You Were the Driven One. So Why Do You Feel So Lost Now? | Tony Robbins

Hello, Believe Nation.

I started the Mentor Me series to try to learn from people who've done a lot more than us, hang around them a little bit more, and hopefully some of their knowledge, wisdom, mindset, way of thinking rubs off onto us. And so today I'm doing something a little longer than usual, a little extra special. Hopefully you guys will enjoy. It's to learn from Tony Robbins and spend 8 hours, a full working day, maybe not quite a working day for you guys, but 8 hours of Tony Robbins motivation. Enjoy.

I'm very excited about the session because one of the biggest challenges for people is everybody wants a better quality of life. Everybody wants life to be greater, but almost all of us get stuck at times where something stops us, something prevents us from doing something that we really are capable of doing, whether it's turning around our body or shifting a relationship or turning around our finances, or just maybe just being happy and fulfilled at a different level. We get stuck with a belief of how we're not supposed to be, what we're not supposed to do, what people won't accept, what we're not capable of. Or maybe we get stuck in an emotional pattern of just being pissed off or frustrated or worried or sad or overwhelmed. Sometimes we get stuck, you know, not so much in anything but some, just some habits of doing things a certain way. And what a breakthrough simply is, is that moment in time where there's an opening. And the opening can come from a conversation. It can come from meeting somebody that inspires you. It can come from an insight. It can come from watching a movie and being moved emotionally at just that right moment. It usually comes because something kind of clicked inside of us. Something snapped us and made us look at life through a different filter, in a different way. And you know it's a real breakthrough because you take that little insight, that little distinction, that little moment, or maybe that little or big emotion inside of you that says, "No more. I'm gonna change this," and suddenly you do something to make your life better. You break out of the impossibility of life has to be this way or life is controlling me and you start to take back control of your life. You start to make the shift that creates the quality of life that you really deserve. Everybody experiences extreme stress at some point in their life. I don't care who we are. Something happens outside our control and it hits our life and it knocks us on our tail. It might be a health stress. It could be something with your family. It could be economic, career, It could be something emotional that happened, biochemical. There's so many things. It could be an environmental situation that had nothing to do with you. Every one of us in our lifetime are experiencing extreme stress, and these days, because of the economy and the way we respond to it, the majority of people are experiencing some form of extreme stress, at least according to polls. Stress doesn't come from the facts. Stress comes from the meaning that we give the facts. Yes, those things have happened. But the real question is, if we fight what's happened, we got a problem. We gotta decide, what are we gonna do with what's happened in our life? How are we gonna take this? How are we gonna mold this? How are we gonna turn our life around? 'Cause when you come up with a new meaning, you get a new life. So what are we gonna do in this session? Well, in this session, we're gonna take a look at something from a different perspective. We're gonna ask you this question. What is the single force that controls the quality of your life? If there was one gift our creator has given us, or the universe, whatever you believe, what is it, what is the one power that you have right now in this moment that can change everything? You have it, I have it, we all have it. It's this one singular individual power that can change anything in our life regardless of what's happened to us. And I know you know the answer. The answer is the power of choice. The one thing we have in this world is we can't control the events, but we can choose what to focus on We can choose what things mean, and we can choose what to do. Those 3 choices, those 3 decisions really control our life. It's not so much the conditions of our life that control our destiny as much as the decisions of our life. Try for a second to think about something. Think about your life and just think about, are there a few decisions— if I were to ask you 2 decisions you've made in your life, you know, that if you would have made a different decision, you would have a totally different life. I mean, it may be a life may have been better, it may have been worse, I don't know, but you would have a different life. I'm not asking you to buy into the fact that you should have known the answers. I just want you to see the power of a decision. How is your life better today because of a decision you made years ago? Not just negative ones. Think about it. Sometimes a little decision changes your whole life. Like you decide one day to go to a certain school and you go to that school or you go eat someplace and you bump into the person that becomes the love of your life. Or you meet someone and you decide as a result of that that you're gonna become a photographer or a software engineer or a business person or a doctor, a dentist, whatever. They impacted you but you made the decision, that's what I really want, that's what, that's what my life's gonna be about. And that decision has affected so much of your life. What you do, how you live your life, how you spend your time, what you earn or don't earn, you know, who you attract into your life, beliefs you have, all come from some of these little decisions. What you decide to eat from your dinner plate each night certainly determines your physical destiny, right? We all know that, at least to a certain extent. I know there's a certain amount that's genetics, but I'm talking about the stuff you and I can control. So decisions equal destiny. It's not our conditions, it's our decisions. So if we want a new life, if we want a new experience, we've got to make new choices. If you don't like the way your career is or your business is, change it. If you don't like your body, change it. You don't like your relationship, change you first, because if you change it, you'll bring you to the next one. Maybe it's time to change it too, but change yourself first. If you want to change anything in your life, you have the choice. So there is no right or wrong. I just want to make you aware in this breakthrough session that everything in our life changes the moment we make a decision. And I mean a real decision. A decision is when you cut off any other possibility and you commit to something with everything you've got and you take action. But the big decisions start with little decisions like, what am I going to focus on? Because whatever you focus on, you're going to feel. If you focus on all the things that have been done to you in your life, of course you're going to feel like hell. If you focus on all the amazing —coincidences that have happened. Things that maybe they were guided, maybe not, but things happen. And because of that, you met this person that's your best friend, your husband, your wife. Or because of that, you have this ability. Or because you were there that day, God, you missed an accident. I don't know what it is, but whatever you focus on, you're going to feel. If you focus on people don't care, and you'll look for reasons why they don't care and evidence they don't care, you'll find it everywhere. If you look for evidence that people are really good people inside, that at some level we all care about each other, You'll find it. Seek and you shall find. The secret is, have you become conscious about your decision-making? Because this breakthrough session is really, you want to change your life, make new choices. New life comes from new choices, but you got to make conscious choices. The people in this particular television special, Melissa and her husband, they really found themselves in a place where they were both making decisions, Melissa and Rick, that were unconscious. When you make decisions about what to focus on and what things mean and what to do and you're unconscious, you get pretty terrible results usually. Now we've all done this. I do it still. We all do. But if you want to change your results, you've got to become more conscious in your decision-making. So think about it. What you focus on, you will feel. Whether it's true or not. You focus on how people don't care, you're going to feel they don't care. Second decision you make is what do things mean. So you focus on something someone does and you come up with a meaning and the meaning is, No one loves me. The meaning is they're trying to take advantage of me. Depending on what meaning you come up with, and you get to choose the meaning of anything. For some people, they say this situation happened with the economy and what that means is I'm going broke. Somebody else said the situation happened with the economy, guess what? That means I'm going to work harder, I'm going to be more creative, it changed everything. Everybody else is going to quit, so we're going to dominate the marketplace. Other people to do it. Is this the end right now, or is it the beginning? See, whether it's the end of beginning is your choice. You get to decide, because once you make up a meaning, it's true. If you think that this is the end of a relationship, are you going to treat people the same way as if you think it's the beginning of a relationship? No way. In fact, I tell people, if you want to have a great relationship, think about this: treat people like you did in the beginning of the relationship, and there won't be an end. In the beginning of the relationship, when somebody says to you, "Would you take out the trash?" What do you say? "Of course, take out the trash." You're happy to do anything, right? But after about 6 months or 6 years, you go take them out the trash, you go, "What do you mean? What, do I look like your janitor? Take out your own trash." The meaning we give things is very different, and so we feel different and our life is different. In the beginning, you'll do anything for someone. Now you make up a new meaning. "Why should I have to do that for them?" Little choices like what to believe about yourself, what to believe about other people, whether this is the end or the beginning start to affect your whole life. And the third decision we make, we decide what to focus on, most of us unconsciously, we decide what things mean, and the third thing we decide is what are we gonna do? We decide to quit because it's overwhelming, we decide to get strong and focus, we decide we're gonna turn it around, we decide to wait and see, Ultimately, your destiny is determined by what you do. So for example, what do you do if somebody comes to you one day and says, you have a tumor? Again, I've had that experience. I use that as a reference point because I've had a lot of intense experiences in my life, but that was one of the more intense ones for sure. Had many, but that was very intense. You know, first, what do you focus on? You focus on it's over? Do you focus on why me? Do you give it a meaning that says, I'm going to die? What do you do? Just go through traditional therapeutic approach? Do you put yourself in the hands of someone else? Do you evaluate this? Do you get a second or third opinion? Your destiny is determined by your decisions. Now, if you're a guy like Lance Armstrong, you focus immediately on I got to find a solution. The meaning you come up with is this is the ultimate battle. What you decide to do is you're gonna exhaust every possibility. Now that doesn't guarantee you're gonna succeed, but it's interesting. When you have that kind of a mindset, it shifts you. And Lance Armstrong, I mean, he was told things like, look, you got tumors here in your brain, you got them in your lungs, right? You got obviously in testicles and you ride a bike for a living. That's pretty tough. But he made it through all of those pieces. Now am I saying because he made the right choices? I can't tell you that. There's certainly some grace in everything. I think in life there's 3 things. There's our ability to choose what we're focused on, to commit, to get a result, to put all our intention and focus into something. There's our ability to do the right things, to have the right strategy, to execute. And then there's some grace. There's what some people call luck, some people call grace. There's if you do the right things over and over again with total focus, Sometimes, you know, you get good fortune that comes your way, and you tend to have more good fortune when you're totally focused and decisive and you take lots of action than if you kind of just sit around and accept things like that you don't have a future. But the point of the matter is, this guy turned it around. What was he like after he got through this problem? After he had his breakthrough, after he faced cancer, racing against some other guy seemed like nothing by comparison. You're not much of a competitor. I faced death. And he goes on to win Tour de France after Tour de France after Tour de France, breaking every record anyone could ever imagine. What do you do, Mack, decades ago, half a century ago almost now, and someone says to you, "Go to the back of the bus," and you're African American? One woman just decided, "You know what? You can't take my dignity from me. I can only give that up, and I don't choose to give it up, and I will not go back to the bus. The answer is no." And Rosa Parks changed an entire society because that day she chose to focus on something else. She gave it a different meaning. This is not a command. You do not have control over me. And she decided to fight. And she changed the direction of a country and of many other countries. She started something. We forget that you don't have to be famous to have the ability to change at least your own personal history, to change the direction we go in our life. We have the power to choose even if you haven't before. You can finally say, "No more. I won't put up with that." within myself or from anybody else. And here's what I'm gonna do differently. That's where the breakthroughs really start to happen. Now the question is, why do some people stand their ground and make something change versus other people just kind of accept things? Why do some people make bold decisions and other people make decisions that are based on trying to hang on to what they've got? Well, that's a more complex question to answer than we might have in a few minutes in this one session, but it is one that I've spent my life studying 'Cause when you can change your decisions, you can change your life. When you can change the force that controls your decisions, you can change anything in your life. At some level, we have certain beliefs and values, but if I was gonna make it simple, I'd say there's two things that determine your choices. The first thing is the state of mind and emotion you're in at that moment. Think about it. Have you ever snapped at somebody and had nothing to do with them? It was just the state you're in, right? You were frustrated, you were pissed off about something, and in that state of mind, Whatever they said got interpreted through that state and you made up a meaning like they were an irritant or they were interrupting you. They weren't. You probably felt bad afterwards. When we get in the wrong state, we make the wrong decisions. When you get in a strong empowering state, you'll make a better decision. Learning how to direct your state is a big part of what my work is with people and it's a big part of what I do in my seminars. But the other thing that affects your decisions would be what I would call your story or your blueprint. We all have kind of a story about how our life is supposed to be. It comes from a set of life experiences, interpretations. Some people think life is all about getting theirs. Some people think life is about growing and contributing. Some people think life is about making judgments. Some people think life is about saving other people's lives. Some people think life is about being successful. Some people think God is the basis of everything, and the way to know God is is to go through life in a very specific way with a set of rules and they follow it. And that's what they believe. Whatever your story is, whatever your blueprint, your blueprint is just another way of saying whatever you believe is how your life is supposed to be, at some level we either follow that blueprint or we fight it. If we follow it or we fight it, we're gonna find that we're gonna bump into things in life where life isn't always the same as we expect it to be or think it should be. And that's when we start to experience stress. So in this session of Breakthrough, when you watch this story and you saw Melissa, you saw the conflict between what she desired most and what she feared most. I really believe life is the dance between what you desire most and fear most. That's where you find where we live our life, the dance between what you want most and what you fear most. That's, that's where all that energy is in life. So what does she want? She wants To be famous. She wants to be able to sing and have everyone hear her voice and be able to touch everyone. She wants to contribute. She wants to share her gift, and she definitely wants to be famous and successful. She needs to be closer to her children. And one of the big challenges in life is oftentimes what we want and what we need are two different things. She has five boys. They're all extremely young, as I'm sure you saw, and she has a husband. And while they're all supportive of her going on this journey, somewhere along the line, she lost that connection to what was most important. Now, is she a bad person and made bad decisions? No, good people make bad decisions when they get in lousy states, when our ego gets involved, or when we start believing our story. And here was the story she had: being a mom's important, but the bigger gift God gave me is my singing voice. And once we get seduced into a particular story and we start to believe it, it takes a hold of our life and it controls all of our choices. And then pretty soon, bad choice on top of bad choice on top of bad choice starts to affect our life. Can you relate? How many times you've made some choices that you wish like hell you would have made a different decision back then, and/or that no one ever knows the stupid decisions you've made? I know I can relate to that. So what I want to talk to you about today for this brief little session is how to break through a crisis. Crises happen, whatever type of crises you go through in your life, and I know you've had many, when we make some choices unconsciously and we get consequences. And we make them unconsciously because we're trying to get what we want. We don't really know what we value most. We don't know what we need. And we find ourselves waking up one day and going, "Why is my life this way?" It's kind of like life is always calling to us to constantly grow and improve. You know, if you're going to look at what's going to make life work, it's really simple. What makes people happy is progress. We're happy when we're progressing. If you're overweight but you leave today and you say, "You know what, this Breakthrough thing, what I got out of today for me more than anything else is, I've been stuck waiting for some magical diet, some magical exercise plan, some magical time in the future when I have more time. There is no more time. I don't need to wait for that. I'm just gonna make a decision today to get started. I don't need to go out there and go interview 20 trainers and get online. I don't need somebody to give me a perfect plan. I need just to pick up my shoes and start walking. I need to just get somebody behind me who just goes, "Run!" I don't need to wait for perfection. I'm gonna do something right now. I choose to get fit. I choose to walk. I choose to run. I choose to go join a club. I'm doing it now. A breakthrough happens the moment you make a new choice. And you don't have to wait. You can just get yourself in a new state. Maybe this tape will get you doing it. You just have to have a new thought that says, you know what? I made choices in the past. I'm overweight because I chose to eat this and this. I'm not going to eat it anymore. I'm changing now. You can change your whole life real fast with just a few choices. But if you don't make the right choices, Eventually you're gonna face a crisis. Crisis is when you made so many poor choices that sooner or later life shows up and instead of asking gently for you to change and improve, to grow, to make progress, to be happy, life, when it's a crisis, now demands change. It isn't asking anymore. We borrowed money as a society and we overspent and we talked about changing and we knew we had to change and now a crisis happens and guess what? Nobody has a choice. The game has changed. And what crisis does is it melts us down. It melts us down so that we can recast our life. We can remold ourselves. And usually on the other side, our life is greater because as we go through that crisis, we have to grow. Nobody— everybody wants change. Nobody wants to do it. Everybody, I should say, wants progress, but nobody wants to change. Everybody wants their life better, but nobody wants to do the push-ups, the running, have the economic or emotional discipline to make it happen. But if you're watching this right now and you're still with me, some part of you wants more. And I'm saying to you, choose it. And the way you're gonna choose it is really simple. If you're in that crisis, what keeps you in the crisis is probably because you're being reinforced. Most people, they overeat or they smoke or they drink or they yell at people. They keep doing it 'cause they're rewarded. Whatever gets rewarded gets reinforced. Whatever habit or behavior is reinforced becomes a habit, and then pretty soon, do it long enough, it becomes part of your personality, and pretty soon you think it's who you are, and you just keep living that way. I mean, it's easy to see this in other people, right? It's easy to see how messed up they are and how easy they could, if they just make some new choices. All you gotta do is turn on the television, some news program, some entertainment program, and you'll hear detailed descriptions about some person who is very powerful celebrity who is doing some stupid thing. Why do we see all this stuff on television? Why do we hear about every person you can imagine from Lindsay Lohan to Britney Spears to all the way back to the old days, it was Elvis or Michael Jackson or whoever it is that's in the news today in this stage of life in your country as you're watching this. It's because we want to see other people who make bad decisions so we can feel better about our own. But the reason those people don't change— Lindsay Lohan, She's got another DUI. She's putting herself at risk. She's putting other people at risk. She could kill someone. She goes to jail. It's supposed to be 90 days. But here's the consequence. It goes to 2 weeks. And before she even gets out of the jail, she makes a deal for an interview and gets paid $1 million when she gets out for the interview. What do you think the chances of her changing when her bad behavior gets her $1 million? And I don't know if she even makes that for that much time of acting at this stage. What do you think the chances are when people around her say, "It's not your fault. It's not fair. They treat you unfairly." As long as we have the decision that we're not responsible, it's not our fault, we can't change anything. We have no power. So I don't know if by the time you watch this if Lindsay will have changed, but if she did, it will be because the enablers are gone, she's taken responsibility, and she's found something she values more than attention and money for bad behavior. Now it's easy to look at that with her, but what about you and I? Where are you and I addicted to our problems? Where are you and I reinforced? So many people, when they have a big problem— listen, if things are going well, you say, "Oh, it's going so great." Your friends go, "Well, that's great." And after a while they go, "Well, easy for you." But if you got a problem, people go, "Hey, I understand," and they connect with you. Where do we get addicted to our problems? If you want to make a new choice, if you want to make a new decision today, if you want to have a breakthrough in some area of your life, You gotta give up the story that it's not your fault, and you gotta give up the attention and the love and the connection and the commiserating that comes with it with other human beings. Here's how you change. 5 simple, quick steps, and then I'm gonna give you a little tool that if you want to, you can go online and really make a change with. If you're gonna change your life, step 1, I don't care if something has happened to you, you know, somebody has spilled oil all over where you fish. It's horrific. It's disgusting how they've dealt with it, but it's happened and you've got to deal with it. Something's happened. Someone in your family's been injured. You've lost your job. I don't care what the problem is. If you're in a crisis, step number 1: see it as it is, but don't see it worse than it is. Now what do I mean by that? I don't mean be Mr. or Miss Positive Thinking. By now, if you spend any time with me, you know I'm not about that. I'm not here to tell you, "Go to that garden and chant, 'There's no weeds, there's no weeds, there's no weeds.'" Doing affirmations is not gonna change your life. You gotta go see where the weeds are and pull 'em out. My point is simple. You gotta see what the problem is, but you can't make it so horrific that you just give up. Today, this is the first generation in almost 100 years of Americans who now believe, the majority of Americans now believe that the quality of life for themselves and their kids in the future is gonna be worse than the past. They have, in other words, nothing to look forward to. 63% of the US as of today. Wow. When you start thinking there is no future, you go into what we call learned helplessness, a place where you just kind of give up. And if you get to that place of giving up, then you have no power over your life. That's when people get depressed. That's when people do crazy stupid things. That's when people want to turn to drugs or alcohol or sometimes suicide or just total frustration and anger, and their life starts to do the opposite of a breakthrough. It becomes completely stuck and in pain or in ongoing suffering. If you and I are gonna break out of that, we gotta see it as it is. We're not here to be positive thinking people. You gotta see what's really going on. But if you're overweight, you can't say to yourself, "Well, I'm big-boned." That's not why you're overweight. You're overweight because you don't work out, you eat certain things, you eat Cheetos all day long watching TV. I don't know what it is you do, but I know it's not just 'cause you're big-boned. You don't want to make it so it's outside your control or you can't change it. So see it as it is, but don't see it worse than it is so that you have no reason to try. Does that make sense? That's the first step. Step 2: Get to the real truth and deal with it. Don't just see it as it is and not worse than it is. Don't just like balance it, but now get to the truth. I mean, listen, if the truth is you've been trying to get a job for 2 years and you truly have worked every day in a particular industry, and the number of jobs in that industry have shrunk down and you really aren't getting that job, then you may have to look at the truth. The truth is you might have to retool. You might have to say, "Gosh, you know, the industry I'm in is gone." I mean, gross simplistic example, but for years vinyl records were around for 85 years. It was a gigantic industry and things came and went during the vinyl record time. So what happened? Well, there was, remember those 8-track tapes? Are you ancient enough to remember those things? Maybe you know somebody who remembers those things. These big boxes, you push them in and out. Yeah, 8-tracks came and went, vinyl records were still here. And then cassette tapes came, right? And cassette tapes were smaller and more compact and more convenient and more seemingly indestructible and they came over here and vinyl records were still selling like crazy. If you had a job in vinyl records, you kept it. But then a little thing came along called the CD. And when that happened, almost overnight you saw an entire industry that had been around almost a century was gone. If you were the guy that worked in the vinyl record factory and knew everything about it, it was the second generation, didn't matter. It was over. And now we laugh about a CD, right? Because everything in this digital world you can have instantly. Who wants to put it on a CD? Pretty rare. Still available. And vinyl records, maybe there's a small market of people that are collectors, but it's gone. My point is, if you're in the vinyl record business, you've got to tell yourself the truth. You got to see it as it is, not worse than it is, but you also got to get the truth and deal with it. You got to deal with the cards you're dealt. You're going to have to retool. You're going to have to change something. You might have to move. If you live in the Gulf, and I don't support anything that's happened there. Who could? It's unconscionable what's happened with BP. But if you live in the Gulf and you're a third-generation fisherman and you're now— you fish for oysters and they're dead, you better get to the truth. Are they going to be dead for 2 years or 10 or 20 to the best of your ability? And you might say, "I can't do anything else. I can't. I'm a third generation. This is all I know." Yes, you can. Get to the truth and deal with it. Deal with the card you're dealt with. You gotta deal with it, sure, I'm sure legally, but in the meantime, you gotta take care of your family. I'm not saying this off the cuff easy because I've been in those situations where it's impossible, it's unjust, it's wrong, but I still gotta deal with it just like you. Am I making sense? It's like, you might say, "I've lived here my whole life." You might have to move. You might have to fish someplace else. You might have to— I know you still got to deal with all the consequences, but you got to take back control of your life. There are unjust things that happen, but you got to take control. Easy for me to say. I'm not sitting in your shoes. I get that. But who hasn't experienced some form of injustice someplace? Who's not dealt with something unfair? Who's not dealt with something that wasn't meant to be unfair, but it— affected your entire life, your career, your finances, whatever. You gotta tell yourself the truth and you gotta get to those, dealing with the reality right now. The longer you wait, the longer the crisis will be. If you're having an economic crisis, gotta deal with it. Gotta downsize, right-size, do whatever it takes. And I say, okay, Tony, well, so far you're telling me don't allow myself to make it so bad I don't try, see it as is but don't make it worse than it is, and you're telling me get to the truth and deal with it. That's nice, but you know, how do I do that? Maybe the third step more than just getting the role model, maybe to be more specific, is get a vision first. Get a vision and get strong. That's what I think your third step should be. You first tell yourself the truth. Yes, see it as it is, not worse than it is. Tell yourself the truth and deal with it. But the way to deal with it is say, what am I going to go for? There's got to be a compelling future. I've got to come up with a vision for my life or a vision for my relationship. I've had terrible relationships, nothing's worked. Tell yourself the truth. I've made poor choices, or I've told myself stories and gave myself excuses, or I've not had the courage, whatever it is, get to the truth and then get yourself a vision for what you do want. 'Cause you have to have something you're gonna move towards. Does that make sense? Without a vision, people perish, it says in a very good book called The Good Book. I know there are many good books, but that's a good one to take a look at. We need something to go for. We can deal with any problem today as long as there's something that we can look for in the future that we can strive for. It'll give us the emotional and psychological fuel, the juice, to keep moving forward. So you gotta come up with a vision, and a way to do that, we'll call that step 4, get a role model. You might get the vision from a role model, you might get the vision just from coming up with a new idea, but in order to figure out how to go from where you are to where you want to be, To close the gap from where you are to where you want to be, it's best to learn by other people's experience whenever you can. So get a role model, get their strategy, and go to work. Get into action. So I'll give you an example. Years ago, when I was first starting to try to figure out how to build myself financially, I grew up at a time when just as I was starting to do well, this big recession happened. And I remember I was like 29, 30 years old, I think, and maybe 31, and I was doing okay, and then all of a sudden there were all these business challenges because we went through this severe recession back in those days. And I remember at the time everybody was downsizing and freaking out, and I thought, "You know what? I don't want to just settle for this. I want to find a way to do well. Who's done well in really tough times?" And so I started doing my homework. And in those days, you know, you didn't go out and use the internet the way you do today. You couldn't access all that information. We actually went to libraries and did research in traditional ways. I'm ancient enough to remember those days. And I started hearing about this man named Sir John Templeton, very famous man. He's a man who became a multibillionaire as an investor. He started with nothing. But what was interesting is when I started to find out about his story, because here's a guy that when he's a young man, he's called Sir John Templeton now, he was actually an American originally and he wasn't sir. He came from a very poor family. And he just decided that in his life he wanted to not only do well financially, he wanted to do so well he could help other people at any level that he wanted. And today, by the way, he's passed, but before he did, he created the Templeton Fund, and he also created a fund that now delivers money, gives money each year at the Templeton Prize to people that do good spiritual works, and it's larger than the Nobel Prize, and it continues to go on. But the guy started with nothing, and here's how he did it. Listen to me now. The reason I look for him as a role model is because he made all his money in the worst of times. He made all his money when people were going through the equivalent of the deepest recession or depression possible. His whole belief was, and this is different than almost anybody else you see around you, was pessimism was the secret to success. That what he wanted to do was make money when people were most pessimistic. 'Cause when people are optimistic, they want you to pay for their house a huge sum of money. But as they start getting more and more pessimistic, where pretty soon they think they can never— the house is the worst thing to have, they'll virtually give you the house. They'll virtually give you the business. And so he made all his money starting in World War II. When the war broke out, when Hitler invaded over in Europe, he took all the money he had and borrowed a total money of $10,000, a total amount. He bought with $10,000 every stock on the New York Stock Exchange that was $1 or less that he thought might be useful, including some companies that looked like they're gonna be bankrupt. But he did it when people were the most pessimistic. 'Cause if you recall, it looked like Hitler was gonna take over. It didn't look like we were all gonna be the winners. It looked like Hitler was gonna dominate. And when people are that scared, they would give up anything they had just to get a little bit back. And so he bought all the stock that eventually made him a multibillionaire. He became a billionaire because after things changed, after the war, just 5 years later, and the economy started to surge, everything changed for him. Where do you think he invested next after World War II? What was a country that was pummeled, that was down, the factories were basically turned into mud? Japan. You could buy things for pennies in Japan that would have cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars before, and he did. When everyone was most pessimistic, he went and did well, and then he sold when the '80s surged and when everybody thought Japan was the greatest country on earth and had the biggest businesses, he sold and made his maximum profit when people were overly optimistic. Optimistic. He did the same thing down in South America when inflation went crazy. This man spent his entire life basically having a strategy of how to succeed when everybody else was scared. I tell you that because he's a role model. What he did, how he did it, it's all in writing. It's crystal clear. You could do the same, but you won't be able to do it when you're telling yourself the sky is falling and it's over. When you see it worse than it is, you'll just give up. You won't do it if you don't tell yourself the truth is, you know what, this system isn't working. I gotta do something. I gotta change my finances. I gotta change my job. I gotta reach— if you don't tell yourself the truth and deal with the truth, the real truth, nothing's gonna happen. You won't ever even think about a guy like John Templeton if you don't have a vision that says, I don't care how the environment is, I'm gonna find a way to do well. And you won't do well unless you get a strategy based on a role model who's really done it. My whole thing is this: if anybody has something you want, They aren't lucky. They did something. If you model them, if you take similar steps, you can produce a similar result. Make sense? And finally, the fifth step. Look, if you're in a situation where you see it as is but not worse than it is, if you've told yourself the truth and you dealt the cards you're dealt with and just decided you're gonna change it and you're willing to do what's necessary, if you put yourself in a place where you got a new vision and you've gotten yourself strong, if you got a role model and you got some strategy and you got yourself into action, Step 5 is give much more than you expect to receive. Simple as that sounds, if you find a way to meet people's needs in business, in an intimate relationship, meeting your kids' needs, anybody's needs, the whole game changes. What happened here when all of a sudden, you know, Melissa finds herself coming home and all of a sudden she finds out that while she's gone, her kids now don't want to talk to her, her boys, her husband has had an affair, Well, none of that could change if she would have just said, "You know what? My whole life is over. I'm done. And oh, by the way, I've just lost my career too because while I'm busy trying to deal with my family, I didn't finish the record, so I lose my record deal. Oh, by the way, we don't have any financial stability. Now we're losing our house." If that family would have just said it's over, if Melissa or Rick either just said it's over, it would have been over. But they told themselves the truth. We got severe problems here. But they didn't make it worse than it was. They didn't say we can't turn it around. And then they got to the truth. The truth of the infidelity. The truth of her addiction to going after fame instead of being a mom. The truth that neither one of them had been really competent parents and had not given the energy to the kids that they deserved. The truth is— the truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off. You know, the truth will— it doesn't feel good. Not feeling good is sometimes where you get your drive to change things. They started looking around and said, "We don't have the skill to even manage our house, much less our finances. We gotta do something different. We gotta focus on our kids, we gotta focus on turning things around, we gotta turn our relationship around." But that wouldn't have worked unless they got a vision of starting to see, you know, it could happen. And that's what I helped them with. I helped them get to the truth. I helped them to stop over-exaggerating. I got them to a place where they got to see that this relationship could be back alive and passionate and that these kids deserve both their parents. And that she really could be a great mom and that maybe in the end she could even still have her singing career and enjoy it too. That she didn't have to give it all up. I'm really proud of her. She did it because she found a role model. She got a vision, but she got a full role model. And the man that she works with today is a man that sold, I think now, 5 million or 10 million records, and most people outside the country business don't know his name. He's her mentor now. He's made music with, you know, Willie Nelson, with just about anybody you can imagine in the business. And he's done it for all these years, but he's never left the central part of Texas 'cause that's where his family is. And Melissa's had offers to go to Sony, Sony Red. She walked away 'cause they said, "You're gonna have to do these things without your family." She found out what was most important and she made the decisions that met her needs to be a great mom. When you fight life and go, "I should be a singer and not a mom," and you got 5 kids, you got a problem. When you fight life and say, you know, the economy should be different, you're gonna be stressed. Deal with what is without exaggeration, with total honesty, dealing with the cards, coming up with a vision, finding yourself a role model that shows you a strategy, work your tail off, give, give, give, keep changing your approach, and you can get where you wanna go. Make sense? Now that might sound like a lot, so to get you started, here's what I'd like you to do for this session. Start out if you want by taking a big crisis or problem you have and going through these steps. Say, "Okay, What's really true? And let me exaggerate, let me stop the exaggeration. Let me not make it worse than it is. Just let's define what's true. Let's stop the story. Just here's what it is. We got this much financial challenge. We got this physical challenge, whatever it is. And then go to step 2. All right, let's find out the truth. Let's get the details. Let's get the details and figure out what we're gonna do. And then here's where we're gonna go. This is where we're gonna eventually get to. It might take us longer to get where we want to go, but we're gonna get here. Who's done it that we can model? That we can follow the steps in, who can coach us, and let's just work our tail off and change every day. But to give you a quick jump, sometimes when you're in the middle of crisis or crises, multiple crises, lots of things going on simultaneously, it feels a bit overwhelming. So, and you might not know a role model. You might say, "Tony, I don't know who." Well, not hard on the internet these days to find role models or come to an event. I can promise you we can show you plenty of role models. It's what I do for a living. But what you can do right away is you can model yourself. Think about it. Almost everyone alive has been through more than one tough, tough time, crisis or multi-crisis where you're having a problem financially and you're having a problem with your family and you're having a health problem all simultaneously. Those are the intense ones, right? But if you're standing still today, most of us have found a way to get through it. And if you don't, you know someone who went through a tough time, a grandmother, an aunt, an uncle, somebody. The greatest way to make that change happen when you break out of a, you know, breakthrough, you break out of a problem, you break out of a crisis, is model yourself. So we have 5 questions when you click on this link. And you can do it by video so you can see yourself and you can share it with other people or you can type in the answer. I'll tell you in advance what they are and then when I'm done here I want you to do it right away if you would. The first question is, what's been one of the toughest times in your life? What's been one of the toughest times of your life that you did get through? Maybe it was a financial situation. Maybe it was a career situation. Again, maybe it was an intimate relationship where you were crushed. You thought you could never make it through all the pain you went through there. You know, maybe it was a physical challenge, a health challenge. Maybe it was a lack of confidence or ability. I don't know what it was, but what was a just incredibly tough time that you did make it through? And you're just gonna jot it down or you can do it in the video and just tell us, 'cause You're not only going to get this answer, but we're going to create a community of people who will be role models. People that have been through hell and back saying, "Here's where I was. Here's what I got through. Here's what shifted my life. Here's what you can do." And we're creating this community as our gift to you so that this isn't just a discussion that's one way. We really, I want to do is start a conversation with you where we can help each other. So that first question is, what's a crisis? What's a challenge? What's a tough situation you eventually made through, but it really was difficult for you? Second question, you go back and you think about that situation, what pulled you through? What pulled you through that situation? What did you learn? What distinction or did you get a strategy or was it a belief or did you meet someone who helped you or was it just somehow you clicked into your faith and you kicked yourself into gear? What pulled you through those tough times? Was it a person? Was it a place? Was it an idea? Was it a distinction? Was it a belief? What was it? Share it with us. Type it down or tell us from your heart what it really was. Third question is just real quick. It's just for contrast. And the third question is, what was your life like before the crisis? Like right before all hell broke loose. Usually you'll say, "Oh, my life was so great." But when you go back and look at it, was it so great? Was it wonderful? Just out of curiosity, right before all hell broke loose, Third question is, what was your life like right before it? And then the fourth question, what'd you do? What did you do to go from where you were to where you are today? What did you do to get over that situation? What did you do to get through that situation? What did you do to turn it around? What action did you take? Who did you go learn from? What skill did you go get? What, what did you physically do? Kind of give us the description of what you did because we all want to know because you can provide us a pathway You may have been through a crisis that someone else is going through right now and they could learn from you because they could learn the shortcut. And finally, the fifth question, maybe the most important one besides what pulled you through, and the fifth one is, how is your life actually better today because you went through this crisis? Whatever the crisis was, how are you stronger or are you more compassionate because you felt that suffering, you don't want anybody else to feel it, or Are you more hopeful because you know you made it through that so you can make it through other things? Or are you in a situation where you've got a skill today that you didn't have and wouldn't have had if it wasn't for that situation that made you have to grow? Or you just happier today because you have a contrast of what life could be like, and so now you appreciate the simple moments. How are you better mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, or spiritually today because you went through the crisis? Even though you wouldn't want to go through it again, you don't want anybody else to go through it, how did it actually serve you in the end? I think if you answer these 5 questions, you don't need to remember them, I said them to kind of trigger your thinking, all you do is type in the answer or you take the instructions and click on the video and go, okay, toughest time in my life, there've been so many, but I'd say when I went through this divorce, or I'd say when I was told I had this tumor, or I'd say when they told me this company was going to go bankrupt, Or whatever it was. Second question, what pulled me through? God, I don't know. I guess a combination of things. One was this belief that somehow everything in life happens for a reason and a purpose. And even though I hate this, something must be calling me to grow. Or I'll tell you what it was. It was a friend that sat me down and said, man, you're going through hell. But when you're in the middle of hell, when you're pushing through hell, just keep pushing. Just keep going through it, man. I've been there. And he gave me this plan or he gave me this strategy or he told me, you know, this problem won't last forever. Trust me, I know it feels like the end of the world, but 10 years from now you and I will be sitting here and you'll be here with your children and you'll be here with your wife and we'll be talking about those tough days and we'll actually smile and laugh about them and be so proud we made it through it together. Or you might say, what got me through it was prayer or my faith in God or What got me through it was just massive action. You know, what pulled you through? Just tell us. We all want to hear. We all need to know. And there's lots of ways to get through hell, isn't there? There's lots of ways to get through a crisis. There's so many ways. That's what I want people to get. So when you're done with this on the website, you will give in something. Because a community is not just a place you go get stuff, right? It's a place you give. And the more authentic you can be and honest from your heart, the more other people will see and be touched. You know, what was it like before? Oh my God, I was on top of the mountain. You know, what did you do? Here's what I did. You know, I told myself the truth. I went and got this new education. I went and started talking to people each day. I— whatever you did. How's your life better today? There's a phrase, you know, be humble or be humbled. You know, I have a different level of humility because I know, you know, that as good as I may think I may be, that situation reminded me that Life is not just about me, it's about we. Or gosh, because of that, I love my wife so much because we made it through that situation together. Or because of that, man, I'm so much stronger financially, I'm on top of things, I don't let anybody spend. Whatever it is, tell us how your life's better. Okay? I don't know how long the session was. Again, there's no script here, baby. I just want to work with you heart to heart to say one thing. If you want to break through, you have to make new decisions. New choices create a new life. The only thing stopping you is some limiting belief, some belief about how life should be different, you should be different. Deal with life the way it is. Tell yourself the absolute truth. Don't make it worse than it is. Tell yourself the truth. Deal with it. Get a vision. Get strong. Get a strategy. Get a role model with a strategy and get into action and then put your focus on taking action every day. Giving, giving, giving. Change your approach. You will get there. Go to the Power of Crisis right now, click in, give us your message and the answers to the 5, and look at other people. You'll find people who've been through things you can't imagine. A woman talking about how one day she was home and a man came in and to try and save her children from being hurt, she had to let him rape her right in front of her kids. And when her father— when her husband found out, rather, he came home, he was so upset he left her. And then she developed cancer. I mean, you'll see some stories here that'll blow your mind. And today she's the most happy, incredible woman, and she's helping other people who have cancer to get She's healthy and strong. Her kids are strong. We need those kinds of role models. So whether your story is little or big, there is no little or big. We all need a pathway of power and this will be a gift to yourself because it will activate your resources. It will be a gift to other people as well. So that's our session. The power of decision, the power of choice, how to face a crisis and turn around. It may not sound like rocket science. It's not. It's just called the truth. And the truth will set you free, as they say. So live strong and live with passion. Let's talk about what nobody wants to talk about. Who here has ever failed? Who here has failed miserably at something you wanted to achieve? Say "I." Who's done this more than once? Say "I." When you failed, why did you fail? Why are you suddenly tongue-tied? Come on, tell— I tell you what. Why did you— what did you used to say the reason you failed when you were bullshitting yourself? You know I know better, so you're not telling me the truth. What did you used to say? I failed because— okay, good. I didn't have enough money. What else? Didn't have the right technology. Good, sir. Why'd you fail? I had the wrong people. They say I had the wrong leader. Isn't that interesting? It was the economy. Bad economy. Not enough time. Didn't have enough time. Now I asked this question for the first time about 7 years ago. I was at this place called TED. Anybody watching those TED videos? And TED didn't have a website or anything at that stage. It was a very small program. It was done for about 800 people in Silicon Valley, most of them billionaire investors, the founders of Yahoo, the founders of Apple, the founders of a whole series of companies. And I was brought in, and they say, "You've got 18 minutes," which my shortest seminar is 4 fucking days. So I'm like, "You've got to be kidding me." And then before they introduced me, The guy who was introducing me wasn't the guy who invited me. He was an English guy. We're good friends today, but back then he didn't know who I was. He thought I was a motivator, so he got up and he said— first thing he said to me before I went out there, he goes, "Nice to meet you. Don't have people do that jumping shit I heard you do." So he wants me to take these dead people and leave them dead in this dark room, sitting. And I watched before I got up to speak, and there was a woman who was a genius and she was teaching string theory, which is one of the most complex things on Earth, and they gave her 18 minutes, and people were shuffling their feet, and at the end, they didn't even clap for her. They were assholes. They all thought their shit didn't stink. These are all the achievers of the world. So I walk out there, and the introduction he gives me is, "Tony Robbins is like a motivator, and he's helped a lot of sports people, so maybe he can, you know, create some energy here." He had a very publicized divorce a few years ago. I couldn't fucking believe it. He really did say that. If you watch the TED video, he cut that out because he's embarrassed. So I got up afterwards and I said, "God, it's a privilege to be here." I said, "I didn't know that my divorce was very publicized, but my ex-wife is very happy. She has tens of millions of dollars, but I didn't come about that. I came to serve you." And then I was trying to figure out how to engage this room, so I asked them the question I just asked you. I said, I said, "Who here has ever failed?" And no one raised their hand in the whole fucking room. So I paused and I said, "I know you're out there. I can hear your hearts beating. Who here has ever failed?" And I demanded an answer and then a few people raised their hand. I said, "Who here has ever failed?" And now all of a sudden they started complying. So I said, "Great. When you failed, why did you fail?" And they said all the things you said. Didn't have enough time. Didn't have the right technology. Didn't have the money. Didn't have the contacts. You know, had the wrong people. The people said we had the wrong leader, right? And then this voice in the darkness, the whole room was pitch black, says, "I didn't have enough Supreme Court justices." And I look down and it's Vice President Al Gore, who you probably don't know much about American politics, but he and Bush Jr., they tied basically and had to go to our Supreme Court to decide who's gonna be it, and he lost. And when he said that, we were in Northern California, which is all Democrats, would have been supporters of his. They all stood up and gave him a standing ovation when he said this. And when they stopped the standing ovation, I said, "That's one way to try to explain why you didn't become President of the United States. But I wouldn't say it's an accurate one." And there was this pause, like, "What the fuck is he about to say?" And I said, "'Cause let's just do this logically. Everything you people have told me, 'I didn't have the technology, I didn't have the right contacts, I didn't have the time, I didn't have money.'" Everything you've told me, I didn't have enough Supreme Court justices, those are resources. And so you're telling me I failed because I didn't have the resources, and I'm here to tell you what you already know. Resources are never the problem. It's a lack of resourcefulness is why you failed. Because the ultimate resources are emotional states. If you're creative enough, can you find the answer? Yes or no? Yes. If you're determined enough, can you find the breakthrough? Yes or no? Yes. If you're passionate and loving enough, can you get someone to help you, yes or no? If there's no way that you're committed, can you find the money even if you don't have it, yes or no? So I said creativity, decisiveness, passion, honesty, sincerity, love, these are the ultimate human resources. And when you engage these resources, you can get any other resource on earth. And I said, so you told me all the resources you're missing and you hypnotize yourself into believing that you don't have what you want because you don't have the resources. When the most successful people in history had no resources, but they were incredibly resourceful, so they got the resources. Resourcefulness is the ultimate resource. And if you don't have what you want, stop telling yourself the story because you don't have the money, you don't have the time. That's bullshit. It's because you haven't committed yourself where you would burn your boats. If you want to take the fucking island, burn your fucking boats, and you will take the island. Because people, when they're going to either die or succeed, tend to succeed. But most of us give ourselves a way out, and that's why we don't have what we want. So if you and I really want to know what it's going to take to get your dream and make it real, it's to stop all the things you've told yourself that aren't. And I'm here to tell you what I said at the top of our discussion: 80% of success is psychology and 20% is mechanics. That's true of running your business, that's true of your intimate relationship, that's true of your body, that's true in your level of happiness. So you've got to know the 20% because that gives you the edge, right? Those strategies. But you gotta know the psychology. If you're in business right now, there's a few things. The chokehold, since again, how many own a business? So I'm real clear, really do own a business. You're not thinking about it, you own one. Raise your hand so I can see. Shit, most of you. I'm impressed. So if you own your business, I'll tell you right now, the chokehold on the growth of your business is you. It is not your people. It is the leader of this organization. The leader is the chokehold, and the chokehold comes in one of two forms. Your psychology. You think you've tried everything. You've tried everything but what fucking works. Who knows what I'm talking about here, right? Or it's a skill that you're missing. Like you really are incredible at writing code, but you don't know shit about accounting and finance, and it's eating your business alive. 'Cause I gotta tell you, 96% of all businesses in a 10-year period of time go under. Only 4% make it. By the way, make it doesn't mean that you succeed and have any money, it just means you're still standing. 4%. And by the way, after 10 years you're set, right? There's no more challenges. Ever heard of a company called Lehman Brothers? Right? 100-year-old company. If you took their gross revenues and added them up, it'd be a trillion dollars over the decades. A trillion with a T, and they're no longer here. That's how competitive the world is today. So if you got into business, and you're in it right now, I love you, I respect you as a brother or sister, and I know you're a crazy son of a bitch just like me. You have to be. Who gets in a sport where the longer you play, the more likely you die? You're a gladiator if you're in business. A gladiator goes out there and they know every time I go out, I can die, and the longer I stay in the game, the more likely I die, but every day they go out to win. That takes— It's an incredible psychology, but in that psychology we bump onto limits and that's what you gotta shift. And if your psychology is solid, then you gotta say, where are the skills I'm missing? 'Cause that's equally important. If you don't know how to market in the world we're in today, if you don't know the cutting edge of marketing, I'm only here today, I have the privilege to be with you here. How many of you are in this room because you listened to an audio, you read a book, or a friend? Let me separate. How many are here 'cause you read an audio, read a book, or listened to an audio and that, created the basis for you to want to be here? Wow. How many are here because somebody told you, "You gotta go see this guy"? Let me see your hands. You saw that. Let me see your hands nice and high so you can look around the room. So about 85% of the room. I created a brand and that's why I have the privilege to serve you. But that brand came because I realized early in my career I could have the best ideas in the world, but they're gonna die on my lips unless I can market them, unless I can build a brand. It is the most important thing today, 'cause the world is made up of commodities. The world is so competitive. If you're a commodity, if you're a race for the lowest price, you will be out of business within 10 years, probably more like 2 to 5. You have to have something that separates you from everybody else on Earth, and until you find out that something, you will be stressed and you will be struggling. But everybody has it, or anybody can create it. That's my expertise. My companies, I started with zero. We do more than $5 billion, with a B, per year, my companies combined. How the fuck did you do that when it's not even your focus? Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that very much. All the things I know right now, if I only knew back then. It's not getting easier. I appreciate the applause, but I'm not telling for that reason. I want you to get, I was never even out to be successful in business. I had a mission, but I realized I have to master business or that mission is gonna die. And you gotta get that too. 'Cause otherwise you're gonna be one of the many, you're gonna work your ass off and not have what you deserve. So this is an area that deserves mastery, not dabbling. And probably most of you in this room work your ass off on your business and you're still working in the business, you're not working on the business. I know you know the difference. And if you do, you're not getting distinctions that are cutting edge. One right strategy can save you 10 years. But you gotta go get it. You can't just keep doing what you're doing And then pumping yourself back up. So you gotta get the skills. Marketing is one of those skills. Selecting the right people is everything. Who's selected the wrong person and as a result it cost your business big time? Either in a partner, salesperson, something, raise your hand and say, "I." You gotta develop a system, pick the right people. You live and die by that. And we all know it's not the person that you hire that hurts you, it's the one you don't fire. So knowing how to pick the right people, knowing how to train those people, knowing what you're gonna do in sales, knowing what you're gonna do in marketing, knowing what you're gonna do in the financial side of your business is everything. You have to master these things. You can't hope and expect your business to be there. So most, how many of you have a college education in this room? Who's got a college education? Keep your hands up nice and high. How many feel like, clap like crazy if you agree, if you disagree go, eh. How many agree that your college education prepared you for life in the 21st century to give you the greatest results you could possibly get for for your body, for your mind, for your business? However, how many wouldn't have traded that experience because it had other things in it that are priceless for you? Relationships, insights, say aye. So it might be time for you to up your education. You kind of came here as a taste of that. I'm telling you because if you're in business, come see me. I'm doing a program, you can fly and see it around the world or you can see a program here in Australia, but you gotta come up in the business piece. Let me serve you. I'm not holding back today. It deserves the 5 days and nights. And oh, by the way, if you make an investment today, what kind of return are you hoping to get? You, sir. You invest in your money, what's the return you're looking for? Real. In the real world. Today. No, I'm asking you, what return do you want on a dollar investment? If you invest your money, what are you hoping to get as a return on an annual basis? What are you looking for on an annual basis? 20 to 1. And how often are you doing that? Good try. How many of you would love to get a 20% return? Think that would be extraordinary investment? Say aye. Aye. If you wanna come to an event with me, it's $10,000, that means a $2,000 return. If I can't get you a million-dollar return, you shouldn't come. If I can't get you immediately in the next year a 130% return, you don't pay anything. I'm not selling you, I'm telling you don't let this be the end, let it be the beginning. Who's with me on this? Say aye. Aye. Having said that, if I never see you again, Let me give you fundamentally the structure on how to breakthrough on anything. And here's what it is briefly. Breakthrough. What is a breakthrough, by the way, so we're clear? If you say you're having a breakthrough, who's ever had a breakthrough? You fought, you fought, and then you had a breakthrough. Who's had one of this happen before? Say, "I." A breakthrough is when there's something you struggle with for a long time, you say you're gonna change, you say you're gonna make it happen, you're gonna lose that weight, you're gonna grow your revenues, you're gonna make that profit, you're gonna make something happen, you're gonna find that relationship, You're gonna stop smoking and you start, you get right near the edge and then you pull back. Who's done this multiple times before, but then finally had a breakthrough? You broke through and actually changed it. Say, "I." So jot down what a breakthrough is and let me give you the 3 steps of it. A breakthrough is a moment in time. That's what it is. It's a moment in time. It's a moment where suddenly what was impossible becomes possible. And what makes it possible is You take immediate massive what? Immediate massive what? Action. For that to happen, for the impossible to become possible, and for you to have action that's gonna get results, really, I found over the years, any kind of breakthrough that you're gonna have requires 3 things to it. And if you never see me again and you're ever in a place where you say, "I'm sick of fighting this. I'm sick of not getting results I want. I don't wanna just learn more. I wanna breakthrough." If you remember this and go back to the simple formula, and by the way, I've made this simple purposely. You know why? Complexity is the enemy of execution. The more complex you make it, the less likely you're gonna execute. I'm so good at getting people to do things because I make it so damn simple you can't miss it. So let's do it. What's it gonna take to have a breakthrough? Before I tell you, let's have you think of an area where you once fought and you finally had a breakthrough. For you personally, what's an area where you pushed and pushed and pushed, you couldn't do it, couldn't do it, and you finally made yourself do it and broke through? How many can think of a specific area of your life where you actually did create a breakthrough? Say "I" if you can remember one. Oh, say it strong. Say "I." Say "I." What was that area? Say it out loud. What was the area? Just say it out loud. What area did you break through in? Say it out loud. What was the area? Okay? So now, you've had success before. Let's do it again. I'm gonna show you the 3 things you need for a breakthrough. Any one of the 3 can do it. All 3 of them together, you will absolutely break through. And I'm gonna give them to you in reverse order of importance, meaning I'm gonna tell you the least important thing first, 'cause it's the first thing most of you go for. It's not the most important, but it's very important. Now before I do it, I want you right now to think of an area you wanna break through right now. What's an area of your life right now that you'd like to create a breakthrough? How many can think of something you came here for? I want to change this. I want to rip this open. I want to transform this. I want to master this. Who's got an area of your life right now? Great. Sit up in your chair with some energy right now. Sit up in your chair. Make sure the people on either side of you are in a peak state right now. Come on. Get them up in a peak state. Show them what a peak state looks like by your example. Come on now. Come on now. Wake it up. Come on. Wake them up. Wake them up. Come on. Whoa! Yes! All right, right now, pick an area you want to create a breakthrough in. What's an area you want to create a breakthrough in? Money. Money. Finance. Great. What specifically do you want to create a breakthrough about money or finance? I'd like some money. I'd like some money. Here's the problem. Ask and you shall. So if she says, "I'd like some money," I could give her a dollar and go, "Okay, now you got some money. Let's move on." If you're that general, you're probably getting what you're asking for. You just don't realize it because you're too general. What's the breakthrough you want with money? To be able to travel the world. What prevents that from happening now? Money. Eee! So we now know what a real problem is. I'm going to show you what a real problem is in a moment. Somebody else, what's the breakthrough you want? What's the breakthrough? Tell me. Raise your hand. What's the breakthrough? What's the breakthrough you want, sir? What is it? To be a leader for my family. What's preventing you from being a leader for your family? My mindset. What specific mindset? What focus? I'm just not focused enough. Now I want you to listen to people's answers because you're going to see why people aren't changing because it's so general. Someone else, be honest. What's the area you want to break through in? Yes, ma'am, what do you want to break through in? She goes, "I want to break through in clarity of what I want to do with my career." What do you want to do with your career? You don't know. I know you don't know, but if you did know and had to tell me right now, what would you say? "I want to be up there talking to thousands of people." She doesn't know, and then when I say, "I know you don't know, what's the answer?" She fucking tells me the answer instantly. She just has a habit of saying, "I don't know." When you say, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know," over and over again, you tell yourself a story, you begin to believe that story. And once you believe it, it's manifest. How many of you have ever had, when you're a kid, you're eating dinner, your parent says to you, "Could you get me the salt?" And you're enjoying your meal, you don't want to get up, so you don't lie, you say, "I don't know where the salt is." It's not a lie, you don't know its exact position in this moment of time. And your parent says, "You know where it's in, it's in the kitchen." They go, "I don't know where the salt is." "You go get me the—" "I don't know." "You get me that salt right now." What do you say in your head as you walk in the kitchen? "I don't know where the salt is. I don't know where the salt is. I don't know where the salt is." You open the cabinet, really do look. "It's not here. It's on the second shelf," they tell you. You think, "I don't know where the salt is. I don't know where the salt is." You look and it's not here. They come storming in the kitchen, they reach right in front of your face and they go, "What is this?" Who's ever had one of these experiences? Say, "I." Now here's my question: did your eyes see the salt, yes or no? Yes, your eyes saw the salt, but your mind did not allow you to perceive the salt because you told yourself a story over and over again, a belief over and over again, and it didn't want to make you a liar with yourself, so you created what's called a scotoma, or a blind spot. Now if you listen to all the people here, they're all searching, so let me give you the answer. 3 keys to a breakthrough. Think of the area you want to have a breakthrough in right now. Your body, your Your money, your relationships, your career, your business, your joy, your happiness, and let's look at what your choices are. First element, there are 3 S's for a breakthrough. First element most people are looking for is they're looking for the right strategy. They're saying, "If I could find the right strategy, I could get this result right now." And by the way, my life, I am a life and business strategist. All I do virtually is seek out the world for fine strategies. I find people who've been together for 60 years and they don't just love each other, they're intimate, they're passionate, they make love. And I want to know, what do they have different than other people? And I don't think it's luck, and I know it's not luck, and I figure out what their strategies are. They do things that excite each other. And I find out what those things are and you can put them in anybody's relationship and it's reignited. I find people— I just got done doing a 4-year project where I interviewed 50 of the most wealthy human beings on Earth, the greatest investors in history. And these are all people that started with nothing and became multi-billionaires. And I interviewed them, put it inside the book, the very best of what I've learned. I learned, I got a PhD from the people that control the world economy. From the Warren Buffetts of the world. From the Ray Dalios of the world. And once I knew what their strategies are, like right now, one of the strategies I put in my book, it's called "Money Master the Game." I believe it's in Australia now. I think it's coming. Is it here yet? A few of you have seen it here. In this book, I got one of them to actually give me his strategy and this man named Ray Dalio. He's the largest hedge fund in the world. This is a guy that rich people, they have money to give to a hedge fund guy. The big hedge funds are $15 billion. Ray is $160 billion. He's 10 times larger than anyone on Earth. You have to have a billion-dollar net worth and give him $100 million 10 years ago to even begin investing with him. Now he doesn't care how much money you have, he won't take your money. And I got him to give me the strategy that he has all of his personal money, and he's never told it to anyone on Earth, And I put it in the book because I convinced him, "You're not taking anybody's money anyway, so you're not getting— all the money you could ever take, you're taking. You're giving up half your net worth. I'm going to give this to the average person." Anybody that followed the strategy last year beat the stock market. The stock market in the US was 13.2, it did 15.6. In October last year, his strategy, not mine, I just got it from him, the stock market, the Dow dropped 1,000 points in one month. It dropped 6%. This went up 0.2%. First 7 days of this year, the market was down 3%. This is up 1%. Right now, it's up 3.5%. The market's up, what, 2.25%? And in the last 75 years, it's made money 85% of the time. Imagine. And when it lost, it only lost 1.6%. And when it wins, it wins an average of 10%. If you could go to Vegas and win 85% of the time at 10%, and I lose 1.6, 15% of the time, how often would you fucking play? It's in the book. That strategy you do once a year, you rebalance it, and you're done. That's how powerful it is. And it's only not worked twice: 2008 and in 1932. And in both cases, it did twice as good as everything else, but it did lose money. Now, that's the power of a fucking strategy. But getting it from the best on earth, that's what I do. Now to do that, I spent time, energy, money, effort. It didn't interrupt me. I had to pursue it. I had to expect no answers, but I want the answer, and I got it. So I know the power of strategies if anybody else does. But I want to tell you, most of you want to lose weight, you're looking for the strategy. You want a relationship, you're looking for the strategy. You want a good business, you want your strategy. All good things. The right strategy, save you years. Save you decades. Convert results in minutes that you would have struggled for forever. So I know the value of strategies. But with all that I just said about strategies, they're not the most important piece to a breakthrough. 'Cause think about it, 70% of the United States is overweight. I don't know the current number in Australia, but it's starting to catch up to the US. Most of the world is catching up to the US. We've polluted everybody else with the same lifestyle. And so guess what? Is it really that hard to be fit and strong? Is it so complex that you'll never understand it? Is that why? Is the strategy complex for fit and strength, to be fit and strong? Yes or no? Is it like so unique and special that only the 1% can afford it? No. In fact, don't you have to work your ass off to avoid the information that can make you fit and strong? In fact, today, God forbid, if you wanted to go work out and be trained, how far would I have to leave this building to get to a place where they would train me? How far? There's one right over there, isn't there? And we'd probably drive there. God forbid we'd actually walk to the place we're gonna work out and shit, right? And oh, by the way, you don't even have to do that. Now you can take out your phone or your iPad right now and download 10 books. We live in a world where the strategies are all around you. So strategy may be your problem. Often it is. But more often you're missing the number 2 thing you need, and that is the right story. Because the story you have about your life, about your business, about The area of your life that's not where you want, the area you're breaking through, your story is what's making you be stuck. What's a story? It's a belief that you tell yourself over and over again like, "I don't know the salt, I don't know the salt." You tell the story so often you believe it. A man once said, "You tell a lie big enough, loud enough, and long enough, sooner or later people will believe you." Who said that? Hitler. And most of us are Hitler in our own minds. We convince ourselves of challenges. So when a person says, Well, you know, I've tried— Someone who hasn't lost weight, they'll say, "I've tried—" Come on, what'll they say? "I tried—" Everything? Bullshit! If you tried everything, you'd be fit and strong. "Well, I've tried thousands of ways." Thousands? Name them. "Well, I've tried hundreds." Name them. "Well, I've tried dozens." Name them. "Well, I did do these two stupid things that don't work over and over again." Mine was, "I'm big-boned." I am big-boned. But I was 38 pounds heavier with the same bones. So we often say things that are true to back things up. They are true, you're big-boned, but that is not why you're fat. Right? So the story keeps us from it. If you don't have the relationship you want, what's the story? "All the good ones are gone," and "They're gay and I'm not," or "They're not gay and I am." That's the story. The story is there. In fact, write this down: the only thing keeping you from getting what you want The only thing keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself about why you don't have it. The only thing keeping you from getting what you really want is the story you keep telling yourself about why you don't have it yet. Here's what I say: divorce your story and marry the truth. Divorce your story and marry the truth. And don't make it one of those divorces where you revisit with your old past belief system again. Divorce it, cut it off, and marry the truth. The truth will set you what? Free. But you got to develop the empowering story, 'cause without that— Now some of you think an empowering story is the one that allows you to be, keep going at what doesn't work. I'm not talking about a story where you cover your ass and explain that you're still gonna achieve what you want someday in the future, 'cause no one can argue with that, 'cause the future's not here, but really you're not doing anything to change significant. Who knows what I'm talking about here? Say, "Aye." So you've got to find a story that's going to empower you to act, a story that's going to get you to find the breakthrough, because otherwise, with a lousy story, you'll never find the strategy, or you'll come up with a reason why it's too expensive, you can't get there, you can't access it, or you'll even get the strategy and then half-ass apply it just so you can reward your story that says it doesn't work because I tried it. Like, it's all bullshit, it's bullshit, it's bullshit, it's bullshit. Jumping and doing something different in your head. Of course it's not gonna work. You're not doing it. It's self-fulfilling. How many follow this? Say, "Aye." So I want you to get this is the secret. And by the way, I don't wanna make it so strategy doesn't matter, 'cause it does. Let me give you a quick example. Is there a single guy here? Raise your hand if you're a single guy. Let me just see a quick example. Single guys here. If you're a single guy, raise your hand. So many good examples here. All right, single guys, single guys. Okay, so how about this gentleman right here? Stand up, sir. Give him a hand. Give him a hand, ladies and gentlemen. Come on, give it up in Aussie hands. All right. What's your name? What is it? Jesse. Jesse, I'm going to get you a microphone. Jesse, I bet you're going to get this because Jesse's— he's a good kid. You can feel him. So I think you're gonna get the answer, so it'd probably be anticlimactic, but let me just ask you. Jesse, I want you to imagine that you're driving in your car with a girl you're dating. Yeah. And as you're driving, she says to you, Jesse, do you need to stop to pee? And you know you don't. What do you say? Well, I don't need to pee. Like, I don't need to pee.

What a weird thing to ask.

I don't need to pee. Now, ladies, how do you feel when you ask the guy, 'Do you need to pee? Do you need to stop and get a drink?' And he just goes, 'No.' Ladies, make a sound of how that makes you feel. Make a sound. Go! Oh, come on, make it loud so he hears it. Go! One more time. Do I need to ask if she needs to pee? It's a quick study. Here's what you're missing. This is why you're single. When a woman asks, "Do you need to stop for a drink?" "Do you need to pee?" Women don't really mean what they say. They give you clues and want you to be a detective and uncover what they mean, 'cause this proves that you really care. It's quite complex, this shit, but I'm gonna educate you right now. So when she says, "Do you need to stop to pee?" Your response should never be, "No, 'cause you don't have to pee," or, "Yes, 'cause you have to pee." Your response should always be, Honey, do you need to pee? And then she'll say, I don't know, because women need to talk to see if they have to pee. They have to speak and then see if they have to do it. And then what? She'll probably pause. You go, you know, honey, I think we should stop. Don't make her say yes. You just make it happen. Now, ladies, if you did that, give him a little response. So is this man a young— is this a good young man? Is he yes or no? Is he nice? Is he sweet? Is he kind? He just doesn't fucking know that women don't mean what they say. So he doesn't have the right strategy, so she's gonna be pissed at him. How many guys have ever had a woman suddenly be pissed at you and you're going, "I did nothing!" Gentlemen, make some noise! Make some noise if it's true! You don't have to do anything. They just get to change states. So what you have to do is read the tea leaves. Now, to be fair— let's give Jesse a big hand. Give him a big hand. To be fair, let's balance it out. Where is a single lady in here? Single lady, raise your hand. Single women, raise your hand. Okay, Liz, I'm gonna give you a little test. You find a man very attractive. You're very interested in him. You develop the courage to go up to him, start a conversation. And then you say to him, "Hey, listen, would you like to have lunch maybe next Thursday?" And he says, "No." Right. Shh. What does it mean? Um, probably— Honestly, what does it mean? What does your gut say it means? First thing, he says, "No." He's not interested. He what? He's not interested. He doesn't want to have lunch with me. He's not interested. Now, he said no, and then she made up a whole fucking story in her head. This is what women do. What else do you tell you? He's not interested? What else do you think? He's probably— He's probably got a girlfriend. Got a girlfriend. Fucking gay. He's gay. Yeah, right? Gay, girlfriend. What else? He's stupid. He's stupid. Okay, now I want you to notice This is why she's single. 'Cause all he said was no. So I'm gonna help you. In the women's world, they say shit and you have to make it up what it means. In a man's world, we actually say what we fucking mean. It's fucking crazy. If a guy— guys, are you with me? If a guy says to me, do you have lunch on Thursday? And I say no, guys, What does it fucking mean? What does it mean? Just means no! It doesn't mean I'm not into you. Doesn't mean I'm having sex with someone else. Doesn't mean I'm gay. It just means no to fucking Thursday! How about Friday? Give her a hand, ladies and gentlemen! Give her a hand! [FOREIGN] Can you see how her story would get in the way of a strategy that would work? Yes or no? Can you see how his strategy, lack of understanding, would make women make up a story about him at times? Yes or no? So they all affect each other, don't they? But the glue that holds you in place is the story. If you want to grow a business, I can teach you a million strategies that'll change you overnight. And if I get you to use a strategy and grow your business 30% like that, you are going to get so excited that your story about your business will change, won't it? You're like, "I can rip this open. I'm going to make this thing 100% more profitable." That's why 80% of those people, I can grow them 30 to 130%. 'Cause once I get in that momentum, people's story changes. And when their story changes, the third and most important thing changes, their state. 'Cause that's what really changes it all. And that's why when I first came in the audience, I was listening to what you wanted, why I changed all my content today to give you what I delivered. 'Cause I realized since you want so many different things to have a breakthrough, the most important one is state. If you wanna know the difference in people's lives, it all comes down to what are the things that are musts for you versus shoulds. So let me tell you this. We said to have an extraordinary life, you gotta have an extraordinary psychology, right? Extraordinary psychology means you gotta live in an extraordinary state. To be in an extraordinary state, you gotta condition your nervous system, your body, your physiology and focus to be at their best. Do you agree with this, yes or no? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Then to do that though, you can do that. Why doesn't everybody? Not 'cause you can't. We all have the ability. It's because of our standards. I remember a time early in my career, I was about 24, and I went to do a seminar in Boston. And in those days, a big seminar for me was like 125 people. It was a 3-day seminar, and we worked around the clock, and people made such extraordinary changes in their life. And at the end of it, I was feeling so fulfilled. I was thinking, my God, I'm 24, maybe 25 at the time, and I am so happy because I have found my mission in life. I'm doing what I love. It's making a difference in people's lives. I said, "This is extraordinary." So we finished about midnight on the Sunday night. And around midnight, you know, I'm still wound up, so I don't feel like going to bed. So I decided, "OK, you know, let me take a walk here." And I decided to go through Copley Square. If you've been through Copley Square, you know it's a pretty neat place. Because in Copley Square, you can look up and you can see buildings that were here before we were known as the United States. And beside them, you see skyscrapers that are new. It's a pretty cool place. So I'm walking around midnight. On Sunday night, there's nobody in Coffee Square midnight on Sunday night. And I'm walking along and I see this guy in the distance and he's kind of stumbling back and forth between the gutter and the sidewalk. He had a long trench coat on, his head's down like this, he's holding a brown bag, and I can start to smell him even before I get there and I'm thinking, "You know, this guy is obviously drunk." And as I started to get closer, I thought, "I bet he's going to beg me for some money." And sure enough, Whatever you focus on in life tends to happen, doesn't it? So sure enough, he gets real close to me and I thought all of a sudden he wasn't going to do it. All of a sudden he popped his head up, it was really weird, and he went, "Mister!" He had this really bizarre looking and sounding voice. He went, "Mister! Could you loan me quarter?" And I thought, do I want to reward this behavior? And then I thought, I don't want him to suffer. Do you have this dilemma sometimes? Like, you know, I'm not here to judge. So years ago, I finally decided I always just give, even if the person's pulling a scam. That's for them to deal with. If I have the ability, then I give. And so I thought, but could I teach him something? So I asked him a question back. I said, "Is that all you want is a quarter?" He said, "Yeah, just one quarter. One quarter changed my whole life. One quarter." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah, one quarter." So I reached in my pocket and I pull out my money clip. In those days, I was very young, just starting to succeed, and my original mentor was a man named Jim Rohn. I don't know, how many of you have heard of Jim Rohn? Anybody? Yeah. He's a great guy. And Jim told me, he said, "Tony, look, you've come from a poor background. You've got a poor psychology. You've got to change it." He said, "You don't have any money, so pretend you do." He said, "Start training your brain. Condition it." He said, "Go save all your money. Get $300 bills and put them on the outside of your money clip, even though you only have $5 in between them." He said, "Every time you pull it out, you'll see that. You'll feel inspired. You'll feel better." He said, "When you feel better, you'll do better." So I was like, "Okay." So I did. So I pulled my money clip and sure enough, I got $300 bills in there. I made sure he saw the bills. So I'm tearing through that, right? Looking in between there to see if I can find some change. But I made sure he saw it. Sure enough, he's looking at the $100 bills, checking it out. I find a quarter, I pull it out, take the money, put it in my pocket. I notice he's watching my hand going into the pocket. I took the quarter and I looked at him and I said, "Sir." Life will pay any price you ask of it. And I gave him the quarter. And then something really interesting happened. He took the quarter. He looked at the quarter. He looked at me. He looked at my pocket. He looked back at the quarter, looked at me, looked at my pocket, looked at me again, looked at the quarter, looked at my pocket, looked back at me and said, "You're weird." And then he shuffled on off like this, right? And I thought to myself, wow, what's the difference between him and me? I mean, I was 24, 25 at the time, doing what I love most, have my mission in life, and he's in his early 60s, drunk on the street, begging for quarters. What's the difference? And I thought, well, maybe God's blessed me because I'm such a good person. And I thought, "Oh, and he's such a bad person? That's such bull." And I thought, "Wow, maybe the answer to that question is what I just told him." Life will pay whatever price you ask of it. But you know what's interesting? You gotta ask intelligently. In the Bible it says, "Ask and you shall what?" Yeah, pretty good formula. You ought to look into it. But you know what? It says, "Ask and you shall receive," but I'm sure it meant ask intelligently. I'm sure that's what God meant. I'm sure he didn't mean, "Bitch, and you will receive. Whine, and you will receive." I don't think that was the instruction. Now, if you were going to ask intelligently, there might be 5 elements to that. Number 1, you'd have to ask specifically, wouldn't you? You wouldn't ask in a general way. People do it all the time. They go, "I want more money." Fine, here's a dollar. Get out of here. Very often, you're getting what you're asking for. You're just not aware of how general you're asking. Clarity is power. The more clear you are about exactly what it is you want, the more your brain knows how to get there. Your brain is a servo mechanism. It's like a bomb. Those bombs, those missiles, they have a servo mechanism. So if the target moves, it knows what the target is. It follows it. Your brain, when you condition it, knows exactly what to go for and it'll find a way to get there. Did you ever buy a certain outfit or a certain car and suddenly see that car outfit everywhere? How many of you ever had that experience? Say, "Aye." How come that car outfit's everywhere? It always was everywhere, but now you notice it. And the reason is because there's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system, the RAS. That part of your brain determines what you notice and what you don't notice. Your brain spends most of its time trying to make sure you don't notice because you'll go crazy if you notice everything. But when you decide what's most important to you, your brain goes after it. Everyone I know who's successful builds what I call an RPM plan. An RPM is built on the metaphor that the way to get from where you are to where do you want to go the fastest Says you got to build power like in a car, RPMs. And the R stands for they know the result they're after. They know what they want precisely. If you don't know exactly what you want or you let yourself get beyond that into something general, you're not going to achieve it. Clarity is power. You got to know the specific result you're after. What do you want? If you can't answer that question right now in your personal life, in your body, in your relationships, in your finances, in your spirituality, then you're not going to be as fulfilled as you want to What's your P? Today we're going to have you answer one of those questions at least. The second part of it, you got to know P, why you're doing it. Because you know what? You may get a big goal, somebody says, "I want to make a billion dollars. I want to bring peace to the earth." Why? Because as soon as you come up with a goal, all the obstacles show up. Unless you got enough emotional drive to break through that, you're never going to discover what it really takes. So you got to get yourself past that. And the way to get past that is have enough reasons. Reasons come first, answers come second. This man did not know what he wanted. He did not have enough reasons. To ask intelligently, you gotta ask specifically. To ask intelligently, you gotta know why you want it, have enough drive to make it happen, enough juice to make it happen. If you don't have enough reasons, you will not make it happen. And the M is what is your massive action plan? What is gonna get you to actually follow through? 'Cause the first plan's not gonna work and the second plan's not gonna work, so you better have enough plans that if the first two don't work, you still got something else. Otherwise, you're gonna be having excuses why it didn't work. So asking intelligently requires that. So if we're going to be extraordinary in our results, we've got to be in an extraordinary state. We're going to know what we want. We got to go use it. What do these people need to get started? Why aren't they starting? We all know the answer is fear. But the difference with you guys or me or anybody who's followed through is we're more afraid of what life would be like if we don't follow through than the person who's willing to settle for what they got and kind of hope it'll change and maybe purchase something for the moment and then not follow through with it. It's almost like people, overachievers, have a little more fear. They're a little more afraid of missing out. They're afraid of not being there, or they got a strong enough reason to follow through. So I'd say if you're looking at home, you want to give somebody some value, go, where do I start? I'm sick of this. That's a damn good place. That's probably where they bought the product in the first place, but now they're not from that for just a minute. What's that? They bought it, they bought the product to escape from that state just for a moment. Yeah, so because, because, well, guess what? What makes people The other side is progress. You don't have to be at the goal yet to feel alive again. You have to make progress. And the first step to progress is making a decision and buying the product. But then they don't do the second step, which is open the damn thing up.

I think another powerful distinction that you're hitting on here is the fact that a lot of people that have breakthroughs in their lives, like including Frank and I both in different, you know, success stories, situations, whatever you want to call them, is that, you know, people typically hit rock bottom before that must is a reality. Right, you're right. So in thinking of that, you know, because a lot of things as well, like we hear in marketing, you know, like if you had a gun to your head right now and you had to make money in the next, you know, 48 hours, what would you do? And that really resonates with people. But so I just wanted to bring this into the conversation because I think a big part of the market of all these people aren't people that have their backs completely against the wall yet. That's right. Okay, so they're not in a must situation yet. They're in a desire situation where they're okay in their lives. They do have big dreams and ambitions. They do want greater things, but it's not pushing them yet to the point where they will do what it takes to master something. So what do you think? How do people go from not having their backs against the wall when they have no choice to say, "I'm totally sick of this," to conditioning their minds to go from their situation where they are, which may be okay, to getting something greater?

Well, think about this. What pisses you off? And what excites you is all relative. You know, $300 a week— no, $2,500 excites him more, that memory to this day, than even the million bucks, you know, he did in his first 24-hour version, right? Or you breaking the 4-minute mile, a million bucks. That must have been out of your mind. Tell me about that for a second. What did that feel like? You make a million bucks in 24 hours. Nobody in history of the internet's done it.

Euphoria. Yeah, just unbelievable. What was your— it wasn't even about the money.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

It wasn't really about the money. No, it wasn't. I wasn't thinking like, oh, that's how many cars I can buy. No, it just wasn't. It was just, uh, it was just breaking through like another like barrier of, of progress.

So at that point, it wasn't about your back to your wall. At that point, what it was really about—

further point from my fear is what it really was.

For the point for your fear, and for some people, and I think in some cases it's also a recognition of who I am and what I'm capable of. So for somebody whose life is already great. This is about what if I could take on another skill that could create more freedom for my life and just saying, I'm not having to go out and try and do it all perfectly right now. What I'm going to do for the next 8 weeks, I'm going to do one, I'm going to create a little ritual. I'm going to do one thing a day to condition my mind, right? So that I get strong. So I follow through. I'm going to read something. I'm going to listen to something. I'm going to immerse myself. I'm going to go for an intense jog or I'm going to go lift weights, but I'm going to do it consciously to get in I'm gonna get in a state where I'm gonna follow through. That's number one, 'cause people follow through when they're in state. Second, I'm gonna get clear about why this is a must for me. Not 'cause my back's against the wall, but because I wanna master an area of life that could create some freedom. I'm not gonna master it overnight, but I got the system, I got the plan. I'm gonna do one thing a day. I'm gonna work on one subject a week. This week's gonna be about figuring out what the right product or industry is. Next week's gonna be basics of building traffic. And each week I'm gonna make a little progress and I'm gonna get to a goal, whatever that is. I'm gonna make $1,000, my $300 in a week. I'm gonna get to my $2,500. That first $2,500 is the most exciting. Unbelievable. The first $300.

I remember trying— It's the most life-changing too.

It is the most life-changing. I remember I was supposed to be a truck driver making $24,000 a year 'cause I'd be making the most anybody in my family had ever made. How'd that work out for you? Yeah, real well, thank God I'm not driving a truck, right? I think you could drive a truck. I could pull it with my finger, man. I could do it with my teeth. I could pull it with my teeth, right? $36,000 a year was the goal. If I could make $3,000 in a month, When I did that, I was out of my mind. And then it was like, could I make $10,000 a month? Then it was $10,000 in a day, then $100,000 a day. Then could I make $1 million in a day? I had a day where I made $400 million in a day in stock value of the company I took public, my personal stock.

But it was probably after I did it though, so it doesn't really count. I'm just joking with you.

You're right. People don't remember who was first, Tony.

$400 million, $1 million, who cares?

Who cares? I'm not saying it's fair. It's amazing. I'm not saying I brag because they told me when I was on stage, I had this audience of about 15,000 people at the Continental Center. It was during a stretch break. I was doing what I love, rocking the house. Everybody's going crazy. And they go, "The stock's worth $400 million right now." I was like, "Wow, that's cool." It's like, okay, that's— I know it sounds stupid. It's like, what's next? And I went right back to what I loved. Once you break through, then it just becomes a game. The people that are getting your products have not yet broken through in most cases. 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 started 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, because the only difference in people is hunger. And if you're not hungry, Get around people that are hungry and something will hit you. You watch a conversation, you get around people that are doing better, and all of a sudden you start going, "My life sucks." I remember I went to a guy in LA, he's one of the most— multi-billionaire guy, I'll never forget. And I lived in the Del Mar Castle and I was really proud. That was like the symbol of me having taken myself from being poor to providing for my family this great place. Built from castles in Europe, overlooking the ocean, not far from you. And I went to this guy's house, he's a billionaire, he took me down to his wine cellar. I don't even drink wine. Went through this whole thing. At the end of the night, I was depressed. I lived in the Del Mar tenement as far as I was concerned. I really was. I was like, I live in a crappy place and all my standards changed. All of a sudden, I wasn't willing to settle for living there. All of a sudden, my back was to the wall in a different way because 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 because it's something new they want to take on. Everyone's different, but they got to find the why and they got to come up with some daily rituals to get them going and just do a step at a time. That's where you get momentum. Awesome. That is awesome. So, you know, think about what's the holy grail between somebody taking action or not. It's one word: certainty. When somebody is absolutely certain, they, you know, the common word is believe, right? But, you know, you can believe at a general level or you can believe what's certain. When you're absolutely certain that if I do this, it's gonna get that result, and that result's gonna change my life, you'll do it. When you think it absolutely is not gonna work, you're never gonna do it. The middle no man's land of maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, that's the piece that kills people, right? So if it's a must for you, you gotta make it work, right? In our case, right? It's an example. If it's not a must for you and you're not sure, you don't know what to do. So I, years ago, I'd look around and say, okay, how do people get themselves follow through that haven't been following through? What's the difference? And I started interviewing hundreds of people, literally, and eventually thousands, because I had thousands at my events. So I'd ask the group to give me their feedback. I came up with this model. It's like the holy grail of belief or the holy grail of momentum. It's like the difference between what makes the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, right? And the difference we all know is mindset, but like, how is that built? So this is what I did. I created these stupid little 4 little boxes, and I'll scribble it here for you. You think about the first thing that determines whether you can do something or not, And I put that in this first box at the top here on the left side. It's potential. Like, what's the potential of a human being? Like, when you guys started, you proved something no one had done in history. You ran the 4-minute mile, right? For golly knows how many centuries they're trying to run a 4-minute mile. Roger Bannister does it. How did he do it? Do you remember? You did it in this industry, right? You made a million bucks in a day. No one had ever done that in history, right? After you did it, a bunch of other guys are doing it because it became possible. Roger Bannister didn't just go physically practice. He made a shift in his head. He practiced in his head because he could never achieve it physically, so he had to change in his head first so that the result became certain enough he believed it, and then his body got him through. After Roger Bannister ran that 4-minute mile, within 2 years, 37 people ran a 4-minute mile. Wow. When no one in history had ever done it. Now here's how it works. The potential for anybody getting your product is extraordinary. They could do what you've done as much more or less, they can do whatever they want to do. The potential's there. The market's proven that. Whether or not they tap into that potential has a lot to do with what action they take, which is the question you came to me with, right? Like, you know, God, they have all this potential but they're not taking action. And we all know that the action they take is going to determine the results they get. That's pretty obvious. So most people have a belief about what their real potential is no matter what you tell them. And that affects how much action they take, and of course that affects the result, and then ironically, that result reinforces their belief, and then their belief affects it. So I'll give you an example. Let's say a person has unlimited potential, we all agree, but they take little action, little results. Why? Because they have to start with a problem with their belief. They don't believe it's really going to happen for me. Maybe for Frank Kerns because he's got the cool hair and stuff, or maybe it's for you because you're so driven, but it's not me. Maybe Tony Robbins because he's a freak, got these big teeth. Whatever their thought process is, right? They got this thing, right? But what happens is if you believe that there's very little potential, how much action you're gonna take? Nothing. Little. And when you take little potential with a little action, what kind of results do you get? Lousy little results. And when you get little results, what does that do to your belief? You go, see, I told you this was a waste of 100 times, sold you this wouldn't work. And then what happens? You tap even less potential, you take even less action, you get even worse results, and your belief gets even weaker. And this sucker feeds on itself until you are in a downward spiral. It's poisonous. It's poisonous and it's self-fulfilling. Now what if something could happen that could come along and fill you with a sense of absolute certainty? Not like I believe, but I mean where you know. In you guys' case, mine as well, we knew 'cause we had to. 'Cause we burned the boats. There was no other option. We had to find a way. We weren't gonna live that way. We all did it in different ways and for different reasons, but in essence, that was it. If you get yourself in a state of certainty that this is gonna work, I'm gonna find a way, and if this doesn't work, I will make the way, then you tap a lot more potential. And when you're certain in your potential, you take massive action. When you take massive action, you really believe in something, you get great results. When you get great results, Your brain goes, "See, I told you I was a stud. I told you this thing would work out." Now you're even stronger. You tap more potential, take greater action, greater results. That's how you went from $300 in a week to $2,500 in 5 days to $100,000 in a month to $1 million in a day. Same thing with you. And we get momentum. It's why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Now some people go out and they go, "Well, I'm gonna take a bunch of action, all right? I'm gonna open this product. I'm gonna try it." And they'll say to you, I even did it, but it's like a salesman who goes and knocks on the door and he knocks on 100 doors and says, You don't want one of these, do you? Yeah, exactly right. And even if he doesn't say it verbally, his face says it because he doesn't believe it's going to work. So his voice, his body, the execution is so weak. Maybe if he talks to 100 people, somebody's going to buy out of pity. They don't want his kids to starve, right? But he's not going to get the result. So the core difference in people is how do you produce certainty when the world isn't giving it to you? You go out and you try and you try. In your case, you're $100,000 in debt, nothing's working. How do you keep yourself going? The way you did it, the way I did it, the way you're doing it, we may not have done it consciously, is we didn't change our potential. That was there. And it wasn't even taking more action. Taking more action with a belief it's not going to work, it's not going to change anything. We got results in our head that made us feel certain as if it had already happened. True or false for you? True. Right? So give me an example so people know I'm not just making this crap up.

Well, I mean, just like when I had nothing, I already knew I was driving like Ferraris and Porsches and stuff because I always wanted those cars. I already knew I was going to have them. It was inevitable. Right. I inevitably, you know, that was just my inevitable outcome. But how did you do that?

Did you have a ritual? Did you think about it regularly? Was it one time you thought about it or was it something you had an obsession towards?

I had an obsession towards it. I mean, I used to go, I used to work at a video store, which is the last job I ever had in my life. Thank God. And I used to go to work almost every day and I used to bring two magazines with me to read on my breaks. Entrepreneur Magazine, just to read about business and everything else, to read about what other people are doing, look for role models. And I used to carry an Auto Trader with me, and I used to look at Porsches that were for sale. And people always used to ask me, what are you doing with that Auto Trader magazine? I'm like, well, I'm just picking out the Porsche that I'm going to buy.

Right. Which probably got you a lot of crap.

I did. People made fun of me. I actually had a boss at that job job, tell me, you know, you really shouldn't do that to yourself, John, because it's very, very likely that that is never going to happen. It's very likely that you're never going to have that car. That's the kind of belief he was trying to put in my head. And I was like, no, you don't realize that it's inevitable that I will drive here sometime in the near future with that car when I'm not working for you and drop movies off for you to put back on the shelf. And that actually happened. And it was one of the most fulfilling days of my entire life. And the great thing was when I pulled up in this car, I was in my mid-20s, a car that most mid-20s—

What kind of car was it?

It was a Porsche 911 Turbo. It was a convertible and everything. It was a beautiful car. It was one I— Porsche. Yeah. One I always dreamed of having. But for a few years, I always circled the ads of which ones I was going to buy. Well, when I finally got it and I pulled up at the store, I had all these people, some people The people that were still working at the $7 an hour job were there years after I left. And I'll never forget this, even the Boston stuff and the reaction of the people was like, "Wow, that is awesome. Is that your dad's car?" And all I said to them was, "Not exactly." Good for you. And I just smiled and just left. But it was, you know, I just, it's the weirdest thing, but I just knew it was going to happen.

But you knew it because you did it.

I conditioned myself to go for it.

You did it over and over again. Yeah. I was not a popular kid, but I was passionate and intense. And I'll never forget, some people would give me, some particular girls gave me some crap, and a guy too. And I wrote in their journals or their annual yearbook at the end, I wrote, you know, someday, I said, you treated me like hell, someday I'll be rich and famous and you'll be an effin' truck driver. And you'll be sitting there, I'll be with this beautiful woman in my life, rich, and you'll be watching me on television thinking you wish you would have treated me better. I wrote this shit in people's annuals, 'cause I went to a 10-year high school reunion, and one of the people showed me this stuff, right? That's great. But it's like, I burned the bridges, baby. I was like, this is how it's gonna be. So I'll give you a perfect example of this. You know, they did studies, many have been done at this element, where they wanna see how much does the mind affect performance? So take basketball. I've worked with a lot of NBA players and turned 'em around, and one of the problems many of 'em have is they'll choke on the free throw line. You know, well, everybody knows in that case If you normally shoot really well and now you're not, something's interfering, something's getting in front of your state, some uncertainty, right? Obviously. So they take a group and say, "We're gonna make 'em better." How do you make somebody better who has got this mental block? So they take a group of guys and they're gonna do free throws and they do one group where they just practice for 6 weeks, totally intense practice and I forget the number of free throws, but they gotta do this many free throws every day. Take a second group and they have them not practice at all. Obvious. And they take a third group and they don't let them touch a basketball. All they do is have them practice in their mind, but the key is it's not practice makes perfect, it's perfect practice makes perfect, as corny as that sounds. So these guys see themselves making the shot every single time, conditioning their mind and body that it's perfect every time. They're not interrupted by a reality that would screw with them. So at the end of 6 weeks, they tally it up and now they give them a test to see who has the highest free throw percentage, you know, success. What do you guess it's going to be? Well, the obvious person says, obviously it's not the guys that didn't practice. But which one is it, the mind, or is it the ones that actually practice?

I'm assuming the mind.

Yeah, you would assume it because it's true, right? You intuitively know the truth that practicing is not enough. It's getting yourself so certain so many times that now when you go to do it, there's no hesitancy and you execute. It's having that absolute certainty that makes Tap your full potential. Take massive action. Get massive results. Be reinforced to having stronger belief. This is what makes somebody a star at anything. Our next subject is rapport. In your notes, anywhere you want, there's no place for it, just write, "Rapport is power." Rapport is power. Earlier today we said anything you want to achieve, anything you want to learn, master, experience. There's somebody out there who has a life experience, the understanding, the network, the capital, the thing you need to be able to achieve it. But they're not going to give you what they want— or they're not going to give you what you want, rather, and need— until you first give them what they want and need. And you're not even going to find out what they want, need, until you first get in a relationship of rapport. If you don't do that, you're never going to learn anything. Rapport is power. What is a relationship of rapport? Rapport means total responsiveness between people. When someone is totally responding to you and you're totally responding to them, you're in rapport. There's that connection. It's that spark that happens in certain communications or relationships. Now everybody wants to create rapport, have it, but most people only get rapport with people who are like whom? Themselves. And they lose with everybody else, which means you got a very limited world. So we want to take it to a different level. So let's say, for example, if I said to you right now, guys, I want you to go out to a local restaurant or bar and I want you to meet somebody and I want you to develop rapport with them, a connection with them. How many feel like you could do that, no problem? Say aye. Aye. And if you're not raising your hand, you're probably selling yourself short. Of course you could. How would you do it though? You'd walk in this restaurant or bar, you meet somebody, and you'd engage them in conversation by asking a few what? Questions. Now, is it possible to ask a few questions and have a conversation go poof and just die? Is that possible? Yes or no? So questions don't create rapport. Questions are a tool we use to dig for something. What are you digging for when you're asking these questions? You're trying to find something in what? That's right. So write in your notes: Rapport is created by a feeling of commonality. Rapport is created by by a feeling of commonality. Rapport is created by a feeling of commonality. When we people, when we feel like we have something in common with someone, there's a spark. Now, here's the problem. If rapport is created by a feeling of commonality, most people try to get rapport by using words. But you've already learned something. What percentage of our communication skills are words? What percentage? 7%, which means you're leaving out 93% of your skills, which is why most people don't get rapport with a large number of people. What do you do? You walk in a restaurant or a bar and go, "Hi, what's your name? Where are you from? Why are you here?" The person says, "My name's Habib. I'm from Iraq. I'm a terrorist. I'm here to kill people." And you go, "Amazing. Me too." No. See, words don't always work, do they? But there is something that always works to get rapport, and it's something called matching and mirroring. Matching and mirroring. Now, matching and mirroring came about 35 years ago when— it's— we've all done matching and mirroring our whole lives, but the person who pointed out was Milton Erickson. Dr. Erickson was a genius. What he did was he was a medical doctor, but he also Evan Carmichael was a psychologist and a hypnotherapist, probably the best that ever lived. And people would come to see him who'd try to change everything anywhere else in their life, nothing would work. They'd see him for one session, he'd handle it. And the reason is because he understood something. He understood that you have both a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. And he knew the subconscious is more powerful. It's the part that makes your heart beat 100,000 times a day without having to think about it. So he knew if he could influence your subconscious mind, he could change anything, and that's what he did. But here's how he did it. He had polio, so he was in a wheelchair. So he spent an enormous amount of time studying people. And he began to notice something about human beings. That when human beings got together, if they got in rapport, a relationship of responsiveness, they became like each other in a variety of ways. What he called, "They mirrored each other." Now I've taught this for 25 years, so I'm sure you've heard of it. I've written it in my books and it's been taught in a variety of other areas now. But it's one thing to know it intellectually or to understand it. It's another thing to know it when you're doing it. That's what I want to get you to do tonight so you have a real experience of it that you won't forget. But here's the basis of it. People like people who are like whom? Themselves. And people don't like people who are not like themselves. To be more specific, write this down. People like people who are like themselves or who are like how they would like to be. People like people who are like themselves or are how they would like to be. People like people who are like themselves or how they would like to be. So question: I'd like you to think of someone you really, really like a lot. And then if you would, raise your hand if this person is either like you or they're like how you want to be. If that's true, raise your hand and say, "Aye." Of course, that's why you like them. Now, think of someone you don't like. I'm sure you like everyone, but if you once were an unspiritual person and felt these feelings. Somebody you don't like. Raise your hand if they're not like you or they're not like how you want to be. If that's true, raise your hand and say, "Aye." And that's the opposite. People don't like people who are not like them or are not like how they want to be. That's the bottom line of it. So this concept Erickson noticed, he used it in the following way. Watch me. If you came in to see Dr. Erickson, instead of talking to you intellectually and trying to get through to you, he'd go right for the jugular by getting your nervous system connected to him, getting rapport. So if you came to him and you said, "Ah, Dr. Erickson, I don't know. This is a waste of time. I've tried everything." I don't know, I think I should just go. He would do this. He'd go, "Sigh. I'm sure it looks that way on the surface, but you haven't tried this, so you haven't tried everything, and I think you should stay." And the person would go, "Huh, something about this guy I like." You know, he's not over the top, you know what I mean? He's like really real. There's just something about him that feels down home and real to me. Right? If you came to see him and you said, "Dr. Erickson, I've tried everything. It's a waste of my time. I'm out of here." He'd say, "You sit down. You haven't tried everything. You've not done this before. You're staying right here." Guy goes, "Hey, I like this guy. He's got some spunk. Kick ass. Maybe he could do something." See, he became like the people he was communicating with. And what it was is whatever they put out, he sent the same message back, like biofeedback, and it entrained them to him. So that when he then told their unconscious what to do, their brain just did it. That was his power. Now we all do this naturally. If you want to have some fun, go out tonight to a singles bar and watch people when they first meet. And then you can see when the rapport happens. If they finally sit down, and they'll start to lean in the same direction. They'll start nodding their head at the same time. The same tempo. If one's tapping their foot, often you'll see the other one tap their foot. The volume and tone of their voice will start to mirror if they're in rapport. If they're out of rapport, you'll see them interact opposites of this nature. Now, if you want to be effective, then mirroring is so easy. We do it naturally. But here's the problem: most people wait till they have enough words in common, then they put the voice in common and the body in common. But words are only 7%. They don't work all the time. And by the way, do we judge people in a matter of seconds by their style? Yes or no? That's right. Write this in your notes: style is more important than substance initially. Style is more important than substance initially. That sounds terrible, but it's true. Style is more important than substance initially. Now notice I say initially. If you don't have any substance, it's not going to last. But you can have lots of substance and no style, and people never hear a word you say. No one will ever get to know what you believe. I'll give you an example. How many have ever dealt with somebody whose tone of voice alone drove you up a wall and you couldn't listen to anything they said? They had like dentist drill tonality. How many have ever been with somebody like this? Say, "Aye." Okay? So that style gets in the way of substance. Now, let's give an example. Let's say you and I want to mirror someone. We want for someone to feel connected to us. And we're going to do it on the phone. What are some aspects of the voice that you could mirror that would make them unconsciously immediately feel connected to you? What are some aspects? You tell me. Okay, tone of voice, as we just said, is a perfect one. Because if you're talking like this and they're talking like this and I say, "Well, I don't know, what do you think?" You're not going to feel very comfortable through time. Tone of voice is huge. If you mirror someone's tone of voice, they will feel connected to you and not even know why. What else besides tone of voice could you mirror on the phone? Okay, tempo. What kind of person talks at this particular pace like I'm talking right now? What kind of people talk at this particular pace? What part of the country tends to talk at this pace? Come on, where? Where? What part of the country? Where? New York would be good. New York would be a good example. How do people who talk more like this feel about those fast-talking city slickers? Do they trust them? No! They don't even know how to say the word dog. How does a fast-talking person feel about a slow-talking person? What do you think, Mary? Mary, what do you think? Mary, what do you think? Mary, what do you think? Mary goes, "Well—" Well, what? How many have ever seen this mismatch between two people? Right? What else besides speed? Volume. Loud-talking people, who do they like? They love loud-talking people. They know you're a real man, you're a real woman too. Who else likes loud-talking people? Deaf people like loud-talking people. But how do quiet-talking people feel about those loud-talking people? They're obnoxious, aren't they? And of course, intelligent people talk like you and I do, don't they? Do we judge people in a matter of seconds by their volume, by their tone, by their tempo? Yes or no? You better believe we do. What else could you mirror on the phone? Terminology, keywords. There are certain words people use again and again. If you sell real estate and somebody comes in and says, "I'm looking for a magnificent home." Do you want to say, "Oh, I have a fantastic place to show you"? No. I had this experience myself once. I said, "I'm looking for this—" "No, no. I got a fantastic place." Fantastic and magnificent may be the same to you, but I guarantee they aren't for the other person. If you mirror their words, they will feel heard. They will feel understood. And they will also feel you're as smart as they are. What else besides words? Tone, tempo, volume, accent? Well, only if you really have that accent. 'Cause if you try to duplicate it and it's not really your accent, you're gonna break rapport, right? What about the body? What could you mirror in the body if you were there in person? What could you mirror? Posture is very powerful. They're really upright, you're upright. They're more relaxed, you're more relaxed. What else? Gestures. Watch this. If somebody's talking, and people are funny when they're making important points, people have idiosyncratic gestures. Idiosyncratic means gestures that are all their own. So if you're talking to this guy and he says, "I don't think so. I think we ought to do this," and he makes this funny little gesture when he's talking about what he really wants to do. If you turn back to him and say, "You know, that's a great idea. Can I ask you a question though? What if we did this instead?" You make that same little motion with your hand and look at him. He'll be like, "Ah! A friend!" You think I'm kidding. You go out tonight at dinner and you find somebody who's on an angle to you or in front of you. Don't even look at them. Just mirror them for 5 to 10 minutes. They reach for the glass, reach for the glass. The glass is empty, no one's going to notice. Just reach for the glass. They bring it up, they bring it down, bring it down. They reach for the fork, reach for the fork. 5 to 10 minutes. 5 minutes usually, 10 minutes max. After you've done this for 5 to 10 minutes, you want to have some fun? Reach for your glass and watch what they do. They'll reach for it like that. It's called pacing and leading. It's also known as entrainment. Many of you know that if you go to an old clock shop where they have those old grandfather clocks where they have the little pendulum, that once they wind them, those pendulums start out different and they all end up in sync. Called entrainment. Women know this, but most men don't. So I'll just share this with you. Women have the ability to be like clocks with other women. When women hang out together, men, they literally end up having their periods at the same time. So that all the men are crazy during that time. Is it true, ladies? Yes or no? If they're in rapport, their periods become in sync. So if women's periods can come in sync, you could get rapport with a stranger across the room. And all you got to do is mirror them for 5 or 10 minutes and make a change, right? And it'll make it happen. All right? How many follow? So what else besides posture could you mirror in the body? What else? What else? Gestures, we already said. What else? Facial expression. Most of us, if someone's telling you a story and they're like really into their story and they're making these faces, do you sit and look at them like this? No, you look back and make the same stupid look back. Like— What about eye contact? A lot of business people and salespeople have been taught a total lie. They've been taught like, "If you're really, truly going to influence someone, you must look directly into their eyes and not break eye contact for 45 straight minutes." This way they know you really mean it. There's only one problem with that. The problem is people like people who are like whom? Themselves. So if you got somebody who just stares in your eyes and doesn't blink for 45 straight minutes, it's going to freak you out. What kind of person stares in your eyes and doesn't break eye contact? Aliens, that's who! Most humans look away, right? So if they look away, give them a break and look away. Don't make them crazy. Now, if you meet somebody who like locks eyes with you and doesn't break eye contact, you lock eyes right back, you keep 'em on 'em for 45 minutes, they'll know you're an alien too. It'll build rapport. What else? What else besides eye contact? Facial expressions, gestures, posture. Come on, what else? Breathing. Breathing's very powerful. One of the most powerful. If you breathe at the exact same pace as another person, you will feel what they are feeling. Period. But you got to be breathing from the same location, the same tempo. And breathing is magnificent because it really hooks you to this person. How many of you can think of a time in your life when you were breathing at the same pace as another person and you felt really close for some reason? Anybody think of a time like that? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] See, I used to do a lot of sexual therapy for couples, and when you help people in this area, you get to practice because people pay anything, they'll fly anywhere, to get this part of their life handled. So I end up with a 6-month waiting list. No exaggeration. I mean, every single day booked. And people would be calling me based on referrals because I helped their friends, and they'd be like, "I gotta see you. Gotta see you. Gotta see you now." And I'm like, "I got a 6-month waiting list." "No, no. I'll pay for your lunchtime. I'll buy your dinner." I'm going, "Look, I really— How about I refer you to somebody I've trained? There are lots of people I've trained." "No, it's gotta be you." So here's how I would deal with it. I would say, "Okay. I will—" I'll give you one of my lunches if you take an assignment I give you. But first you've got to answer some questions honestly. Here's the first question: When you make love, do you breathe in unison while you're making love? And invariably the guy would go, "Huh?" And I'd say, Let me explain. You're here telling me about all these things you're upset with each other about. And you can talk about these things till you're blue in the face, but the real problem is you don't feel connected. You don't feel loved. And I said, "You don't have that feeling of total oneness with each other. And talking more about this is not going to change it. So if you really want to change this, I suggest you do this. And if you do what I'm telling you and you still need me, I'll give you one of my lunches." So I said, "Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go home and I want you to make love for an hour and a half minimum. And while you're doing it, I want you to breathe in unison the entire time with each other." Because what happens is you feel totally connected as one. Who knows, 3, 4 dozen people I asked to do that. Only one person ever called us back and wanted to be able to do a session. Because the bond is there. So try it. Not now, later this evening. Plus, the great thing about mirroring somebody's breathing, it's very subtle. No one's going to jump out of their chair and say, "Would you stop mirroring my breathing?" I mean, they're not going to notice. So you got breathing. You got posture. You got gestures. You got facial expressions. You got eye contact. What else could you mirror? Come on, use your brain. I know the answer. I want to see if you can come up with it. Come on. What else could you mirror? Proximity. Good. What does proximity mean? Proximity means everybody has a certain amount of space that they need to be comfortable, and it's different for every single person you're going to meet in your life. So if I come walking up here like this and I start walking, let's say, along here, and I walk up to this lady here, she's comfortable right now. If I come here, I'm right on the edge of her comfort zone. Am I right? She's, "Mm." You can see it in her face. How do I know? Because the muscles in her neck went, "Eh." Her face went, "Eh." It all tightened and she stopped breathing. That's a clue. Now, that doesn't mean she doesn't want you to come closer, but that's the first moment of her starting to feel impact. If I come right back to here, there we go. Now she's breathing again. How many can see the difference? Can you see it? You can see all of a sudden she's breathing. So this is more comfortable. Watch the difference. Here versus here. How many have had somebody do this where they get this close to your face and you just want to punch them? How many have had this experience? And they almost always have bad breath too, don't they? So when somebody— and are there people like that that get this close in your face? Yes or no? Now if you pull back though, you just broke rapport because that's what they need to feel good. So you got to like hang in there with those people. So it's different for every person that you meet. So how do you know? Do you just guess? No, you use your sensory what? Acuity. You have acute sensitivity to see what's the impact. Oh, I'm getting here. Is this working? Oh, I can come closer or not. Where is it? And it can change too. Someone can have an initial reaction and then they can let you closer. But you pay attention. Because if you don't do this, breaking rapport in this area, people don't even think when you're in their space. And everybody's got different space. Who here freaks out? When somebody gets too close? There's some people, I'm sure, in this room that are total freakouts about this. You, ma'am, in the black? What's your name? Lisa? Why don't you come down? Come on, give her a hand. Come on, give her a hand! Lisa, come on down here. Come on down here. Run down here, Lisa. Run down here. Run down here. Run down here. Oh, it's your face. Oh, there we go. It's the face. See, she's one to body block me. Did you notice that? You can go boom, we can hit bodies, that's okay, right? But the face, watch what happens if you get in the face. So are you enjoying the seminar? What's been your favorite part? Not this part. Not this part. Where are you going? Now notice When you get too close to her face— did you see that? How many saw that instant reaction? Okay. She not only pulls back, she snaps to the side because some people— most people have like a force field who have this experience. Hers is more just the face. And if you got closer to her chest or something like that, they'll do one of two things. This kind of person backs off, but most people are more subtle. If you get too close, here's what they do. They start kind of— you'll see them as they're talking to you, they're kind of Wavering back and forth. If you notice, their ass is moving them further and further back from you, right? Or they'll do this. They'll turn sideways. Because what does that do? It creates a sense of space. Okay? So everyone's different. Now, hers is not the body, and she's kind of being playful now here with this as well. But the face normally is something for her that's in effect. Now she's going different. She says, "Okay, I'm comfortable with you." Give her a hand. Thank you very much. Now, there's another one that's critically important, and that's touch. Now, you can get more rapport by touching some people than by anything you could ever say. But again, you gotta have some sensory acuity. You can't go up and go, "He looks like a toucher. Hey man, I love your hair. I love your hair. Really good. That's really cool. Really good." You do that, you could get killed. But he's a nice man, so he didn't kill me. So what you gotta notice is, notice how the man shakes hands. Like, he shakes hands, he puts one hand on top of the other. Genesis? He reached over, he didn't just— I shook his hand and immediately he brings the other hand on top like this. And when he does it, some people when they shake your hand, they like squeeze it, see if they can break a few of your blood vessels, you know, just to show they're a real man. Other people, they got that fish handshake, you know, eh. But if they fish you, you gotta fish 'em back. Yeah, here we go, fish, fish, right? 'Cause that builds rapport. But in his case, it's like boom, boom, right? You get more connection and rapport with him with that touch than anything you could ever say. Thank you. So notice, how does a person touch somebody? Like even if it's in business, notice how the businesswoman or man touches their assistant in a non-sexual way. And just notice, if they come along and he comes by here and he goes, "Thanks a lot, Tony," and hits me like this, 3 times on the shoulder. And I come back and I say, "Thank you, John." I'll get more rapport by that touch than by anything that I could say to him. So touch and proximity are huge. Huge. Now you might say, "Well, this is interesting, Tony, but what are you suggesting? Are you saying something like, 'Okay, they sit down, I sit down'?" You don't have to mirror everything someone does to have rapport. It's not like they lift their leg, you lift your leg. They lean forward, you lean forward. They sit back, you sit back. You don't have to do that, although believe it or not, you can do it a lot and people not even notice. But for example, you can get rapport just with the leg position and maybe the tone of voice. 'Cause physiology is 55% of communication. If you're sitting there, let's say you cross your leg like this. Can I cross my leg like this while we're talking? Yes or no? It'll feel comfortable to you. So you start bouncing your foot like this, back and forth. Can I bounce my foot at the same tempo? If I do, you'll feel totally connected to me. We do it at the same tempo. And by the way, I can do this for a while, and then if I don't like it, I can slow it down and you'll slow yours down. That's pacing and leading again. But if you do this, If they cross their leg and now they go uncross, you don't have to uncross the moment they uncross. Wait till you go to say something and say, "You know what?" Because when you go to speak, speaking requires a change of physiology, and no one will ever notice what you're doing. Right? It's very unique. Now, it is true if they lean forward— You're saying, "Well, right. They lean forward, I lean forward. They lean back, I lean back. They cross their leg, I cross my leg. They pick their nose, I pick my nose!" Exactly. No, you don't have to do everything. And if you start going like this, when they're mirroring, you start going, "Ha ha ha ha ha." After about 20 minutes, they go, "What's wrong with you?" But you'd be surprised. You can mirror people and be mirroring almost everything they're doing, and they rarely, if ever, notice it. What is the single most powerful constraint as to whether or not your business is going to grow or not? What is it? Me, meaning the business owner, yourself. And if you're not the business owner, the biggest constraint that you have an impact on is yourself. And as you heard yesterday when we talked and looked at Omex's example, I mean, here's a company that's growing leaps and bounds in a multi-billion-dollar business, traveling around the world. The economies are tearing apart in many places and it's growing. But the constraint that they saw was the vision of the founder, what they were willing to believe It's possible. And the great thing about them is, like, we didn't know. We didn't know it wasn't possible. That's a very helpful thing not to know, just to go out there and do it. How many of you, when you started out in business, didn't know what you couldn't do, and that was quite helpful? Let me see a show of hands. Say "I." Me too. If I look back at stuff that I did back then, I think, "My God, that's unbelievable. I can't believe I would say that or do that or try that." But what's interesting is in the beginning of your business, and when people are brand new at something, they'll try almost But if you start to succeed, some of you are later in your life cycle, and so as you start to succeed now, you've got something to lose. And now you don't implement the same level. You've got something to maintain. You've got something to hang on to. And so you have to be cautious about that. But besides your own vision, the limitations of your belief or vision, which hopefully have been expanded— how many feel like that has been expanded? If you sound a shadow of a doubt here, say aye. I know it atmosphere. I can see it. I've had the conversations with you. You know, each time you hear someone, you see a different perspective, a different way. And you go, my gosh, there's just so many ways to take my business to the next level. I don't have to wait. I don't have to hope for some, quote, good economy. The worst economy is my deepest friend because it's wiping out all my competitors and giving me an opportunity to take market share or become the leader or take their customers or buy them for a song. Selling has kind of an interesting connotation because in our culture, when we think of salespeople, we think of high-integrity individuals who have a huge positive influence on the quality of our lives. Tell me the first word you associate with a salesperson, quick. Scumbag. Thank you, very nice. Scumbag. What else? Manipulator. Liar. Greasy. Deceptive. That goes, "Great guy." Now, how many of you in this room are salespeople? Let me see your hands. If you're an owner of a business, you better be raising your hand. If you are a parent, you better be raising your hand. Because by the way, are kids great salespeople? Yes or no? I mean, you don't have to teach them how to deal with rejection. They just let it pass on by and keep coming, right? You can't have an ice cream cone, 10 minutes later they're licking on one with a smile on their face, right? No one taught them any scripts. No one taught them anything. What I want you to get is that the single most important skill in life— we hate the word selling, so I'll give you a word that it really is that doesn't have the negative connotation. It's the word that all leaders have. What would that word be? Influence. What changes companies is leaders. The only way to change a company is leadership. If I want to change a company that I own and I want to make a shift in that company, the number one thing I'm going to do is shifting leadership. That might be taking leaders to a different level, that might bring new leaders in, that might be new leaders of new voices with new perspectives, with new skill sets, new directions. But we need to take things to another level. Leaders solve problems and leaders maximize maximize resources, if you're going to solve problems, you can't do it yourself or it would have already been solved. You have to get others to help you to do it. That requires influence. True? If you're going to get people to maximize resources, that requires influence. If you're going to get people to partner with you, provide you resources, capital, suppliers, anything, that requires influence. If you're going to have an impact on your kids or your community or the world, That requires influence. There is no more important skill of leadership than influence, and yet most of us think of it like selling, and as a result, we don't master influence. So I'm not here today to try and get you to become a master of influence in 45 minutes or so by chatting with you here, because we have so many of the speakers. This is the area of life I am most focused on, because I know that if you can't influence, you can't lead. But if you can influence powerfully, intelligently, with integrity, there is no limit to whatever you can envision and what you can make real. And if your influence becomes not just you as the influence, but you're able to influence systems, people, company, culture, if you can turn other people into influencers, now whatever you vision about can be made into reality. And so as a skill of influence, we gotta ask ourselves— how many agree Leaders are what change companies. Raise your hand if you agree with that. Say, "Aye." And leaders' number one skill is influence. If you agree, say, "Aye." But then the question becomes, how do you influence? How do you influence consistently with integrity? You can influence many ways. You can do it without integrity, but the good news is we live in a world today where whatever you do, it's transparent to the world because there are no secrets anymore, are there? Try to have a secret today. Bless you. You can forget the secret. With the internet, with the culture we have, the way the world is today, there are no more secrets. And whatever you think is still possible to keep secret, give it 3 or 4 more years and it'll be impossible. Every phone call you make is recorded. There's no single phone call that goes in and out of North America that they don't have a recording of. And they can search by word, by tone, by tempo. They can even recognize voices now. There is no such thing as privacy. Everything you've ever put on the internet is there forever, and people know it and can search it. The way you write is searchable now. You can not sign your email, you can put it on somebody else's email, and the structure of your language and the way you influence things can be studied at this level. So the good news about that is manipulation as an ongoing tool for success is over. But adding value will never go out of style. Truth will never go out of style. So influencing with integrity is the secret. But what really influences people? Do facts and figures— we give you enough facts and figures out of a core story, is that going to influence people? No. It's the weaving of that story together in a way that produces what shifts people, and that's human emotion. Ultimately, the big game here is emotion. You have to influence emotion. You have to influence the emotion of your people. If you're going to maximize resources, and if we all agree, as we talked about the other day, It's not a lack of resources. It's a lack of what? Resourcefulness. If you're creative enough, if you're playful enough, if you're determined enough, if you're focused enough, you can find a way. If you're giving enough, if you're generous enough, if you're honest enough, if you're courageous enough, you will get people to help you. You will find the way. You will make that thing happen. You'll access the resource. You'll get someone to coach you, teach you, loan it to you, let you try it, drive it, experience it. So it's the ability to influence emotion, because that's what affects our intellect. That's the bottom line. A core story is only there to give you a set of facts to educate someone that will make them emotional enough to make a decision. And what they do is they go through a series of things that you have emotions about. They may say them in a non-emotional way, but the only reason they work is because you know they're going to open the person's emotion. How many agree with me on this? Say, "Aye." Aye. So as leaders, we can never forget that humans are emotional creatures, including ourself. And to influence other people, we have to know what already influences them. We can't ever forget what truly influences them. It's gonna come down to our ability to connect with them at a deep emotional level or get others to do the same. Here's how I'd say it in really simple terms. To influence someone, you have to already be influenced. Right? To move somebody, you better be moved. To touch somebody, you can't touch somebody about your product or service or vision or idea or your company if you're not touched. To persuade others, you have to be persuaded. You can't give somebody else what you don't have. Now you may have it intellectually, and here's the challenge. When you first meet somebody in your relationship and you're all excited, what's the level of energy like? 0 to 10? Make the sound of that energy. You meet somebody you're totally excited by, make the sound of it. 6 months, 6 years, 20 years later. It's scary, isn't it? And it's not time because there are people I've told— I've been with them, been together 65 years, and they're still out of their mind for each other. They make the same amount of noise you did in the beginning here. What changes is very often When you're around something enough, I don't care what it is, there's a law called the Law of Familiarity. The Law of Familiarity says this: if you're around something enough, you take it just a little bit for granted. It doesn't matter what it is. It's not that you don't care. It's that you get used to it. It's that the variety of it is not quite as high. It's not so new, and with that, sometimes you give it less significance. Even though in your heart you know it's significant, you don't keep the aliveness of it. It becomes something you intellectualize versus something you feel inside your body with a passion. So people say, "But we love each other." Yeah, well, that's great. You hug each other every now and then. You say you love each other. You kiss each other. Little kiss like that. Was that how it was in the beginning? No. It isn't time. It's that most people don't understand that this emotion, this intensity, this passion has to be constantly reinforced every single day. And like any muscle, if you don't use it, you— So then you have the base understanding of why you do what you do, but you've lost the energy that makes it alive. And so, if you're going to be touching people, you've got to be touched. So then the question is, how do we influence ourselves? How do we influence other people? We've got to get them into their emotions. We've got to get ourselves into the emotions that are going to move us to action. And we gotta do that ongoing, 'cause otherwise all the stuff you wrote down will die. It'll die in your book. It'll die in your head. There has to be a level of emotion, a level of hunger in you that makes you go follow through. There's gotta be a level of energy in you that when you go share it with people, you're able to influence them to follow through. And when they don't do it enough to get back in there with them again and get them to do it again. This is where the whole game gets won or lost. Do you agree or disagree with me on this? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] So what we gotta look at is first of all, us. How many of you have days when you wake up and you feel like, "I don't wanna talk to people today!" How many got days like this in your life? Say, "Aye." Aye. But again, as I said the other day, if you're the leader, you don't have that choice. If you're the leader, you have to get in a good state. If you're the leader, you have to get yourself in that place. And how many of you have had some gut checks? Let me see you again in the last, 6 months, 12 months in your business with economy changing like it's never changed before. How many have those gut checks? Say aye. So what do we do? We have to become masters of influence, which means we have to be able to master the state of our own organization. To master the state of our own organization, we've got to know how to change that. How fast, my friends? How fast? And where does it have to start? Ourselves, since we're the first constraint. And if we can do it with ourselves and influence, then we can teach everybody else to influence. We've said business is innovation and marketing. You have to influence people to innovate because they're not going to just do it because they're used to what works and it's easier and they know it. Innovation means massive what? Change. How many people go, give me more massive change in my life with all the other things I'm trying to hang on to? They're not going to do that. You have to influence people to innovate, and marketing is influence. So, what influences us is our states. How do we change our states? Let's start with you and I and with anybody I'm going to work with. You've worked with me before, you know the first answer. If you're going to change somebody's state, the fastest way to do it is physical. Trying to change somebody's mind is really hard. Change their body, their mind will go. If you doubt it, give somebody enough alcohol and just see how quickly you can change them. True? Give them enough alcohol, I don't care who they are, they're going to change. What are you changing? Biochemistry, physiology, physical body, and the emotion, the mind will shift. That's why people take drugs. That's why people eat. When they go eat, it's a biochemical change in their body. So, but we can do this through movement. We can do this through change. So if you want to be the leader and you're going to be affected, first thing I'd say to all of you going home so you don't feel overwhelmed is you need to develop an ongoing discipline because we are our rituals. And I mean a physical one. If you want to say, "Well, why is my life the way it is today?" Look at your rituals. Whether you call them rituals or not, you have them. Most of you get up and you have a set of rituals. You go straight to email, or you go straight to work out, or you go have your breakfast, or you hit the snooze alarm at least 3 times. It's your ritual. Who knows what I'm talking about here? And if you want to know what somebody's like, you can see their rituals. You can look at anybody's body in this room, if you had them take their clothes off, and you know some of their rituals, or lack thereof. Is it true? If every day you get up and your ritual is you go to Starbucks and order a Smoka Boka Thakka, or whatever those things are that you have, right? And a big muffin, and whatever it is, right? And that's what you do every day, it's not hard to figure out what you're going to be like by 10:30 in the morning. You're gonna be looking for your next coffee, your next whatever, 'cause you wanna stimulate your adrenal glands like crazy, and they're gonna drop predictably. And we know what your stress level's gonna be like. We know when your energy's gonna go and fade. It's predictable because of your rituals. If you eat a certain way, you can predict that person's gonna be fat and tired. You eat a different way, you know. If a person eats and they exercise a certain way, you know what their body's gonna be like. Who here works out 5 days a week, never misses, it's just your life? Let me see your hands. Look at the number of people here, that's fantastic. Give everybody a hand, that's really fantastic. Who here honestly never works out consistently? Right? Don't clap. Now here's what's interesting. I'm not saying one is right as one is wrong, but will those two different rituals create a different body, yes or no? If we wanted to really make it clear, we'd say, "Everybody works out 5 days a week, stand up." We could look at them. Sit down. Everybody who doesn't work out, stand up, look at them. It would be pretty obvious. Now, some people's metabolism is different. They can get by with different things, but you get the picture, don't you? Your relationships today are the results of your rituals. If the first thing you do every day when you come home is, "Hi, honey," and then you go and give them a little peck on the cheek, and then you sit down and start typing your emails, or you flip on the news, it's not hard to know what your relationship's going to be like. You guys might love each other, but it's going to be one boring, dead relationship. It's like having a brother or sister. But if your new ritual was— and you just, in the beginning, you made it a ritual, just made for fun. You say, every day when I come home, the minute I'm going to do is I'm going to yell my husband or wife's name. Or sometimes my wife's a little crazy, so I go, Lucy! I'm home! And then we both go running wherever she is in the house, wherever in the house, we go running full speed like lovers haven't seen each other in 6 months. We do it. Ask my assistant. All the time. Now, not every day, but it's our ritual to this process, right? It's just a crazy thing. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the hand, but that's not why I'm telling you to do this. I'm telling you this because I want you to create yours. Because when you do that and you're playful and crazy, And you do that on a regular basis, like you can't wait to see each other. And the biggest ritual that we have besides physical— by the way, let me just say to you this, this— when you go home, if you want to transform your business, transform you by creating first, if you don't already have one, a set of physical rituals that you're not going to miss. I don't care if it's 3 days a week, 4 days a week, something that's going to make you physically strong. Because in a place where there's going to be a lot of fear, The way you deal with crisis is number one thing you should do is feed your mind. And you're doing that. Get yourself new answers. Immerse yourself in new environments. Get new voices. Have new perspectives. Ask some new questions. Isn't that what we've been doing here? Right? And we're doing it together and bringing all these people together. I basically, to create innovation in your life and marketing, I've assembled here 19 people. You assembled 5 days of your life and we're just rocking day and night. It's the total immersion of what I taught you in innovation. It's really what it is. But it's got to continue. For it to continue though, we've also been managing your state to a great extent. Right? Most of you don't go home in 4 or 5 days and start clapping like crazy and screaming and shaking. You don't do that usually. Right? And so some of you are going to go like, "Wow, it doesn't feel the same as at the seminar and stuff." You know? "I'm back here by myself and my people aren't doing this." But some of you will go home and initiate this. You're going to have your Physiology 5, your 5 minutes of physiology shift once an hour, once every 90 minutes, or no more than once every 2 hours. You're going to start your morning with everybody, and you're going to bring in and get some little audio clip of something from a movie or something that blasts across, you know, the room, and everybody's standing at attention. You're going to do some crazy stuff if you're smart. Go over to Zappos and see what they do. They got the most crazy stuff going on there. All the stuff that I do in seminars, they do every day at their location with their people, and people can't wait to get to work, and they're in a certain state. So if I were you, I'd feed my mind. You're doing that. I then condition my body because your body is going to give you the strength to follow through. And there's nobody in this room can't afford to do that. And I don't care if that's going for a walk. And as you're doing a walk, you're doing what I call my Hour of Power or 15 Minutes, you know, to Thrive, where you're just putting yourself in state, maybe doing incantations. You got to do something to get the blood moving through you on a consistent basis. And once in a while, it's really pushing you beyond your comfort zone. So when you get beyond your comfort zone in your mental side, there's already a reservoir there. Who knows what I'm talking about here? Say, "Aye." Aye. So, feed your mind. Feed your mind with the information. Feed your mind with examples and the stories. Part of why it's here is good for you to see all these people that are succeeding in this tough environment. How many found that to be valuable just as a balanced perspective? Say, "Aye." You know, go read some autobiographies, but feed your mind every day. Condition your body every day. And then the third thing is become a master of influence by asking the right questions. And that's what I want to talk to you about. Questions are the answer. You want new answers for your life? You need new questions. You're not getting through to somebody? The answer of getting through to them is not to talk more. It's to ask them more. It's to get underneath. It's to discover. Remember I said the other day, to influence another human being, you have to know what already what influences them. You can't do that by talking to them. If I tell you something, you can doubt it. But if you tell me, by me asking you a question, you tell me how it is, it's true. That's the basis of influence for those who are more sophisticated. There's lots of ways to influence. You can tell stories and metaphors; you can influence by example; you can influence by rewards or pain. But the fastest way to influence is to get inside somebody by questions. Questions are the answer. If you want to give someone a gift, ask them the right question because all we experience in life— if I say to you Zabadaba Skabaskaka! Sabadawski! What did you just experience? Freedom. Your brain just searched 10 million files and went, "Don't know what that means." There's nothing in there. They're like, "I don't know what that is." Right? Our experiences, we don't experience life, we experience our association to whatever we're stimulated by. So if I said to you, "I want to tell you a story about my senior year in high school," and I start telling you about my senior year in high school, and there was this girl that I was so in love with. Now, by the way, I can go on and on and on, but you're not experiencing my story. You're experiencing your story. You went back to high school as soon as I started to tell it. And you're experiencing somebody you were interested in. Very quickly, you're going for a reference point you can relate to. How many see what I'm talking about here? If I want you to think about your mother, all I gotta do is talk about mine. Because the only way you understand things is by referencing it. So questions cause you to go inside and reference things. The right question can change anything. Who's been with me at Date with Destiny, where I take— okay, so people have been to Date with Destiny, know I do a program only twice a year. It's my favorite program because, frankly, I've already laid enough foundational things that now I can just do my art. My art is I give people these things to do. They stand up, and it doesn't matter what's going to happen. Somebody may stand up and they're frustrated because they've achieved everything they ever wanted and they made $100 million, and they can't figure out why they're depressed. A real example of a lady I worked with just the other day. Completely depressed, so much so that she's saying, "I don't think—" She gave us a reference point of somebody. I don't know the person's name, but I guess they're famous in the art community. Somebody killed himself, and she goes, "I don't think people should be upset with him. I think you should be able to take your own life." What's that telling you? Right? So it's like, I've never lost a suicide in 30 years, out of thousands. It's one of the things I'm most proud of in my entire life. Children, adult people. I don't say that to brag. I say it because once you know a human being's needs, if you know what they're really after, and you know how to ask the right questions, You can connect them to any new experience of life you want them to be in. And I know all human beings have a need for certainty. Certainty they can be okay, they can avoid pain, they can have comfort or pleasure. Think of certainty as fundamental comfort. If you have no certainty that this floor was going to hold you up and we're on the 8th floor right now, you know, you might not be paying attention to me. I remember once I did a seminar in Switzerland It was about 2,500 people. It wasn't a huge seminar. But we were in this building. It was a building you usually did trade shows in, just like this one. You drive trucks in and so forth. But as we jumped, everybody was jumping in the room like that, and we were rocking them. I took the house to a different level. The floor started going up and down as we're doing this. This much up and down. Like a wave. By the way, how fast do you think people stopped jumping? I could feel, we're all feeling, people looked around. So I called the building people and we had everybody always come in. They did this inspection and everything else. Now this is the first day of a 3-day UPW seminar. So those who've been to Unleash the Power Within with the firewalk and so forth know it makes what we did this week look like nothing because the intensity is at a whole different level. But it becomes fun because you become so strong so quickly. You're not sitting so much. You're in it. And I can't do 3 days with people sitting for that many hours. They'd be bored out of their mind. It wouldn't change. There'd be no transformation. So they come back and say the building is fine. It has this much play. It's just trucks usually drive on once. They don't go up and down, up and down. It's a different motion. I said, are you absolutely positive? No problem. So I tell everybody that we're still going to jump up and down. Now this is going to require some leadership. Does that make sense? What do I got to do? I got to be able to what? Influence them. And by the way, what do you think the likelihood is when everybody told me we're starting, there's just no way they're going to do it? I said, well, if they don't do it, we might as well not do the event because you can't physically sit still and not move because emotion is created by motion. So I said, it's not going to work for 3 days. Now it must happen. So since it must, my job as leader is to influence them. So first thing I got to do is I got to own how important this is. I can't get you to own it if I don't own it. How many agree with me on this? Say aye. If I own it like 90% or 95%, Will I get everybody? Yes or no? You don't get people to walk on fire by 90%. I think you'll probably do well. I got to own it. And by the way, what if I said, "Okay, we're going to walk on fire. Okay, who wants to go first?" Not me. Somebody else. Somebody else go first. As the leader, I always go first. That's my job. So all I did was I divided up the room and I realized they needed certainty. So I said, "Watch. We're going to do this with a small segment. We're going to divide you into 3 teams." And so I divided one section, second section, third section, and we all jumped. I got them jumping and the room didn't move. Stop. And that's what we did. We were all weekend long on these three sections and the room didn't shake. I figured I had to give them certainty till they forgot about it. It was totally fine. Right? But whenever you're going to accomplish something, sometimes you've got to break it down, but you've got to provide this need for certainty. Everybody has a need for uncertainty. Everybody has a need for variety. We all have a need to feel like there's a surprise in our life. Who here loves surprises? Raise your hand. Say, "I." You like the surprises you want. The surprises you don't want, you call problems. Isn't it true? But you need those too to feel alive. See, you like surprises that you're certain— you're not sure they're going to happen, but if they do, you're certain it'll feel good. Isn't it true? So people have a need for certainty. They need uncertainty. They need variety. They need stimulation. People have a need to feel significant, to feel unique, to feel special, to feel important. If you help people meet that need, trust me, the world is yours. I remember many years ago, Steve Wynn is a good friend of mine. I love him. He's one of the most brilliant people I know. He's not only a genius entrepreneur, but he is an artist. He's one of the most creative people. Steve could talk about this lectern and he could make it the most magnificent lectern you could possibly imagine. Tony, look at the metal on this. And he can just describe things in a way that are just unbelievable. So we were having dinner the very first time we ever met. It was New Year's one year, and fireworks were going off, and he and I were totally into it. And we were talking about influence, that this is the ultimate skill in life of any business owner. And that that's his only job, is influence. He creates things, he loves that. But I can create all this, guess how valuable this is if I can't influence you that it's valuable for you? Zero. It dies. It stays in my house. So we're describing this, and I'm describing these 6 human needs. Certainty and uncertainty. And when I got to significance, he lit up like a Christmas tree. He goes, "Tony, if you want to make billions, if you want to make billions of dollars," That's the one to give people. If you get them to link buying your product makes them more significant, they'll spend any amount of money they want. He said, "Think about it. People get these little handbags. Women buy these handbags." And he said, "They cost nothing to make! They pay thousands of dollars because it's got somebody's initials on it. It's not even made better. I could show you one that's made better that costs 1/100th of the price. 1/10th of the price." When he built the Wynn and then the Encore. 2 point— last one, $2.7 billion for a hotel. But guess what? When everybody else is freaking out, you go over to the Wynn right now, it's full. Because the people that want to be known as the best have got to go to the best place. That's the need structure you want to meet. Fourth need, connection and love. Everybody needs connection. Everybody needs love. In fact, all we want that significance for is if we think if we're significant enough, people will love us. If I'm worth it, if I'm enough, if I'm beautiful enough, strong enough, smart enough, rich enough, intelligent enough, playful enough, funny enough, something enough, then I'll be loved. So if you're going to influence somebody, you've got to know what's influencing them is the need for certainty. And when you talk about change, you just mess with that. True? There's a need for uncertainty, but you've got to show them how it's positive uncertainty, a variety. They need to feel significant, and gosh, what if you bring this new thing in to change And if it doesn't work out as well for me, I feel stupid. I look like I failed. I feel insignificant. Love? Gosh, I don't know if I'll even love myself if this doesn't go well. How many follow the pattern of what people get concerned about, right? So these first 4 needs, everybody finds a way to meet, even if they have to blame somebody else, or work really hard, or make up a story in their head. Everybody finds a way to be certain. Everybody finds a way to have variety. Everybody has a way to be significant. Everybody has a way to feel at least connected, if not loved. But ultimately, the final two needs is everyone has to grow. Remember we talked about this the first day? Progress equals happiness. If you grow, you feel alive. If you don't grow, you feel like you're dying. And so to influence people, people have this need for growth. And if they feel like they're growing with you— remember I said you can use fear to motivate them? That'll work for a while. You can use incentives. That'll work for a long time too, but there is a limit to incentives. The only thing that makes people feel fully alive long-term is they feel happy because they're growing, they're expanding. Remember when Tony talked about how they took the same process of becoming a buyer for Zappos, but they broke it into more steps? Still 2 years, but you were a buyer level A, buyer qualified level B, level C, and people were like, "Yes, I made it, progress, growth." And finally, what's the last need? Contribution. And you heard him and many others talk about, and you've seen the people here that are most successful feel like what they're doing has a meaning beyond themselves. Now I'm reminding you of these 6 needs very quickly here because if you and I are going to influence other people, we have to know what already influences them. And of those 6 needs, who has all 6 of these needs? Who would you say? Everybody. Who here has a need to be loved at some level, whether you admit it or not, or at least connected? Say aye. Who here needs to feel unique, special, important, significant? Raise your hand and say, "I." Including the people who go, "I don't need to be special. No, no, I don't need that. I'm a Christian." Or, "I'm a Jew." Or, "I'm a Muslim." Or, "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual." They find a way to be unique. Everybody needs this. It's human nature. So we need all these needs to be met, but we don't need them all equally. We've learned to value some of these 6 more than others. Some value certainty more than anything else. And so they live their life trying to meet that need. And if you try to convince them how exciting this new project's going to be, you just messed up totally. What you got to tell them is, you know what, if we don't change this, do you realize what's going to happen? Do you think that what we have right now, certain, solid— do you not understand this is evaporating between us? If you and I are going to have any certainty at all, this is what we must do immediately. And they're like, "Let's make it happen." Right? If you go to somebody who's more variety-driven, some people, the top of their list, they all want certainty, they all want uncertainty. We all want them all. We tend to have two that we value more than any others. Those two are the driving force in a person. So if somebody's variety-driven and you go, "Okay, we're going to keep doing these same things because we've got to keep fundamentally doing these elements," and the changes we're making, they're not that big because you're trying to convince people so that they they won't be too fearful, you lost that person. You gotta pull them aside and say, "Look, you and I gotta understand something here. This is an entirely new game we're about to begin." Really? You'll have their total interest. You know, John here, John here's doing a great job keeping the foundation going, but I need you to help me partner 'cause we're gonna enter something that's never been done before. If somebody's significance-driven, which all of us have a need for significance, significance. But if it's at the top of the list, you gotta let them know what's gonna come of this that's gonna make the game of this business so different than anybody else. How we're gonna be better than anybody else. How we're gonna take market share. How we're gonna be number one. You're gonna have their full attention. If somebody's connection and love-driven at the top, how are you gonna approach them? Come on, how are you gonna approach them? What are you gonna say? Listen, we as a family gotta do this. Let me tell you what we're going to do. We're going to be stronger. We're going to love the hell out of our customers. We're going to take care of them better than we ever have. These are the things that are going to connect us to each other and to our clients like never before. Do you realize what kind of family we're going to build by implementing this? They're in. If they're growth-driven, it'll be obvious. You don't even have to explain it. They'll just see the growth opportunity and go for it. If they're contribution-driven, it's very obvious. So you have to be able to bring your message to someone in a way that makes sense. Now, telling them is one thing. But asking them is even more powerful. See, if I tell you, you could feel I'm selling you, persuading you, influencing you. But if I ask you a question where you tell me, you own it. It's exactly what happens at Zappos. When they take people for the first week, no matter what position they have, and they put them through an immersion, right? They put them through boot camp. And at the end of that week, what do they do with those people? Do you remember? They offered them what? $2,000 to leave. Right now. $2,000 to leave. Now that makes these people— see, instead of Zappos selling you more on "we're the best culture," they gave them enough information, enough experience to hopefully get a good hit. But now it's the ultimate piece. I have to ask myself, am I on board or not? If I ask you, you might even BS me. "Oh yeah, I'm ready to go." But for me to give up that money, I've got to say, "Is this worth it? Is this worth more than $2,000? Is this the place I'm going to stay? Is this—" And I've got to ask all those questions. And then once I answer them, and I've answered them, I'm in. How many follow the difference here? Say "I." This is a really, really powerful distinction. Instead of telling, you can tell, tell, tell, but ultimately you've got to ask the question that brings someone there. So if you've ever watched me with somebody who's suicidal or somebody who's having a major challenge or somebody who's happy and wants to go to another level, I'll tell stories, I'll do examples, but ultimately the moments of influence happen at moments when I ask questions. And they make this connection in their head. And I'll say, "If you continue with this, tell me how that's going to meet your dream." I did this with my daughter. I'll never forget. My daughter, Jolie, always wanted to be a dancer on Broadway. And she was very talented. Of course, I'm her father, right? So of course she's talented, right? But at one point, you know, she's going to college and doing really well. She was based in Los Angeles and she was winning all these dance competitions. And she came home for Christmas and we're sitting down and I said to her this question. I said, "Honey, how are you doing on your dream?" And she said, "What do you mean?" She goes, "I'm doing great in school. I got straight A's and I'm going to dance classes." I said, "I know, but I want to know how are you doing on your dream?" I didn't tell her how she was doing on her dream. You follow the difference here? I could say, "Joey, I'm concerned. You got straight A's in school and you're doing great dance classes, but you're not focusing on your dream, or I don't think your dream's coming about." If I started out with that, it wouldn't work. I gotta ask. I gotta make her break her own what? Break her what? Pattern. She goes, "Well, what do you mean?" I said, "Your dream. You know what it is. What is it?" Well, she goes, "Well, of course, the dance on Broadway." I said, uh-huh, and what are you doing? She goes, well, I'm going to school, I got straight A's, and I'm dancing. I said, are you dancing against people you're better than or people that are better than you? What do you think her answer was? I'm better than them. I said, of course, because you're winning every time. That's a clue. So my question is, how do you get better playing against people you're better than? If you go out on a tennis court and you play against somebody that's twice as good as you are, even if you're a lousy tennis player, are you going to get better or worse playing against them as time goes by? Which one? You have to just to stay on the court. If you sit across from somebody whose skill set is lower than yours, even though you want to practice as hard as you can, what's going to happen to your game eventually? It's going to go down. You can just watch her process this. Now, if I said to her, you need to leave California, move to New York, and compete with other people, that probably wouldn't work too well. But I started out with, how you doing on your dream? And then I got her to say, what is your dream really? I knew what the answer was. By the way, the best way to influence people if you're trying to serve them is you better know what you want to take them towards. As a leader, I got to know where I'm going to take you. That's my job. If you're a parent and you're not leading your kids, leading you, you're not much of a parent. That doesn't mean your kids can't inform you, but there are points in life where you got to be able to lead them. And you can lead anyone wherever you want as long as you know where the outcome is and you ask the right questions. I could, I could take a deck of cards, have you take out any card, see what the card is, and I can lead you to that card. You take out, for example, you know, the ace of hearts, the king of hearts, and I say to you, well, let me ask you a question. A deck of cards has 52 cards in it, but they're broken up into 4 different suits, aren't they? What are they? Spades. What are they? Come on. Yeah. So as you think of those, pick one. Pick one. Hearts. And some of you won't pick hearts, so I'll say, pick another one. And if you already go down, I'll say, if you ask everything, I'll say, and that leaves until we finally get to hearts, right? And then I'll say, of those hearts, you know, there's one that's valued more than the other one. Well, what is it? I mean, I can lead you wherever I want. I'm going to get you to say the king of hearts or the 8. I'm going to take you wherever I want to go with questions, but I better know first. So I say to her, by competing these people who you're better than, because you told me you're better than them, so I'm not saying that, she's saying it, are you going to get better? What happens in these moments? She's making new connections in her head. New know nuances. New beliefs. And she says, "Well, no, I'm not." I said, "Let me ask you another question. What's the life cycle on a dancer? I mean, can you be a dancer when you're 40? Start when you're 40, 35, make it on Broadway?" She goes, "No." I said, "How old are you?" She goes, "What do you mean? You know I am." I said, "Oh, just how old are you now?" She said, "Well, I'm 21." I said, "When would now be a good time for you to start?" "Now? Oh yeah, that's a good idea." She said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Honey, everything I've done in my life has been based on modeling, but also there's something in me that most people don't realize has really made me successful, and that's a sense of urgency." I do not settle. I do not wait. You wait and it's over. If you allow something to distract you at the moment you're about to get the most important information you need in your life, what do you think the price is? And I said, you know, it's called utilization. By the way, I will tell you this aside, one of the greatest skills in your life as an influencer is I call utilization, which is whatever happens, use it. That's the greatest gift you can give yourself in business and life. Whatever happens, use it. You're aware that whatever happens is always an asset. To your outcome. If you have the belief it's always an asset, I just need to know how to use it, then everything in life plays to you. It might be another metaphor. What Tony from Zappos talked about when he had those people take the test, say, am I lucky, extremely lucky to unlucky? Remember that? And ironically, the people that think they're extremely lucky have a different life. They have a different life because they utilize everything. They see everything as to their advantage. Anyway, with my daughter, basically what I said to her was, "Honey, I want you to get— you think I'm a genius," and I said, "And I am." But I said, "My deepest genius is urgency. I am one hungry mofo. I will not let an opportunity pass me by. I will not see something that's possible and go, 'Well, I'll try that later.' I grab it. I grab it right then by the hair. I crush it. I go after it." It isn't just talent. How many talented people do you know who have unbelievable talent, but they never lived their dream? How many people do you know that are brilliant and are depressed? How many people do you know that have up to degrees in education, but can't fight their way out of a paperback? By the way, you're all answering those questions. You don't have to answer them out loud. I usually, in an audience, invite them to answer them out loud because it creates momentum and energy and keeps your energy high. But I don't have to use that style. I could use anybody's style. As long as I ask the questions, the answers are going to show up, aren't they? And even if you say no, that's still an answer, isn't it? So I said to her, I said to her, honey, I said, um, is this making sense? She goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, what are you proposing? And now she's open. How many follow? Right? Because she now believes I've got to do something. If I stay on this path, it's not going to happen. There's not enough time. 21 years old. I said, "Well, honey, how have I ever succeeded? What have you seen me do? What is the secret to me compressing decades into days?" She goes, "Modeling." I said, "That's right. I find the best of the best. I won't settle until I find the very best. Not somebody good. Somebody who's the very best. And I go figure out everything they do so I can compress decades into days." I said, "You need to go model or work with the best person in your industry in the world, who happens to be in New York. You need to train with them. And it's not enough to model somebody. You've got to take massive what, my friends? Massive what?" You can come here and model all the people here, but if you don't do anything with it, it's over. It's not going to happen. So I said, "You've got to take massive action." She says, "Well, what are you proposing?" I say, "Leave school. Move to New York. Go into training." I will pay for the training as long as you have a full-time job paying for your housing. Because I want you to be a working actress as long as you're going on auditions. You can't just go train and work. You have to find a way for auditions too. You do that, I'll pay for you to be able to go there, I'll pay for your training, you pay for your housing. That's really scary. That's a lot. That's like, that's a lot. When would I do this? She goes, I'm in the middle of school. I said, when would now be a good time? She goes, "You mean like right now?" I said, "What do you think?" She says, "In the middle of the school year?" I said, "Yes." She said, "But you're the one who told me to go to college." I said, "I was wrong." I said, "I wasn't wrong about college. I'm glad you're going to college. You got straight A's." go back and do that later. You're not going to run out of time to go to college. You're not going to lose any of your credits, but you're running out of time to become a dancer. I said, I don't know if that— you're that skilled. I think you're gifted, but I'm your father. Of course I think you're gifted. You could be ugly, I still think you're beautiful. You actually were when you were born, kind of like a lizard. I still thought you were cool, right? So I said, the only way we're going to know is if you get in it. 'Cause I said, "There's one emotion I don't ever want you to have in your life, my girl, and that's regret. That's an emotion I don't want you to ever have. That's up to you, but if I can help you from not having it, that's why I'm talking to you right now. And if you don't take this shot now, you tell me what level of regret you might have later in life." She goes, "Wow." Right here, right in the middle of school, right in the middle of Christmas vacation. So guess what? She said to me, "Do you mind if I ask anybody else their opinion?" Sure, people pay me a million dollars a year for me to coach them, but you should frickin' ask somebody else what they think. Not a problem. Who are you thinking of? And she said, no, Dad, she goes, of course I respect your opinion, but you know, you've always taught me to go to the area where there's the greatest expert. And she said, the greatest experts are people in the business. I said, you're right, who are you thinking of? And she said, well, I was thinking of so-and-so, this gentleman who's at CAA, who's a good friend of mine and she knew him. He's one of the top guys at CAA. And I said, he's actually a brilliant idea. I said, that's smart of you to do that. Check it out. She goes, "Okay, I will." I said, "When?" She said, "Now would be a good time." Now would be a good time. So she literally went in the other room, and as she goes in the other room, he's one of my friends, I call him right then and there while she's doing it. True story. I said, "Look, I just talked to Jolie. I only have 30 seconds. I talked to Jolie. Here's the deal. You know this. She's here, straight A's, da da da." I said, "I told her she should go to New York because that's where dancing is and she needs to be in proximity." proximity, doesn't she? Proximity is power. He goes, Tony, you're absolutely right. I said, if it's not right, tell her it's not right. Is it right? It's right. Tell her that. Bye. No exaggeration, she walks in 3 minutes later and says, uh, the line's busy. I left a voicemail. So I said, honey, don't leave a voicemail. Call back again. You know him, he's on the line all the time. She always calls him. Long story short, and true story, she talks to him on the phone. He talks to her for like an hour and a half. She comes back a couple hours later, "God, Dad, I had the greatest conversation. It was the right thing to do." And he says, "It's absolutely right." And talked about why and how and all those things. And so I said, "Okay, great." I said, "You can't be, you know, a prophet in your own land, I guess, around here." But I looked at her and said, Father knows Is that the best? She laughed, we laughed about it. So I took my little sunshine girl, who was used to living in Southern California and going to the beach, right? I took her to New York during one of the worst winters New York had had in like 15 years and put her in this crappy little apartment deliberately, 'cause I wanted her to be hungry, right? And sure enough, she went and she trained with some unbelievable people and she kept going out, going on these things. Less than 6 months later, she called me up at one time and she said, "Dad," she goes, "I have a little surprise for you. When are you coming to New York?" And I told her, and she said, "Okay, well, I want to pick you up from the airport." Sure enough, I get to the airport, she's not there, but there's a car there for me. A little note. It said, "Dad, I just have a little surprise." And so I'm okay. So I get in the car and, you know, I'm excited to see my daughter. And the car drives by her apartment and we go down to downtown Broadway. They pull up in front of a place And there's a play called Tommy, if you remember that classic play, right? And on the headlines I see my daughter's name. Within 6 months she was on Broadway. Whole thing happened just from that process. Ladies and gentlemen, really great. Influence is the game. You must lead your children, you must lead yourself, you must lead your business, which means You can lay down law, foundation, principles, distinctions. You can tell stories. You can give examples. But ultimately, you must ask for the order. You must ask for the action. And you must ask in a way where they're already convinced because they know what's right inside of them, not because of the power of your personality. Because the power of your personality will go away. But see, when I went away, she already owned all this. How many follow the difference here? Say "I." I. Plus, you'll learn a lot. You'll learn. You'll find out, "I'm trying to influence this," and it may not be right. Maybe the better thing is some mixture between what I thought and they thought. You'll find that by asking questions. You can't just ask questions where you're only trying to get to the outcome. You've got to be happy with the overall outcome, and you've got to be open to what's happening as feedback along the way. And you've got to know what people need. Certainty. Variety, significance, connection and love, growth, contribution. And you gotta know which one of those they value most to get their attention. You gotta start with what they value, not what you value. See, most people think influencing someone is getting them to do something. Well, if I said to somebody here, "Okay, I'll give a million dollars to the first person up here who's naked within the next 15 seconds," trust me, that's not influence. Any idiot could pull that off. That's a bribe. And that's what some of you do with the people you manage. You try to bribe them, and you go, "Look how well they're doing," for a while, until that gets old. Till being naked gets old or a million dollars gets old. A million dollars gets old. Who knows what I'm talking about here? Yes, I'm sure you do. No, a million dollars ain't squat. Whatever you're around, you get familiar with, it loses its intangible quality. So you've got to be constantly thinking this game about how to meet these people's needs. You've got to use questions to do it. Who else do you got to ask quality questions of, my friends? Who? Ourselves. If you want to get yourself in state every day, what are you going to do? Feed your mind? What are you going to do? Condition your body? What are you going to do? Ask better questions. Not, "How am I going to survive this economic downturn?" That kind of question, you're going to feel like hell and you're going to do like hell. Because that's going to put you in a state where you're not going to come up with any answers. So what are some of those questions? Well, in my own life, I learned to ask questions that were very helpful to me. I learned to just go, instead of saying— I'll give you an example. I remember I was on the road. I'd been 120 days in a row on the road. 100 of those days I'd been on a stage. My voice was gone. My body was gone. Because most of the things I do are not like this, where you guys are sitting in chairs and it's casual and talking for a few hours. It was a 50-hour day, weekends. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And then the full time in between, then flying 12 hours. Crazy. And I got home and I was burned out. I was physically burned out. And I got home and the first day I was home, I had 100-and-something phone calls. Now, this is obviously the days before email, because I thought 100 phone calls was really just horrific. Right? I was like, "100 phone calls?" And these were the questions I asked myself. I was like, "What the hell is the matter with my life? How did I end up in this pit?" By the way, I was living in a 10,000-square-foot castle overlooking the ocean in Del Mar, California while I was saying this to myself. But can you hypnotize yourself with questions? Yes or no? Questions have presuppositions. Like the man who came the other day and said, "Well, you know, how can I do this when it's impossible?" That's basically what he said to me. He said, "You know, how can I double my business when, you know, no one is buying anything anymore?" Well, if you ask a question built with a negative presupposition, you're in pain. You ask a better question. So I said to him, "Is there any other person you could sell to? Is there any other service you could create? Is there any other market that exists in the world? Is there—" You get new answers when you ask new, but we ask the same questions over and over again. So I'm going, "Why did this happen to me?" Why do I have to respond to all these people? But then what I did is I realized to change my state. I went and drank some water. I was dehydrated. Shook my body out. I said, you know what I'm going to do first? I'm going to just go for a little run. Went for the run. Got my body changed and the state changed. New focus came with new questions. I started thinking, you know what? I would have died to have some of these people call me, you know, 4 or 5 years ago when I was the President of the United States on that list. Another one of the guys now, one of my dearest friends that I remember I used to be a fan of this man. He's just a genius of of a man. And now he's one of my best friends. So I ask myself, how did I get so lucky to get these people in my life? How did I get so lucky to have 100 people want to talk to me in a day? There was a time I can remember in a 400-square-foot bachelor apartment in Venice, California, when I heard the song "I Am, I Said" and no one heard, not even the chair. And I sat there with tears thinking my life had no meaning and I mattered to nothing and no one. Sometimes it's good to ask a question that reminds you that whatever you think is stressful today was something you would have dreamed about at one time in your life. To have a foreground, you need a background. Sometimes it's useful to remember your background. So I asked myself, "Okay, why do I want to call these people back?" Is there a presupposition there? Yes or no? What would be great about calling these people back? Well, I said, "Actually, I want to catch up with Peter. I mean, eh." And pretty soon, instead of having to do it, does the state you do something in affect the people you deal with? Yes or no? And your state is affected by what you focus on. And what you focus on is controlled by questions. So then I thought, a better question. I said, "How could I make all 100 of these phone calls and enjoy the process?" Because for me, it meant sitting down, being all crunched up, going in there, talking, talking, talking, not breathing, not eating, not anything. 100 calls, right? And I looked out the window as I saw that. I was sitting by my swimming pool and jacuzzi overlooking the ocean. I said, "I'm calling everybody from the jacuzzi." Because I asked a better question. How could I make these calls and totally enjoy the process? I didn't get the answer, so I— If you keep asking, that's the secret. Ask and you shall, but you've got to ask consistently and you've got to ask from a state of certainty. Not like, "Well, what do I do?" You know, that's not going to do it. I said, how can I make this call until I enjoy it? I went, I'm going to call from the freaking Jacuzzi overlooking the ocean. If I wasn't making the calls, that's where I'd be. So why wait? So I took my little list down. I got my cell— not my cell phone, but my little extender phone out, right? And I sat in that swimming pool and talked and laughed. I remember why I was calling everybody. And before I called them, I thought about all the things that we'd done together or what was cool I wanted to share with them. And I made all the calls. I didn't reach everybody. Nobody was reachable, but I made all the calls I could possibly make. I was in that Jacuzzi for about 3 hours and I came out like I looked like I was 4,000 years old. But I was so relaxed and I had the best time and all the calls got made just because I asked a better what? If you want to influence somebody, ask a better question. That's the whole game. If you have a problem— people tell me all the time, "I have a problem with that." And I say, "What's your question?" Because all you're saying when you have a problem is there's a question that you have that's not been answered. Problems are really questions that have not been answered. But when you state them not as a question, you forget that you're after an answer. So, tell me your problem in your business, sir. Funding. What's your question? What's your question? Because by the way, when you go, "My problem is funding," guess what you got? Now you have a problem. It's yours. You get to hang on to it. You get to label it my effing problem. You get to show people your problem. You get to talk about your problem, but nothing changes. Nothing changes until you get an answer to what really is going on. What really is, it's a problem because you haven't formed it as a question. If you've got the question and you keep asking it, and you ask it with enough certainty, playfulness, creativity, you ask it of the right people, you ask it of enough people, ask and you shall what? Seek and you shall find. Now you don't have to be religious. Those are useful terms to remember because it's true. But the problem is still your problem because you haven't formed it as a quality question. You know, it's, "I got a question. How come I can never get funding?" Yeah, that's like somebody says, you know, "How come, you know, I can never lose weight?" And your brain goes, "Because you're a pig, right?" If you ask a lousy question, you get a lousy— it's true of your customers, true of yourself, true of your clients. True of the people that work with you? So what's your question, sir? My question is, I need to— how can I go out and talk to some people and let them understand what a great investment that Bullet hire is? Okay, that's a— give me a hand. That's a nice question. Very nice. And stand up, sir. And now tell me the answer. In fact, tell me 3 answers, because I want to show you all something. Problems get solved only when you adopt this philosophy: no more than 5% of my time on the problem, 95% of my time on the solution. In most organizations, if you took the amount of time they spent talking about the frickin' problem and what caused the problem and where the problem came from, and who's responsible for the problem and how the problem emerged. Is it that ratio? Yes or no? No, it's not 5% of the time, is it? It's probably almost reverse. It's usually 70, 80% of the time on the problem. If you're lucky to get 20% on the solution, it's usually 5 or 10% of the time on the solution. I'm talking about core total focus where you've crystallized what the question is you need the answer to. And that's where you've been. You've been focused on this thing called a problem, and there is no thing called a problem once you form a question, if it's a quality question. So one thing I used to do in my seminars in the very beginning, you know, in the big seminars like here, I can mingle amongst you because I can get out and get back out again. But in my big seminars, most of you know I have security. It's not so like I want security, it's because I couldn't physically function. Because once you get to 2, 3, 4, 5,000 people, 10,000 people. There's just too many people, it's overwhelming, and people let me go and I couldn't function, I couldn't move around. So what I did in the beginning days before I had security is people would run up to me here and they all want to get their question answered, and I got a process in between because I'm running the freaking thing and I can't do anything. I can't go to the bathroom. I think that's why I developed bladder control, is because the break was over and I was still standing there with 20 people, right? So I came up with a plan, and I implement this in every company in this room. I actually thought about this, something we could even implement in our big seminars, even the large seminars, it would be easy to do as well. People all want me to give them the answer. And I'm happy to give them an answer, my answer, which might be a good answer, might not be, but it's the best one I can give you. But even if I give you the best answer, wouldn't it be better if you came up with the answer? Because if I come up with it, a little bit of you is a little annoyed that I had the answer and you didn't. First, you're happy to have the answer. Then later on, you're a little pissy because you go, "I could have thought of that answer." I'm doing a show for NBC. It's called "Breakthrough with Tony Robbins." In order to get the show, I show them all these films of people I turn around. I take the impossibles is what I want. The people that have been in therapy for 20 years, or the person who's suicidal, or the relationship that's over. I just live to take the impossible and make it possible. Now, by the way, in relationships, sometimes it's better for them to be apart. So I don't want to give the impression that we always keep people together, because that's not necessarily the goal. But I said, go find some people of your own. So, you know, I didn't get specially good, pick the right person. You will pick anybody and I'll turn them around. And so sure enough, they went out and found some people. One of the persons they got was a man who has been— they went to a speech pathologist and said, could you turn somebody around who's stuttering? He's been doing it for years. Of course he could do it easily. I said, "Really?" He said, "Sure." I said, "Get the worst stutterer you could possibly find. Search all pathologists, speech pathologists. Find their worst patient. I only have an hour." And they look at me going, "Really?" I said, "Really." So they get me this man. He's been stuttering since he's 2 years old. His name is Rashad. He's a really wonderful soul. About 30 years old. Some of you have met Rashad. Some of you know who I'm talking about, right? Some people are clapping because he came to an event. They got to see this man. And so they sent me to see— they brought him to see me. Guy's been stuttering since he's 2. It'd take him like 3 minutes to say his name. He was like, like this, going like this. I'm sitting there very patiently, right? Waiting for him to say his name. You can imagine that tempo in my life. So anyway, he finishes his name, and the long story short is, you know, I get him to stop stuttering within 20 minutes, within an hour completely. Within 5 hours, because I wanted to change his whole life, not just stop the stuttering, change everything. And I got him to remember a moment of his life when he started stuttering. He couldn't remember. I said, "What's the earliest memory you have in life?" By the way, how am I influencing him right now? Guess who else is starting to search for the earliest memory in their life? So I said to him, What's the earliest memory in your life? He thought for a while, thought, he said, "I don't know." I said, "I know you don't know, but if you did, what would it be?" And he finally says, "I was 2 years old. I was eating cereal with my brother, watching cartoons." I said, "Okay." I said, "What was the cereal?" He said, "Cocoa Puffs." That's not it. I said, "What was the cartoon?" He said, "Rocky and Bullwinkle." And I said to him, "Didn't Bullwinkle always stutter?" And his eyes got like this big. He said, "Yeah." I said, "Whenever he was in trouble, he stuttered and then Rocky came and saved him." You watch this unbelievable transformation. I said, something happened before that day, because whenever someone has locked down that day, you have a memory before it, you've just blocked it. I eventually got him to remember the night before, his father had brutally beat his mother, and then he didn't know what to do when he was watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, and he started stuttering. And sure enough, Rocky comes to rescue, his dad stopped beating his mother because because he had to deal with his son stuttering out of control. So unconsciously, he became the problem, so the father had to focus on him instead of beating up his wife/mother. I said, "That worked really well for a 2-year-old Rashad, but not very good for a 30-year-old Rashad, does it? Is that what you want?" All of it is setting something up and asking a question. Anyway, the transformation was incredible. The next day, the reasons people clapped in the room is— I mean, the transformation is amazing. I had him find the part of himself that was like a warrior because he was kind of a beat-down guy, and he got up in front of 5,000 people and just took the place. I mean, it was like, if NBC had not found him, they thought for sure he was a plant, you know, that I'd done this thing because he looked like an evangelist speaker. And I didn't tell him anything except, "I'm probably going to call on you tomorrow." All right, that's all I told him. He took the stage, and then I brought him to Date with Destiny, and I picked him for the most difficult process in Date with Destiny. And no one in the room who wasn't in At the first seminar, knew no one could tell he ever stuttered. So the reason I tell you this story, though, is guess what happened at the end? He wrote me a letter to thank me and told me that it was the most incredible experience of his life, but it took him 3 weeks to deal with something. And what was that? And it was that I had cured his stuttering and he hadn't. That God should have got the credit, not me. And I said, well, I give God all the credit. That's why I sent him back. He said, "No, but I realize my wife said, 'Are you crazy? Are you insane?'" But that's how much we have a need for significance. Some people want to have their problem and keep their problem even though answers are all around them because they want to be the one to solve it. Just remember, human needs drive everything. And for him, the need to be significant was very, very high. And if he didn't do it in his belief system, then it wasn't as significant. So even though he was euphoric, He even went back and started stuttering again so he could kind of like have a problem. And so we pointed this— his wife pointed this out to him, and then all of a sudden it became very clear and he shifted. Now I tell you all that, though, to come back to you, which is what I want you to do in a memo. Here's your memo, and then I'll ask you. Your memo in the room, what I have people do is instead of coming to me for the answer, because if they came to me for the answer, I give them the answer, what happens? They like it for a while, and later on, "He did it." Now, not everybody's that way, don't get me wrong. But I told you the story because some people overshot. Their whole life is changed. Everything is more than they could ever dream of, and later on there's something inside of them pissed off about it. So if I can be part of what helps you, but you do the major work, or you make the final thing, you're going to own it more. So what I would do with people is I'd say, simple, here's your problem. I want you to write down what the problem is and describe it in 2 sentences max. This is your memo. 2 sentences, crystal clear, that anybody will understand it. If you have to write more than 2 sentences, you have to tell them a paragraph, the question doesn't work. It has to be maximum 2 sentences, ideally 1, so crystal clear anybody can understand it. That's number 1. So you write that down. You write down, define the problem with precision. Describe the problem or the request. And sometimes it's not a problem, sometimes it's a request. Can we turn the air conditioning up? Can we turn it down? Can we have lunch at whatever time? Can we do this? Can we do that? Whatever the request may be. So they write it down. Then the second thing I have them do is describe 3 solutions to their request or problems. 3, and I use keywords, 3 cost-effective, intelligent, viable solutions. Might be viable, time viable, resource viable, whatever the case may be, viability. So what are 3 intelligent, practical, viable solutions that you believe we could implement, that you believe we could implement to solve this or to meet this need. By the way, why do I come up with having them come up with 3? Someone tell me why. One choice is no choice. Two choices is a dilemma. Until you have 3 choices, you're not at choice. That's my rule in life. You may not like all the choices, but whenever you think you have one choice, one choice is no choice. If you got 2, you're in a dilemma. There's always at least 3 choices. Plus, I'm making that person become a problem solver. If I solve the problem, they'll just have a new problem for me to solve. But if I can teach them to be a problem solver, the game changes. How many follow? Now sometimes this is less efficient, but with a mass audience it was very efficient. And then they turn that in, and then I have a choice. I can then respond back by saying, "Circle, I accept your request," or I I think it solves the problem, we'll do it with your number 1, or I could modify it, I'm willing to do that, but I think we need to do this and this is the way to do it, or I could reject it and tell them why. And then we'd have this communication, it was very efficient. This is very different than, you know, tell me what you think we should do in a suggestion box. So now, tell us your question, and then tell us at least 3 answers that are quality answers, viable answers. Okay, the question is, how can I influence people to put in money into my company and help me change the entire recruiting industry? Wow, that's a pretty— give me a hand for that. That's a different question than he had before. Now sometimes your question has too many outcomes in it simultaneously. Sometimes, you know, I'm going to raise enough money to do this and change the whole recruiting industry. That might be over-chunked. There's two ways to chunk. You can chunk something at 8 million bites and it's overwhelming, or you can try to eat the entire whale with one bite, which is also overwhelming. Too many chunks, you're overwhelmed. Only one big chunk, you're going to be overwhelmed. But I like your question. What's the essence of your question, though? What's the burning part of your question? What's the one that's most burning? In that question, Tell me one more time, what is your deepest question right now? My deepest question is, how do I get the funding I need to put in place to hire the right people, to implement the right marketing and sales activities, to continue to have the resources to do what my company does, that, that I can bring this to the rest of the world. So you see, it's getting better, but he's still making it over chunk. How much money do you need to do that? About 1.5M. And do you have a clear, specific plan? Yes, I do. And does it have a track record that you can manage? Yes, I do. And you have management that people who are investors would say their participation would significantly reduce my risk? Yes. Then what's your answer? Give me 3. Give me 3 clear answers that are viable, intelligent, practical, and you can act on immediately. Go on Twitter, ask who wants to change the whole recruiting industry and make it simple and easy for any hiring manager, for any job seeker to apply for positions. And by the way, you can to make $1 million in 3 to 4 years. That won't work on Twitter. There's only 140 characters. Okay, who would like— the answer is go to Twitter and ask the question of who wants to change the recruiting industry and I can show them how it can be done, and if they are part of— they can be a part of this and also make a million dollars. Okay, so that's one approach. Go to a medium online— Twitter might be one example— where I could get people's eyeballs and make a request where it's very compelling both in the sense of transformation and economic return. How many follow? Okay, give me another answer. Go out to my personal network And just start talking to people and showing them what my system does and what it— the growth potential and our management team. And then ask them to be a part of it. Great. What's the third answer? Continue to talk to venture capitalists and continue to tell the story to them about how we're progressing. Great. I bet you could come up with 3 more right now if I asked you to, couldn't you? Most likely, yes. So what do you, what do you feel right now differently than a few moments ago, if anything? I know I can make this happen. Give him a hand, first of all, for that right now. That's the process. Why, why, why do you know? Because I've been in this industry for so long. I know where all the holes are. I know how companies waste a bazillion amount of millions of dollars a year. I know how inefficient the recruiting process is. I know how laborious it is. And our system takes about 80% of that and completely wipes it away. Great. Now I want you to notice something. Clarity is power. By making himself be more clear, be more brief, be more precise in the form of a real question that's actionable, and then just demanding an answer in a state of certainty, he's got him. But most of us don't have this as a discipline. So let me offer it to you in the form of 4 questions. First, give them a hand. Thank you very much. Problem-solving questions. So here, let me give you 6 questions. Problem-solving questions. The first question I ask when a problem comes up, the most important question, is not, "What the eff?" Not, "Why did this happen to me?" Not, "Who screwed who to make this happen?" The first question is, "What's great about this?" or "What can I learn from this?" Immediately, it's like, "What's great about this?" What's great about this? The first question I tend to ask is, "What's great about this?" Now, by the way, the answer I often get initially is, "What do you think?" Nothing! Because if you're in a lousy state, you go, "What's great about this?" Your brain's going to go, "Nothing, you idiot!" And I go, "I know it looks like nothing, but if there was something great about it, what's What's great about this? And I demand the answer. By the way, seek and you shall what? Ask and you shall? And I don't care who it is, if you ask with authority and certainty, you'll get an answer. I'll give you an example. A friend of mine came to see me one time, years ago. He was at his wit's end. He was a lawyer, and he had been in partnership with another lawyer, a friend of his, for, I don't know, 12, 14, 15 years. Let's say 15 years, rounded up. And one day, the partner of his had a midlife crisis and decided he didn't want the pressure of being a partner in the firm, and he quit the firm. He just announced to his 15-year partner, "I'm out. I'm moving out. I'm moving away. I'm getting divorced. I don't want to be a lawyer anymore. I'm out. I'm leaving the firm." And now he's got reputation, money, overhead, all this stuff tied to him. So he comes to me, he says, "Tony, I can't handle this." I can't take on his cases, it's going to hurt our reputation. I don't have anybody else I can bring in here. We're both still in the building phase in this firm. Without him, also with sweat equity in this thing, just go hire somebody that can't work? And he is on and on and on and on, and he's pissed off and he's frustrated, and underneath it all, he's scared. Really scared. He doesn't know how he can keep the thing together. He can't keep the overhead. And so I let him talk on and on. So I look at him and I say, "I just have to ask you a question that you're going to think I look like an idiot." And you're gonna say, "Stop being Tony Robbins." But I can't. It's me. So I have to ask you the Tony Robbins question. He said, "What's that?" I said, "What's great about this?" And I said, "I know on the surface it's the most absurd question to ask. That's why it's the best question to ask." The best question is often the one everybody else thinks is absurd. 'Cause what everybody else thinks like is why everybody else is stuck. Right? You ask the question nobody else would ask. And one of the greatest questions to ask is, "What's great about this?" But make yourself come up with the answer. If you can't come up with it, change your state and ask it. So I changed his state by saying, "Pussy boy," and finally getting him to laugh. First getting him a little pissed off. I don't mind getting somebody pissed off because when they're angry, energy goes through their body. I can take anger and convert it into something else that's different than defeated. Does that make sense? You know, so I get him angry and then a little playful, and finally he goes, "Well..." I said, "Look me in the eye and tell me you loved your partner and wanted to be with him forever." Tell me you wanted to have sex with him. Come on, tell me. So what am I doing? Breaking his what? So once I break his pattern enough, he goes, "Honestly, he said he's been a pain in the ass for the last 8 years." I said, "What's great about this?" He said, "What's great about this is it makes me no longer settle for the wrong partner." When he got that, it changed the meaning and it changed the game instantly just by answering this question. How many follow this? Say aye. Aye. What I've been endeavoring to do, and what Chet and all of us have been endeavoring to do this week, is give you the answer to the question of what's great about this economy. How many are starting to get what's great about it now? Say aye. Aye. Because now you have the ultimate advantage when you look forward to recession. When you look forward to it, not in this bumpy horse, when you're just like, yeah, give me the recession, baby, give it to me. When you can do that, it's not some fake positive thinking, you know, rah-rah BS, but it's based on intelligence that says there's no greater opportunity than now for me to be able to build my business where the costs are lower and the opportunity is greater. There's never been a time— if I can just keep my wits about me, be strong, be intelligent, keep focused, apply some of these disciplines— how many agree? Say aye. So we've been trying to answer that question for you without saying it to you. 'Cause once you get that answer, the game changes. So, sure enough, I ask him, "Okay, what's great about this?" And he starts, "What else is great about it?" I don't let him tell me one thing because what makes things stick is stacking. One after another after another. "What else is great about this?" He goes, "Well, I don't have to sell from the wrong partner anymore." He said, "Also, I can't really afford this location and I don't really like where our office is. Where we are is a million miles away from my house." So now I would have been stuck here because he lives near here and I'd never want to push him. I'd be stuck here for the next 5, 10 years driving with worse and worse traffic. You know what? I could get my office. I have to finish the lease, but I could then move to the beach. I got an office looking over the ocean. I love the ocean. Now, by the way, what do you think is happening to his state? OK, I'm not stuck with that bastard anymore. I used to be upset with leaving. And I'm not stuck in this location. Wow, okay, what else? What else? He said, well, I don't know, what else is great is it's going to make me grow. It's going to make me get out of my box. It's going to make me— and when I get enough of these things to state change, I go to the next question. I said, okay, what can you learn from this? He said, I can learn to never settle again because I knew in the beginning he was wrong. Good lesson. What else can you learn from this? That I've avoided confrontation and given up "Great amount of the juice and freedom of my life, and I won't do that anymore." Wow. By the way, is this now really a gift of an experience? Yes or no? We're getting into some real deep stuff just asking a couple questions. So, "What's great about this? What'd I learn this?" I said, "Okay, here's a great question. What's not perfect yet?" What does that presuppose, my friends, when I say, "What's not perfect yet?" then it's going to be what? Perfect. That's different than if you go, "Well, how will I survive?" That presupposes you may not. "What's not perfect yet?" He goes, "Well, what's wrong is—" I said, "No, no, I didn't ask what's wrong. I asked what's not perfect yet." Language creates emotion. So you gotta use the right words here. "What's not perfect yet?" He goes, "Well, what's not perfect yet is—" I don't have enough money to cover the monthly overhead without a partner. I said, okay, what else is not perfect yet? What's not perfect yet is I'm not clear about how I could cover his accounts. Well, it's not perfect yet. We're not doing this. We're writing it down. In your head, you'll go in a circle. Write it down, has a whole different game, doesn't it? It keeps us from going in circles. Right in front of you, you can deal with it. So guess what? We come up with what's not perfect yet. As we look at what's not perfect yet, I said, "Okay, now here's the question. What are you willing to do to make it the way you want it? What are you willing to do to make it the way you want it?" He said, "What do you mean, what am I willing to do?" I'm asking you point blank. See, people that are willing to do anything, anything at all to make it the way they want it, they'll find a way. If all of you in this room think about your business, and you think about what you want your business to become, or you think about your life and you think about what you want your life to be like, you think about what it is you say you want, what are you willing to do to make that happen, to get that funding? You tell me. Anything? Because if you can make a list of all the things you never would want to have to do to raise that money, and you can look at yourself in the eye and go, "I'm willing to do all of these things as much as I hate 'em," If your gut can do that, I'll tell you what will happen. You'll raise the money. You won't have to do probably 90% of that, but you might have to do 10% of it. But most of you don't ever look at it. You don't realize there's something inside of you you're not willing to do, and you're afraid you might have to, and so you don't do everything that's necessary to raise that money. You go to the 90%, then you go, "Gosh, it's just— I'm not there yet. I know I'm going to get there." You've got to get to that point where, what are you willing to do? Because if you're not willing, you might say, "Here's what I'm willing to do." I'm willing to, he says to me, I'm willing to take this on and stop, I'm willing to take this on, I think the first thing he said is, I'm willing to take this on and find a way to either grow the firm or shrink it and keep it above the line. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep the firm above the line. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make it not go broke. I said, well, what else are you going to do? Well, I'm going to make it profitable. I'm willing to work extra hours. I'm willing to, if necessary for the next 6 months, double-cover cases. I'm willing to call in favors. I'm willing— and we write it all down. How many are following this process? Then there's another question you've got to ask yourself that's also very, very, very important, and that is, see, what am I willing to not do? In other words, I'm willing to do this to make it work. What am I willing not to do to make this the way I want it? What am I willing to do? But then what am I willing not to do to make this the way I want it? And I use this confusing language on purpose to break his what? What are you willing to do? What are you not willing to do? How many follow this? You know, I'm not willing to whine. I'm not willing to become a defeated man over this. I'm not willing to be in a position where I live in fear and stress every day. I don't have to. I can just decide how I want to make it work and I'm going to make it that way. I'm not willing to make him my excuse for being frustrated every day. That starts to solve the real problem, doesn't it? And then finally, how can I enjoy the process? How can I solve this? How can I create this, but also enjoy it? That was like me going outside in the Jacuzzi. How can I enjoy the process? And he said, "You know, I could make my son my partner." I said, "What?" He said, "My son is graduating from school, and honestly, there was no space for him here. We couldn't afford to bring him on." But I'm thinking, that's so stupid. I could mentor him, we could be sharing together, he could be in the firm here. If this place was at the beach, he'd want to be there for sure. So would I. And he came up with this whole vision. And in 5 or 6 questions, he went from depressed, overwhelmed, no future, to the life of his dreams is now being created because of this gift that just happened in his life. That's the power of questions. We were at lunch for an hour. But you know, the minute he got that this was great, what was great about this, the job was 80% done. And they follow us. The minute you go from problem to question, you start to find the solution. Because answers only come from new questions. Now, I did change his what while I asked the question. Change his what? And that's what you gotta do as well. That's why I said you gotta know what does it that influences people. It's the state they're in and it's their blueprint. The state is the mental, emotional state they're in, which you can change by changing their physiology or their focus. The blueprint is that they're trying to meet these needs. They have a map. His map was, "I'm supposed to have a partner, we're supposed to do this, we're supposed to do that, and then that gets me where I want to be." My new truth was, he wants love, he wants significance, he wants certainty, he wants variety, he wants growth, and he wants contribution. I'm going to get him to see that this meets all those needs. But if I tell him that, he'll doubt it. But if I ask him these questions, He'll find it, he'll tell me, and it'll be true. How many follow the difference here? Okay. By the way, who would these questions be really good to ask of? And by the way, can you feel the room right now? What are you feeling right now? How many of you are like in your head really thinking right now? But let me see your hands, really. You feel the energy, it's very different. Like people inside going like, what is this thing, you know? Could it really be that easy? 6 frickin' questions? But I'll tell you a secret. You must ask these from a great state, and you must make yourself come up with many answers, and you must write them down. A, you must ask them from a great state. So if you're not in a great state, change it. How do you do that? Radical change in your body or your focus or both. 2, you gotta ask them from a place of certainty. 3, give multiple answers. Lots of reasons why this is great. Lots of what you've learned from this. Lots of what you're willing to do. Lots of what you're not willing to do anymore in order to have this work. Right? All those pieces. Lots of what you're willing to do to not only get the job done, but enjoy the process. 'Cause if you stack it, you'll own it. Does that make sense? So you can do this with yourself. You can do this with anyone else. This is the ultimate discipline. What will get you in a good state in the morning is if you ask a few good questions. So let me try this for you. Talk to you about what leaders do. They change organizations by solving problems and maximizing resources. How do they do that? Influence. How do they influence? First, you gotta influence whom? Yourself. Before you influence anybody else. To touch someone else, you must be touched. To move somebody else, you must be moved. How do you do that? Start by feeding your mind from now on. Feed it something strong, something alive. Consistently have a ritual that feeds your mind. Because if you let what's going on now buzzing in your pocket, on your computer screen, flashing on the television, we both know, all of us know, it's not going to empower you for the most part. That's not to say you shouldn't pay attention. You just can't make that the primary dietary input of your life emotionally, psychologically, and financially. Do you agree with me on this? Yes or no? So find biographies, history, principles, solutions, Spend 95% of your time there, 5% keeps you updated on what other people are experiencing out there. Okay? 2, condition your body. The body affects the mind. 3, ask quality questions. I give you a whole series here that you can ask to solve any problem. Remember, I don't have a problem. I only have a problem because I haven't found and formed the right question and demanded from myself the right answers or sought the answers. Whenever somebody comes to me and says, "I got a problem with what you said." I'll say, "That means you have a question about what I said. What's your question?" See, as long as it's formed as a problem, there's no way to solve it. You can't solve a problem that somebody else owns, but you can answer a question. We could answer a question together, couldn't we? That's how you solve things. Form it as a question. Then I've given you 9 questions— excuse me, 6 questions you can ask You know, and you can just get in the habit of these. Get them in your body. Put them on a card. Put them in your book. Put them wherever it is you carry with you— your computer, your phone. And glance at them after a while. Just go, "Okay, time to solve the problem." Look down and ask the question, ask the question, ask the question. Ideally though, write down the answers. It'll be more powerful if you write it down by 5-fold. If for some reason you can't write it down, at least do it mentally. But demand the answer in a strong state and stack it. Now, you can also get other people to do it by creating a memo system or something like that. You can also do it by having a new discipline in the company. There are no problems, there's just questions. So what's the question we gotta answer? Let's form the question effectively. Let's all work on the answer together. Now another question you might have, you might ask yourself, well, how do you change somebody's state? Just ask the right question. If you ask some people, "How's it going?" Wrong question. Yeah, how's business for you? Is that a good question to ask most people right now? No. But if I were to ask you right now, all of you in this room, honestly and sincerely, tell me something. If you were to be honest about this and you weren't, you know, feigning that, you know, you didn't want to look like you're being immodest, you're just being truthful, I bet there's some aspect of your life, something in your life, many things that you've done in your life over the course of your life that you're proud of. or that you could be proud of if you just let yourself and didn't think it was improper to be proud? What's something in your life you're really proud of? Really proud of? That if you were to really stop and focus on it and take the time to appreciate it, make you feel damn proud? Proud of who you are? Proud of someone in your life that you've touched or influenced? Proud of something you've accomplished? That if you were to forget everything else and just really focus on this, you could feel damn proud right now. How many can think of something you can be really proud of? Let me see a show of hands. Say, "Aye." Aye. Hmm. What about that are you proud of? What's it about that that makes you feel proud? Hmm. Mm-hmm. How does it feel when you're really proud? How do you feel right now when you're proud? Tell me something. If you really wanted to, what could you be excited about in your life right now? If you wanted to be excited— I know you don't have to be— but if you really wanted to be excited, sincerely, and you want to be excited about your life, and you were just to focus on this, it would excite excites you. You'd be so excited about this aspect of your life or this thing in your life. I mean, honestly, you can get worked up real quick. You start to think about it. What could you really be excited about in your life right now? How many can think of something you'd be excited about? Raise your hand. Say, "Aye." What about that excites you? Just say it out loud. What about that excites you? What else about that excites you? Hmm. How does it feel when you're excited? How many feel different right now than just a few moments ago? Hmm. What are you grateful for? If you wanted to be grateful right now, what could you feel grateful for? If you were really grateful, like you felt like you really reconnected to how lucky you are, that most of what you have in your life that you've worked your tail off for, truthfully, you could have worked just as hard growing up in Somalia and you'd have nothing. You might even be dead or damaged by a mine you stepped on. When you really realize the ultimate gift of even where you were born and who you were born around, or the environment, or even the time in history in which you were born. The moment we are in our life right now, or somebody in your life you're so grateful for. I mean, real gratitude, like almost overwhelming gratitude, to realize that your life has truly been blessed even though you've forgotten it at times. What could you feel blessed by? What could you feel grateful for? How many can think of something you're really grateful for, or someone you're really grateful for? How do you breathe when you're grateful? What's the look on your face when you're really grateful? What about that makes you feel so grateful? What about that makes you feel so grateful? How does it feel when you're grateful? Make a sound, whatever sound that would be of gratitude. Make the sound of gratitude, just instinctively, go. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Who do you love? Who loves you? Who do you really love? Say, no one. Do you have a dog? Does the dog love you? Get a dog, don't get a cat. Cats are independent. Dogs will leave for 2 minutes like you've been gone for 6 months. They're so excited. Who do you love? Who loves you? What about that person do you love? What about you do they love? I have no clue. How does it feel when you're in love? With life, with a person? How many feel very different right now than a few moments ago? Raise your hand. And why? Why do you feel this way? Because whatever you focus on, you will feel, my friends. And if I want to give you a gift, the greatest gift I can give you is ask the right question. A question that will direct you. And notice I didn't tell you anything for the last 4 or 5 minutes. All I did was ask you questions. But how does it feel? And guess what? Everyone has questions. All you gotta do is get a little curious again. Get curious. Get back into a state of wonder. You'll have all the questions you've ever wanted. How many questions can kids ask? Too many. Right? Get back in that state. So let me ask one more question and answer it, and I'll wrap up with this. Many of you have said, "How do I influence people when I'm speaking from the front of the room?" I've heard several people come up and say, "How do I do an effective speech?" So that's a nice question. Let me offer you an answer. Because the question is not so much what you're going to say. When I get up to speak, this is why time fluctuates with me. Often I'll have a plan, but the plan disappears because I go into a state, but I know the outcome. And so I rotate, move, change to what the outcome is to make sure I get to that outcome. And so I've made enough deposits in my mental-emotional bank account They have lots of good things I can say. Lots. On lots of different areas. But what I need to see is what's needed. So I go in with, like, overall what's needed, and then I find my way there, because along the way, I do have a format, though, that at least guides me. And the format will be helpful. I don't know what I'm gonna say, but I know the format of what I'm gonna say. And ironically enough, I'll make it another mixed metaphor. I'll use one you've already got. If I want to score, produce the result, which for me, I don't get up to give a speech ever. The only time I get up to speak, if I'm going to get up and speak in public, is for one purpose and one purpose only: to influence people to do something that makes the quality of their life and others better. That is my passion. I would be a crappy speaker speaking about wine. I just would be because I don't know anything about wine and I'm not passionate about wine. Talking about something you're passionate about, anyone could be a great speaker about because you don't have to think about what to say. It's in you. So I know what I'm about, but I do still have the intelligence to know there is a format if I'm going to do something effectively, which is to influence somebody. Anybody can get up and do a speech and get people to clap. The real question is, can you change the way somebody thinks? Can you shift what they feel? Can you get them to take some action? Can you get them to make a decision? Can you get them to move? To me, that's the criteria I'm looking for. So if you're looking for coaching on speaking, I'm the wrong guy because I'm not a good speaker. In fact, I won Toastmasters Gavel of Greatest Speaker of the Decade, and I got up and I said, I don't deserve this. And I'm not feigning, you know, like, modesty here. I said, I can't get up and do a 10 or 30 minute talk like you guys. You're much more efficient, effective than I am. But I am not a speaker. I'm an influencer. I'm a communicator. And if you can get in your mind, don't have to be a speaker, all I got to do is communicate what I believe in and then do this, what I'm about to show you. I'll give you a format to think about. We'll put it up on the screen, but I'll give you this. Imagine as a mixed metaphor, I'm trying to get down the field to score a touchdown. Here I'm just starting the game, here is my touchdown. And the next metaphor is a funnel where I'm going to get someone where I'm going to influence them more and more until we finally get them where we want them to go, a place of that's going to enhance their life. In your case, it's your product, your service, coming to work for your company, whatever. 40 yards of getting that touchdown, I call identification. ID, identification. It really, what I'm doing in this stage is getting people, and myself and other people, to connect. And the way I do that is I want someone to say, "Me too," not, "So what?" Me too, not so what. So if I get up here, excuse me, and I start out and I get up to speak and say it's a seminar is a perfect example, and I get up to talk and I say, um, well, let me tell you all the things that I've achieved in my life. I've done this and I've accomplished that and I've made this happen. I've done that, I've done this and I've done that and I've done this and I've done that and I've done this. What happens in people's head after just a short period of time? What's the first thing they'll be saying? So what? So guess what? They're not in my funnel. They get in my funnel the minute I get them to say, "Me too," several times. So if you ever came to an event with me, in the beginning portion, I'll say, "Look, you know, I know you're here. I respect you. I'll think about it." It's different every time. I think about why people are there. I think about why I respect and love them. I think about what it is that is unique about my audience. I do my homework on my audience, and then when I go in there, I already have this affiliation, affection for them before they walk in. I don't just think of you as a group. I think of these different personalities that are here that I'm here to serve. So I'm in state. And then the first thing I do is identify and connect with them by talking usually about some screw-up or some problem, or I'll say, "You're all sitting here, and you know, in the very beginning here, you might be wondering, 'What have I got myself into?'" I'll mind read. Or I'll say, you might be sitting there thinking, "Man, this guy's got big teeth." You know, and you laugh and go, "Oh, he realizes he's a big dude with big teeth." You know? Or I remember when Diane Sawyer came to interview me when I was like 30 years old. And I had a lot of people that in the beginning, the media was all positive. I was this young, great guy. But if you don't change the story, the media will do it for you. Because they get bored telling the same story. So Madonna figured this out and keeps changing personalities for like 30 years. Because if she didn't do it, the media would do it to her. Right? So bottom line is, I didn't understand this, and I finally got smart. And so Diane Sawyer sits down with me. Early in the conversation, I said to her, she said, "So, you're in the most successful infomercials of all time." And I said, "Yeah." I said, "It's embarrassing, isn't it?" And she looked at me. She goes, "You think it's embarrassing?" I said, "It's embarrassing. Between the floppy mop and the spray-on hair, I mean, oh my God." I said, "You know, how I'm able to reach anybody is a miracle." And she goes, "You think they're stupid too?" I said, "Of course I do." I said, "Do you think I'd like to be on infomercials?" But I said, "Look, I wanted to reach the world, and there was no platform for me. How would I do that? I'm not a preacher, and I don't want to be, and I didn't want to go just, you know, do books." So I had to find another way to reach people. And these silly infomercials have got me in front of millions and millions of people. So I said, "You know, they're a pain, but they also have opened the door." She goes, "Wow, that's great." So as soon as she got to see he thinks it's stupid too, she and I bonded like that. Identification. And then we bonded with 4 or 5 things. That was 40% of my influence of her. Was getting her to say, "This guy's just like me." me. The person who comes and tries to impress everybody, it's not bad to have some things that are impressive also, but if you're too impressed with your own things, you're in trouble. Because people are going to say, "So what?" But if you can say, "Damn, you know, I'm telling you this," and there's a phrase I use because I had to find a way to share it, but I said, "I'm telling you this not because, you know, I'm not trying to impress you, but it impresses me." You know, people laugh because they go, "Oh, he gets it." He gets it. What you can do in this area is I mind read. I'll be in an event I'll never forget, and these people are really pissed off and everything else, you know, and I said, "You know, a lot of people here I know are probably thinking, 'What the hell is this white boy—'" It's an all-African American audience. "What the hell is this white boy doing here lecturing us?" They couldn't believe I'd say that. "You know, he probably never played basketball in his life." I said, "You'd be wrong." I did something for them to go, "I like this guy. There's something about him that's like me." You know, he's gutsy or he's crazy or, well, he's just a real guy. This is the majority of what you gotta have to influence somebody if you're gonna influence a group of people. Me Too, not so what. Now, if that's 40 yards, 10 more yards gets you halfway there. You know what the 10 yards is in influence thing? It's logic and reason. Logic and reason, the firewalk. You know, I do that seminar with somebody, the logic and reason seminar is 5 hours, 6 hours, 7 hours, whatever the hell it really is. I don't know, I make it up in my head. It's probably less than, more than what I think. But whatever number of hours, people are out of their mind at the end. But you know what? How much of that is the logic and reason how to walk the fire? Pfft. 5 minutes. Maybe I take 20 minutes to explain it, but it's 5 minutes. I can explain it to you in 5. How to do it, what to do. But see, I gotta influence you to do it. See, most of that is getting all the me too stuff so you can see, okay, it's not crazy. The logic and reason, how to do it, that's easy. Now I'm halfway there. Now I divide the rest of my talk into two parts. And that is the third section from the 50-yard line, 25 more yards in, you're almost there, you're two-thirds of the way across. This is called attack. Attack and confess. Attack and confess is this: if you're going to influence somebody, the best way to do it very simply is be in a position where whatever objection someone's going to have to what it is you're trying to influence them to do, you bring it up first. And you attack the problem. You attack the objection by confessing you've been guilty before. So, for example, if I knew I was trying to influence somebody to, let's say, master time management in their life, I would say to them this point: Let me just tell you something. It's the most crazy thing in the world. Everybody knows that their time is the most valuable thing they have in their life, right? Everybody that I know wishes they had more time and knows that's not possible. Everybody, you know, has more to do than they have time for. Everybody knows that they need to get much better at managing their time. But when you try to offer them a tool on how to be able to manage their time, or a seminar, or a coaching session, what do you think they say? "I don't have the time." Is that the most stupid thing you've ever heard? I mean, think about this. What kind of idiot— and we've all done it at times. I've done this. I've told myself I don't have the time. I've told myself so much time— I've talked myself so much about I don't have the time, the time I talked about it, I could have got it done. Who can relate to this here? Raise your hand and say, "Aye." Do you agree with me on this, yes or no? Now try to tell me you don't have time for this thing. You're dead. Because I attacked it. If you had said, "Tony, I'd love to do it, but I don't have the time," and now I'm going after you, my attack on the objection will feel like I'm attacking you. But if I bring it up first, and I make out how incredibly stupid it is before you say anything, and you have to agree that it's stupid, I even maybe get you initiated by a question to tell me how stupid it is. And I confess so you don't feel bad about yourself that I've done this too, but I'm not stupid anymore, any more than you are. Guess what? There's no way you can go back now and tell me I don't have the time. So that's what I do. If it's money, you deal with money the same way, right? Who here in their life didn't have the money for something but something inside of you wouldn't settle, and you effin' found the way. You just would— relentlessly found the way. How many have done this before? Say aye. Who here has ever told yourself you didn't have the money and you didn't find the money? You look back on it later, you know damn well if you'd just given away that belief system that it wasn't there, you would have found a way. Who's done this before? Say aye. Is the money always there for something we're committed to? Yes or no? Who here absolutely knows that's true? Raise your hand. Okay, then none of us can give that excuse anymore. I can't either, because if I do, I know I'm lying. I'm not a liar. It wouldn't be lying to say it's difficult, wouldn't be lying to say I don't know how I'm going to get the money, but to say I can't get the money is the biggest effin' lie in the world. And what that does is what? What does it destroy? What does it destroy? Come on, guys, what does it destroy? Everything. Now try to tell me you don't have the money. So the secret is attack and confess. Now if you just finish with that, it's not enough because that deals with the problem. But the last 24.9999 yards, right, right, inches from the goal, is if this is attack and confess, this is like the hell if you don't. You got to paint the picture of the hell of what's going to happen if we don't follow through. And the last 24.999 yards, almost 25 yards, is the solution. This is the heaven if you do. This is if you follow through, if you make this thing happen, if you do the things we've talked about here, let me tell you what's gonna happen. You know, I putzed around all this time, or I could come back to this one and I could say, I could tell you about John. John put this off. I met him. I told him all this. If he was here today, let me tell you what he would do. I confess for John. John would say to you, "Don't stop. Don't hold out. Are you crazy? The one thing in your life that's valuable is time. Can you really afford to not implement this? Can you really afford to put this off? You know damn well you can't." And he did. For 3 years. And he got divorced, and he did this, and he did that. I tell you a real story. True story. And your brain's going, "Hell, hell, hell if I don't. Hell if I don't. Hell if I don't." But now I gotta move into heaven if I do. But let me tell you what. Let me tell you about John who did do it. Or let me tell you what finally happened 3 years later when he finally did. He owned himself. He stopped making excuses. He looked the tiger in the eye. He stepped up and reclaimed everything inside of himself. He felt free again. He just decided, "I'm not gonna dabble in this crap. I'm gonna master it. I'm gonna do what's necessary." and it's not that difficult. And he just did one step a day. One step. Next day, another step. Next day, another step. 3 months later, let me tell you where he was. A year later, what time it was. It's been 3 years. Can I tell you what his life's like now? Here's what his relationship's like. Here's what his finances are like. This is what his joy is like. This is where his life is today because he followed through. And then the last inches to go. If you do all this and you don't do the last piece, it's over. And that is, you gotta ask for the action. Influence is about asking for the action. If you do everything else but you don't say, "Okay, John, let's go," and assume the sale, or, "Okay, John, are you in or you out?" or whatever your is, you must ask for action as the final component. If you don't ask for action, nothing's gonna occur. If at any stage here I step out of this sequence, I'm gonna be in trouble. If I start in the very beginning trying to tell you, "The hell if you don't do this, are you going to listen to me?" You just met me and I tell you, "Guess what? Your entire life's going down the hole if you don't do X, Y, and Z." Are you going to be influenced by me? Yes or no? Yes or no? No. We need 40 yards of connection, relationship, identification, me too, not so what. It's not just relationship. Here's why it really works. Logic is clean. I need enough reasons that if I don't do this, I got enough pain and then enough solutions. And a call to action. This is how I would design your communication of your sales presentation. This is how I design your speech. This is how I design your interaction on something you're going to develop as a core story. And the core story, what do you want people to say in the very beginning? Me too. They need some logic and reason. They need some pain and they need some pleasure and they need a call to action. And every good core story has that if you listen to it. It's in that sequence. Because if I said, "The dog bit Johnny," versus, "Johnny bit the dog," same elements, but is it the same experience? Not if you're Johnny. Right? So the sequence plays a role. Is this helpful? So you can always say, "I'm going to go communicate a message. First I got to connect sincerely. I got to be able to have people say, 'Me too,' not 'So what.'" What do we have in common? What can I show where I've screwed up and where I've done well? But where— how do I get people to identify with me and how do I identify with them? What's the logic and reason? What's the story I'm telling that's sincere and real, but it attacks the problem, it attacks the objection, it attacks the limitation, it attacks the restraint before they bring it up? If you wait till they bring it up, now you're attacking them. How do I attack it? Confess I've been guilty or sincerely confess for someone else. Always be accurate, don't BS. Then I paint the solution, and then I call for action. Okay? So how many have seen my TED Talk? Okay, so I did this talk. This man, I go to meet him, and I didn't want to come for an 18-minute talk, but I came because some friends said, "Please come do this." So I'm doing it as a gift. I go up and I go to meet him. I said, "I understand that you own TED now." And he says, "Yes, oh, you're Tony Robbins." This is how our relationship started with Chris. I said, "Yes." He goes, "Oh, you're that motivator?" I said, "Yes, actually I am, but that's not how I look at myself." I said, "You could call me that." I said, "Actually, I'm more of a coach, and if I inspire people as a part of that, that's nice, but that's not the essence. I'm more of a strategist." But he wasn't listening, so I just shut up. It was wasting my breath. He decided who I was. So I said, "Listen, I'm just really grateful to be here and I'm looking forward to doing a good job for you." He says, "Make sure you don't do that jumping thing with people." I said, "Okay, great. Don't change the physiology too." Great. ETMS, don't change the physiology. Okay, great. And then he introduced me. They had somebody on right before and the energy in the room was through the floor because the person was talking about something complex and it was difficult. It wasn't a bad speaker, just You don't teach string theory in 18 minutes, you know, something like that. And he gets up and he goes, "Well," the engineer's really there, he goes, "Well, now we have Mr. Motivator, Anthony Robbins." That's how he introduced me. "We'll see what he can do now, won't we?" Right? Right? That's my introduction. And then he wanted to say, you know, he had a very publicized divorce years ago. I've been married for 10 years since that time, right? My divorce was not a negative thing. How do you publicize it? I've never seen any place. He must have done some research on the internet. That was my introduction. Here he is, Tony Robbins. So what do you do? Part of me is pissed off, wanting to say, what the eff are you talking about? You know? I came here to give a gift. I'm here to try to serve, and this is how you're going to do so? Me, but you know, people get their little things. Chris and I are really good friends now, but you know, he had his impression, right? So, uh, you know, I got up and I, you know, I made some joke about— first thing I said is I said, wow, you must do really good research because I didn't see any publicity of my divorce, but I guess, you know, you've done some homework on that, right? I just kind of acknowledged it, that's all I did. I said, but, uh, I will tell you my former spouse is very happy. And by the way, you won't see that in the TED Talk because they cut the introduction and all those pieces because it would have been embarrassing. It was terrible the way it was introduced. But then I got up and I said, "Listen, I got 18 minutes. Can I just tell you something? The shortest seminar I do is 50 hours. Five-zero." And her eyes got this big. And I said, "I'll tell you why. I'm not into just inspiring people and then they go back down. I am not Mr. Motivator. I am not the guy that says, 'Go to your garden and say, 'There's no weeds, there's no weeds, there's no weeds.'" I'm here to show you what the weed is so you and I can be smart and figure out what to do and take it out. I'm into something that's a practical solution. What are people starting to say in the audience? Huh, me too. I'm not some big pumped-up motivator like this guy. He's not that either. Maybe he's not like that. I said, by the way, in 18 minutes there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to do this for you. So I said, all of you are leaders. I came here to serve. I didn't come here for money. I didn't come here for fame and fortune. I have a little bit of that, fortunately, in my life, and I kind of teased. I said, "At least my teeth," and I made fun of myself or something. And then I just said, "Look, you're all welcome to come to one of my events, and I've also got some tapes here. I'm going to give them to all of you because I know you will influence other people." I was just totally sincere, and I tried to give, and they got I was here to give and not to take, and it changed the identification immediately. And people started, "Hmm." Still wasn't there. Then how did I do it? I went, "Okay, I only got a few minutes. I got to grab them." So I gotta get bringing everybody together so everybody connects, and I said, it's the first time I ever did it, "Who here has ever failed before?" I did it spontaneously. I had no plan. I didn't have my little triangle out. I had a different triangle. The triangle changes once I stand in the room, but I know the overall feel. And so nobody raised their hand. That's not working too well. But I don't give up. Just like these are pig-headed, discipline would be the word that Chet would use for it. For me, it's relentlessness. It's passion. And I ask the question again. I say, "Thanks for your full participation." A little chat. Who here has never failed? I keep going until I get everyone to raise their hand. So from then on, by the way, where did I end? I did logic and reason, and my attack and confess. I told the story about me at 9/11 and with people, and in the middle of the story, right when the solution was there, my time was up. And they have been taking people, they literally walk up to people as you're finishing at that 18 minutes, you know, the President of the United States, and they interrupted him. So I looked down and everybody was in a trance from me telling the story, and even he had not realized I was over. And I was 2 minutes over, which to them would be like 20 years or 2 days, right? And so right at that moment, I looked at my watch, at the peak of the story, I'm telling a story about this man, it's 9/11, This man gets up and says to this woman whose husband just died in the tower, "I'd like to cry for you. I'd like to feel sorry for you. But frankly, I'm a Muslim, so I have to say to you it's retribution." This was on the day of 9/11. And the room's like— And I said— I said— And I had to intervene right then and there. And I looked down and I went, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry." I said, "I'm 3 minutes over my time. I do not want to be disrespectful." I'm so sorry, thank you everyone, thank you very much, and I walked off in the middle of the story, right? And what do you think happened? People are like, "Ahhh!" People started laughing, screaming, they, "Oh, bring it!" And so he had to invite me back. "Okay, I'm sorry." You know? And so I finished with the solution very respectfully in the next 4 or 5 minutes, right? And I had the longest TED Talk they've ever had in history. But people were very happy. At the end, my call to action, which is why I really went there, was study the internal map. Become a student of the internal web, the thing that connects you. Don't just think of the external web, what influences human beings. You must master. If you can become a master of influence and you can influence yourself, if you can understand what's really driving other people, if you can get inside their heads, if you can understand their blueprint, of life and find a way to meet their needs, you cannot just meet your own needs, you can change the world. And people got it. And I left. And I'm going to do the same thing right now because I've gone way over my time. God bless you. Thank you very much. One skill you want to master in this day and age that we live in, if you want to have an extraordinary life, it's the ability to learn rapidly. Because today there is more opportunity to do more things, learn things, create things, experience things than any time in human history, but most people are way, way, way behind the times unless they grew up with technology and learning. So I would like to start this morning by showing you the strategy for learning. What is learning? So if we take a human being, and this will be a drawing of a human being, so you can see that again I majored in art. Magnificent, isn't it? So if we take a human being and we want to be able to have them learn something, What is learning? Well, learning is the creation of— here's the key word— of a relationship. Whenever you learn something, all you're really doing is creating a relationship between two things. So if I want to learn something, how do I learn this? It's not figuring things out. That's how most of us think of learning. Learning is not figuring things out. Learning is the creation a relationship between two things. Something you already know, the known. Something you already know, it's in your head already, you understand it. And a relationship between the known and the, what would you guess? The unknown. Because the minute you link something you understand to something you don't understand, you now understand what you didn't understand. Let me give you an example, it'll become much more clear. The best teachers throughout human history were teachers that used metaphors or similes. I don't know what your religious belief is, but I'm not here to tell you what to believe religiously. But I personally am a Christian, and there are a lot of great teachers, and Christ clearly was one because thousands of years later, here are these great teachings. When Christ wanted to teach fishermen how to bring people to the Christian church, did he say, "I want you to go out and be a headhunter"? Did he say, I want you to go out and recruit Christians. They use the word recruit, yes or no? No, because they have no reference. There's nothing related to recruit to them. But since they were fishermen, he said, he said, "I want you to become fishers of men." And instantaneously they understood the entire process of recruiting. What do you do? You throw a little bait out, they start to bite, reel them in. They understood the entire process because he related. Something they wouldn't have understood, like how to recruit somebody for a church, to something they already understood, something they already knew. How many follow this? Say, "Aye." How many of you saw the movie Dances with Wolves with Kevin Costner? Did you like it? It's been a long time. Now, do you remember in that movie there was a scene where Kevin Costner meets these 3 Indians for the first time? He's sitting in his own little camp and these 3 Indians come in on horseback. Do you remember that? And it's the His first interaction with the Indians, and it's kind of a tense moment, because he doesn't know if they're going to attack or what they're going to do. And they come up and they're just standing there, and he looks up at them and they look at him, and there's this moment of silence. And all of a sudden, the Indian goes, "Ha, so ba ta ta ta." And he searched 10 million files and goes, "Nope, no gnomes in there." Right? And the other Indian goes, "Oh, so ba ha ho ya ma na no ho ya ma ha." And he's like, "I don't know." Right? So he says, "Well, hello, how are you?" And they hear, "Tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh." They search their files and find nothing. So then he does something really smart. He starts doing this. He bends over like this, takes his fingers like this, and he starts moving his leg like this and goes, "Mmm, mmm, mmm, buffalo, mmm, buffalo, mmm, buffalo." And the one Indian looks at the other Indian and he goes, "He's been drinking too much firewater." Remember? And the other Indian goes, "No, no." And he goes, Buffalo, buffalo. And the one other Indian, he goes, "Ah, ah!" And he puts his fingers up like this, doesn't he? And he goes, "Mmm, tatunga, mmm, tatunga, mmm, buffalo, mmm, tatunga, buffalo, tatunga, buffalo, tatunga." What happens? He now knows tatunga is? Buffalo. And they know buffalo is? Buffalo. Immediately there's learning because he figured a way to get across something they both knew, they'd both seen on the plains, and linked to something they didn't know. Tonga or Buffalo, depending upon their life experience. Now, whenever you don't learn, it's because someone is trying to teach you in a different way. And the different way is— I was a good student in school. I liked learning until I got to junior high school, high school, where I liked all subjects until I got to there, when math became algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. Because when I got there, I totally hated it. So I had no motivation to really learn it, and with no drive to learn something, you don't. But then secondly, since I wasn't driven, it was also the class that usually had the most homework. And if you didn't hand in the homework and you came in the next day, it was like being in a foreign language class. "The hypotenuse of XYZ over—" and all I'm hearing is, "Ah, ah, ah, oh yeah." My brain's searching, going, I don't know what that is. So then I would raise my hand to ask a question, which is not a good thing to do in that environment. So I'd say, "Well, what is a hypotenuse?" And they go, "Oh, a shoobadoobadooba da! You don't know? That's really like a zabada ba da ba! You don't know!" So if you want to learn something, if you're not learning, it's not that you're not smart, it's not that you can't figure it out, it's that the person is explaining it using references you don't have. So I've learned things like quantum physics, I've learned things like nuclear power from physicists. I'll say, "Okay, explain to me how that's like an orange." Right? How's that at least like a solar system? Something I understand. And sure enough, once they make that linkage, you got it. You understand the relationship, you understand what things are. So this morning, I want to share with you strategies but I'll do it by using more of a known. So I want you to write down strategies real quickly as the definition was given to us when I was learning. A strategy is a set of neurological impulses organized into a specific syntax which shapes emotional, biochemical, behavioral responses to such an extent that the stimulus-response is consistent. That's how they described us, what strategies were. And so So we were lost about halfway through the third sentence. And so what happens is when you can't figure it out, then you go in your head, you go, "I can't figure it out. What does he mean? What's going on?" And then you're gone because you get out of state of being able to learn. So that's why it took 4.5 days. I'll give you a simpler definition. A strategy is nothing but a specific way of organizing your resources. It's a specific— underline specific. It's very important. It's a specific. It isn't general. A very specific way of organizing your resources. Resources in order to, keyword, consistently get a very specific result. So it's a specific way of organizing your resources in order to consistently, not once in a while, consistently get the result you want. Now, what is a resource? Well, it depends on the environment you're using a strategy in. Is time a resource? Yes or no? For getting the results you want in your life, yes or no? Is human emotion a resource? Yes. If you use anger, are you going to get different results than if you use joy? Is your physiology a resource for creating that emotion? Yes or no? What about the pictures you make in your head? Is that a resource? Is what you say a resource? Words a resource? Yes or no? Sure. So there's unlimited resources, but the way you organize those resources determine whether you're broke or rich. Your time, your mental focus, Your attitude. The way you work or don't work. Where you spend money or don't spend money. See, it's not can you be rich or poor. It's your strategy. The problem is most people are unaware of what their strategy is. Most people have an excellent strategy for having too much month at the end of the money. Excellent strategy. And it's very effective and it consistently produces that result, doesn't it? How many have ever mastered that strategy in your past? Say aye. But if you organize your resources differently, can you always have an abundance of money? Yes or no? Sure can. But it starts with the resources of what's going on here and here, because that's what determines all your other behavior. If we change your mental and emotional pattern, it'll change the way you earn, it'll change the way you spend, and it will change the way you do everything. So the ultimate strategies are mental and emotional, because they shape everything else. See, if you're Fit or fat is a strategy. You may not be doing it consciously, but there's some way you specifically organize what you eat, when you eat, how much you eat, whether you move or not, how you move, how you sleep. See, all those things determine whether you're fit or fat, whether you got low energy or high energy. Are there specific ways of organizing your resources of what you focus on, what you breathe, how you feel, how you move, how you eat? That will consistently cause you to have low levels of energy? Or even better, are there strategies of dis-ease that if you consistently do this, you can count on having disease in your body? Yes or no? Are there strategies of energy and health? Yes or no? We're gonna focus on those tomorrow. So there are strategies for anything. Are there strategies for having consistent passion and love in an intimate relationship, do you think? Yes or no? And are there strategies that will cause you to constantly be pissed off or sad? Yes, focusing on yourself as a focus tool is an example. Using your body in a certain way. Thinking about things in a certain way. So anything you've ever done— almost everyone in this room, who here has ever had a relationship for some period of time, even a day, where it was magnificently fulfilling and exciting for you and the other person? Say, "I." Then you have a strategy. And you think it's time that changes, but it's not. It's your strategy. So the secret this morning is identifying what is it that you do when you succeed and then doing just that when you want to succeed each time. It's like once you know the buttons, you hit those buttons and you make it happen. One of the things I've always done, like when I even learned NLP, one of the first real dynamic set of tools I learned psychologically, I would go to these classes with these psychologists and psychiatrists and we'd have an all-day session, which their idea of all day was 4 hours. It'd be like we'd start at 10 and at noon we're taking lunch. I'm like, "Where the hell are we going?" You know, "Oh, we're going to lunch for an hour and a half." And then we come back at 1:30 and sure enough by 3:30 or 4:00 it was the end of the program. I was like, "Jesus, you didn't even do a quarter of a day." So I took the rest of the time and I extracted everything I could from what I'd learned. There were people with 10 times more skill than I had or ability But my level of application compared to theirs, I dwarfed it. And it's because while I was still there, I didn't leave the environment. I've always had this belief. If you want to be successful at anything in life, never leave the sight of setting a goal without doing something that commits you to fulfillment. If you get— you're in state, right, when you do something. While you're in state, that's the time to commit yourself to something that makes you follow through. How many know what I'm talking about here? Say, "Aye." So I'd call somebody up. I'd schedule something. I'd lock in the next meeting. I'd sign up for the class. I'd enroll the guy who was going to mentor me. I'd set the meeting with the mastermind of people I met. I did something so that whatever I committed to, there was something when I went home that would pull me there. It's structure. In fact, I'll give you the 5 C's to RPM just as a quick warm-up for you. How's that? If you don't remember it, it'll be okay, but it'll be in your unconscious for when you go work with a coach. These are the 5 C's. Everything that comes in your mind, anything you can think of, because we're going to basically do a little mini RPM version of things right now. Anything comes to my mind, I'm here, and while you're here doing something, you're driving your car and you think of an idea for your business or one of your businesses. Where do you put it? iPhone. Where do you put it? Diary. Where do you put it? iPod. iPhone. IPhone. And how do you find it afterwards? How are you triggered to look at it again? So he goes back and reviews his app system. How do you do it? Crisis. Crisis makes me go get it. How do you do it? I send an email to myself. Oh good, more emails with more to-dos. Right? So I don't care what your system is, but when you have RPM, you'll have one place you put it. For right now, you need one place to put it. Now the problem is most of us have lives that if you put everything in one place, it just becomes even more overwhelming. Who knows what I'm talking about here? So the first step, I'll just tell you that, is C is capture. You gotta capture. And the motion I do is like this. Imagine doing this, like physically capturing it, pulling it out of my head, and putting it in one place. I don't care what your one place is. It's gotta be one place. Now ideally, in that one place, you'd have some categories. So you don't throw everything on one giant list. Does that make sense? So you might have a category. For me, I have companies. So I have Robbins Research. I have Namale Resort. I have Metabolife. I have all these different companies. So I'll drop it in that area, as an example. Or roles for me, as a father. I don't have time to demonstrate this for you, but just know the first thing you want to do is keep it out of your head. Have it in one place. Why do you want to do that? Keep lots of extra mental RAM available. When you have to keep thinking about stuff, it creates inner stress. If you know it's there and you know you're going to look at it consistently, like you do it once a week, once a day, and you're going to review it and do something with it— something with it might be, "Forget it. I'll do it later, tomorrow." But you're going to do something with it. You'll be able to let go. How many think that's pretty much something you try to do already? Most people try to do this, don't you? But the reason most people don't do it is because making lists, after a while, they stop doing. Tell me why they stop doing it. Who's made lists and then not kept the lists up? Your quote to-do list. Why don't you keep those to-do lists up? Because every time you go there, there's so damn what? There's— how many have always got more to do? If you do make the list, then you have time. So, it inherently says, "Why am I doing this?" RPM's a different mindset. Our mindset is, we're just first capturing it. We know we're not going to do most of this. But we need to be able to later, when it's time, decide which things are worth doing. And more importantly, what are we really after? We're going to use these to trigger us to say, "All this relates to there's maybe something more important. How many follow the philosophical difference here? Say, "Aye." My goal is not get things done. This is not GTD. This is use the things you need to get do to stimulate a higher level of thinking of what you really want, why you want it, and become very strategic about how to get that. And many of these things may go away. Or they just won't matter. But you do have to capture it because otherwise it's in your head. So I have a lot of systems of doing it, but if you never saw me again, the most basic thing you need is one place to capture. Does that make sense? What's step 1 of RPM? It's a C. You gotta what? Capture. Which means get it out of your head, put it in one place. Second thing, you gotta make sense of all this crap. And the way you do that, step 2, is you create a plan. And a plan for me has 3 parts. And the 3 parts are 3 questions that I ask. And 3 actions I take. Again, you'll learn this. I'm not trying to teach this all right now. I just want to plant some seeds in your mind. Is this okay? Are you— is this useful? So when you're going home, you got all this captured stuff you just did here, right? Now you're going to start to create a plan. You're going to look at all this stuff and say, "Okay, there's more here that I can do." So what I really do is read all this stuff and start to see, "Well, all these things relate to one thing. All these relate to another." If I'm a mom, And I made my list. And on the list, I have things like, "I gotta pick up the laundry. Oh, I gotta drive the kids to school. I've gotta do this thing for the PTA. I gotta clean the house. Oh, I gotta run my business that I run out of the house. I gotta do the accounting. I wanna spend some time with my husband at the end of the day." Soccer mom. Totally stressed out. But if I write all those things down and get them out of my head, And when I write them all down, I then start to put them together and go, "You know, this, this, and this all relates to my kids. This, this, this all relates to the house being great. This, this, and this all relates to my business. And this, this, this is about my personal life being rich and happy." I'm able to do something really nice. I'm able to go from this, which is what your capture list looks like. You'll start writing it down. You'll go, "I've got to do this." And this and this. And you start to feel good. It's out of my head. But then you go, "Oh, I got to do this and I got to do this and I got to do this. Oh, I got to do this. I got to do this and I got to do this and I got to do this and I got to do this and I got to do this. I got to do that too and that too." So step 2 is I look at my capture list and I create a plan. And the way I create a plan is I start to figure out what do I really want? That's what the world is saying to me. That's what's in my head. What do I want? I might start to group some things together. I might start to say, "You know, let's take a look at this. You know something? Watch this. Watch this for a second. This item here, clean the house, and this thing and this thing and this thing, these all relate to the house." And my outcome there is I want to magically clean house because why? It makes me feel fully alive. And then, "Oh, by the way, this, this, this, this, and this all relates to my children. Oh, and this, this, and this relates to my business. And oh yeah, this is me personally." Anybody see what happens? Suddenly, 80 action items or 12 or 30 will turn into 4 outcomes. There's something here that I want for my home. There's something I want here for my kids. There's something I want here for my business. There's something I want for me. What that does is now I can start to go, "Okay, instead of reading all these items, what do I really want for my kids? What's my outcome this week or today?" You get really, really clear about what you're after. You use this to take you to another level higher. Use this to trigger a higher vision instead of letting this limit you. And once you know what you want, that's the first question. So Create a Plan has 3 questions to it and 3 actions. First question is, "What do I really what?" Want. How many of you would feel different in your life just by this language change? "What do I have to do?" versus "What do I really want to accomplish?" Would that change the way you feel about your life? Yes or no? How does it feel with "have to do"? See, RPM, when you finally learn it, has many pieces to it. Above all else, it's a thinking process. And better thinking creates better results. It's that simple. So you don't have to ever use a piece of paper to think this way. From now on, all this stuff's happening, you go, "What's my outcome? What am I really after? What do I want? What's the specific results? Like, what's the target?" Let's chunk up. I don't ever go in a meeting with anyone— what do you think the first words out of my mouth are when I sit down in a meeting after the hellos and the proper connections? What do you say? I always say, "What are the outcomes for this meeting?" Because how long the meeting is is based on getting the results that we're there for. It makes a much more fulfilling life. Or if you can't get them that time, you know that outcome's still not done. We've got to come back and get that outcome done. How many follow what I'm talking about here? Say, "Aye." Now, when you get clear what your outcomes are, that's the first question of creating a plan. Second question is, "Why do I want it? Why? Why is this important to me? Why is this something that really is a must for me? I don't have to do it. I want to do this. Why is this transformative? What's exciting about this to me?" Almost all of you have certain keywords that are triggers for you. Language shapes your emotion. You want to have a nutritious meal or a delicious meal? You might say, "I need a nutritious meal." But what if I said, "This is a delicious nutritious meal"? You're more in. If I said to you, "I want to introduce you to this person. They're really nice," versus, "They're delicious." Who knows what I'm talking about here? So when you learn RPM, you're going to learn that RPM is a system of thinking. That RPM is the power of language. Because you can change a few words in your outcome, it'll totally change where you end up and what you're going after in your life. RPM is a visual chunking system. A way to take all that stuff you saw and group 82 things down to 4. And guess what will happen to your stress level? Through the floor. Guess what happens to your concentration ability? Through the roof. What are you going to focus on? That's another one. RPM is a focusing tool. It makes you focus on what's most important because most people major in minor things. Am I making sense? So you got to know why are we doing this. And I always look at two levels of why. Why for me? Why for the team? What's the big why? If I'm involving other people. If it's just me, then it's me. But I usually have the big why. So I said three— step one is capture. Step two is create the plan. There were three questions. What are they? Number one is what do I really Or another word for that is, "What is my?" Or another word for that is, "What is the?" The result. And I eventually try to get it to a result because I want to make it measurable if at all possible. If I can't get it measurable in a short time, I want major progress on as my outcome. Right? Or complete something or whatever it is. My purpose or some keywords. Write this down. Purpose— I should say activity without purpose is the drain. To your life. Activity without purpose is the drain to your life. It's the drain to your wealth. It's the drain to your lifestyle. 3 questions: What's my outcome? What's my purpose? What's my why? Third one, what's my massive action plan? Or another way to say it, what do I need to what? Now you ask that question, it makes some sense. Because what to do depends on what your outcome is. Otherwise, what you're going to do is going to be based on stress, concern, fear, people interrupting you, reacting, demands. And so your life is nothing but a reaction tool. Of all the tools I have, this may be the most valuable one, ironically, because this is the one how it all gets executed. I don't teach it very often. So third question is, what's my massive action plan? What do I need to do to achieve this? And when you do that You'll take things off your capture list and you'll cross them off as they fit in, or you'll say, "I don't even need to do that." So, to create a plan, there's 3 questions and then there's 3 actions. This gets a little more technical, but I think you can pick it up real easy. You take those action items and you put them in order of importance. Does that make sense? But the way I do that more quickly is I go put a little star next to the ones that are the 20% that's going to get me 80% of the result. Because I know I'm not going to do all these action items. I know even if I intend to, I'm going to be interrupted 20 million times. So I want to know what's the 20% of this list. I've got an outcome. I got a purpose. And I have this little block. The center of the target is the outcome. I see the purpose with all the juicy words. Why I'm doing this. Now I got this list of 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 things. Action items. They're all related to kids. That kid outcome. I'm not going to do all those today. Which are the 20% that make the biggest difference? I star those. And guess what else I do? I figure out what's the 20%, what I call it, what are the must items. My musts are the 20% that are going to make 80% of the difference. That way, every day I can still succeed. That's why I still do my lists and most people don't. Because I don't do lists. I come up with outcomes and purposes and I got lists within them and they're highly prioritized with what matters. And later on, if I want to come back and do more, great. So, 3 questions, 3 actions. The actions are Start with the things that are musts. 2, establish the real time. The real time is I go minimum to maximum on each of those items. I go, "How long is this really going to take?" Why is that important? Because most of you overwhelm yourself and say this will be— I just had a meeting with my team the other day. And I said, "How long is this going to take?" And somebody said, "That will probably take us 10 weeks." I said, "Okay, let's sit down and do it. Let's sit down and lay out." where the 10 weeks is going to come from. And we're all done, it was about 7 hours' worth of work. Because we all overestimate when it's in our what? In our head. You sit down and look at each item and you look at the 20% and you mark, okay, 20 to 25 minutes, 30 to 40 minutes. And by the way, at the end of the day, what do I look at? What are my starred items? What's the minimum time necessary to get that result? That's what I go do. Same thing with my week. So, 3 questions. I create a visual block where this separates from everything else. Below it, I'll spell space and I'll create another block. When you learn RPM, you'll see that visually. I don't think I want to throw it up for you right now. But basically, in the center of my page, I see the target of what I'm after. I write my result. To the right, I write my juice. Purpose. To the left, I put my action list. Put it in order of importance. Boom. Asterisk. Boom. Minimum must time. I'm ready to rock and roll. Here's the 3rd one. Leverage. Leverage is critical. You know why I get so much done? Because I don't just get it done. I know the outcome. I know the purpose. And I look for leverage. Leverage is different than delegation. What's the problem with delegation? Delegation is you have all that needs to be done, so you give it to someone else, and you tell them what needs to be done, and when they don't do it, you're pissed off. Leverage says, "I can move the biggest boulder in the world with a little bit of effort if I got something I can do it with. But I'm still part of it. So leverage is, if I'm going to leverage something here with Tom, I'm going to make sure Tom understands the what? The outcome. I want to make sure Tom understands the purpose, the why, and the action. But I might say to Tom, if you can get this done without this action or better action, go for it, baby. And I want to talk to you on this date, and we got to promise him we're going to check in before it's needed. So there's no surprises. If you're having problems, Tom, come back to me because we're partners on this. That I call leverage. Different than delegation. Who sees the difference here? Say aye. So, 3 questions. What creates the plan? 3 questions with a block. 3 actions. Where's my musts? What's my minimum must times? Where's my leverage? And you know what I do when I have no time? There is time. I just got to leverage it. I'm saying, you say, I have no one to leverage it to. You know, Shane over here, right? I got all the stuff he wants to do, he can't leverage it. But Shane's answer was hire somebody. Then he thinks about what it's going to take and goes, $125,000, I can't do that now. He's getting caught up in one way to get the outcome— leverage. He goes through his list and goes, what if I got someone to do 20% of this stuff? I got— I could spend $20 grand to get that much freedom. I could pay for it times 10. Hmm, if I'm really productive, my productivity should enhance the world, not only my clients and customers, but it should provide jobs for other people. And if there's anything you hate to do, it's because you're either ineffective at it or you don't think it's very important, but it is urgent. So you need to hire somebody for those things. And ideally, somebody who loves that job. You're never going to grow when your time is eaten up for activities that aren't that important. Activity without high levels of purpose is the drain of your fortune. Do it now. If you can't get it all now, do a part of it now. Leverage is power. Leverage is ultimate power. So, we said there's 5 steps. It's going to go much quicker now. This is the hardest part, is number 2. So what's the first step to doing RPM? Number 1 is you got to do what? Nice and loud, what? Step number 2 is after you capture all in one location, maybe you learn to chunk it a little bit while it's still there, see what relates. But then what's step number 2? Create a what? An RPM plan. Not just a plan, an RPM plan. R stands for result. P stands for purpose. M stands for massive action plan. RPM is like a car. You increase the RPMs, increases its power. You get from here to there much faster. RPM. Results— what does it stand for? Results-focused, purpose-driven, massive action plan. That's an RPM. Results-focused, purpose-driven, massive action plan. That's what you want. So what are the 3 questions and the 3 actions in order for you to have a plan? Tell me. First question is? What's up? What do I? Yes. What do I want? What's my outcome? What's the specific what? Result. That's often a good way to ask that same question. Start general. What I want. Turn it into an outcome. Get it down to a specific result. Second question: What's my big why? What's my purpose? What's my reasons? What's my why? What's my purpose? Why do I want to do this? That's the real question. Why do I want to do this? Very different to want to than to have to, isn't it? Now, what's my massive action plan? What do I need to do? How many got this in your body by repetition now? Say, "I." What are the 3 actions? Number 1, we want to figure out which ones are our what? Must. 20% that makes 80% of the difference? Asterisk those. Those are your priorities. You're not going to do them all. Just decide you're not going to do them all. Let go. Be free. 2, figure out minimum, maximum time for them. Estimate just off the top of your head. 3 minutes to 10 minutes. 45 minutes to 90 minutes. Give yourself the range. On the computer, by the way, adds it all up and you can look at a block and it already tells you for the whole day how much time. Minimum must time, Maximum amount of time. By each RPM block, it'll do it for you. But you can do it by hand. It's well worth a few seconds to do. Third thing we want to do, see is there any of this that we can what? How could this soccer mom leverage? Her activities are things like drive the kids to school, pick them up from the school, drive them to violin practice, drive Johnny to soccer practice. A driver. Said in perfect Russian. Could you do a carpool? Could you trade days? Yes. So that when you're doing it, could you do the morning and someone else do the afternoon? If you were really looking at this, there's ways to do it. And by the way, could you get your outcome with your kids in the morning session so the afternoon you really felt like you connected, you made more of a difference in that morning than if you'd been driving them all day long, stressed out? How many follow that? Say, "Aye." I take people like this and I can show them the real times that it takes to get their job done. They tell me they have no time. You know why they have no time? Because guess what they say to themselves all day long? "I have no time." They're so stressed, they eat up all their time telling themselves how they have no time. They think about how they have no time. They eat up all their time. They don't think efficiently and they don't leverage anything. If you do these first 2 steps, would you be light-years ahead of anybody else around you? Think yes or no. Third step, commit and schedule. 3 C's so far. Capture, create the plan, commit and schedule. Let me tell you what I mean by commit. Commit is now that I've got these, let's say, 6 outcomes for the day. Does that make sense? 6 outcome blocks. Each one of them has an outcome, a purpose, might have 4, 5, 6 action items in it. I know the most important ones. I might look at those and go, "Some of this stuff is scheduled. Like, I have to do this at 3 o'clock today." So you lock that in your schedule. You put in what we call the big rocks first. Some of you know this metaphor. If I take a glass over here and I take this glass and I start to— let's see if I got a glass over here to show you what I mean. Yeah. So assume I take this glass over here and it's already this full and then I start adding items to it. How much— how long before This thing's going to overflow. But if this was empty and I first take the big items, the rocks of my life, the things that I have to do that I've scheduled, they go in first, couple rocks. And then secondarily, I commit to some block time for some things that matter to me. Like I'm going to block some time here with my team between 2:00 and 3:30 every single Thursday where we're going to go through one of these 7 items. How many of you know what I'm talking about here? Okay? I'm going to block that time. Okay? I'm going to commit that time. All right? So commit is committing the most important things and then scheduling those other items that are going to be important to you. So it goes from just a list to when am I going to what? When am I going to work on it? When am I going to do it? Block times can move. Schedule times can't, unless you renegotiate. What's the difference between a block time and a schedule time? Scheduled is you made a commitment to another person. So it can't be moved without negotiation. Gotta call them. Gotta work it out. Block time, you could move if you need to. So it has more flexibility. Make sense? And you do this— the way to do it, we do it on the computers. It's actually fun, but I've done it on paper for years. Okay, so we got capture. Pretty easy. Just get out of your head. One location. We got create the plan. 3 questions, 3 action items you're going to do there. Then you got an RPM plan. Number 3, we commit and what? Schedule. Number 4, what do you want to do? Complete and achieve. Complete the most important items. Achieve what you're after. It's that simple. Finally, the most important one of all to me, celebrate. They're all C's. Celebrate. Why is it important to celebrate your victories? Celebrate the magic moments of your week or the magic moments of your Why is it important to do that, you think? Because it's what gives you the energy to go for more. Does that make sense? Otherwise, it's like— remember I told you the cheese and crackers story? You know, you're holding out, you know, someday I'm going to celebrate. Someday never comes. Someday leads to a town called nowhere. Right? You don't want to be in that place. So you want to celebrate. And you want to celebrate the little victories. You want to celebrate the magic moments. How many breakthroughs have you had this week? Forget the things you've learned. How many of you have had breakthroughs like insights, distinctions about you or your business that you couldn't put a dollar value on it? You know for you the value is infinite. How many of you have had experiences like that? Okay? If you don't capture that, you don't give yourself credit. When you don't give yourself credit, your brain doesn't notice it. Remember, some of the first day, here's how things get created. You know, you get obsessively focused on something. Doesn't the system help you to focus on what you want? You generate enough energy and emotion, you're totally committed, you'll do anything to achieve it. And then step 2 is execution, and step 3 is grace. But grace gets magnified the more you appreciate it, the more you notice that you're guided or that things have happened for you. Those of you who have been on a Date with Destiny know I have a core belief, and that is life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. It's your job to figure out how it's happening for you. If you don't notice it, you won't experience it. Right? That's what we're talking about. So from now on, if you never saw you again and you didn't go to your coach, at least you know the thinking process. I go to a meeting. Before I go to the meeting, guess what I do? I write down a bunch of outcomes. What are my outcomes for the meeting? What do you think I do first? I have a little capture sheet for the meeting. All week long, something comes up, I write it on that sheet. I don't write 20 emails to people in the middle of nowhere, say, "By the way, let's talk about this." I just capture it. When I get there, I look at my list. What are the most important outcomes? If I have some action items, what outcome do they fit under? I go in the meeting, what do I ask other people? Tell us, what are the most important what for this meeting? Most important? Everything is outcome. When you're outcome-driven, you produce results like nobody else. And I'm associated with the why. Why am I doing this? Why am I in partnership with these people? Right? What's this all about? Because that'll put you in state. So, 5 parts of RPM. Let's see what they are. Number 1, what? Nice and loud. Nice and loud. Number 2, create a— Yes, what kind of plan? RPM plan. What's the R stand for? Results-focused. P is for purpose-driven. M is for massive action plan. Massive action plan is a map. MAP, massive action plan, a map. Okay? What are the 3 questions that will make you know you have that plan? Question number 1 is, what do I— What's the next example after that? What is my outcome? What's my actual result? Second question, what's my— Purpose. Why do I want to do this? Why do I want to do this? What's my big whys? And then third question, what's my massive action plan? Or another word for it is, what do I need to what? Now asking what to do makes sense. Makes total sense. What are the 3 things you do on that plan in addition to those 3 questions? Figure out what the musts are. Figure out the minimum must what? And number 3, find yourself some— Great. What's step number 3? For this to be alive and not just be on a piece of paper, I got to take this from an idea and I got to commit. And when am I going to do this shit? What day? What week? What month? What hour? Right? I tend to plan weekly first and I put it in days. And when I get the night before, I plan the day because a lot moves around until that time. Then after I do that, what do I need to do? What's step 4? Complete what? Complete what? All the actions? The outcomes. Complete by achieving what matters most. Cut to the chase. Get to the must. Is it possible by having that outcome so clear, you might come up with something that's not on the page that's better and get you there quicker? Yes or no? By the way, on the computer, you can leverage a whole block. You can push a button, send it to somebody in email. Push a button and give an audio message of what you want. And they can accept it. It comes back and say they accept it. So I'm excited about what that's going to be like. Or use your iPhone. Or use whatever you want. It's a thinking process. Then on the other hand, think about this. So leverage, if you leverage it, you're staying connected. You know what's going on. But also, they know the outcome. They know the why. It might be useful to talk in terms of their why too. So now they're activated. Why do people do certain things and not others? Because certain things they have enough reasons to, in their reasons. Other things they don't. They value something more. When people say, "I didn't have time for this," what they're really saying is, "Something else was more important to me." But usually it isn't really something that was more important. It was something else that was more urgent, and they don't know what's important to them. So maybe you can help them. Third piece is complete and achieve. Well, excuse me, before we complete and achieve, what's the final step? Five. Celebrate. And the way I celebrate personally is I'm constantly making lists of magic moments and accomplishments. I've always wanted to know the answer to a question. I've been obsessed by the question of what makes the difference in people's lives. I was not popular in school. I love people, so I was passionate about figuring out what's the difference in people, you know. Why is it that some people are given everything? You know the type, they really do have parents that love them, that are there for them, they have tremendous educational background, they have all the economic resources, and they end up spending their life going in and out of rehab. You know, they had all the resources. And then you meet somebody who's been, you know, abused, or no one's been there for them, or they've been physically abused or sexually abused or the worst things you could possibly happen to a human being, and they turn out to be some of the finest human beings you'd ever meet in your life who are out there working to help other people and make a difference. So we all want to believe that our lives have turned out because of our biography, and the reality is we can all find people with a horrible biography who have an extraordinary life, and we have people with an extraordinary biography who have a life that none of us would want to trade with. So what's the real challenge? And I believe that the challenge in relationships and in life in every area is emotional emotional fitness. That it starts with how emotionally fit you are in a relationship. And there are patterns that make people emotionally unfit. There are patterns that make people frustrated. There are patterns that make people depressed. There are patterns that make people angry. There are patterns that make people feel sorry for themselves. And there are also patterns that make people compassionate, playful, physically passionate, emotionally strong. You know, there are different patterns and they stand out to you when you've been around that many people. So I've had now 50 million people get my books and tapes, but I've been with 3 million people face-to-face in 80 countries. And when you're around those many people, the pattern becomes clear. And I've been able to use those patterns, and that's what I want to kind of expose you to tonight. And frankly, you know, I think these patterns are common sense. But you know, how many of you notice that common sense is not too common? You know, everybody's like, "Oh yeah, that's simple." But you know, a lot of people say, "I know this stuff." Well, if you're not doing it, you don't know it. You understand it. And understanding and $3 will almost get you a cup of Starbucks these days, you know? It's really nice to understand things, but that doesn't change anything. You gotta get in your body and actually do it. But I've learned enough of these patterns that now, over the last, you know, 20 years or so of the 30 years of my career, I'm the guy that gets the call when the fire starts. You know, when the athlete is burning down on national television and something's gotta be done right now to turn them around. And, you know, I either get them or I don't. For 30 years I've gotten them. That's how I've built my reputation. And you've got to produce results right now. And I'm able to do that because of an understanding of these need structures I'm going to talk to you about. Or I get the call when the child is going to commit suicide or the adult. And in 30 years, you know, knock on wood, I've never lost one suicide in 30 years. It doesn't mean I won't someday, but I never have, not one single time out of the thousands of suicide attempts. And it's again because of understanding these needs I'm going to talk to you about. I get the phone call, you know, in the middle of the night, true story, and it's the President of the United States. Saying, "Tony, they're gonna impeach me in the morning. What should I do?" And I say, "Could you have called me sooner?" True story, you know. So in the experience of looking to make those changes and looking at how to change— same thing in relationships, you know, couples that are gone. The films that I wanted to make with Chloé, I said, "Let's not make films with couples that have troubles. Let's make couples that look like they've gone beyond the edge." By anybody's estimate, there's no way to turn it around. Because by that extreme, when someone watches the film, they look at their own life and they go, my God, these people can do it. And they did here. I could do it too. That's the contrast we want. But the basis of all that I do comes down to knowing that the difference in your life, your relationship, your physical life, your emotional life, any aspect of your life comes down to this sense of psychological strength or emotional fitness. And what I mean by that is this: discipline never works long term. Never. What works is when you become addicted to something positively new. You trade one addiction for another when you shift from having to doing something to wanting to do something. So our focus is how to make that happen. But I'd say this to you: if you want to change a relationship, the number one thing you have to do is master your own emotions. If you don't do that, forget it. There's no hope. And what's wonderful though is it's easy to do if you know how, but none of us have been taught really emotional leadership, emotional management as a very minimum, much less how to direct and shape ourselves. I don't mean faking your emotions. I don't mean pushing them down. I don't believe in positive thinking, although you may think that from watching, you know, some of the media coverage. I am not into positive thinking. I'm not here tonight to tell you to go to your garden and say, "There's no weeds, there's no weeds, there's no weeds, there's no weeds." You know, I'm very clear that I believe that life is about about leadership and being truthful to yourself. And so I believe, number one, that the mandate for any great relationship and the mandate for anybody to lead their own life and not be a follower is you gotta see things as they are, but not worse than they are. Because that's where most people go. That's where they go in relationship. That's why they start to tear it down. That's why the relationship starts to break down, because people get scared when it isn't working out, and then they make it worse than it is so they don't have to try. Because they don't want to try again and be disappointed. They don't want to feel that sense of rejection. They don't want to feel that sense of failure. So most people make it much worse than it is. People tell me all the time, "Oh, I'm skeptical," or, "I'm pessimistic." I say, "No, no, no, you're gutless." It takes no guts, it takes no courage to be a pessimist, to say it's not gonna work, to try to find what's wrong. What's wrong is always available. So is what's right. So I'm not into positive thinking, but I am into intelligence. And intelligence says, "See it as it is, don't make it worse than it is." I meet people all the time and they say, "My problem is I'm big-boned." No, you're frickin' fat. Tell the truth. You know? What is this big-boned story? You know? The only way it gets better is if you can see how it is. Don't make it worse than it is. Don't try to make it so it's impossible to change. That's not true. It's not true at all. The second mandate, I think, to changing anything in your life, to leading your life, is once you see it as it is, not worse than it is, then you got to see it better than it is. Because that's the thing that's missing from most relationships. There's no vision. I mean, without a vision, in the Bible it says people what? Perish. And when a relationship has no vision for greater than where they are, that relationship is going downhill, if not destroyed. I believe that every relationship, every part of life, every part of a human being needs a compelling future. If the future is not more compelling than today, today could be tough, but if the future is compelling, we can get there. And that's what every leader does. And every one of you in this room, and I know some of you are here, I guess, from the general public as well. Just for your own relationship. I really acknowledge you for— but I know you're from the military here. I know the therapists here, people from all walks of life. You're all leaders. What's your job? To lead. Your job is to help people see it as it is, not worse than it is. What's your job? Help them create a compelling future. See it better than it is so there's a reason to give my all again. Otherwise, there's just no juice. There's no energy. Why? They'll go through the motions, complain with each other, not really believe it's going to work, and nothing will change. And then finally, the third step that we've all got to do if we're going to change our life or anybody else's is make it the way we see it. And that's where strategy comes in. I try to take things that are complex and make them as simple as possible. I've noticed most people in the psychological world try to make it as complex as humanly possible because it makes us feel so sophisticated. We can talk with all these complex words and elements and so forth, and we can really, you know, we got our degrees and we were somebody. But you know what? That doesn't help anybody. So I look for a nickel word to get to the heart of something. I'm trying to take something complex and make it simple so that people really will apply it. So what are we going to do here as we come into our final hours together? Uh, there are a lot of things we could do. My goal obviously is to always have you leave with the strongest amount of your emotion geared in your body, because that's what's going to get you to go follow through. At the same time, I look at this program and no matter how much we pour into it, no matter how much we put you in overwhelm, as you can only imagine, there's so much things, so So many things that I know are available and needed for your businesses that aren't here. So trying to figure out what do we put in here strategically. And so I'd like to roll the dice on something that may not be as emotionally exciting, but probably more valuable. And that is a planning process. And so you might have to, for this last part, really manage your own state a little bit. But I'd like to introduce you to what I call RPA. RPM, the Rapid Planning Method. And RPM is an experience that when you master the thinking of RPM, you don't have to use the system itself even. You don't have to use a particular mechanical system in terms of how you do this on your computer or calculator or on paper or whatever. But if you take on this thinking system, your entire planning process will transform and so will you emotionally. And most people in life, when they're trying to plan something, when they're trying to put something together, like plan their day— we all learned yesterday that what controls our focus controls our life. Whatever we focus on, we feel, even if it's not true. Do you agree with me on this? Yes or no? And everything's trying to get our focus all the time, right? Advertising is trying to get our focus. Your phone's ringing in your pocket, it's buzzing. Buzzing, and that buzz is either your phone or it's an email or it's a text. There's this constant something trying to get control of our focus. But what you focus on determines your destiny in your life. So if you don't take control of it, somebody else will. And so the challenge is, even we try to take control of our own focus, even we try and attempt to do this, usually there's so much distraction that it becomes very difficult to do it. And even if you did it in the traditional way and you were going to go out tomorrow tomorrow and you're going to plan your day or you're going to plan your week. You're going to go home. In order to plan it, you're going to have to come up with some answers. Answers for the week. And the question you're going to ask if you don't know RPM is what? What do I need to— say it nice and loud. What do I need to do? That's a good question. It's much better than why do I have to do this? It's much better than what the hell do I do? A few modifiers around that language and you'll feel very different, won't you? So when you ask, "What should I do?" The answer you're going to get is usually based on whatever is most pressing on you at that moment. And what tends to press us is either something painful, right? Right now I got to do this because if I don't do this, something's going to happen. Or something that we want. Something pleasurable. Is that true? Or it could be your own sense of vision, but that's usually the last thing that we focus on. How many agree with me on this? Say aye. So let's say, for example, someone keeps coming to you and goes, I need this, and I need this, and I need this. And they do that in the form of your text, they do that in the form of a phone call, they do that in the form of an email, they do that in the form of walking up to you and go, hey, Tony, Tony, can I ask you a question? And right in that moment, they're coming to you and they're asking for the most valuable thing you have in life. Your focus. 'Cause out of your focus, you're gonna put your attention, your energy, your intellect, your emotion, your thoughts, your lifeblood. And the way you invest focus is the way you invest thought, feeling, emotion, and life. And wherever you spend that focus is gonna determine what you end up with in this life. And what you're able to give in this life. So focus, bless you, is the single most important component you've got to learn to take control of. And most of us are not very good at this, primarily because the culture has conditioned us to respond to what we need to do. And when you're coming up here, Dr. Ruth here in front of me, and she goes, Tony, Tony, Tony, what do you need to do right now? It's being dictated by the environment, not necessarily by what is most important for me or my mission or my direction or my life. Now, in a seminar, it's appropriate most of the time because this is what I'm here to do. But even in seminars, sometimes I have to say, "Can I get back to you in a moment?" Because I have to do this because I'm also running this damn thing. I'm not just on stage, right? So the combination makes me have to look at it. And there's an army of people back here running it, and I've got to help them, or they've got to help me, and a lot of moving parts. So sometimes I've got to stop and not let you I'm not going to let you take my focus even though I'd like to give it to you. But if I were to ask, "What do I need to do?" I'm going to get a certain quality of answer. Let me give you an example of what I mean. True story. President— I won't go any deeper than what I can reveal without being disrespectful in any way, shape, or form. I would never do that. But it's a known fact because it got out in the newspapers. There was a stage when President Clinton called me. And when he called me, he literally called me up and said— and I'd known him for a little while and worked with him prior, but he called me up and said, "They're going to impeach me in the morning. What should I do?" And I kid about it today. I say, I said to him, "Well, could you have called me sooner?" You know? But what truthfully I said after that was, "I can give you my answer to that question, but I don't know if that's really the question you want to answer." Because the answer, what you should do, requires a different question to be asked first, which is what's most important to you? Because if what's most important to you is to stay in office, then obviously you should just keep doing what you're doing, because even though they'll try to impeach you, they won't have enough votes and you'll stay in office. But if your outcome— what do you want? What's your outcome? What's the result you're after? That changes what you do. If your outcome is to regain respect from mothers, fathers, what they can say to their children about the president of the United States, then based on that, you might have to do something different. And I said, easy for me to say because I'm not in your position and I'm not facing an inquiry in the legal side. And he said, yeah. And I said, but you're also a lawyer. Now you certainly know the law. And I said, you know what you can say. He goes, yeah, well, you have somebody coming at you, you know, you know, Starr's coming after me. He's trying to do this, trying to do that. I said, I know that, so I'm not telling what to do. You're just asking me what to do. I won't tell you that. First you got to tell me what do you want. If you don't know your outcome, if you don't know the real result you're over and you answer what to do, you may even get what you want. You may do that, get the result, but it's not the result you really wanted. That's again the difference between strategy and tactics, isn't it? Which is one of the single most important lessons I hope we got across to you this week. So you got to learn to ask a different question than what to do, because how many of you found out that it doesn't matter what the day in your life is, if you really write down everything you got to do, there's no way in hell you could do it all? How many agree with me on this? Raise your hand and say aye. So, most of you started out in the old days with a little time management book and used to write down all your to-dos. Right? How many used to have one of these? Right? You write down all your to-dos, and then in the early days, you actually put like A, B, C priority, maybe in the very beginning. Anybody get that anal to be able to do that? Separate them out so you focus on the priorities? And then maybe even plan when you were going to do them in your day? And that lasted about how long? You still carried that book around with you in those days when it was on paper. Remember that? But what it was was your address book in those days because you didn't have an iPhone, right? It was your calendar and your address book and a few crappy things you wrote down, but you never sat down and wrote the whole list out because you knew you weren't going to do it all and it just felt like hell every day to rewrite it all. Who can relate with what I'm saying as being true? Say "I." I. So when I only had one company to run, I was just a kid, I went to one of those programs prior to the days of Franklin and Covey and all those guys. It was called the Time Bank. We had this 3-ring binder like this, it was so cool, and it had its tabs and had my calendar in the front so I could schedule things and have these daily little tabs I could plan out the day and write my to-do list. And then it had my A through Zs in the back where I could file under people's names and things all the details I needed. And then that was all the phone information because there wasn't email in those days. You carried around this little mini suitcase with these big rings and it worked really cool. It was great. But I learned once I had 2 companies and then 3 and then 4 and then 5, there was no way. My to-do list got bigger and bigger and never got to be done. And I found myself not writing it down. And then I found myself doing it in my head. And I got a pretty good memory, but man, that was painful. I felt the shock of it all over again. Bottom line is, I said, "There's got to be a better way." I kept thinking, what controls our life is what we focus on. What we focus on, we feel. What we feel and focus on, we move towards. Wherever focus goes, energy flows. So wherever your focus goes, energy flows. So if I want to control my focus, the most powerful way is by asking what? Better questions. So I need to come up with a better question, because what to do is a painful question, and it's a stupid question very often. When you're starving hungry on the first day, what to do is obvious: go get some food. But some of you, in spite of the hunger— and those who've never been to a program, in my mind, the pissed-offness with Tony Robbins that he would go so long— people went back, they go, but this is not right. And so they said, then go get some food. They go, no, but I don't want to miss it. Now, our fault for not communicating in advance, but the point of the matter is most of you decided what to do based on a larger outcome than the urgency of current pain. You decided, "No, what's most important is to get this material, even if it's a little painful in the short term. I can eat a little bit. I'm hungry, but I can survive. I am not in Africa. This is not the last meal that I've had for 6 weeks." There may be some body fat I could be burning in the next 2 hours while I'm learning. Who knows? You know, maybe. Maybe I'm not really dying. Maybe that's just the language I use, and the language I use is producing my emotion. People say they're starving. Really? Look in the mirror. Are you starving? No, I didn't say that to anybody because no one came up and said anything to me about it. That Tony, that Tony. Oh, Tony, we Hey, take a picture with me. Yes, of course. My point is this: where focus goes, energy flows. You must control your focus. You do it with questions. If you ask the same questions as everyone else, you end up with the same answers. So how did Bill Gates change his economic world? He was a software designer who didn't say, how do I make better software? He asked and got everyone else to ask, how do we become the intelligence that controls all computers worldwide? How do we become the intelligence that controls all computers worldwide? Now, when that's your outcome, do you end up with a different to-do list than if your outcome is to build the best software? Yes or no? That's why he's one of the richest men on earth. Change a question, change your life. When it comes to planning your life, I want to get you to learn to ask 3 questions now. And the first one is not, "What am I going to do?" And how many understand why now? Say, "I." The question you want to ask yourself is, "What do I want? What's my outcome? What's my result?" The word RPM, the first one is to get you focused on the target. The target is not the activity. The activity can change. It's what's the result? Result I'm after. If you know exactly what it is you really want, what you desire, what you're really after— clarity is power. The more clear you are on specifically what you want, the faster your brain can get you there. But if you're generally saying things like, what do I want? Well, yeah, I want more money. Fine, here's a dollar, get out of here. Did you achieve the outcome? Yeah. When you're that general You think you're not getting your goal? You are. The way you language your goal, the way you think about it, you're receiving it. You know, I want to feel a bit better. I want to lose some weight. Fine, you lost a pound. You're done. Because your brain's like a servomechanism in a bomb and a missile. The old days, you shoot a missile and the target was going, and if you missed the trajectory, you missed it. Today, what happens when the missile's not on course? What happens? It locks on to the heat signature and what does it do? It moves and follows it. That's the way your brain is if it knows the outcome, if it knows the result. So RPM starts with, "I gotta know the result." This is a results planning system. The Rapid Planning Method, but you can think of it as a results planning system. I need to know the result I'm after before I ever ask myself what to do. That takes more time, but it's worth it. Now for time's sake, I'm not gonna do this with you right now, but I'll tell you what I do when I've I've taught this to people and I've got a full weekend to do this in. Just to give you a picture, if I asked you right now to write out your name, your full name— now some of you abbreviate your signature, but write out your full name in cursive. Go ahead and do that one time. Write your full name in cursive. I can't even use the word cursive. Is that really the word people still use? It means in handwriting, I guess, but in cursive. Just write it out, full name, because you can do this later on. Full name. If you normally abbreviate, don't do that. Write out the full name. Now, if I had you get with a partner, and you can try this later if you want, I'm just going to tell you because I don't want to take the time because we have such limited time today. And I have your partner say to you with a stopwatch here, "OK, ready?" And I go, "Go!" And you write it out. And you tell me when you're done. And I go, "Stop!" And I write down how long that was. So let's say you wrote out your signature and it took 5 seconds. And then I say, "Ready? Write it out. Ready? Go!" You tell me you're done? Stop. And I write down 5 seconds. I have to do that 10 times. You'll find in the beginning you'll be, let's say, 6 seconds. I'm making it up. Every signature is different. And you probably might get down to as little as 5 seconds. If you have like an iPhone, you could do it as a digital stopwatch. You could see the milliseconds. Then I say to you, I want you guys to write every other letter in cursive. In other words, you're going to write half as many letters. How long do you think it would take to do it? Half as much time? Most of you, it will take twice as much time in the beginning, and then eventually, what's interesting is, if I do it 10 times, and the last 2 or 3, and this makes no logical sense, and again, I don't want to take the time to have all of you do this 10 times, 10 times, 10 times, but you can go do it on your own, I'll just tell you the result. In most cases, even though you're doing half as many letters, you cut it by two-thirds of the time. There's something happens when you break an old pattern and you do it fresh. Your brain over the years has learned ways to move more rapidly since when you did your original signature, and you'll do it in a third the amount of time. It'll take twice as much at first, and then she'll cost you a third amount of time. Now let me tell you why I'm telling you this. The system I'm calling the Rapid Planning Method, by the time I show it to you, you're You're going to go, "This takes more time than just making my to-do list." When? When will it take more time? When? Initially. But once you get it in your nervous system, it'll take you less time because your brain will be thinking in outcomes and not activities. And when you think in terms of outcomes and not activities, pretty soon some of the activities on your list you don't even need to do to get the outcome. You find a better way to get the outcome quicker. Now how do you do that? You ask 3 questions. Question 1. What is my result? What is my outcome? What is it I really, truly want from this? If you're going back next week and you say, "This next week, what are the most important what? Outcomes for me to get this week in my business?" And you just write those outcomes out, not your action items, the outcomes. You, if you do that and nothing else, you'll be ahead of the game. And if you just keep looking at those outcomes every day, How am I doing on that outcome? Your brain will come up with ways to get to that outcome. I promise you. Focus on outcomes, not on activities. Action for most people, activities, most people may mistake movement for achievement. They mistake action items and to-dos for achievement. We're after the achievement. Are you with me on this? Yes or no? Yes. It's a different way of thinking, and I think all of you inherently have it. But if you make this ritualized, just like the things you've learned this week, they're all great, but if you don't systematize them, they'll work when you do them. But if you systematize them, right, and you see like Mr. Hallman here, where he goes in and just does it and does it, make sure it's being done again, or what you've seen Chet do, or what I do, you just do it over and over again, you don't miss it, now the results are geometric. So I want to get you to systematize the thinking, whether you do it visually the way I'm going to show you or not. So first question: what's the result I'm after? What's the ultimate result? What do I want out of this week, out of this thing, out of my business, out of my life, out for my body? And you want to be as what as possible when you describe that outcome, that result. As what? As clear and specific as possible. Generalities will confuse you. So it might take you longer than just writing down call so-and-so to think, if I'm calling my, my son, I'm going to call Jerick, or I'm going to call my brother, this is what goes through my head before I call him, always. What's my outcome? Because I don't want to just call him. I want Jerick to feel loved by his dad. Or I'm thinking about what's my outcome. I've got to talk to him about this thing that's out there. I got to make sure I get through to him on this because I want to guide him and move him in this direction. That's what I want to be as his father. I want to— I don't want to just check chit-chat. I can do that too. If you think before every phone call, before every time you're planning your day, and you think before you have any meeting— what do you think the first thing I ask of anyone when we sit down in a meeting is? Okay, what are your— what are your outcomes? What are the outcomes of this meeting? First thing I want to know, because if I know the outcomes, guess what? A lot of meetings, they're done pretty quick, because if I know the outcome, you don't have to go through all the activities to sell me on it. Just that's your outcome? How do you want to do it? Sounds good to me. Rock. That's how you make a meeting productive. I know a meeting's productive not by the hours or time. Sometimes it takes longer to the outcome than you want, but I'm going to get the outcome. That's, by the way, what you see with me on stage. That's why my times vary, but it's based on an outcome. I'm going to get that outcome. I don't give a damn whether it's the right time or not. I want to do it that time, but I must deliver the outcome. How many get that? And by the way, how many like to have your company focused on outcomes, results, and not activities? Say, "I." People say all the time, "Well, did you get that done?" "Well, you know, I left them an email. I left them a voicemail. I've sent them 3 emails." How many times you heard that? When that happens with me, I'm like, "Ahh!" You know, but I don't show it. I'm just like, "Really? Wow, that's fascinating." Well, let me explain about our culture. It's about getting the result. So I can help you if you can't figure another way to do it, but there may be 12 other things we might want to do. Maybe they don't have the answer, maybe somebody else can give us the answer. The outcome was to get this information, not to leave an email or 12 or 3 voicemails. That will not do any of us any good. How many follow? Now, whether you get the outcome or not, whether you get that result, will be based first— do you have clarity? And the second thing is whether you've got enough emotional juice to keep going after it when things don't work out. So the second part of RPM is the purpose. RPM, by the way, how many knows what it means when you increase the RPMs in a car? Anybody here? What does that do? It builds up what? Power. Speed. Higher RPMs, you can explode through something, right? You can make something happen. So think of this metaphorically also, this Rapid Planning Method, this result planning method. So it's rapid planning, it's result planning. You want a results-focused, purpose-driven, massive action culture. That's what RPM stands for. It's how you build up power and you break through. But whether or not you get that result will be, are you clear and specific? But also, do you have enough juice when it doesn't work out? How many of you are going after an outcome in your day or in your week and for whatever reason you're not able to get it. The person doesn't respond, they're not there, the thing's not there, something interferes, somebody interrupts you. Who's had their plans interrupted? Raise your hand and say, "Aye." So whether you keep doing it or not is do you have enough emotional juice? See guys, you all know out of this week you got more than enough to take your business to a whole 'nother level. You got more ways. You can be going home and be artists now. And some of it, you know, went by so fast, but many of you have the program. You'll watch enough times, you'll be there. Some of you are going to invite us in. We're going to be there and make sure you do it. So it's going to happen. But the art of it being followed through or not is going to come to you. You have the emotion to follow through, and that needs to be a part of your thinking also. So the next question I've always asked besides the outcome is why. Why is more important than how. Why are we doing this? What's the purpose? Purpose is more powerful than object. Purpose is more powerful than object. You say, "I want a million dollars." That's a great objective. "I want a billion dollars." Great objective. "I want to feed 3,000 children in my community." That's a beautiful objective. It's even more specific. But even that objective, you might get excited about until you realize what it takes to feed 3,000 kids, right? And the politics involved and all the people that don't follow through. And then you have this good intention and somebody else's ticked off because one of the kids didn't get fed, right? And you did everything you know how to do. What's gonna make you keep going? Purpose. Why do you want to feed those 3,000 kids? Why do you want to make that million dollars, that billion dollars? Why are you gonna take your business to the next level? Why is the most important thing to know, because that's where all the emotional juice and fuel is to actually get you to go through when the challenges show up. Every person you see Who's on fire and successful knows the why. You know what the problem is? You might know the why in the beginning. You wrote a mission statement and stuff like that. You gotta know why you're doing this right now. This right now. That's what's gonna engage you and activate the why. You might have a why, but it's not active. How many follow the difference of what I'm talking about here? Say aye. Aye. Otherwise, that little law of familiarity shows up. You know, "Oh, we're doing this 'cause da da da da da da." And you repeat the why. But has no emotion behind it. See, if I take a stick pin— no, I don't see anything like that, but you know, you know when a woman has a blouse and has like a little stick pin in it? Let's think that stick pin is a word. I take that stick pin and I throw it at you. Are you going to feel it? Barely. What if I take that little stick pin called a word and I wire it to the back of a a giant iron bar called emotion. Now I can take that stick pin and put that thing right through your heart. That's the power of why. RPM. R is the result, the outcome, what you're after. P is the purpose. It's the why. 80% of success is why. 20% is how. Get a big enough why, people will figure out how to do it. Yes. How many agree with me on this? Say aye. Why? So you better know your why. So, talking to the President, tell me something. What's your outcome? And then why? And then once we know the why, we know what you're after and why, then the question is, how do we do it? We know what we're after, why, how do we do it? By the way, are there lots of hows to get to an outcome, yes or no? Yes. Are there many paths to get a result, yes or no? Some are more efficient than others. And you're not going to know, so you know what you do? You brainstorm out all the hows you can think of. All the things you could possibly need to do to get that result. And then you narrow it down to the 20% that makes 80% of the difference. And you'll find out you don't have to do that whole to-do list. In fact, wouldn't it be nice to write your whole to-do list and not do it and still get the outcome? How many prefer that? Say, "Aye." Aye. That's RPM. I love it when I don't do my to-dos and I got the outcome. That's the coolest thing in the world. You might have done 1 or 2 of them, but it's then learning selectively which ones are going to create it. But the only way to do that is to brainstorm out the M, the Massive Action Plan. If I know the result I'm after, I know what it is I want, what's the outcome, what's the result, what do I want specifically, clearly, and I know the why, and the why's got to move who. Who does the why have to matter to? Everybody around you. Well, if it's a why you're trying to get everybody to deal with, they gotta have a why involved in it. But people do things for different reasons. People donate money for different reasons. Some of you donated money the other day here because you were moved by the experience. Some of you did it for connection. Some of you did it to contribute. Some of you felt guilty if you didn't do it because somebody else did beside you. Or you have a lot of money and you feel guilty about it because you didn't earn it. I'm not saying anybody in this room, but that's how some people are. They inherited it, so they feel guilty. Some people do things to get their name up on the wall. Some people today do it anonymously and then tell everyone. Isn't it true? Yeah, just confidentially, that was me. And everybody tells everybody that it's anonymous. They're doing it for significance. Some do it for connection. Some do it for contribution. I don't care why a person does it, but we do it. But if you're going to work with a group of people, you better make sure the why touches on all their needs. Does that make sense? When it's you, whose why does it have to be? Whose why does it have to touch? Whose purpose does it have to be? Your own, for you to be moved. So if you know the result and you know the purpose, now you need the M, which is the massive action plan. We also call the massive action plan the MAP. It's your massive action plan, your MAP. How are you going to get there? What are you going to do? By the way, when you're crystal clear on what you want and you know why you want it, you can make a big map. You can brainstorm a million ways to do it. Not all your hows are going to work. That's why you make a whole map and then go back and gradually asterisk the ones that are the most important and go hit those. You might get the whole outcome in the first 2 action items and get rid of your whole rest of your list. This is RPM. This is how I operate. Now, if you never did this on paper and you just did this thinking process in your head, you'll get invaluable resources. If you learn to put this on paper, it'll be more powerful because then your brain isn't racing and you can see it. If you make it into a system that you personally use, your productivity will explode. If you teach your whole company to do this, your company will go to levels you can't even imagine because everyone will maximize their productivity. And it is different than any other system in its essence because it causes a different focus with a different level of emotion greater creativity as a result of that, and then it shows you how to leverage it all. Does this make sense? Yes. So those 3 pieces, results planning, asking what question, what's the first question you're gonna always ask? What do I really want? What's my outcome? What's the actual result I want from this day, from this week, from this conversation, from this meeting? Doesn't matter what it is. If that's all you ever do, you're already practicing RPM at a fundamental level. But if you want to juice it up, you'll ask the second question. What's the second question? Quick. Why do I want it? Why? What's juicy about this? What excites me about this? What do I really want about this? If I want to call this person, why am I calling them? And then you know what? When you get a stronger why, the action items change because you're in a different what? Who knows? A different what? Make that same call without any clear outcome and any clear purpose, or the outcome is, "Get back to 'em." That's my goal, get back to 'em. What's gonna be the quality of the writing or the phone call or the vocal quality when you're getting back to somebody? Versus if you know, "My outcome is to make sure they feel like I am so in their corner that I'm here to make sure their needs are completely met." more than they've ever met by any person they've ever spoken to on the phone before, and that I'm here for them and they can count on me. Why? Because that's who the hell I am. Because when people deal with me, they have found someone like no other human being they've ever dealt with, and I am a source they can count on. That's why I don't have to go chase 8 million new clients. That's why they stay my client for 17 years and pay me a million bucks a year to talk to them on the phone once every 10 days for 10 minutes. And see him 3 times a year for an hour. And I get a piece of the upside, so sometimes I get a couple million dollars for that. Why would somebody pay you that kind of money? Because when my guy calls me, he gets delivery he can't get anywhere else on the face of the earth. So I pride myself in that. And by the way, that feels juicy to me. It meets my need for contribution, for my need for growth, my need for significance. I'm the best at what I do. My need for certainty, I deliver. And variety— who the hell knows what's going to happen when I pick up this phone? It's different every time because the market's changed, something's changed, something's going on. How many follow? Say aye. It's a very different thing than, oh, I'm getting back to my client, right? And the way you're going to come across is different, and everybody will go, wow. And in life anyway, by the way, the people are the very best on earth that get paid everything like 100 times more than everybody else. They're just a little bit better than everybody else. It's like, you know, a bear is chasing you. I don't have to be that fast, just that much faster than you, right? In life, you just have to be a little bit better than everybody else and you get all the rewards. And that little bit better to me is RPM. Okay, now RPM is also a visual chunking system, visual way to chunk. Remember the other day when I showed you this little concept of this chunking system where, you know, you have this to do and this to do, this, this, this to do. I gotta do this, this, this. I gotta do this and this and this, and I gotta do this and this and this and this. This and I gotta do this and this and this. By the way, this is what happens when you ask yourself, what do I gotta do? Which I'm gonna show you you should still do. You should ask yourself all the things you do and write them all out. And then when you've written it all out, you look at this and you step back and you say, okay, But what do I really want? What do I want out of this project? What do I want out of this day? What do I want out of this week? What's the most important— most important— outcome I could get out of this day, this week, this project, this element? What result do I want? You go, well, I see this and this relate to that, but you know what I really— I want this. Oh, if I want this, then this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this all fit into that. Targeted outcome. How many follow? And I might go, you know what else? I also should do this and this to get that outcome. They're not even on the list, but these might get me there faster than all 3 of these. Oh, by the way, this and this and this and this and this and this and this. All right. Oh, and guess what? This and this and this and this is all right. And guess what? There's my day. 1, 2, 3, 3 outcomes, 4 outcomes, 5 outcomes. It's a different world. You will get yourself completely out of reaction. You start to take control. My question to you is this: How important do you think it would be for you to master a skill set like this for you to have the quality of life you want, quality of business you want? What would— 0 to 10, what would be the level of importance you'd give this, my friends? How big? Where would you put it for you? Raise your hand if it's a 10 for you. Let me see your hand. Good. I'm not going to teach you today, but I'm going to teach you enough that you can take yourself to the next level. If you want to go deeper, you will, but I didn't want you to leave without the fundamentals of it because just the fundamentals will help you to take what we've got here and take it home and go to work at it at a much more effective level. So if someone gave you a test and they asked you What would be the fastest way for you to change your productivity? It would be stop focusing on what to and focus on your— do nothing else but that. What does RPM stand for? The Rapid Planning Method, also known as the Results Planning Method. It also stands for the 3 questions you're going to start to ask. What's the first question? It is not what am I going to. The first question is, "What is my?" My. And then as you get more clear than that, outcome starts broad. To make it more specific, you say, "What's the specific what?" Result that I'm after. What do I really want? What's my outcome? What's the result? So usually I start out with outcome because it's broad, and the result makes you make it even more specific. Okay? Start broad, get more specific. And by the way, writing that down, you might write your outcome and scribble out and rewrite it a few times until you got something that really grabbed you. That takes more time than just writing a to-do down, but it's time well wasted if you want to think of it as wasting. And pretty quickly, by the way, you know what you're going to find out? There aren't that many outcomes you're after in life. Lots of activities, not that outcomes. And pretty soon it'll be a shortcut, just like rewriting your handwriting. You won't just cut the time in half, it'll cut it by two-thirds because you'll, you'll know right where to go. That's what starts to happen. You start developing what I call pathways of power. Well, you know, this is what I do. This is how I do it. This is how I get to that result. And most people have no clue how they get there. The second P stands for— the second question I ask myself is what? What's my purpose? Why am I doing this? And there are different emotions for each of us that drive us most. Some words will completely change your state. When you have that right word, for me it's impact, for example, or love, or contribution, or making a difference, or have fun. A couple things like that changed the game for me overnight versus "I have to." How many hate having to do things? Say "I." I. You don't ever have to do anything if you get clear about your real purpose. And then the M stands for my massive action plan, also known as my MAP, which is what you would call a to-do list, but it's a to-do list to get this outcome through the state of this purpose. Make sense? RPM. If you do nothing else but learn to ask those questions, use them as an organizational tool, and you leave today with that alone, your life will change because you're going to change the sorting device of your own focus. That's the power of it. Now, you might wake up in the morning, if all you do is you don't do RPM, all you do is ON. Here's ON: outcomes and necessities. You know your outcome and what's necessary to get it done. That's a shortcut. It's not as emotionally rich though, by the way, when you leave out the purpose. You get the idea? It takes longer to think through and write out the purpose, but there's a different state you're in, as you just said, ma'am, when you're connected to the why. In fact, it'll change your to-do list. It'll change your map. It'll change what's necessary. That's why it takes a little more time to do initially, but after a while it won't. It'll just be in you. What's my outcome? What's my outcome? Okay, let's get crystal clear on the outcome. Okay, now that I got that, Now, why? And you'll get good at the why. A couple keywords, you'll start to know the words that always fire you up. And we're gonna look at that in a moment, by the way. Because words change emotion. And change the emotion, you change what people actually do. Not what they write down they're gonna do, what they actually do. You change the quality of how they do it. 'Cause it changes their state. Make sense? So if you're gonna master RPM, And you're not going to do that today, but if you want to, let me just kind of give you the overview. There's 7 principles of power. Just capture them if you want. First one, we're going to come back to right now, but I'll start with it at the top. Believe it or not, above anything else is the power of language. Why is language so important in managing your life, your emotions, your results? Because we don't experience life, we experience the way we repackage life the minute we label it. See, if you have an experience and in your body your nervous system is feeling this sense of discomfort, then think of it this way. There's these uncomfortable feelings coming through you. Think of it like a funnel. And all this noise, environmental stimulus is coming through you. And then you have certain words you use very often, 2 or 3 that you use. Kind of like you're taking all this juice in and you're going to have these cookie cutters. And the words you use most often are pissed off, frustrated, and annoyed, you're going to get a very different experience than if the person has the habit of being enraged, right? Crazy, want to kill someone. Or someone else who goes, "You know, that peeves me." They take that same stuff and goes, "Peeves me." Someone else goes, "I want to kill someone." It has nothing to do with the actual experience of the words. I'll give you an example. Anybody here know who Ken Blanchard is? Wrote The One Minute Manager. So Ken's a dear friend of mine. I've known Ken for, gosh, 30 years. And if you haven't ever heard Ken speak, he's the real thing. He's such a sweet soul. And he takes complex things and makes them really simple. Ken is one of those universally happy guys. And one of the reasons he's happy is his language patterns. See, we all have habitual language patterns. We filter the word and we put the label of what it is on it. And the minute you label an experience, the experience becomes that in your body. So some people will say, well, if I said to you, "You're mistaken about that, John." How do you feel if somebody says, "You're mistaken"? What if I say, "John, you're wrong"? Who feels a little different now? What if I say, "John, you're lying"? Who here will get into real intense experiences if somebody says you're lying, right? Because your integrity's there. All you have to do is change one word and we can change your biochemistry. Right? Well, we use words all the time with our experience just because it's the habit of what we use most often. My mother's passed away, bless her soul, but when she was alive, I told this story, she used to always be humiliated. By everything. She called my house back in the days before email, and I was traveling like crazy, and there was an answering machine, the old-style answering machine, and she'd leave a message. "I'm humiliated that I have to leave a message for my son. What is he, president of the United States or something?" And in the beginning I'd get hooked, but then I noticed my mom was humiliated by everything. She was humiliated by the drugstore clerk. Because any time she was uncomfortable, she called it humiliated. Till one day I explained to her what humiliated was and we had this interesting conversation. And I got her to see there were many other choices besides humiliated. You could be pissed off, frustrated, ignored, loved. But we get in the habits of attaching things. So Ken Blanchard, the reason I bring him up, Ken and I are good friends and we were talking one time about how words affect people. And he goes, "You know, Tony," he said, "I have this attitude of life." You know, the worst, you know, a great, you know, the worst a day can be is a great day for me. He said, if you're gonna go golf or you're gonna go fish, you can't come back from golfing pissed off, because the worst the day golfing is gonna be is a great day. And that's the label he has for everything great. So he went on with a group of people I know, some of them are from the entertainment business and some are some, you know, very mucky mucky bigwigs, and they're used to having things their way. And they went to Africa And they went on a safari and Ken went with them. And I'd been on the safari before, and it's a pretty intense safari and a beautiful safari. And the people running it know their stuff. First-class organization. But one particular person we'll leave unnamed is a very famous Hollywood producer, decides that he wants to take control of the show from the guy who runs it, who lives in Africa and he knows what he's doing. And so he says, look, I want these rules I don't want them just to open up. I want them off. I want to be able to shoot the whole time. He said, "Look, sir," he said, "right now everything's fine, but if the truck were to break down, you want that roof on. We don't want to leave off the roof." The guy was so abusive, the man finally bent. So sure enough, Ken, all these guys are out there. They're taking pictures and they're out in the middle of this crater, Ngorongoro Crater. If you've ever been there, it's an unbelievable place. It's like every kind of animal you could imagine is there. And sure enough, as they start going later, the guy goes, "No, let's stay a little longer, let's stay a little longer." He's very influential and he pushes the guide and they stay out longer than they would. Now they gotta rush back before darkness and they don't have the roof on. And you guessed it, the car, the truck breaks down. They're in the middle of nowhere, no one's answering the radio. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Everything's gonna creep in, and one guy's going, "Oh my God, we're gonna die! Oh, it's your fault!" He's screaming at the other guy, and the other guy's screaming at him. And I got the play-by-play from two other people that were there besides Ken, but they told me that in the midst of all these people freaking out, angry, and people scared and everything else, because you could actually see the animals coming, they're taking out their rifles, and it's getting tense. And in the middle of stuff, Ken looks out and says, "This is inconvenient." And he wasn't faking. That's the word he used for this experience. It's inconvenient. And that's the word he uses all the time for things other people are stressed out about. And as a result, that's all it is. It's inconvenient to him. And sure enough, guess what? Finally the radio worked. Within a half hour, a guy came out. They brought some other trucks. They got these guys out of there. They left the truck there. Everybody was fine. But the people were like, "Oh my God, you killed us." Other people, "We're gonna die, we're gonna die, we're gonna die." "You son of a bitch." I mean, every language pattern you can imagine. Only one inconvenience. Much of your life has nothing to do with your life. It's the way you use language habitually. Language is the trigger for meaning, and meaning equals emotion. So when I think of RPM, it's about language, because it's about the questions you ask, because those questions control what you focus on, but it's also the words you use to describe your outcome. The words you describe the why. One word can change the whole game. If your description of, you know, you're a stockbroker and what you describe what you do is you go, "I got to cold call on people every day," that's not going to get you moving very much. Remember one guy I was talking to, he was so much more successful. He was brand new. He was blown by everybody, so I went and interviewed him. 'Cause you know, all these other people are bitching and griping. He was having such a great day. I said, "What are you?" He goes, "I'm a treasure hunter." I said, "What do you mean?" He goes, "I'm searching every time I call the phone. I'm searching for buried treasure." You see, you don't get treasure every time, but when you get it, there's always, there's gonna be, if you keep digging, there's gonna be a treasure. Sure enough, he got one client that would do more business for him than all the other guys got. But the difference was when he called people on the phone, He's searching for treasure. Does that change the state? Does that change the quality of his voice? Will that actually change the result he's likely to get with a stranger? Yes or no? So ladies, you know, you've got a ring that this man's about to give you, he gives you, and somebody else sees it and they say, "Well, that's kind of nice," versus "That's magnificence," versus "What a rock." Would it change how you feel, yes or no? A little or completely? I say to you, you come to me and say, "Tony, I'm single. You meet thousands of people. I'm your friend. Help me out. Set me up, man." And so I say to you, "Okay, I know this really nice girl, this really nice guy." You got a state about it, don't you? What if I say, I know this woman, I know this man, I know this woman who is delicious? I didn't even say anything that makes any sense, but how many are in a different state already, right? It's like if I said during the break we're going to have some really nutritious snacks. Yay! Even people that are health-oriented are like, yay! But I say it's delicious, does it change change completely how you feel about it. Yes or no? You have to know every moment of your life. This is not about planning, it's about creating. Think about planning as creating. Whenever I think about planning, I'm creating something. And you create things with both your vision and your language, and then your action. But your vision and your language will shape how you feel, which will shape what you do or don't do. So this is the part that takes more time in the beginning, takes longer, but it's so much faster because once you know the patterns of what move you, you just use that and boom. It's like knowing the light switch to turn yourself on and rock and roll. And anybody who's the best in the world at what they do, they know how to turn themselves on every time. They know their triggers. That's what RPM is really about too. So this is not some freaking time management program. Like, because every system— I don't care. And, and obviously Mr. Covey is a dear friend of mine, senior and junior, right? This is not Franklin Covey. This is not a little planning system. This is not pulling out your BlackBerry. This is not using Things or whatever tool you use. This is a system of thinking and feeling and producing massive results that you want to take to whatever system you go to. And ideally maybe have a system that is set up this way, but even if you don't, you can do it with just the thinking process. So I want you to start with this first principle of power, this principle of language, which you might think of as the principle of passion. That's really what it is. The power of language is it produces passion. And by the way, passion is the genesis of genius. It's a great quote by a brilliant man, Tony Robbins. No, I thought that sometime. I thought that's really true. I wrote it down. It's like passion is the geni— you see some genius in anybody, it's because they're passionate. That's where genius flows. And then passion is because it's about something more than yourself. It's about something larger. Now let's do this for a moment. Let's have you right now, anywhere you want in your notes, I'm going to give you 1 minute and I want you to write as fast as you can words that would increase your emotional intensity. Like for me, I'll give you some of mine. Mine are passion, mine are love, mine are make a difference, mine is transform, have an impact, right? Have fun. There's certain keywords. There are roles in my life. You know, Father of the Clan. You know, mentor, leader, friend. Certain mentor, there's certain language patterns. When I think about myself as that person, I do things differently from that place, right? So I want you to just write down any words at all for 60 seconds. Just write down real fast, what are some words or phrases that would excite you or juice up your life if they were being used regularly? That'll move you emotionally. Choose words that you're associated to, either in a context like your health or your business, or just overall words. Just write words that would move you. If you write a word and it doesn't move you so much, cross it out and write a different word that moves you more. I'll warn you, a 5-cent word is often more powerful than a 50-cent word. You could say, I am becoming a facilitator of transformational change around the globe at this moment now. Or you can write down kick-ass fake names. Sometimes "kick ass, take names" will move you more than "facilitator of the human transformational experience." Write some phrases now that you might use when you think about things you want to achieve in your business. What do you want to do? Write them in words that are passionate. Not just "increase sales." What would you do? What would you put in front of that word "increase sales"? If you're going to produce— Crush it! Transform the marketing department. Take it to a new level. What are some phrases, words that if you put them around outcomes that you have for your business, it would excite you to do it? Instead of having to do it, you get to do it. Can you think of an activity that you normally do not like to do? You'd rather have somebody else do it if you could. Think of an activity like that right now that you either put off, you try to get other people to do, or you finally do get other people to do. How many can think of an activity like that? Part of your business, part of your life. Great. Someone stand up and tell me what that activity is. By the way, stand up if you can remember also a time when you did the activity and you actually enjoyed it. It was an exception, but you actually enjoyed it. Who's had both those experiences? Something you hate to do, but then you have a time you can remember where you really enjoyed doing it. It was the same activity, but somehow it worked. Okay, how about right here? Yes, give her a hand. Do I have to tell you a BMI hand, ladies and gentlemen? Tell us, what was the activity you don't normally like to do, you like to push off on others? Paperwork. Paperwork. Yeah. Now the word paperwork alone, does that— when you guys see, hear that word, how many of you don't want to do it either? Raise your hand. So just the way she's languaging— by the way, she's not telling you the outcome, she's telling you the activity. Think of it this way: if someone told you the process of having a child and all the processes you have to do to raise that child, and you were focused on what you had to do to raise the child versus the outcome, would you ever— or the purpose— would you ever do it? Yes or no? If someone would have told you in advance all you would have to do in your business to make your business successful, and you were focused on all you had to do the to-dos versus the outcome of owning and growing your own business, would you ever have gotten into it? Yes or no? So she's focused on the to-do, and she's languaged the to-do in a way that is incredibly moving. Okay, so paperwork. And so when you normally think about doing paperwork, how do you language that to yourself? What do you say to yourself? I, I hate doing it. It bogs me down. It doesn't add to my results, which is making sales. That's right. And notice, it doesn't add to my results, which is making sales. Great. So now, there was a time you actually enjoyed paperwork? Yes. Tell me about that time. When I was younger and I was just starting out in my career, and it gave me a way to process my day and order my thinking. So it gave me these chunks of accomplishments. Ah, and so when you talked about paperwork then, you didn't call it paperwork then, did you? No, I called it probably priorities. Yes, what'd you call it? Priorities? What? Probably priorities. So what would your phrase be back then, do you think? You put— when you're thinking about this, you'd say, I'm gonna get to, I'm gonna do, I want to prioritize my day, these are my projects. Ah, she called it prioritizing her projects. How many feel better about that than paper frickin' work? Now if she just changed Change that language alone. I want you to think about right now, do you have some paperwork waiting for you at home? Yes, of course. Of course. So what is that paperwork really going to accomplish if you get it done? Well, in some ways it moves things forward. If you don't do it, what's going to happen? Things aren't going to get scheduled. They're not going to make deadline. Clients are going to be unhappy. And what will that do to sales? That will drop them eventually, or it'll make me run around trying to fix things. So is sales important to you? Absolutely. And are making people happy, your clients happy, important to you? Well, yeah, I mean, the sales are important because basically what I'm doing is helping people with their business. So that's— yes. And how many people fail because they don't do their paperwork, do you think? Well, I mean, if you put it that way. That's not why they fail. I didn't put it— I didn't put it that way. I just asked the question. Different question. Yeah. How many saw that? Did I say people fail because they don't do their paperwork? No. If I said that, everybody would have said no. I just asked her an honest question. How many small businesses you think fail because they don't handle their paperwork, i.e., they don't handle the individual transactions and the details of their priorities effectively? How many businesses do you think fail for that reason? You, how many do you think? I think definitely all of them can fail if they don't do that. And you teach these people what to do so they can succeed, right? No, isn't that what you do? Yes, yeah, but wait a minute, no, no, no, no, no, what you're talking about paperwork? No, I don't talk about paperwork, I talk about results, and part of the result of the sale is to capture it, deliver it in a form where it can be both followed through on, accounted for, details of. Otherwise, it's part of a chain of value. You can't just get someone to say yes and have them get the final value. Most people like to simplify to just the yes, but the real value is not getting someone to say yes. Salespeople think that way. The real value is delivering each step of value along the way way that allows you to continue to get that value back to the customer and clients. If you take any— if I said to you, what's more important, a molecule or an atom? The atom. Really? Well, the molecule. Okay. Which one's more important, the molecule or the cell? The cell or the organ? The organ or the body? The body or the community? The community or the ecology? The ecology or the planet? The planet or the solar system? The solar system or the universe? Which one's more important? To me, it's the little things that make up the big things. I don't know if that's quote unquote the right answer, but it's the little things that make up the big things. So to me, that's more important. Is paperwork a little thing or a big thing? Well, it's a little thing. So that's the most important thing, is the little things. But it makes up a big thing, which in the end you could say would be important because it feeds the purpose. It feeds— look at her face— it feeds the purpose. Yeah, paperwork purpose, right? Oh my God. So let me ask you a question. It's an epiphany. How important is paperwork? How important is paperwork? It's very— 0 to 10, where would you put it? 10. Yeah. So maybe we need to call it something different than paperwork. What is it really? If you were to name it today, not just what you did in the past, what is it really? It's the steps to getting to the purpose. If I had to read it— It's also a promise. That's being kept, right? Are you about keeping promises? Absolutely. Have you dropped out your promises because you didn't have your paperwork or priorities organized? Sure. Or stressed? Or have other people dropped it out because they didn't get the information needed in a timely fashion? And most businesses, you're telling me, probably fail because they drop out the little things? Absolutely. Because they think it's a little thing when really most people are majoring in minor things. And this is not a minor one, is it? But we start thinking it is, and the minute we give it a label that it's a minor thing that doesn't really matter, then what happens is we no longer give it the focus. And we don't give it the focus, and then it bites us later on. The truth is, which one is more important, the molecule or the atom? The molecule or the cell? The cell or the organ? The organ or the body? Which one is more important? They're equally important. You take any one out of the chain of existence and the whole thing collapses. There is no little things and big things. There's just the things. There's the things that matter. Is this one of those? Yes. If you were going to coach your son or daughter or a child or a dear friend in a business, what would you tell them about paperwork? I would tell them that if it's— can you hear the change in her voice? How many hear the change in her voice? Is there a power in her voice right now, yes or no? An authority? Go ahead, tell me what you tell them. You tell them what? That paperwork is extremely important to the outcome. It's, you know, part of the passion of the purpose, and that's really all you have in life. And I did have that conversation with my daughter. Give her a hand, ladies and gentlemen! See how important it is, A, to be aware of your language? Language creates meaning, meaning creates emotion, emotion determines what you're going to do or not do. You can never again think about time management in terms of to-dos. You need to start with language. The questions you ask and then the words you use to answer it. That's why you got to craft your outcomes, craft your results, craft the purpose. Takes longer. But you'll do it. Not only that, you'll enjoy it. She says, "I'm going to go home and crush that paperwork." That's the word I would use. She'd go back and she'd do the— I'm going to be— and what if she created a role for herself? "I am the queen of paper prioritization." "I am the Madonna of—" "I'm the master of whatever." You know, she comes up with some playful thing, and it can be silly and stupid, but it'll change completely how she thinks about it and she feels about it, and she'll go straight great doing it. How many follow this? By the way, how was she influenced to remember the truth? By me lecturing her? Telling her? No, everything was asking her. Now, in addition, if you want to follow through, remember, if you link more of your needs— there are 6 needs— if you link 1 need to it, you got an interest. 2 You gotta drive. You link 3 needs to it, you're gonna do it. Now she was linking feeling insignificant to paperwork. Significance is one of the most important things in her life, right? She wants to significantly contribute. True. And it wasn't that significant to the contribution before, but all of a sudden now she gets it is. It's part of the chain of life. It's part of the chain of keeping a promise. It's part of the chain of my integrity. It's part of my chain of being able to make a difference. And you know what? Everybody else is lousy at it, and I'm not anymore. Because how the hell can I help somebody else if I don't do it myself? So now she sets a new standard. So now it's significant. And by the way, if you want to make it more fulfilling, she can also say, you know, I'm connected to it because it's connected to the what? She said to the outcome. There's a purpose here. Now there's connection. Now, doing this helps me to contribute. I'm starting to meet a lot of different needs. Contribution, significance, connection, love. That's enough to get her to do it. Now when she goes home, she can even develop a strategy to enjoy it. Like I interview people that do things that other people hate to find out how they do it. Somebody loves to clean their house. I say, "Great, well, let's look at these 6 human needs because if you love it, it meets many of your needs, at least 3 or 4." On a 0 to 10, cleaning your house, how much certainty does it give you? And the lady says, "10." I say, "Why?" She goes, "Because I know how to do it well. I do it well every time. I have control of it." Before your emails as a way for you to get a sense of accomplishment, knocking a few off doing something that's meaningless, you used to, when you're stressed out, organize your desk. How many are old enough to remember that? Now you don't even have a desk. Your desk is your laptop, right? So you knock off emails and things to feel a sense of accomplishment, which is you're just being active. You're doing activity. You're not accomplishing anything, nothing significant. You're doing movement, trying to make it feel like achievement because you feel uncertain about things, out of control. That's what you used to do with paperwork so you could take it back. What else? I get variety, she says. Cleaning the house, she goes. Yes, I have 5 children. You never know what you're going to find. 0 to 10, how much significance? 100. Why? She goes, when I'm walking around the house, she goes, I play tapes like yours. I do significant, important things. I have time to think through my life as I'm doing these things while I'm accomplishing something. Plus, she goes, most people have a dirty house and mine isn't dirty. People come over, it's spotless. I feel proud. What else? Connection and love from cleaning the house? She goes, yes, because while I'm cleaning, I pray for my children. I'm ironing, I'm praying for them. 10. Growth from cleaning the house? Yes, because I'm listening to tapes, I'm thinking of the future, I'm creating my life. Contribution? Yes, to my kids, to my family, to myself. She meets all her needs, that's why she loves cleaning house. Somebody else uses language like, I'm not cleaning that frickin' stuff, it's a waste of my frickin' time. It all depends on what needs you relate it to. How many follow? Change your words, change your perception, change your procedure. Some people say, "I love paying bills." I'm going, "You love paying bills?" "Yes! There's so many of them. And they're always changing." Really? Variety. What else? She goes, "Well, I go, but I pay the bills in different rooms of the house. And I play different music in each room." And then she says it feels significant and she feels connected because She says, "When I sign the checks, I think of the person and I send them love. I want them to prosper." And then she goes, "I know that comes back to me." It's just what you focus on. What you focus on is first controlled by the words you use. And that's controlled first by the questions you ask, whether you're aware of it or not. How many get the power of this principle, the power of language? Raise your hand. Say, "I." I. Let's put Beckham on the stage then. Here's a couple other principles. Principles again. I won't walk you through them all in detail, but I'll give you a little step at a time here. So first principle is language, power of language, which I think of as the principle of passion. Second power is the power of results focus. I'm not going to take any time on this because you got it now, don't you? You focus on the result. It's like taking the power of your mind and body and brain and putting it into laser power instead of having it scattered. You're no longer scattered on activities. Third principle, really, of RPM, it's the power of purpose. No more time on this one. You got it. Does the why change the how? Yes or no? Does it change the quality of how you go about it when you're doing it for a different reason? Yes or no? I'll give you my core belief in life. Motive does matter. Motive does matter. If you want to know my pain in life, My ultimate pain is people think of me as a motivator. I hate that term. Mr. Motivator. You know, people go, "I don't need any motivation." I say, "Well, that's good, because that's not what I do." Right? They'll have a nice big belly and they go, "I don't need any motivation." I'll go, "That's obvious. You're highly motivated to eat." Right? I'm the why guy. I want to know why you say you want to lose weight, but you keep eating. Because what motivation is, is your motive for action. I'm very interested in what your motive is. You should understand your motive, your why, your purpose. That's where all the power of life is. And I believe motive does matter. If your motive in your business is just to make money, you can make it because you're focused on it. But I believe life moves to support whatever supports more of life. And I think a reason why HomeX or a Zappos grows the way they do is because they have a higher purpose as well. And a higher purpose is to serve something more than themselves. See, if I'm just trying to meet my needs, I'm gonna get a certain level of insight. I looked at my life throughout my life over the last 30 years and thought stuff happened at times that anybody who was there would go, "That's impossible. No way that could happen. How could he know that? How could you shift that person? How could you change that situation?" I've had these moments throughout my life, and I believe insight comes because I wasn't focused on me succeeding or failing. I was completely focused on serving them, and the insight shows up. You try to take care of your family, you're going to get a different level of insight than just yourself. Trying to take care of your company, Even bigger insight. Trying to take care of your community? Trying to take care of the world, humanity? Without being ego, not saying it? If that's really in your intention, your intention affects the quality of what you're exposed to, of the insight, of what comes through you. Motive does matter. And we can always shift our motive. There's nothing wrong with wanting to meet your needs. Meet your needs and others. The game changes. And by the way, if you do this in your planning, i.e., creating, the game changes. Okay? You make it a ritual. RPM is a ritual of questions. You got to get it in your body as a sequence. When you get it in your body as a sequence and you walk it in and you condition it, it'll just happen. It'll happen like, "What do I need to do?" used to happen inside of you. Next principle, number 4, it's the power of mapping. That means that once I know the result I'm after, once I know Why I'm doing it. I got the right language. I need to come up with a map. You know what's interesting about a map? It doesn't always work. How many of you ever used before, in the old days, before they had Google Maps, there was a company called MapQuest? Whoever made the fatal mistake of using this crappy product? And what happened if you used MapQuest? What usually happened? You ended up getting a place worse than if you would have guessed. Because their map had nothing to do with reality of the territory. Well, the more you do something, the more you're able to come up— the first time you do a map, you might be a little off. But if you do a map again and again and again, pretty soon you start learning the pathways to get to a result quicker, don't you? When you start making these maps, these action items, you're going to start to find Certain ones get you further than others. And pretty soon, what took a long time, you're gonna know the shortcuts. Oh, I know how to get from here to there quicker. I know the map. That's what used to be your to-do list. Now it's gonna be a map to an outcome that's being fueled by your purpose. Okay? And then very quickly, as a principle, number 5, the power of chunking. So you've been in this seminar this week and you got all this information. And I've attempted to get you to at least capture it in one place in the form of principles and actions. That alone chunks it a bit. That means you could turn that part of your book, kind of review the principles, right? You know, you can read the whole book, look at the principles, and you look at your action items, say, okay, what does this relate to? You could just make it a to-do list of all these things you're going to do and figure out when you're going to do them. Or you can take all those to-dos, you could say, okay, these all relate related to marketing. These are all the actions related to the outcome of making sales better. These are all the outcomes made towards culture and improving my culture. And you could take this random list of to-dos and maybe fit them in 6 drawers, 6 categories. See, years ago, I started chunking. I started to realize I could get out of stress very quickly if I just learned to chunk things. I'd normally get out of stress, but now when I thought of my day and I got interrupted, instead of going, "Oh my God, I got 57 individual things to do," there's only 3 things I'm after today. I get refocused on my outcome. How many follow this? Say, "Aye." You can do this with your project. You can do this with your week. You can do this with your company. So after a while, I came up with this idea. What if you could take Imagine your own home, the home you live in right now. What if we could take everything out of your house and you weren't there, and we dumped it all into just boxes, and the boxes got all collapsed into each other, and you were gonna move and you weren't around, and then people just took all your stuff and just dumped it in the living room of your new house. Everything mixed in there— underwear, toilet paper, soap. Tissue, notebooks, computers, books, cosmetics, all mumbled and jumbled together in the middle of the floor. Would that be somewhat stressful for you? Yes or no? But what if, in advance, you took everything in your life and knew it would fit into one of, let's say, two chests of drawers, 6 drawers in each, 12 drawers. Maybe they may be giant drawers. Categories, like everything fit into, you know, home appliances or cooking or intimate wear or whatever. If you had those 12 and everything could fit in one of those, you could take anybody in that room once they knew those categories. How quickly could we transform that, that living room? How fast? Yeah. Oh, this goes here, this goes there. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And by the way, when it's done How quickly could you then get what you want? You know exactly where to go, put all your focus in there, you open the drawer, you find what you want. Wouldn't you like to be able to do that with all your outcomes, all your action items? I'm going to show you how. And this process is a simple way of managing your life. And I'll give you the big picture first for a moment. I'll scribble it up here as a chunking device. Think of your life this way, as a gross generalization. And by the way, chunking is an art, not a science. What does that mean? Is there a right way to do chunking? Yes or no? No, there's no right way to do it because it's art. What somebody else thinks is beautiful, you might think is ugly. Chunking is to meet whose needs? Your own. Now, if you're trying to chunk to help other people, then you're gonna have to have something that's got a little more science than art to it. But think of it this way. If we were gonna try to manage your life, what if we had a life management system? Not a time management system, 'cause the only reason for time is it's a resource so you can get the life you want. Is that fair to say? And let's take two aspects of your life. But one area is, let's say, your personal life. That's an area of your life, your personal life, that you wanna manage. Another area of your life is your professional life. Whatever you do professionally, running the company, marketing director, sales director, maybe you run many companies, you're an entrepreneur. What if we could take everything related that's most important in your life personally and we could focus on the things that needed to happen regularly? So for example, if you don't focus on making your health better, Does it get better or worse as the years go by? Which one? You can't afford not to give it consistent focus. And by the way, do you have to keep improving it? Yes or no? If you try to keep it static— is health a static thing? Yes or no? No. What about relationships? If you don't focus on relationships, do they tend to get better or worse? So there's some areas of your life within your personal life. If this was an area of life you're managing, is your personal and professional life. Your whole life could be managed in these two categories. If underneath these we could say everything that matters fits within 6, 8, 10, 12 drawers, they might be things— and I would call these categories of constant and never-ending improvement. For short, we call them categories of improvement. These are areas that you've got to constantly focus on once a week, once a month, some of them once a day. They're areas that never go away. Does that make sense? And so in your personal life, what would be some areas you got to constantly focus on? You might say, well, there's my health. There might be a drawer called family. There might be another one on finances. Does that make sense? And within those areas, you could have specific goals for this year, for this month, for this week. You might have certain musts that had to go in there. But you could put everything in there and you could look at it once a week or once a month to make sure you're on target. Am I making sense? Yes or no? Would this help you to chunk your life a little bit? Yes or no? Because if your whole personal life could fit into 6, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12 max of these, you could chunk it. You could keep track that I'm still making progress because most people make progress on what they focus on. So they focus on their business and their body deteriorates. Who can relate to this one? Raise your hand. Or they focus on their body and their relationships deteriorate. You're so damn into yourself, you're not even here. Or they focus on their kids and their intimate relationship breaks down. But if you had a way to keep on target, you could still put more focus on some things than others, but you kept it balanced, your life would work better. What are some areas categories within your business that you have to constantly focus on and improve. Someone tell me, what are some categories that never go away? Tell me. Marketing. That would be a drawer. What's another one? Sales. What's another one? Accounting, finances, cost controls. What's another one? Culture. Empowered employees. Do you think you could take everything in your business and maybe put it in a maximum of 12 drawers? And then whenever you had a meeting, you could say, "What are our outcomes?" Instead of this long list, you go, "What are our outcomes around empowering our employees? What are the outcomes for this year, for this quarter, for this month, for this meeting related to sales? What are our outcomes for this meeting to marketing?" And guess what? Then you don't have this situation where you're doing great one part of the business, the other part bites you. See, if she doesn't do the paperwork, i.e., the finances, the production, whatever, and she focuses only on sales, we can guarantee her failure. It's only a matter of time. And it's not because she doesn't care. It's because she doesn't have a system of chunkier life. She gets overwhelmed because she thinks of sales as all these things. More likely, she makes paperwork all these things. I talk to people all the time. Somebody who doesn't work out regularly, doesn't exercise regularly, I'll say, How important do you think working out is? Oh yeah, yeah. And you'll finally get them where they say, I'm gonna work out. But I'll say, why haven't you worked out up until now? I know you're committed now, but up until now, I want— not excuses, not— I'm not making you wrong. Just tell me, when you think about working out, tell me how you think about it. And listen, this is what they'll say to me. Well, just, God, it's so much work. Really? Well, tell me, what do you got to do to work out? So, well, you know, I mean, yeah, me right now, I don't even have any running shoes. I don't have any gear. I don't have any clothes. I'd have to go buy the stuff. I'd have to drive to the sporting goods store and then I'd have to go in there and try stuff on. And I don't feel very good about my size now anyway. It'd be uncomfortable. And then after I pick what's working, I don't really know what I should be wearing. I don't know if I'm going to run or I'm going to work out or lift weights. So I don't even know what to buy. But assume I got all that stuff. Well, then what? Well, then, you know, I got to go to the front and sit there in that damn counter and wait, wait, wait, and then write the check and then get in my car. And what else do you have to do? Then I have to find a place to work out. Okay, well, what does that mean? Why, I'd have to, you know, go on the web and search for, you know, clubs nearby. And then, well, then I have to drive to each of those individual clubs, and I'd have to go in and, you know, kind of go through the tour they give you and then sit through somebody trying to pitch pitch me on buying 500 years of subscription to go there, and I don't like to be sold. And, well, let's say you bought one. Well, then they take a picture of you and you look ugly. It looks worse than your driver's license. And, you know, then each time I go there, I have to go there, I have to drive there, I have to, like, find a place to park, and then, you know, I gotta go in and show them my badge, and then I gotta go find the locker, and then I gotta hang my stuff up, and then it's gonna drop. And, you know, I put on my stuff, and I gotta go wait for the first machine. It's probably sweaty, so I have to probably wipe it off. And then I go to one machine, another machine, another machine, and I gotta come back, and now I gotta take off my sweaty clothes, and now I gotta go take a shower and see parts of people's bodies I don't really want to see. And then, you know, after all that, then I gotta dry my hair again, put on my makeup, put on my clothes that are probably wrinkled, put in the smelly bag, and then I gotta go show them the thing so they can stamp my thing so I don't have to pay for the parking. And then I gotta find my car, and I gotta I gotta get in my car and then I gotta drive off. Wanna eat? Sure. What does eating take? Well, you just do it. Let's just drive there and eat. Eating is 2 steps in their mind. Working out is 429. The way you chunk things is what makes you like them or dislike them. See, when I first wanted to drive that stick shift car, it was a lot of chunks. I gotta watch the road, drive this, Do this, push this in and out too? And watch the rearview mirror? No way. But now you watch the road, you drive the car, you do all that. It's one chunk. It's in your body. How many follow what I'm talking about here? Say, "Aye." Aye. So you can over-chunk something into too many items, or you can under-chunk it where it's overwhelming to try and do one big step. That's where the art comes as far as chunking is concerned. So in your life, you want to be able to come up with categories for your personal life Categories for your professional life. Does this make sense? So let's try something. Let's give you a quick little example. What I want you to do is, if you take a look here, I want you to— on the middle of this circle is 0, and the outside edge is 10. 10 means where you want it to be. Whatever 10 is for you. It's different for everyone. So 0 is you're not where you want to be. 10 is exactly where you'd like to be. So if you look on the screen, what I'm asking you to do is, let's say for example, the physical area of your life. I want you to go— now notice this person went up about 70% of the way. They're a 7 out of the 10. Their idea of a 10, of what they like to be physically, they're not. They're not a 0, they're about 7, and they draw a straight line across. Then we look at emotion and meaning, and we say, "How much— where do you live emotionally?" How much joy, excitement, happiness, passion, aliveness compared to what you want? How much meaning? And this person went 0 to 10 and went, "You know, I'm about a 3. I'm about 30% there or 2.5%, 25% there." Where are you compared to you want to be? It's not somebody else's judgment. In your relationship, 0 to 100% of where you want to be would be 10. By the way, if you don't have a relationship, it would be 0. Just in case you need coaching on this. Okay? And then if we go time, where are you in the mastery of your time? Where time serves you versus you serve time. This person says, "Yeah, I'm about 7 out of 10 that." How about your career? How's that going, 0 to 10? This person goes, "I'm an 8 on that." Draw a straight line across. Where are your finances? "I'm doing damn good there. I'm at a 9 on my finances." And where are you in your sense of celebration of life? Life is a celebration. You feel a great sense of contribution. They said, "No, I'm pretty stressed. I'd have to say honestly, I'm at about a 3 there or 2 there." Do yours real fast. Just draw a straight line across where you are. Center is 0, out is 10. 0 is not at all, 10 is exactly where you want to be. Just real fast. You got 30 seconds. Great. So look at your design that's in front of you right now and just ask yourself this question: If this was the wheel on the car called your life, how would your car run? Better yet, what if you're going to drive that car 150 miles an hour? What could you guarantee is going to happen, my friends? What's going to happen? You're going to crash. How many are going to have a lot of stress when you start trying to drive this thing fast? Say, "I." Guess what owning your own business is? Driving 150 miles an hour, isn't it? So what used to be okay when you worked for somebody else, that you can— it's kind of bumpy and stressful. When all the responsibility ultimately is yours and it's out of balance, it's pure pain. How many can relate to this in some way? Say, "I." Things get this way because most people ask the question, "What do I need to what? Do." They don't have a set of categories that once a week they look and go, "Okay, what's my most important outcome for my body this week? What's my most important outcome for my relationships. Yes, in the middle of everything else, I'm going to put those rocks in first. Somebody gave you that metaphor, right? I'm not going to pour all the water in first. I'll put the rocks in here, the most important outcomes for anything else shows up for each of those areas, because otherwise the time's going to be gone. How many follow what I'm talking about here? Say aye. So that's why we do a once-a-week planning session where we look at our categories, both professional or business and personal. Make sense? Now, the way we do that is with language also that's compelling. Here's some examples of how some people have chunked their life. These are their categories of constant, never-ending improvements. For Suzanne Williamson, it's family, business, friends, community, physical well-being, finance, emotional, and spiritual. This is my old list. It's been updated, but with my physical power, I called it world-class health and fitness. By the way, why did I use with that language? I could have just said body. It juices me up. Physical power, because I want the power to get up and rock, to take the room, to make it happen, to shift things for my wife, for myself, for my family, right? Second, emotional juice. Why do I call it that instead of just emotion? Because that emotion doesn't— but emotional juice. I want an emotionally juicy life, outstanding family life, extraordinary friends Absolute financial freedom. Renaissance man. The kanai of AJR, the constant ever-improvement of myself. The creator of the good life for my family. Extraordinary communicator, leader, contributing force for good. And spirit and soul force for God. Those are my spiritual outcomes. Gene Carter has emotional fitness, family heart and soul, physical prowess, forever friendships, home sweet home, gracious giver, health wizard, spiritual soul, Here's what I want you to do. Write your categories right now. Just a first run. Do not be perfect. If you were to take your personal life and chunk it into 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, probably 12 most categories that everything in your life fits in, that you look at on a regular basis, write them down, but then put the words in front of them, rewrite them so they're compelling. I'm going to give you literally 8 minutes to write as fast as you can. Come up with the categories for your personal life. Go! How many think it would be valuable once a week or at least once every 10 days, 3 times a month, sit down and lay out a plan for that week or 10 days where you put the big rocks in first? Looking at these categories, making sure you didn't miss the stuff that matters most to you. How many agree with this? Say aye. Would you have to write down every action item, yes or no? What would you write? Your most important outcomes and why. Make sense? Now, so quickly, let's take it a step further. Let's look at the next category of professional, and I'll give you another wheel of professional just as an example. Example. This isn't the wheel because it's different for everybody. And let's put up on the screen, and this is just a sample. This is not the business, this would be you. So this person says they run a department for a company. So one category they're measuring: am I empowering my teammates, my personal team, and our teammates in the company as a whole? They have some outcomes around Creating extraordinary identity and relationships. Are we creating the relationships we need with customers? This person runs the sales department. Am I delivering my core must results? This person wants to measure that regularly. They say, all my life is really about empowering my team, making sure we have extraordinary relationships, making sure the core musts I promise I deliver. I gotta keep focused on that every week, every month. Certain amount of strategic planning, which gets set aside because I'm usually so busy in the to-dos. Certain amount of cost management I gotta do because if I don't do the paperwork, the whole thing falls apart. And I'm going to keep making my skills stronger. I can't just keep doing what I'm doing. I got to take some time to make my skills better so that I'm sharpening the saw, so to speak, so I'm not hacking at the tree with something that's bad. I got to take it up the next level. How many follow in a sense of this? Now that person would measure those, but here's some examples of that. So I mentioned to you, you know, I have 4 kids, but I mentioned my daughter Jolie, so I'll use her as the example. And she, you know, was in a situation where she became an actor. Now as an actor, think about this. What do actors focus on? Quick, first cut. Somebody says getting a job. Okay, if you're focused on getting a job all the time and you're not making your skills stronger, you might not get that job. How many follow this? Say aye. Some people focus on just training themselves. Lots of actors always going to acting classes, but they don't go out and focus much on getting a job. They wait for someone to call them with an opportunity. How many follow the challenge? Some of those people, how do they get jobs? If they're a decent actor, they've got a what? An agent and/or a manager, and sometimes both. And without focus by that manager or agent, are they usually going to succeed? Yes or no? No. What if they get a job? Where does all their focus go? On doing that job well. So if I'm in a little job, I'm doing the job well, and I'm not anticipating how to make my skills better, I'm not managing my manager or agent, I'm not looking for new opportunities. And in the acting skills, no matter how good you are, do jobs disappear quickly? Yes or no? Eventually. Do they all disappear? Yes or no? We can keep our businesses forever if we're successful. That's not true of a job. That's not true of an acting job. I don't care how successful— 10 years, 12 years, 14 years— it's going to change. So my daughter Jolie was always stressed out because things were always dropping out. So I said, honey, She goes, "It's just so impossible. I can't do everything. I can't manage my career and go out and get voice lessons and dance lessons and go out on calls." And I'm just listening and I'm in my head making it right down, capturing a list. And she's telling me a million items, but as she's listening, I'm saying, "You know, there's only 5 things she really has to focus on." And these are the 5. She needs to maximize her current what? Jobs. She wants to make sure the job she's on, she's doing the maximum job she can. That's got to be a daily focus. But she can't use that as an excuse not to also make sure she's working to obtain what? Does she have to constantly be going out on rolls still, paying attention, knowing what's out there? Yes or no? If she drops that out, she might do well here and then she'll be without work forever. That's typically what happens. Some people win the Academy Award and they don't work for 3 or 4 years. Because they don't have a part of their focus. They're focused on the Academy Award, the victory, the celebration. How many times have you seen that happen? And then third, she's got to focus on the management of Jolie Inc. I said, that's what it is. You're a company. You got to manage your managers and your agents. Every week she's saying, what do I need to do to make myself better at the current job? What I need to do to make sure I'm keeping my focus on getting new jobs and networking, doing doing what's necessary. What am I going to do to keep on top of my managers and agents? They're not going to just do it without my focus. What else does she have to focus on? Expanding her current acting skills so she gets better. She can't use that as an excuse and then, oh yeah, when I have more time, I'll work on getting better. No. Even if it's once every 10 days, she's not working 7 days a week on a show. She can do an acting class. She can find the best coach. She can be going for a class once a week on her throat, her voice, whatever. Right? And then of course the last one is being a networker extraordinaire, expanding her identity. Guess what? Everything she can think about doing as an actress is in those 5 categories. And so if every week she's looking at that and thinking, what's the most important? Come on, guys, nice and loud. Most important? Outcome. In that area or outcomes in that area? Is she going to stay on target? Is her career going to be— by the way, what happens if we take that wheel and we take whatever's strongest on your wheel— show you what I mean. This should really be interesting, me doing this visually. If we take your wheel of life, your wheel of your career, and you got one thing like this and another thing way out here and something else like this and something else like this and something else like this, and this is your shape of your life, we all know it's It's going to happen. It's going to be stressful. But if we find the strongest area, let's say it was your finances or your career or whatever, and we find that outside edge and we use that as the target for the base of where you are right now. And now we say, what's it going to take to close the gap between here and here with my body? What's it going to take to close the gap from here to here in my training? 'Cause guess what happens? Once we get here and it's all rounded, even if it's not 100%, who knows what's gonna happen? How much smoother is your life gonna be? And by when it's smoother, can you go faster? Easier or harder to go faster when it's smooth? This is the power of RPM and having categories of constant never-ending improvement in both your personal and professional life. 'Cause by the way, sometimes you're doing really well in all the categories in your business, And then you have a divorce, which kind of interrupts it just a smidge. Who knows what I'm talking about here, right? Or not a divorce, you got a problem in your family. Somebody's not feeling loved, not feeling appreciated, whatever the case may be. This is the goal of what we're trying to do here. So you can create categories within your professional life, but the one I want to get for you is let's do one together that I think will be helpful for you to chunk all we've done this week. Let's look at business. Let's look at some categories that you're pretty familiar with, and the reason you're familiar with them is this whole course has been focused on them. What's one area of business, if we go starting at, you know, kind of 1 o'clock, that you've got to constantly focus on, my friends? What's an area? Mastering what? Come on, nice and loud. What's another area? Next. What's another area? And how important is time? And notice we said time and what management? That's what this is. This is the part of the training on results. Results management. What else? Cost management. What else? Innovation and constant improvement of products and services. What else? The legal systems, technical systems. What else? Culture. What else? Now, they could come up with their categories, but you could probably fit 99% of your business in those 8 categories, couldn't you? By the way, you could fit almost everything we've taught you, every action item you have within one of those categories. So instead of this big-ass list you have at the back of your book, maybe it's time to chunk it so it's not so overwhelming. And by the way, once you chunked it, some of it you could hand to somebody else and go, these are your outcomes, help me clarify them, here's why they're important, go figure out how to do it. By the way, when people know the outcome, who are competent, and they know why, do you need to tell them how? No. In fact, they may even come up with a better how than you would. How many follow this process? Say aye. So here's what I want you to do. Let's do with where you are right now. Every business I own, how am I able to walk in and have 12 companies? I've got companies that are doing $150 million in business with 1,200 employees. I've got businesses that are brand new startup-oriented businesses. I got businesses in hospitality side, meaning a hotel. I've got businesses, nutraceuticals. I've got practice management companies for doctors. I got this educational business that I'm a part of. They're all radically different businesses, but guess what? When someone's got to talk to me about it, I can take everything they're saying and put it in one of these 12 drawers. So every business has it. So here's Namale. Namale is my resort in Fiji. It's the number one resort and spa in the country. 525 acres, 3 miles of ocean frontage, and I got everybody from, you name it, Anthony Hopkins, Quincy Jones, you know, you name the celebrity artist, musician, we're the top place in the country to go, right? Built the thing from scratch. How do we make it better and better and better and win all the awards? Because we got categories of constant never-ending improvement and we're focusing on how to improve it always, the X factor in each category. So what do we got? Effective business and financial plans so we can run the company effectively. Securing all of our event revenue, because in the travel business, there's a certain way you have to secure the revenue. Managing and mastering our what? Maximizing and improving our what? Marketing and sales systems. What else do we want to do? What's our language for this? Keep customer promise and create what? And mobilize them. The reason we got all these titles and all these awards is because customers come out of there out of their minds, it's the greatest vacation they've life. When I told Chet about it— Chet's been all over the world, and Chet's, you know, been to some very nice places, and we're good friends— but he was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tony, yeah." And then he emails me and calls me, "It was the most incredible experience!" And he's crying at the end. "I've never cried leaving a hotel before." Like, I didn't want to leave. Because it's an emotional bond. It's an experience. It's not just the beauty of the place. It's the people. So there's a very different experience for people here. What else? We got to keep re-engineering, strengthening, improving all our what? Technical communication, customer databases. We have to have world-class organization of what kind of employees? And who else? That's right. We constantly got to improve and present the finest what? Now most of the rest of these might fit in your business unless you're in the restaurant business. You probably don't have food on the list, but we have to because It's part of our business. You guys think, what's the most important thing? You got to constantly improve so nothing's left out. We're going to maximize and improve our current community impact because we believe— I believe we must impact the community. So we have 2 villages on either side of our resort, and we employ about 200 people. We're the biggest employer in the area, and we send all the kids to school as my gift. I've been doing it for 22 years. So Guess what? When all hell's breaking loose— thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate the acknowledgement, but I'm saying it to you because when all hell breaks loose, guess what? Our people, the community there supports us completely, right? We didn't do it for that reason, but there have been a couple times there was a coup in that country. It happened many years ago. When the coup happened, some people were coming, they're going to say, you know, I'm going to ramshack this resort. And guess who was standing out there? I had the entire village standing in front of the resort saying, "You're not touching Tony's property." I was like, "Okay, that's pretty cool." But what you give and you give and you give, it comes back. Identity. I've been through the births and the deaths and the upsides and the downsides, and we're there together. But it's because it's a focus for me. By the way, with all of my life, could you get off track and miss some of these? Yes or no? This is the ultimate checklist. Notice it's not what to do, it's the category of what must always be improved, and now you think of what the outcomes are. And you measure them annually, quarterly, etc. And then finally, create effective plans for capital improvements because a resort's got to constantly be improved, right? Physically. So there are several examples here you can look at later. Here's what I want you to do real fast. You can use the 8 we just wrote down in the wheel, or you can create something else, but I'm going to literally give you— I want you to do this quick. What are the 6, 8, 10, 12 categories that cover your whole business? Make your business categories of constant improvement your first run at it. We won't have enough time to finish it, but I want you to get a good run at it. Ready? Go! How many got a decent outline already of the categories of your business? Let me see some hands. Fantastic. How many of you added some language that makes it a bit more compelling for you? Great. That's what you'll finish. Ideally, here's what I would do before I got home, on the plane, whenever. I'd upgrade my professional, personal list and I'd set some goals in each category. Just a few things. Simple things. I have my categories for my business or my profession. I do the same thing. Sometimes the outcome you want takes a long time. It's not 1 week, 2 weeks. It's a project. So a woman comes to me and she's stressed out of her mind. Her name's Nisi and she's got her wedding coming up. Now, have you ever seen a bride who doesn't have a wedding planner or even one that does? They're very often very stressed. So she comes to me and goes, "I'm so stressed out about my wedding and the reason is, you know, I'm doing all these things and really want to conserve the money so I've got a wedding planner but I can use them in a limited way." I said, "I understand." She goes, "But also it's my my husband-to-be's 50th birthday coming up, and I want to do a surprise birthday party. So while she's trying to plan her wedding, she's also trying to plan a surprise 50th birthday party. Now, how many action items do you think could show up when you start making a to-do list on those two things in the middle of all your life? And she wants it to be absolutely what? What? And by the way, perfect will make you really stressed out on top of it. And all the language she's using— I'm so stressed out, I'm freaked out, I'm stressed out, I'm freaked out, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. I keep saying that over and over again. I said, first let's watch the language. Not the F-word, I'm happy with that. I just mean the words that you use are putting you in a lousy state. If it puts you in a good state, I'm fine with it. Some people use words that other people would be upset about, they excite you. Let's take a look at this. This first step to getting a plan is called capture. Take all the stuff in your head and write it down. It's really like making a to-do list. That's still the first step. Get it all out of your head and keep it in one place, not 20 places. Like many of you have written on notepads over here and a book over there and a thing over there, and you're gonna like try and figure out where the hell to find this shit later on. Okay, you need one place, whether it's in your iPhone or whether it's on your computer or whether it's gonna be, you know, on a paper version of something. One place, right? A planner or something. But in her case, here's what we did. We create a capture list. We split in two things. Keep it simple. She's got to communicate versus results, actions, or projects she's got to get done. And so this is what we came up with real quick. She's got to call KP to put out signs. She's got to call and confirm a band. This is what she starts telling me. I start writing it down. I need to take out, uh, I need to take care of the parking situation. I gotta rent two vans. I gotta have a Friday breakfast. I gotta have a Saturday breakfast. I gotta have a Saturday lunch for everybody. I gotta order the direction signs. I gotta order the meat trays and pick up I'm going to pick up the donuts on Friday and Saturday. Oh my God, I got the plates and the silverware and the cake tables I also got to get. Oh, I got to get the caterer for Saturday and Sunday. Oh my God, I got to call and get an MC for Gary's party on Friday night. Oh yeah, and I got to order the mic and the podium for the party in the hotel. How many are starting to feel stressed already for her? By the way, it kept on going and going and going. And so by the time she was done with your capture list, it'll be like taking this 5 days and turn to the back of your book and read that long list, you go, "Oh no, I hate Tony Robbins. I hate Chet. I hate them all. So much here. I'm going home to all this other work." Unless you chunk it, right? Unless you're clear. So what we do is we begin to chunk it. And when you have a project, it's not just this week, something that's long-lasting, you've got to come up with an ultimate what? What's your ultimate what? Come on, guys, your ultimate what? That's right. What's the ultimate outcome? What's the ultimate result? And so we came up with it with her. We said, what are you really after? Stop telling me all the things you got to do for your wedding. Tell me what you want. We get so caught up in the doing, we forget what we want. Same thing with your business. So caught up in doing your business, forget what you got in business for. So she says, well, we finally got— I want to create the wedding of a lifetime that's an incredible experience for Gary and for me and totally fun for all of our guests. That's different than I gotta put on a wedding and a party perfectly. What I want to do? Create a wedding of the lifetime that's an incredible experience for Gary and me and fun for our guests. Why? Second question, why? She says, it'll be a remarkable beginning for an awesome marriage. I want to express my love to Gary in ways he'll never forget, in both the wedding and in the party. I want my family and friends friends to have so much fun. Now she remembers why she's picking up those signs or getting someone else to. Now we say, let's not write all the to-dos. This is a big project. Tell me just the key results, the big results that have to happen for you to have the most incredible wedding possible. She said, well, I'm going to handle enough events in advance that I'm assured the weekend will be a success And that'll make me relax during the wedding and even coming up to it. If I can handle enough of the most important events in advance, what else? I gotta have a pleasurable Friday and Saturday evening enjoying my guests while the details are being taken care of by other people. She got that. Now that she knew her outcome, she knew how to get there. What else? I need to set up a fun day of shopping with Kim and Kay, her best friends, so we can spend time with them while we're shopping for the wedding things. So instead of feeling I'm stressed and not spending time with my girlfriends during the wedding because I have so much, let's have them take shopping with me. Let's do it together. And what else? I need to create a fabulous surprise 50th birthday party for Gary on Friday night during the rehearsal. Each one of these will become an RPM block of its own. How many follow that? By the way, once you do a few people's experiences like this, You'll start to see there's a pathway, a pattern that's the same for most weddings. Effective weddings, happy weddings. You'll start to notice maybe the words change, maybe somebody has a 50th birthday, but you'll start to see the same pattern. And what took a long time to do the first time, you can do in seconds now. It's the signature. So let's take a look. One of those outcomes was create a fabulous surprise birthday party for Gary on Friday night. Why? Purpose. She's creating an RPM block. Why am I doing it? To honor and delight Gary, to have fun, to create a magic moment, to share my love with him at the deepest level. Okay, what's it going to take for me to create a fabulous surprise birthday party for Gary on Friday night? Well, I got to pick up the signs, I got to order the cake, I got to pick up the cake, I got to get an MC, I got to get an accurate count on the guests, I got to confirm the count to the hotel, I got to get a microphone, I gotta get good stuff hanging on the signs. She'll then go to the next part of the project, but this RPM block is done. Guess what's cool? She can go back through that list and go, who can I leverage this to? Or how many of these things can be done simultaneously? And guess what she ended up doing? She got 3 friends. One did all the signs, one did the food, one did all the things related because she's more technically driven on stuff, and the 3 of them had a blast together, getting it done. They put on the party perfectly. That sets up Friday night perfectly. By the way, how much does she breathe and how much time does it take? All this sounds like a lot, but she estimated how much time will it take beside each one. And she goes, that's actually only 10 minutes. It looks like so much, but when you add up the total time, it's 3 hours. And I got 3 weeks. How many follow what happens here? In our head, we make it so much— what? Bigger. And by the way, Time will fill, activity will fill whatever time you give it. So when she locked it down, it's like, "Okay, that's handled. What's the next block?" And all of a sudden, guess what her wedding became? 6 RPM blocks. 6 outcomes. 3 friends helping her. Everything went perfect. She was out of her mind. And most importantly, she felt totally in control of her life the whole time. That's a project. Now, you might leave here and do a project called your RPM for, let's say, one section, marketing. One section, sales. So you say, "What's my marketing outcome?" You'd be very specific about the outcome. Why are we going to do this? And then, what are the action items? You know, I'm going to go look at the core story website, you know, Empire's website, and I'm going to read it all. Second, I'm going to brainstorm out what I think the story should be or the core elements. Third, I'm going to do the research here. Fourth, or I'm going to hire Empire. I'm gonna bring in Chad to come in, or the group to come in, and train our salespeople on it. Whatever you're gonna do, that's the part of it. What else I'm gonna do in marketing? I am gonna go take a look at our advertising and take the 17 items checklist about top advertising and make sure that's what we're doing. What else? And you make your list. How many follow this? By the way, it'll take initially some time, but when it's done, you'll have a master plan for transforming your company.

Thank you guys so much for watching. You made it all the way through this video, so you must have changed somehow. Something must have sparked in you that made you lighten up and see the world in a slightly different way. So I'd love to hear your feedback on the video. What did you learn? What are you going to change now in your life as a result of watching this video? Leave in the comments below and I'll join in the discussion. I also want to give a quick shout out to Malena. Malena, thank you so much for buying a copy of my book. It really means a lot to me. For those of you watching, if you want your chance at a future shout out in a video, make sure you pick up a copy of the book and email in your receipt so we can keep track. Thank you guys so much for watching. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and we'll see you soon.