a stepping stone to success. It's a speed bump. I know I'm gonna fail, but it's not failure if you learn something. And so, gosh, I've made so many mistakes, I've screwed so many things up, but every time I do, it just becomes it becomes a way for me to explain to someone else what it takes. You know, it's like, here's what I've done. I think I have the ability to influence people because I talk about my failures. I talk about all the things that mess me up, but I show people that I didn't let it stop me, and you don't need to let it stop you. And I think that's really the secret in that area. And if everything you touched was successful, you probably wouldn't be able to relate to people as much. No, you wouldn't be able to relate, and also it'd be total bullshit, and everyone would know it's bullshit. And also you'd be bored silly. I mean, think about it. If you just said, I want this to happen, I want this to happen, You know, people don't value what they don't fight for. You know, it's like you see kids sometimes, you know, your parents will say, "You're not gonna value this if you don't work for it." And you're a kid going, "I'll value it, just give it to me." But it's true. You know, the things we've worked the hardest for, we value the most. So I think, you know, the purpose of a goal is not getting it anyway. The purpose of the goal, you know, is who you become. Who you become is gonna make you happy or it's gonna make you sad. So, I'm not looking for an effortless approach. There's no such thing. So Tony, uh, one of the critics actually that I once met said, yeah, Tony's techniques, they were great for about a year and a half and then they wore off. What do you say to that? It's real simple. If you don't work out, you don't get a— you don't get a muscle, right? So I always tell people, this is— there's a daily practice, like priming. If you don't do that, if you get up and you just have no discipline whatsoever, you get no value of anything. And diets don't work when you don't do them. Exercise doesn't work when you don't do them. But Most of the people have some experiences that they want to shift, and once you shift those things, your whole life changes. But life is constant growth. My life isn't here because I went to one seminar one time and now my life is fit for life. I work out, I train my mind, I train my body, and it becomes a lifestyle. It's not just like you're depending upon somebody else. I'm not here to become somebody's guru. I'm not here to give them a gift. I'm here for them to open up their own gifts, and that's really what my work has been. Well, I think the best performers are focused on outcomes and not activities. If you try to manage your to-do list in the world we live in today where most of us have multiple roles, we're trying to be a great business person, a great husband or wife, great father, great community member, whatever. There's just so many roles, you can never get all your to-dos done. And what helped me in my life was I started at one point saying, I'm not gonna let myself fail every day. I'm not gonna get a to-do list and I'm not gonna not write a list so that I don't fail. I need to focus on what matters most. I needed to start, organize my life into categories where I say these are the most important outcomes, And then I know why I'm going to do it. If you know what you really want, the target, and you know why, you have the focus and you have the fuel, then how to get there, there's so many ways to get there.

Where would you start from if you should start today in 2013 to launch a successful business?

Well, I think any business, doesn't matter if you're coming from the moon or you've been here forever or not been here at all, you have to find— you can't just come up with an innovation. People say, well, you know, innovation is the key. I know that all businesses You know, Deming talked about this. So many different teachers have talked about it. It's all marketing and innovation. Drucker, Drucker used to say, "All business is, is marketing innovation." Well, what is that? Innovation is finding a better way to meet people's needs than anybody else does. And it's not enough just to innovate. You gotta keep innovating. Apple's a perfect example. You know, it's the most successful company in the world, but the leader was such an innovator. He drove an innovation culture that right now they're in a little bit of a lull. Now, most of us are hoping that they're gonna turn that corner, but they're, They're still doing great products, but they're not real breakthroughs. They're giving us some of the same stuff, but they aren't making it unique enough. And then the second part of a business is marketing, which is getting people to want to do business with you. Well, today we live in a world where, you know, it used to be that you could put out, the average person would watch advertisements, and after 4 ads on average, at least in America, I don't know what it is in Europe, if they were gonna buy, they would take some initial buying action. Now it takes 16 exposures. So the cost has gone crazy. So how do you break through that? The only way to break through that, some people do it by spending so much money and creating crazy ads that make you pay attention because they're so funny or bizarre or raw, but a lot of those ads, you don't buy their product, you laugh. You know the company, but you don't buy their product. 'Cause it's not necessarily bringing you in. The other way a small business can do it is you've gotta figure an innovation that meets a need that's missing. Right? It's not enough just to have innovation. A lot of business owners go, "Oh, I have this great idea and I'm so excited," and they're gonna launch it, but there's not that big a need. If you're gonna build a business of scale, it has to fill a significant need in an innovative way, and then you gotta market it. Now, how do you market it? Well, the best marketing of all is having a product that meets people's needs so well that the word of mouth is off the charts. And then the second way to do it, 'cause there's no replacement for that word of mouth. And then the second way, and by the way, that's what's made my career go for 36 years, right? People saying, oh my God, not it was good, not I had a good time, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. There's nothing like it, you gotta go. And people think they're crazy until they go and get an experience. But then on the other side of it, you can also market today and have a huge advantage if you make your mentality of marketing what I call VAM, V-A-M, value-added marketing, where instead of trying to compete for eyeballs, you go find out who that client is and you find a way to meet their needs and you do things for them that really meet their needs. I don't care if it's educate them, provide them an insight, something that gives them more convenience. The actual marketing itself does that for people. And then they begin to understand you, recognize you, like you, trust you, and want to do business with you. And that's the way to do it today. Because for example, I was at Nike and they called me up and they said, you know, we want you to do a TV ad for us. And I said, look— I saw it, I saw it. Oh, you did?

Yeah.

Amazing. So my first response was, I don't do commercials, 'cause I did silly infomercials for years, 'cause it was the only way to reach people. But I don't do commercials. And they came back and they said, "But a bunch of your friends are gonna do it." And I said, "Really?" They go, "Yeah, we're gonna have Richard Branson and Serena Williams and Kanye West." Kobe Bryant. Yeah, Kobe Bryant. And I'm like, and he said, "It's gonna be about, it's gonna be you, you're gonna be the center of it. We're gonna pretend Kobe is you." And they give me this whole thing. So I called Richard and I said, "Are you really going?" He goes, "Yeah, I'm going." And Serena, "I'm really going." So we go to do this piece. You imagine how much money they spent to get all those people in one room to do this tongue-in-cheek ad that, really doesn't change, it's nothing about the product whatsoever. It's just to try to get your eyeballs and attention. So most small businesses don't have those resources. They have to make up with it with an extraordinary product that meets the needs, and they gotta make up with it by finding a way to do value-added marketing so that people say, this is someone I wanna do business with. You can blow out a Nike if you can create a direct relationship with a consumer, and you can do that today because of social media and because of the impact of social media when you serve people. Why usually do resolutions not work? Because they have nothing to do with really resolving anything. Have more to do with deciding something you'd like to have happen. When we resolve something— More a wish? It's more a wish. It's a hope. It's what I think I should do. And it's often a reaction to what we don't like. And when you really resolve something, the shift in that is real because you hear there's an identity shift. It's kind of like when people say to me, well, I've not smoked a cigarette for 10 days. And I'll say, why are you counting? So you can tell people how many days you last when you go back? Because when you're a person who's made a shift in your identity, you're not a smoker anymore. It's just, it's not a fight anymore, like trying to smoke or not smoke. You just say, "I'm not a smoker." If somebody offered you a cigarette, you wouldn't say, "What brand is it?" You'd say, "No, that's not who I am." So making that shift in identity is what makes a permanent change. Resolving something requires that you cut off any possibility of going backwards. It's burning the boats so you take the island, and most people don't do that. We're going to become emotionally fit because we have to. Necessity is there. But the thing that will give people hope is not positive thinking, it's role models. Sir John Templeton is one of my heroes. I interviewed him. Not long ago, and he just passed away, as you probably know, about a week ago. Here's a man who started with nothing. In 1939, you know, Hitler is invading, and he went out at that time and said, you know, maximum pessimism is when you can do the best. This is when you can grow. He went out and he took stocks here in the U.S. that were on the floor and got them for a dollar each, borrowed $10,000, and built the basis of a multi-billion-dollar empire. Today, even though he's passed, he has this foundation that's got a billion-and-a-half-dollar endowment. It gives away $70 million a year, and it's all because this man, when Japan after the war when— that's where he went. So when Brazil and when South America's inflation was going crazy, that's where he went. When no one went to China, that's where he went. If you go to where maximum pessimism is, you can shift it. But with your kids, they're going to have to change. They don't have a choice. And that's what's going to make us stronger. Necessity is going to make it happen. We can step up, though, by modeling. And one last thing, quickly, finding a way to get outside yourself. When things are the worst for you, there's always somebody doing worse. Two-thirds or almost a little more than half this planet lives on $2 a day. We're stronger than we think we are, and we can train ourselves to be able to take advantage of the tough times. Tough for us. The breakthrough happens by conditioning your mind every day, by feeding it a role model or story. It's putting yourself in a peak state when you follow through by getting physically strong. It's creating a little ritual of doing a little bit each day, and then you get momentum. But the most important thing of all is what we start out with: why?

Absolutely.

Why is it a must for you? It doesn't have to be you're up against the wall, but it has to be something you're hungry for, 'cause the only difference in people is hunger. And if you're not hungry, get around people that are hungry and something will hit you. As a man, I knew I was capable of more. So people can change their standard by getting around where it's better. People can change their standard by getting associated with what's true, like the bills they gotta solve, the problems they gotta do it, or they can do it because they're excited 'cause it's something new they wanna take on. Everyone's different, but they gotta find the why. And they gotta come up with some daily rituals to get them going and just do a step at a time. That's where you get momentum. Stop making the worst trade of your life. Let me tell you what that trade is. Trading time for money. Most people don't think of themselves as a financial trader, but they are. They're trading time for money. You wanna trade instead money for money. You want money to become your slave. You want money while you sleep to go to work for you. And no matter how hard you work, no matter how much you work, it's still you until you make money your slave. And so this process, step 1, You stop being consumer, you become an investor by deciding a specific number you're going to set aside, and you automate it. We show you how to do that as the first step. If you want to talk about a failure, I can remember being on stage in the Continental Center in New York City, and I had 18,000 people, which in those days would be a dream to have that many people, and you know, I want to make it like a rock concert. You won't sit for a 3-hour movie, I might as well hold you for 12 hours. I got to deliver. You can vote with your feet at any moment, so it's been a killer day, and people are out of their minds, People are so generous, they come up and hug you and love you. And that same day my company went public, I made $400 million on paper that day, so it should have been like the greatest victory emotionally, physically, financially contribution. And I went home and I was depressed. And the reason I was depressed is on stage that was me, but when I went home I was always mitigating because I was too loud, I was too this, I was too that. And I had to make that decision to say, you know, you failed miserably in this area. Someone else may be happy, but if you're not happy, you know, what is this all for?

Thank you guys so much for watching. My goal with this series is to hang around successful people and have some of their pixie magic dust rub off on you. So hopefully you learned a little bit from Tony today, and I'd love to know which of the clips was the most inspiring, most impactful, what change you're going to make as a result of watching this. Leave it in the comments below and I'll join the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Continue to believe. And I'll see you soon.

Somebody with vision and caring and who's willing to work their tail off to learn can take small risks and become incredibly successful. My assumption was somebody like, you know, Sir Richard Branson, you'd assume, you know, you see him out there taking these life risks. He risks his life, but he doesn't risk in business. I mean, if you look at Richard, I believe when he was opening up Virgin, Virgin Air. Big risk to buy these giant airplanes. But his question always is, what's the worst case and how do you protect it? And so, you know, he made a deal with, I believe, was Boeing, if I remember correctly, to see if he could give back those planes if over X amount of period of time it didn't work out. He's covering his downside. The average American isn't doing that. So I think it was— it blew my mind to see that these people are risk-takers, but it's very calculated risk. It's small risk with big rewards. That's what set them apart. So what I was saying is I have this deal with myself called priming. Every day I say, look, you've got to have 10 minutes for yourself. You don't have 10 minutes for yourself, you don't have a life. And I'm not going to hope I feel good. I just got back from 6 countries in 12 days. I was in India 2 days ago. Wow. I woke up here feeling like somebody ran me over with a truck. But you got yourself psyched up. But the way I did it is I do this process. It's 10 minutes. I put some music on. I do this massive change in my breathing so it radically changes the I feel, and then I do this 3-step process. First, I do 3 minutes of gratitude where I think of 3 things I'm really grateful for, and I associate— I don't think of it over there, I feel it. And the reason is, when you're grateful, you can't be worried. You can't be fearful. When you're grateful, you can't be angry. And anger and fear are what screw people up most in their relationships, in their life, in their business. So I wire myself. I was saying to you that most people want to be happy, but their habit is to be worried. Worried or pissed off or frustrated or stressed. And so they're— they've got a highway to stress and they got a dirt road to happiness. So I wire myself. I've got a highway to gratitude, which changes all your emotions. And then I do a 3-minute process of kind of a prayer for my family and friends. And then I do a 3-minute process of the top 3 things I want to accomplish. I see it as done and I feel it. I'm done in 10 minutes. So sometimes I go 20, but my deal is 10, so there's no excuse not to do it. You know what, I think it's a great way to kind of set the tone It does. It changes— listen, we've all had times where you snapped at somebody and you felt bad because it wasn't them, it was the state you're in, right? Well, there's no excuse for that. If you prime yourself, you set yourself up. They've done studies where they go to people and they have a man walk up to you and say, could you hold this for me? Hand you a cup of coffee. It's an actor. And then he takes it, takes them out of his pocket, then he takes it back and says thank you. 100 people they do it with iced coffee, 100 people do with hot coffee. 45 minutes later, another actor comes by and says, listen, we're doing this little test for $5. Would you read this 3 paragraphs and answer 3 questions? Most people say yes. It's a little story. The questions are about the character. What's the character like? 80% of people got iced coffee say the person is cold and mean. Wow. 81% of the people that got hot coffee say the person is warm and gentle or nice. That's how much our We can be primed by our environment. We think we're just feeling what we're feeling, but our environment— if we don't take control of our environment, it takes control of us.