Tony Robbins: 7 Steps to Transform Your Business in 2024: Innovate or Stay Stuck!

This room is filled with some very high achievers. And obviously what I wanted to derive from you guys is some insights, some how to's, some what it is you do to just give them, you know, perspective and stuff. And I carefully chose some questions, and this one is you're both masters at achieving what most people consider impossible. And I mean really like what you guys do, most people consider absolutely impossible.

So.

So when something is considered quote, unquote impossible, how do you reframe it so it becomes possible in your mind? And how much of that is mindset?

I think impossible is not a fact, it's an opinion. When someone tells me it's impossible, I always just look at them. Anybody around me knows that they can't do that. That's part of it. But if they didn't know me, it's your opinion. They'll say, no. Science shows. And I say, yeah, how many times has science showed something's impossible? Now science shows it's possible things are impossible till somebody does it. And so I find that, you know, most of your business people, you look at businesses and what does it take to make a business grow? It's not impossible like a business grow. Business has been shrinking for a long time or it's been stuck. The real problem is always the chokehold, is always the psychology and the skills of the leader. Always. And 80% of that is psychology, and 20% is the mechanics. Like if you don't know how to read your financials and you're trying to fly the plane of your company, I mean, come on, you know, if all you do is go down, you look at profit loss and you see what it is and you have a beer. Either way, you either celebrate or you get the brass. You know something, you know you're going to be in trouble, right? But if you have the skill sets, that's one thing. But you can get any skill set if you have the psychology. And anytime a business is not growing, it is not because it's impossible. It's because they aren't innovating. And they're not innovating because they're believing it's impossible. I mean, if we all know, what does it take to transform, obviously help people? It takes three things to create a breakthrough in anything. In your personal life, in your business, anywhere. You need a strategy. But that's not the first place you should look. And it's the first place all of us look. Me too. It's our inherent thing. You want to lose weight? Well, how do I do it? I want to Grow my business. How do I do it? It's instinctive. We've been trained to think that way. But the problem is the how to is usually not that complex. I mean, come on, 70% of America is what? 75% of America now is overweight. Is that because it's so complex? How to be fit and strong? Only the 1% know the answer as they hide it from you. You have to work your ass off to not hear what it takes, right? And so, you know, I remember I went to this. I went to a Ted Med center and I watched about 12 doctors, one after another, get up and do these stories about how we could just get patients to take their medications and try to figure out the whole thing. And I was just looking and going, you're all talking about strategy and you've forgotten psychology, because strategy is wonderful. I'm a strategist. I spent my whole life figuring out strategies. As we both know, a strategy could save you a decade, right? And business strategy could save you. It could make an interesting success and failure. But most people have strategies available. Or they could get them, or you could create them. But the problem is you got a story. And your story is why it isn't working. And the story is, I've tried what? What? Everything. If you tried everything, you'd be fit, right? You tried everything, you'd be profitable. If you tried everything, you'd be there. But people say it, you know, I'm big boned. That's what I used to say. I'm still big boned, but I'm 38 pounds lighter than I was 25 years ago. And I've never gained it back. Right when I was big boned, that was my story. All the good ones are gone. That's why I'm not in a relationship. Or they're gay and I'm not, or I'm gay and they are, or whatever the story is. There's always a story. And what I tell people is if you can just divorce the story of your limitation and marry the truth of your unlimited capacity, then the whole game changes. But it's hard to do that because when you're in your story, you don't even realize it. So you need a third piece for breakthrough. And that's really what my life's about, which is changing people's states. Because in a different state, we're different people, you know? Can mean people be nice? Yes or no? Yes or no? Of course they are. When they're in a nice state, can nice people be mean? Sure. They get A mean state. So really learning to train yourself to be in an ideal state where the best of you comes out for yourself, for your family, for your mission, for your world, for your co workers. To me, that's one of the most important decisions in life to make. You ask me out of all the people I've met, all the things I've seen, you know, what creates a magnificent life? You know, everybody has goals and dreams that are different. Some people want, you know, picket fence. Some want to make a billion dollars. Some, you know, want to have this huge breakthrough in technology. Some people want to write poetry. Whatever is right for people is what I want them for themselves. I don't want to be like me or you or anybody else. I want them to have their dream. But to have it, you need two skills. You need, number one, to have the science of achievement. It's a science. You have to know how to take your vision and make it real. And most of the people in this room have already figured that out, and this guy sure as hell has. And you have, and I have. So most of us know, and we can all refine our skills in that area, but we know how to take what we dream about, make it real. And if you don't, you can learn from somebody who does. You know, simplest thing is get crazily hungry for something. We all know when you get so hungry, so desirous, your brain starts coming up with answers. And then it's massive action but effective execution, which is all modeling, which is, I assume, what this is about. Find the best example, compress the time. Let someone else take 20 years to figure it out. You do it in two weeks or two months or whatever the period is. We should all be standing on the shoulders of the people around us instead of reinventing the wheel. And then there's this thing called grace. If you work your ass off, you're totally focused. You're trying to serve something larger than yourself, and you really are executing what works. You need a little grace. Might want to call it luck if you prefer God, the universe. But it's there, and we can all achieve. But I think the more important skill, if you ask me, is to have an extraordinary life. Is the art of fulfillment. And it's an art. It's not a science, because there's a science to making money. I don't care who you are. If you do certain things, you're gonna have too much financial stress. You do other things, you're gonna have an abundance. There's a science. There's a science. To your body. Everyone here is biochemically different. Different genome. But there are certain fundamental patterns that if you and I follow them, you, you're gonna have tons of energy, gonna feel good. If you break them, you're gonna pay the price and have low energy or disease. But fulfillment is an art. What's gonna fulfill you is different than the other person next to you. You're not gonna learn that from anybody else. And you gotta find it. Cause success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And I get those phone calls all the time for the multi billionaire entrepreneur or politician or business person or the person just won their Academy Award and they're depressed and they can't tell anybody because they got all their goals. But they're not fulfilled because they really don't have that sense of meaning in their life. They went for something and they got it. They achieved. And if you doubt this, what I'm saying is relevant to you or us or anyone, just think about, about a year, what, a month ago, we lost what I consider to be a national treasure, Robin Williams. How many of you loved Robin Williams? Look around the room. Keep your hands up.

Look.

And most of you didn't know him almost every. And then where you go in the world, people love Robin Williams. By the way, was he great at achievement? Oh, my God, that guy. He said he wanted to make become a great comedian. He did that. I want to make the world laugh. He did it. I want to make my own TV show. He did it. I want to have the number one TV show. He did it. I want to make movies. He did it. I want an Academy Award for not being funny. Not his skill set. Drama. And he did it. I want a beautiful family. He did it. And then he hung himself. Make everybody happy but yourself. Not a good plan. So if I had a gift to give you, it would be maybe make a different decision. And a decision is that no matter what happens in your life, you're gonna live in a beautiful state. A beautiful state. And that could be happy. That could be grateful. That could be being generous. Those are all beautiful states, aren't they? It could be curious, it could be fun, it could be playful. You're not limited to one state, but it's different than suffering. And most people suffering and all suffering I've ever seen. I traveled 100 countries. I've dealt with presidents of countries and presidents of businesses, CEOs. I've dealt with people in prison. I've dealt with, you name it, average people. Suffering always comes because you're obsessed about something related to you. You can only be depressed if you're focusing on yourself. No, I'm depressed because it's my kids and they're not doing well. No, you're depressed because you feel you failed your kids. It's. It's about how you think what you should have done or shouldn't have done. Or what someone did to you or didn't do to you in the past or the future, which don't even exist. So I have a simple goal. My goal is help people make a decision that says, I don't know what's going to happen. You might get a divorce even though you don't think so. You might find a family of your family with cancer. You might have your house get burned down or have a tornado go by. And if you live in the same place, it happens every two years. And you move back. We should talk. But some people seem to do that for some reason. You can't control those things. I can't control those things. I don't want those to happen to you or anybody I love. Or anybody who's even a stranger to me. But they're going to happen. True. Not positive thinking, bullshit. Just the truth. So if that's gonna happen, I say make a decision now that says, I'm gonna live in a beautiful state. And I'm gonna find beauty in whatever life brings me. Cause life is too short not to. I see a little buddy over here named Sean. I remember when I got a phone call from the Make a Wish Foundation. So you have a young man that's about to die, and he wants to meet you. And he came to the seminar, and then I took him out afterwards. At the time, if he coughed too much, they said, you can't grab him. I said, I want to take him across the fire. They said, take him across the fire. So if he coughs, he breaks a rib. I said, I'll be really gentle. We're going to do this thing. And he did it. And afterwards I sat down with him. I said, man, I don't have the answers. But if your body is. You're just coughing, and it's gonna make you break a rib. Your body is so acid. I said, you should get alkaline. Let me put you together with a doctor. How many years ago is that? You were 19. You're now 36. I like seeing you here. So, brother, give him a hand. He's a beautiful man. But Sean. What made me think of Sean as. Sean lives in a beautiful state. He could be bitching and complaining and whining what does he do? His whole life is not about himself. That's why he's so happy. He doesn't live in himself. He lives outside himself, serving things he loves. He still takes care of himself and he's funny as shit and he likes to seduce women and things. Like, I can't talk about right now, but. Oh, you're married now. Okay, well, good. I'm glad to hear it's about fricking time. All right, John, good to see you grew up. Now, the bottom line is this young man over here who now is. Different stage of life, he's always been. I think he lived because he lived for more than himself. I'm sure he felt pain. But we only suffer when we think about what's being done to us or what people are going to think or what they should have done or hadn't done. And you can't control that stuff anyway. I mean, why be pissed when people are going to do that? Are people going to be mean? Yes or no? Are people going to be unfair and unjust? Yes or no? Are people going to be beautiful and generous? Yes or no? You just never know when that shit's gonna happen, so might as well enjoy yourself along the way. And I suggest today, if you want, if there's any gift I came by to give you, it's to tell you what you know already, but get you to make a decision about it. To actually decide, I'm gonna live in a beautiful state. That doesn't mean I don't get angry or pissed or tired. You know, suffering arises and you end it the moment you go, holy shit, I'm thinking about me. If I do this, I'll always be suffering. The human mind is always looking for what's wrong. The human brain is not designed to make you happy. It's designed to make you survive. Happiness. That's your job. And you only get it if you draw a line in the sand. That's how it's going to be. And I can tell you, the few people that do it, I know a few people that have done it, they have magnificent lives. And when you're in a beautiful state, the best ideas come in. This man lives in a beautiful state. Every time I talk to him, I love seeing Peter. Peter's just always on fire about something. But notice, you know, he's doing unbelievably well. There's nothing wrong with that. But almost everything he's doing is about more than himself. And so that's why he feels so alive. He's not Suffering an ounce. He's in ecstasy. He's not lucky. He's living life a certain way. It's a beautiful way. I'm honored to have you as a friend.

Thank you, brother.

Wow.

Now say something better than that. I mean, like, let's really see how good you are here, man.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

This guy going with my mom, like.

There'S no way to follow this.

What the hell was the question?

He doesn't say anything. Truthfully, he doesn't have to say anything. He lives this shit. I'm just telling you what he lives. He really does. I'm not saying that to blow smoke. This guy lives it. If you meet this man, how many met this man before? And he was in a wonderful state. Let me show a show of hands. I don't think I've ever seen him not in a wonderful state. I've seen him have some painful, challenging places, but he doesn't stay there and look at what he's able to create because of it. He is a nine year old boy who's on fire. He's on fire. To light the world on fire with what's possible, it's a beautiful thing. I honor you.

So the contribution I'll make. Thank you, Tony. And I think it was about impossible in mindset and so forth is the reality is there is very little that's impossible, period. It just is. And, and your mindset, as soon as you say something is impossible, then you shut down every possibility for solving it, right? And we all know this. And the challenge is that it's really hard not to be in that state because we get thrown stuff all the time. And what I want to share with you is an experiment, which is to say, okay, not only how do I make it, not how do I make it possible, but how do I actually go 10 times bigger? And you've heard me speak about this, you know, moonshot thinking, bold thinking, whatever the case, whatever terminology you want to give it. And most of us in our life are trying to make a 10% improvement. And we know this, this is, I'm trying to increase my revenues by 10%. I'm trying to reduce my sales by 10%, save 10% more of the, you know, the lands out there, whatever it truly is, we all have this sort of beaten into us by life and by the rest of the universe that you can make these small incremental improvements. But the fact of the matter is that there are those in the world that go ten times bigger. And you, every one of us can be that and as soon as you say, I want to not only solve this thing, but go 10 times bigger in my work, in the things. And can I say this in something that you're truly passionate about, not just about earning a little bit more money. I mean, it really should be in something that you care truly about that is bigger than yourself, that is impacting the world. As soon as you try and go ten times bigger, three magical things happen.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to Joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Number one, even if you have no idea how to solve it, no idea how to get there, you'll be amazed at what you come up with. And what's interesting is our legacy, our past anchors us to where we are today. And you have to let go of that. You truly have to let go of all the stuff in your past, what you thought you'd done, all of the infrastructure that you've built to let yourself go. When Elon Musk built Tesla, the reason Tesla was such an amazingly better car is he didn't have 100 years of Detroit to hold onto. He started with a clean sheet of paper and imagine what could be. The second thing is when you try and go 10 times bigger versus 10% bigger, it's 100 times the value proposition, and it's never 100 times more expensive or 100 times harder. And so you get this increased capability. And then the third thing is when you try and go 10 times bigger to solve a problem 10 times bigger, you've got to reinvent stuff. You have to actually go and figure out, okay, I have no idea how I'm going to solve that, but you're going to start to reinvent things. So when Eric and I were working on asteroid mining, we had to reinvent. We had to have so much computational power onboard the spacecraft, we had to come up with brand new sensors and hyperspectral and midwave IR that didn't exist, had never been licensed because these spacecraft were going to be operating at 200 million miles away. And that forced us to come up with new kinds of capabilities that were not currently possible. And you'll be amazed with those capabilities that you create in your business, in your life, enable you to do. And so there's this massive benefit, this payoff, this dividend that comes from expanding your mind and not being anchored to the past. And so I think that there are very few things that are truly impossible. I think that impossible is a state of mind. And I'll say one other thing. The people in your life are part of that anchoring. And so how do you anchor yourself with a new set of people?

Right.

I'm looking at my dear friend Naveen Jain here with whom We've opened up XPrize India and are really working on solving women's and girls issues in India and providing abundant drinking water in India. I mean, so how do you surround yourself with amazing people who live in the state of anything is possible? I'm blessed at Xprize, at Singularity University, at HY&PRI. I live that constantly. And so how do you do that? Where are you doing that? What is your nothing is impossible community here? Yeah, it is here. It is truly here. And so that's really critically important because once you get into that mindset, then you start freeing yourself from the bullshit that other that you tell yourself and people tell you because we are living in a world where constant amazing miracles happen. The other thing, because I'll put my commercial into this. Stop watching the news. Stop watching the news. You could not pay me enough.

To.

Have the crisis news network or the constantly negative news network, whatever you call cnn, pollute my mind.

Really.

I have social networks. I have, you know, Google filters and so forth. I was just telling Arianna about this and hopefully she'll do this. I want. On the front page of Huffington Post, I said, I want a slider where I can control the percentage of positive news stories. Right? How would you like that? Instead of because right now it's. Because right now it's 10 to 1 negative to positive. And. And that pollutes your mind. And we heard an amazing presentation this morning. I apologize. Who was the gentleman who was talking about that? Talking about a few minutes of negative news in the morning.

Thank you.

Yeah, Sean, it's true. It's like, why would you possibly invest in the world and in the life and all these things if the world is falling apart? If the crisis. New network is showing you airplane accident. If airplane accident. Airplane accident. What problem is that? The news networks never tell you there was no school shooting today at this school or this airplane actually flew LA to New York and actually made it and everybody survived. That's not news. And so we get this disproportionate view. And so our minds are constantly. The mindset you have when you watch the negative news is awful. Not that it's not going on. It's not that there's this amazing hardship and lives that are on the precipice of, of hunger and death around the world. But the world is getting better at an extraordinary rate and you can make a difference in it. And there is no problem. There is no problem we cannot solve. Period. End of statement.

What are three or four of the biggest limitations, obstacles or blocks people come up against when trying to achieve great success and how can they break through?

You know, it starts off with our self identity. Your income will never exceed your self identity. And there's a lot of great research of social psychologists like Heidi Grant Halverston who are saying your story about your potential determines whether you live your potential. That's a powerful idea, right? If your story is I'm a victim versus a leader without a title, then why would you read the books? Why would you do the practice? Why would you populate your life with great people? What would be the point? So the first point is your self identity, which is your core beliefs. You got it. That's where the real work begins. And I don't think we have time today in terms of the tools, but that's the first thing. Second thing related to that is your fears. You are not your fears. Your fears are just a bunch of emotions that naturally come up every time you leave the safe harbor of the known. There is such a seduction, which is I feel scared. There's something wrong. No, your fears are nothing more than your greatness and growth coming to get you. If you're going to live an epic life, you're going to be scared all the time. Fantastic. You're growing. Third thing that we bump up against, we don't have energy. Energy is more valuable than intelligence. I mean, I've met a lot of very successful people and they're not that smart, but they have massive energy, massive grit, that one idea. And they're just like a pit bull and they get locked into it and it leads them to billionaire. So take care of your energy by fitness, diet, inspiration, other things really quickly. I'd say, you know, again, it's your social network because most of us have a game changing idea and then we share it with our family and they.

Go, you know, exactly, you're not going to get.

And they go, oh yeah, you're right. And then we go back to being, you know, average.

Well, that's why I love like the way I think about Genius Network. Genius Network is like my you know, my, one of my company names in my group and all that. But I think of it as a wisdom network. I think of it as who are the people that just have insight that I can link into because I can solve almost any problem in my life through my genius network and who are those people? But that sort of thing. The other thing that you said too, reminds me of. I have a friend, Dave Kekich, who's paralyzed from the chest down. He's been in a wheelchair for half his life, but just has developed such an incredible life. He runs Maximum Life foundation and he says that enthusiasm covers many deficiencies and so just going into something with a really good attitude. So let me see here, what else here? It's one thing to achieve and be successful and another to be fulfilled. What do you think makes a fulfilling life?

Well, I think, you know, at the end of your life, when you're on your deathbed, it's only going to come down to two ideas. And it's not going to be whether you had the right handbag title, whether your social network thought you were cool and sexy, your neighborhood, your bank account. It's going to come down to number one as compared to the potential talent and genius you were born into, how much of it did you leverage through your days to unleash onto the world? And number two, how many people did you lift up with you? When I was growing up, my dad took out this quote from Rabindranath Tagore and he said it all the time to me. And it was, son, when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice. And you know, that might sound very idealistic, but actually it's an amazing driving force as an entrepreneur or business builder or game changer, which is a. Ultimately, our calling is to use our lives to birth genius level value into the world and lift the world with us by the time we get to the end of our lives. And I think that's really all that matters because otherwise think about all the people who thought they were great emperors. You don't even think about them now.

Well, you know, so you probably hear continuously how much your ideas and your writings and your speaking has been beneficial and encourages other people. How do you take that in? How do you interpret it when people come up and ask you for an autograph? I mean, to me it's the weirdest thing in the world and I'm not a famous guy. It's just When I'll do seminars, people come up and I do my best. Like, I'm not a guru. I mean, you have no idea. I have plenty of personal problems and nothing special because I want people to actually feel that, hey, you, you can do so much more than you actually believe you can do. And you're a guy. That's a huge encourager. How do you take all of this stuff in? Because you put out millions of people read your works.

The moment you think you're a master is the moment you become a beginner. And I run an event called the Titan Summit, which we run every year. And there's a model I teach which is called the Titans Decline. I'm not really fascinated by people who go get to the top, whether it's the billionaires I work with or who show up at those events or the pop icons or the great athletes. That's great. What I'm fascinated about is what makes a legend versus a fad. And we haven't talked so much about my business philosophy, but to me, what makes an iconic brand or company that endures the generations versus a company that's really cool for three years.

Well, what's great. We're talking about it right now.

Well, okay, so it's the Titans Decline. And really, I mean, the starting point is the moment you think you know everything and the moment you fall in love with your success is the beginning of obsolescence. So when people come up to me and they send me this or whatever on the social media, they're saying things. I say thank you, because that shows respect. And I'm humbled and privileged to get to do what I get to do. But, you know, when I go home, I'm just dad to my kids, you know, like, they, they. I'm not some kind of something special aside from their father. You know, I spent a lot of time with my parents. They're in their 70s. My friends are very wonderful people, but they're not really in the circle that we talk about in the sense of, you know, being at the events we talk about. I spend a lot of time alone, a lot of time praying. You know, I don't share that very often, but, you know, prayer, affirmation, reading the great books of wisdom and philosophy, journaling, walking in nature, trying to keep my feet on the ground. Because I think the moment, you know, ego and arrogance sets in. You know, again, I mentioned it, but it's so profound, important, I think, because if your attention and your focus is on how many people are going to like me, On Facebook. How many best sellers will I have? How much money am I making this launch? How much? Whatever. Your attention and your point of being is actually off. Being of service, creativity, lifting the world, transforming people, which paradoxically makes you iconic in the world. And if I could, because we've talked about a lot of big ideas, but people are probably wondering, like, so what are the tactics? Well, one thing is to remember that self mastery and leadership and the. These are skills. Like, if someone were to say, well, I want to be heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and I read a book on it and afterwards I didn't change, we'd call them crazy. But how many people do we talk to in leadership and high performance? They go, I read the book and nothing worked. Well, the book worked, the ideas worked. You just didn't have the guts and commitment and discipline and follow through and self sacrifice to do the work. So bravery is a skill. It doesn't show up one day. It shows up after 10,000 hours of. People don't think about that.

Right.

Bravery, confidence, all of those internal things. Being loving is a skill. You don't just get it, you earn it. And yeah, I wear my scars on my sleeve because everything I've earned, whether it's the character I have, and I'm not saying it's so special, but the character I have, the thinking I have, the energy I have, the bravery I have, the love that I have, Like, I mean, love is a very powerful word that has been very, very, very hard earned.

What are four or five of the best business or entrepreneurial lessons you've learned over your life that you feel have served you the most? I mean, when you were early on trying to figure out what to do, what were those things that you.

So whatever your position is, commit yourself to bringing your A game to it every single day. One of my publishers is HarperCollins, the former head of HarperCollins, Jane Friedman. Friedman started off as a secretary, but I bet you when she was a secretary, she was world class. How many people do you know? It's like, when I become CEO, then I'll bring my A game. So whatever you do, lead without a title, outwork everyone around you, know more about what you do than anyone else. Put, you know, effort, like good old hard work is unbelievably important. Second, business building idea. You want to get your plumbing right, you know, so I can take this.

In a lot of different ways.

Well, so you want to. Yeah, yeah. This is not a GI gastrointestinal tract piece of advice. It's really get your architecture right. You know, like the time to build your business is not when you're on fire, it's get the right people, get the right financial systems, get the right culture, get the right so get the architecture right. Third, entrepreneurship be all about creating value. There is a database of the world's happiest people called the German Socio political panel database. World's largest database of happiness happiest people. Yeah, it's not where they live, it's not what they eat, it's not what they do. They all see themselves as contributors of value. So make it your obsession and your mission to be contributing value. And that just means if you're, if you're flipping pizza, you know, you're doing pizzas, like just say I'm gonna create great value for the people out there expecting my pizza. What else? Innovation, right? Like, you know, it's so easy to become complacent and yet you want to say in a consistent basis, how can I do bring products out in the world or do work that scares me and that people would probably laugh at and that's probably what you have to do do. That's probably what you have to do.

That is a great insight right there. I mean, because like earlier about talking about earning things, you know, confidence does not just happen like, oh, I'm going to think I'm confident and be confident. Because if you act like you're confident but you're scared, you're really kind of arrogant, you're sort of disguising it. But it starts with courage. You know, courage never feels good, but confidence feels good. But courage is usually what you have to go through when you're scared, when you're in that position. And then if you do it and you master it, then you get to a point where you feel confident and then you're, you know, then it's a good feeling. But there's the thing with a lot of people, they just don't want to have to feel any pain. They don't want to have to feel any fear, any uncomfortableness. And they don't do shit in their lives in that state. Yeah.

Pain is the result of potential unexpressed. And why are so many people addicted to to their phones? Why are so many people addicted to tv? Why are so many people addicted to chit chat versus executing around their goals and all the things we've talked about? They will sell you a story which is, no, no, I love that TV show. I love my addiction to distraction, but it's unconscious. And I think this Is like one of the most important things I wish people would understand, which is most of us actually have a broken heart. We are in such pain, as you're suggesting of potential betrayed. Why? Because as little kids we had such connection to love, such connection to talent, such connection to the meaning of life, such connection to our potential. And we could have done amazing things. And then our mothers, fathers, teachers, preachers, et cetera, et cetera, well intentioned as the world is started matrix pulling the wool over the veil over our eyes. And we actually became hypnotized into believing that icons are cut from a different cloth. And what that did was it created this well of deep subconscious pain because we saw that self betrayal. And what do we do now? We keep really busy, busy being busy, always busy, busy. But it's an escape mechanism of a frightened person and the real work of a leader and an entrepreneur. It's not building the external business that's all important. Like we could talk hours on the right team culture. Like I teach all that stuff. The real work of leadership and to be an icon, it's all within to get to a place where you own your power, you own your talent, you figure out your values. You don't care if people laugh at you, because if they don't laugh at you, you're playing too small. And then you go out in the world and you show up the way you can.

Yeah, let me ask you about that because I mean for everything I know about you, you're a very generous, giving guy. And of course you have to make hard business decisions and stuff because you have a, you know, I mean, of course depending on how detailed you want to get, you have a million things that you could attend to. What was it about how you approached that approached him that you believe caused him to give you that time? Because there's certainly some people that are opportunists, but they, they approach someone in a way that doesn't engender them wanting to help them. It actually makes them want to run away. Do you know what that is about you?

Yeah. So I know that both on how I approached him and then how others have approached me, good and bad. And so when I approached Fred, I was just, wow, really impressed with what you've built in a sincere way. And wasn't trying to flatter him or manipulate. I just was really, wow, I couldn't believe I got to meet him. And I said, you know, I've got some questions and I'd really love to run them by you. And I think he could tell That I was sincere and that I had real questions. And he maybe saw a little bit of himself in me or something or a little bit of me in him when he was a kid. And it just. It seemed to work. And so people reach out to me all the time. And I always try and say yes to someone who sends me an email, as long as it feels real and there isn't a hidden agenda. And nothing's more frustrating than when you get on a phone call and you find that right away it was just to pitch you on something.

Yeah.

But if somebody really wants help and needs help, I think entrepreneurs, it's just like an unwritten rule to help those that need help in the same space. Because we all got help.

Yeah.

And we know how hard it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And when I say hard, let me reframe that or at least talk about hard, because I said this funny thing. I even mentioned it yesterday when I was doing another interview where I said it at an event once. I said, if I would have known how difficult it would have been to be successful, I would have stuck with being a loser.

Right.

Because there's a lot of work involved in it. And I say in a funny way, look, I love my business, I love my life. There's definitely difficulties and challenges. Now is a better time than I've ever had. But, man, there are some days, weeks, years that were just hard. I mean, just gut wrenching difficult. And you know, there's. Because your book is called Willing to Fail, you have a frame of how you think about this stuff. So do you enjoy hard or how do you think about the term hard? Because we hear a lot of people advising, work hard, do a lot of hard work. And, you know, and there's this work smart, not work hard. In a lot of ways, it's work hard on smart things. You know, I mean, that's. But not all the time because you can totally burn out, too. And you've probably. I'm sure you've hit burnout stages. Of course.

Yeah.

So I'd love to hear you talk about what hard means to you and how you operate within it.

Yeah, I love what I do. So many times it doesn't feel hard. Even when things go wrong, it's still like, oh, cool, we got a challenge to overcome here. And you want things to go as planned. You want your sales targets to happen. You know, let me tell you a story about how I think I would define hard. So putting together the book with Roy Williams, we're sitting down and we're trying to, I was trying to come up with the title. I just felt like that's the first. That's the starting point of a book. What's the title?

Right?

He said, no, no, no, we're going to put together the manuscript, we're going to close the book, the title will pop out. And I said, roy, I'm a branding guy.

Wow.

One day painting Shaq Shine 1-800-got junk. Like, I start with brands. He said, it doesn't work like that in books. So he said, we'll close it off and I promise you the title will jump out. So after rereading the book, the title jumped out. Wtf? Willing to fail. Because I realized it was failure, Learn, Succeed. Failure, Learn, succeed, Fail. And so reframing for me, those failures aren't hard. Those failures are gifts. I mean, on Christmas, doesn't everyone love opening presents? I'm like, I got another gift here. And while some people might go, yeah, it's easy to say, you've built a 400 plus million dollar business. No, I've always felt that way. I've always felt that there is a gift in every failure. I just need to recognize and learn what could be better that will come from that failure as a result of that learning. And so the number one thing I'll do, and yes, I'm human, Yes, I get days where I'm depressed and I'm in bed for three days and don't know what to do because of a failure. But when I'm ready, I take out a sheet of paper and I write down, what's the one thing better than where I am now that can come from this seeming failure? And I'll write stuff down and I commit to just writing one thing. Sometimes it's 10 things. But I've never been let down. Every failure has led me to a better place.

Yeah. Yeah. You're either winning or you're learning. And if you know how to learn from the failures, then you still win. Ultimately, it doesn't. Yeah, yeah.

And I mean, you've met more entrepreneurs I can imagine than anyone on the planet. Have you ever met an entrepreneur that hasn't failed over and over and over?

Yeah, no, it doesn't happen.

I mean, have you ever met an athlete that hasn't failed over, like it's life, you know?

You know what's interesting about failure? There's some celebration of failure that I think gets improperly celebrated. Meaning no one likes to fail, no one wants to fail. And I think getting up and saying, hey, you know, we're just going to go at it, and we're going to fail. There's a lot of people that just screw that up. There's other people that just know it's just part of the process. You know, in the same way that if you're going to go through a difficult workout, you're going to exert effort and failure on the path of success. Success is just part of the path of success, and it's the road. It's part of the road. What's the difference between being willing to fail versus being reckless or unprepared or having just a terrible, undoable business model? And someone's enthusiasm is far more exhibited than any form of intelligence. Yeah.

I mean, when I'm saying be willing to fail, it's not being reckless. So let me give you an analogy for a second. That's real life. One of my daughters, you know, four years ago, she comes out of ski school. We're all a family of skiers, and she comes out of ski school. She's like, I hate this. It's not for me. This sucks. And I go, why?

Don't you like it?

She goes, because I keep falling and it hurts. And I said, no, no, you don't understand. Falling is how you get better. You fall, you reflect on why you fell and what you'll do differently, and then you get better. No one becomes a great skier by not falling. So the next day, she goes to ski school, she comes back, she goes, guess what? I fell today. And big smile on her face. And I was like, that's awesome. A, because it taught me that, like, my wisdom actually sunk, but, B, that she understood that that's a process.

Yeah.

And so I think people just have to recognize it's as much of a part of success as getting anything right. In fact, it's probably a bigger part.

Yeah.

You know, we in life, we watch sports and we celebrate, you know, the NBA championships. But if you think of this year, our team, the Toronto Raptors, gets there. It was all the mistakes that led up to it that I hope those players remembered and celebrated in their minds. When I look back, when we hit our goals, the stories that stand out that we talk about over and over weren't the, like, wow, this was easy.

Right?

It was the pain, it was the trauma. It was the, oh, my gosh, do you remember when we didn't have this? And that makes life sweet.

Totally. You know? And when I sit and ask entrepreneurs to think of the greatest breakthroughs they've had, 99% of the time those things came out of pain. It's turning shit into fertilizer. I mean, it really, it's taking something that's adverse and being able to transform it.

Yep.

And when you're in that fertilizer or sorry, in the shit, you don't understand necessarily that something great is going to come from that. But you have to be open to that possibility and have a little bit of faith. And I don't mean that in a religious type way, but just like, just have some trust that you know what that is going to bring you to a better place. Just allow it and be okay with that. And you know, I think when you talk to entrepreneurs and even if I think of my own breakthroughs, I don't think I was aware of the breakthrough the day that that bad thing happened.

Right.

It was time that went by where I started to reflect and think, oh, you know what? It was that moment that taught me this.

You enroll people into a giant big cause.

Now what?

It's one thing to think big, grandiose ideas and talk about changing the world. And I use, I think a lot of people use the whole, I've got an idea that's, I mean, they'll hear you, they'll hear Peter talk about, you know, how can you impact a billion people? And so they haven't impacted one, but they want to impact the whole world. So where do you take it from this big idea to actually turning, creating the team, making sure you have a viable model that works.

So essentially, when you have a big vision, never ever get distracted that this is unachievable. What you do is you take each slice of it and you start executing on slice by slice by slice. And next thing you know, you got a whole rainbow fit there. So you don't go out and boil the ocean. You say, what is the minimum viable product that I can launch today? But stay with the mission. But what really happens is people along the way lose sight of what they're trying to do and they get caught up in what I call short game, making quick money. And I can tell you that when I launched Wyoming, the quickest money was we got calls from every doctor and hospital. She said, we love what you're doing. We would love to order a lab test from you for Wyoming. And we told them, we just don't do that. We're going to give you money and say, we do not do that. We want the consumer to become empowered. We want them to have the information of what they can do. Even today we get calls from Dr. I can get hundreds of people signed up tomorrow. But I want to get the data, not the consumer. I will tell the consumer what they need. And by the way, when you order your blood report, the doctor says, I can't give it to you. It's your blood report. They don't want to share it with you. Imagine that. So one thing we made a decision was we will never ever compromise what we stand for. We will never ever let anyone get between us and the consumer who is actually buying it. We will always give them the information. We will always give them the recommendation. And what we allow is allow them to share. And you say, share it with my doctor, my spouse, my kids, anyone you want. But at the end of the day, each consumer is going to become the CEO of their own health. Because once you empower someone, you will always get it.

Right. Right.

But the point is, we could have been distracted for a short term money. My team thought I was crazy. Why won't I take the money? Pharmaceutical companies, we want you to be part of our drug trial, but we can't give you data. We won't let you know who the consumer is. I said, my job is to kill the pharmaceutical companies. If you have the same goal, come join me.

Do you think perhaps you could maybe have a better chance of accomplishing this if you had more enthusiasm?

Interestingly, I am still learning from Peter. I mean, honestly, it's not something you create, it's not something you become. It has to come from your heart. If you don't believe in something that you're willing to die for, you can never be enthusiastic about it. And that's one problem a lot of people have. They sell things they know they don't believe in. They say, how can I build the quickest amount of time I can build interest in someone so they will buy my product. Those are the short game. You want to play the game. Like Tony mentioned, fall in love with your customer, not with your product. Do what it takes to make sure that the person who's buying it is going to be thrilled and be delighted. As Jeff Bezos will say to me, if you look at, there is a reason why Jeff has become the richest man in the world, making no profit.

Right? Right.

Because everyone who has bought things from Amazon will know there is nothing. When you say to Amazon, you bought a product, even if it's your mistake, you tell them, I don't want this. They don't say, you bought it, it's yours to keep. They say, please send it back. Or you can keep the product we'll refund the money. That is actually taking care of your customer. They play the long game, and that is what everyone in the room. The reason you get stuck at a million dollars or $10 million or $100 million is because you play the short game. Believe what is possible. Think about what your moonshot is. Imagine. So that is the most beautiful word that I learned in the English language. If you just tell someone, imagine for that second, they are willing to open to any idea I can say, imagine a world where whatever that is you're doing at that point, people are open to every possibility. So don't focus on what the world is. Focus on what you want the world to be. Don't focus on, is the glass half empty or half full? Focus on, do I want to fill this glass or not? Is this glass even worth filling? Because if it's worth filling, does it matter? It's half empty or half full. And if you don't want to fill the glass, does it really matter? It's half empty or half full.

Right.

The thing is, whether it's your customer, whether it's your children, whether it is your employees, you as a leader or you as a father or mother, never have to take them to the water or make them drink. Your job is to make them thirsty. If you make someone thirsty, they will find the water for rest of their life and they will drink. What is their thirst? It's called intellectual curiosity. Once you can create the intellectual curiosity in people, in your children, amazing things happen. They will go out and rest of their life be quenching their thirst to do something meaningful. The success is never going to be about how much money you have in the bank. Success is going to be defined by how many lives have you positively impacted. I tell our children who just by the way, I'm going to brag about them in a second. But amazing children when they were, you know, I grew up in a poor family, it was easy to have that hunger. How do you raise children that grew up in affluent family? And I told them when they were young, your success was will never be measured by how much you own. It will be measured by what you create. And if you own a lot and you haven't created anything, you're still a piece of ish as far as the society is concerned. Right? And you don't want to be that worthless.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free. There's a link below in the description or you can wait till the end of this video or you can simply click Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Success the way you know the day you know you are successful is really easy to know. When you actually become successful. The day you become humble is the day you become successful. If you still have iota of arrogance left in you, then you're still trying to prove something to someone or yourself. You're still not successful. Right? The interesting thing that I find Joe, is that technology for the first time in our life is making possible for you and I and small group of people to do things that could only be done by nation states. And I believe the entrepreneurs are going to be the next superpower. It is. Imagine when we land on the moon as a company, not only we become the first private company to do so. And just in case anyone is wondering, we we are the only company in the universe that has permission to leave earth orbit and land on the moon. The reason we believe the entrepreneurs are going to be the superpower is they are starting to solve the problems that we believed only the nation states could do. Going to space Health care, healthcare is not going to be solved by Trump care Obamacare. It's going to be solved by someone in this room saying enough is enough. I cannot take it anymore and we're going to fix it. And imagine education. I was going to look at both health care and education and I picked health care and the problem in education are identical, same problems. And I can tell you exactly what needs to be done and I hope one of you in this room goes and fixes it. Because if you fix education, if instead of my going to do that next, I'll go create abundance of food, abundance of land, abundance of energy. All the problems that we need to solve. Education. What's the problem with education? Our education system was designed to teach you skills. Imagine what's happening in the world of exponential technologies. Skills are becoming obsolete every five to seven years. By the time you graduate, your skill is no longer needed. Think about that for a second. What do you get? You get chronic unemployment. The skills are becoming obsolete. Our education system was designed to create these people with the skills so you can be employed rest of your life. Now you have to create education system. Learning to learn, learning to solve problems, learning to work together. Today in education system, when you work together, you know what we call them?

Cheating.

When we do the same thing in a company, you're A team player. Imagine that. So imagine what if you can create an education system that's adaptive, that is personalized, that is gamified, that is based on the neural feedback of how you learn. And your education system gets adapted to how you learn rather than you adapting to how teacher teaches. All that can happen. And imagine if you can solve education, you can create abundance of energy, abundance of water, abundance of land. We can bring world peace. Think about that. What do we people fight over? They fight over land, they fight over water, they fight over energy. All we have to do is look up where is the scarcity. We are living in a tiny pale blue dot in our own galaxy. And there are billions of galaxies in this universe. And there could be billions of universes in this multiverse. Where is the problem? Look at the energy. There is nothing but energy. There is nothing but water. It's in our mindset of it's not possible. People say, how can you live on the moon? Don't you know there is a tremendous amount of radiation on the moon? And I said, yeah, but that's another opportunity for us to solve that problem. Nature has already solved that problem. We find the bacteria growing in the radioactive nuclear waste. So nature has figured out not only how to protect its DNA from the radiation, it has figured out how to use the radiation as a source of energy. So imagine when you are on the moon, as opposed to eating pizza, we will be going out and eating radiation. Honey, do you want to go out and get some radiation? So all we have to do is take the gene genes from the bacteria, use crispr, which is a genetic editing technology, and use the gene editing to modify our own human genes so we are completely protected from radiation. Just one of the many things you can do. The idea is every time you see a problem, don't think of it as a problem, think of it as an opportunity. The bigger the problem, bigger the opportunity. So every speed bump, don't say God damn it, you say aha. There is another business opportunity. And the only thing you have to remember as an entrepreneur, you only die from indigestion rather than starvation. That means don't do too many things at the same time. Do few things, but do the them really, really well. So do things that you actually are good at, focus on them. And if you see a bigger opportunity, let go of this one. You got to let the good things fall apart for better things to come together. So if you are really think your marriage is your relationship is good, but not excellent, let go of the good thing to find Something better.

You said something just briefly here about battles. And then during your tour, you were talking about. I wrote it down here. Silent battles are the hardest ones to fight and to get help. And it made me think about just being an addict because I think people that struggle with addictions and my viewpoint of addictions are, you know, the bigger question is my friend Gabor Mate, who will be at my conference this year with. He's one of the top addiction doctors in the world. He says, you know, the question is not why the addiction, but why the pain? And so I think addictions are just symptoms and ways to cope with, you know, repressed emotions, trauma, deep seated pain. And you use it as a coping mechanism until it ends up becoming an addiction. Then it becomes a full fledged addiction, which I believe is beyond choice. That's where you. You tap into a higher power, be it whatever your version of God is, or a community or something that you can drive some sort of hope from. Because hope heals in silence, though battling things in silence, I think it's just toxic shame. And recently there was a famous rock star who committed suicide that had millions of dollars, that had millions of fans all over the world. And this person, in their silent battle still was not able to reach out enough to where it could bring hope to this person. And this person killed themselves. Silent battles are insidious. They are terrible. And almost everyone goes through it in some sort of way. And a lot of people, they just cannot ask for help because of either the shame of what was done to them or the shame of what they have done to someone else, or at least perceive what they have had done is so horrible that I can never talk about it. I mean, we have a dear friend of mine who's sitting in the room that like, was, you know, had a lot of sexual abuse in her life and openly speaks about it. What is a silent battle? And someone watching or listening to this right now, that's like, I can never tell anybody about this. I mean, there's just no way. What is it? And how do you ask for help if you're fighting that silent battle?

The best way I can describe it is like you said, I mean, it's wanting to reach out for help, it's screaming for help. And you think this is just my opinion? You think people can see it? You think people can hear you, right? It's screaming loud inside of you. But whether people are busy, whether people overlook it, people don't see it. And in my life, through my silent battles, that's what was going on, you know, I would always say I would smile for the camera but die behind the scenes. But I just felt like I just wanted somebody to be like, trent, I see what you're going through, but nobody ever really asked. And if they did ask, it was this stigma as a man, and I had to be strong. I can't show my weaknesses. You know, we're taught that growing up so much, and for people out there, and also it's this, too. It's also feeling isolated. You feel like nobody would understand. You feel like you're going to be judged. You feel like nobody goes through what you're going through. And so not to take away somebody's struggle, because struggles are extremely powerful. But don't make your struggle special in the sense of it's just for me. Because I realized that, I mean, doing what we do, I see it every day. There's no story I really haven't heard that. A lot of people go through a lot of things, and I can probably promise you that somebody is going through what you're going through, or they've overcame what you're going through. And so it's important to find someone, even if it's someone you don't know. You know, that's why a lot of people hit me up and say, trent, I don't really know you, but I don't want to be judged. They know I'm not going to judge them, and they talk. So find somebody that maybe you don't know. Find a mentor, like, reach out to somebody. Find a stranger, whatever it may be. Watch videos and reach out to somebody, because those things will kill you inside, period. But you have to also realize, too, in overcoming that silent battle, as I said earlier, you turn your pain into power, and then you become the person that helps other people get through it. You know, I get this a lot, Joe. A lot of people will say, it's easy for you to say, Trent. You know, whether it's hiking Camelback Mountain or me speaking about faith, me speaking about overcoming, it's easy for you to say. And I used to kind of get offended by that. I'm like, you don't know my life. You don't know what I go through. Then I say, wait. It is easy for me to say, because I know you can overcome it because I overcame it. That's why I talk with so much confidence and power and certainty, because I know if I can come out of that, you can, too. And so I always say, you know, there's a bigger purpose than your pain. And I think if you think that if you hold on, as you said, a little bit of hope, a little bit of faith, you can get through that silent battle, period. But give your pain a voice. And not a voice of, you know, sympathy or whatever it may be, but give your pain a voice by speaking out to someone, even if it's a stranger, somebody you don't know. Because the worst thing you can do is hold everything inside, because eventually the lid, the top pops off, you know, as you suppress more and more things.

Yeah, no, that is. That's really. Yeah, that's really powerful. I was in Seattle earlier in the week, and one of the days I wanted to go to this clothing store where they sold outdoor gear, because I went and spent time on an island with Peter Diamandis. He's one of my friends and clients. And so it's kind of funny, when I travel, I'll carry, like, you know, avocados and different food and stuff. And so I'm walking to this place, and there's homeless people all over the area where I was at in downtown Seattle. And I walked by, you know, this gal who's just kind of got her head down and, you know, just put food next to her and just walk off, because she wasn't even, like, looking up, although she had a cardboard sign that says, mental illness need help. You know, walk by. And I'm not an expert on homelessness, and I see it everywhere, and it always bothers me. But at the same time, there's YouTube videos from people on how to make $300,000 a year being a panhandler. And it's just like, what is real? Having gotten so much into addiction. I know a lot of homelessness is addiction and mental illness. And so I go to the store and literally buy about 12, $1,200 worth of clothes, you know, because I can. And so I walk out of there, and this is probably 30 minutes later, and I walk right past this person, and I kind of look down, and she's smoking a cigarette really, like, anxiously. Almost looks like she's on meth. And I cross the street, and then I was like, it just bothered me. And there's, like, homeless people everywhere. But for some reason, I just kind of gravitated towards that. What the hell is going on with this person? And I just couldn't get out. So I walk back across the street, and I go up to her and I say, hello. How are you doing? And she's like, you know, she's. I'm just immediately went into this Shitty place. And I literally sat down and started talking with her and said, you know, how long have you been homeless? And she. Five years. She's been in Seattle. She's been homeless for five years there. And that she has a massive anxiety disorder and that she cannot hold a job. And she's like, all these people walk by, no one even pays attention. No one comes and talks to me. You know, I need money. And, you know, her teeth at the bottom of her mouth were so ground down that there were just little, like, stuff. And this was truly a person that was not faking it. I mean, she had dirty fingernails, very weathered, and just having a hard life. And just, you know, I said, well, is there any resources here? And she's telling me about how the homeless shelters are bad and about how they give you a cop. And again, I have to put myself in those sort of situations where, you know, I have no idea what her mental illness is. I have no idea her ability to come up with solutions. You know, if someone's dealing with a severe mental illness, you know, you have no idea that. I mean, people that, like, well, why don't they do this? Why don't they. That, well, maybe their brains don't have that capability of figuring out step by step, what to do, or, you know, why don't they go be homeless in a place where there's nice weather? Maybe their brain doesn't conjure that sort of stuff out. But I was this. Sitting there thinking that this woman in her mind, I mean, it was very painful. So I said, have you ever been to, like, is there any support groups? I got to imagine there's some places to go to. And the only thing that I could think of is all the support groups that are available for addiction. And even if you're not an addict, there's all kinds of open meetings. And so I started. She was raped repeatedly while she was a little girl. And she literally told me her whole story. And it was just heartbreaking. But it's also. Almost everyone out on the street has those sort of stories, and there's millions of people with all of this stuff. And I always go back to the starfish story. There's many different ways that I've heard this story told. But the quick version is a man sees a little kid down at the ocean bending over, throwing things in the water, gets close to him and sees a little kid and, you know, says, son, what are you doing? The little kid's like, well, I'm throwing starfish that have washed up on the shore. Into the ocean. He's like, well, you know, son, there's, you know, thousands of starfish on the ocean and they're all going to die. You can't throw them all in the ocean. He's like, what difference do you think you can make? And the little kid reaches down, picks up a starfish, throws it into the ocean. He's like, well, it made a difference for that one, you know, and it's like that one, just one sort of difference. And, you know, and I sit and like I'm sitting there talking to this person saying, well, what can I possibly do? I can give her some money, which I did. But at the end of the day, it doesn't solve the thing. And I'm like, how do you literally make a really sort of lasting impact to someone? And the fact is you can't always. But what you can do is a little bit. And so I looked up online because I asked her if she had a cell phone. She had a old Motorola cell phone, flip phone. She couldn't even go online and look at things. And she has to pay. She has to get enough money from literally panhandling in order to be able to pay this bill. Someone had given her the phone. She had told me, and I went into a Bank of America, which was like a few doors down, went and wrote on because I didn't have a pen and paper on me. And I looked up on my phone different coda meetings, like Co dependence Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous, open meetings where students. Someone doesn't even need to be an addict. I wanted to try to. And I wrote the addresses down. I found some of them. I gave her three different addresses and I found three different women that are in support groups that would just take phone calls. And I wrote all this down and gave it to her, and I left. And, you know, and I don't know if she'll call those people. I don't know if she'll be able to go to the meetings. But I was just sitting there going, you know, the interesting thing is that I've seen videos online where some like, well, to do person will dress up like a homeless person, lay down on the ground, and then no one, like for hours will film it. And you might have a couple of people that will go up to them and see if they need anything. But then if you take a guy in a suit that looks clean and lay that same person down in the middle of New York City, all kinds of people walk up. And it's just how we become numb to other people's pain is almost invisible. And it's like, fuck, what do you do about that sort of stuff? And so those are the things that bother me. Those are the things that keep me up at night. And so with things like Joe Volunteer, which has been started by a guy named Chip Franks in Killian, Texas, which is like uber for volunteers, I'm like, that's how I want to be a catalyst to that sort of stuff. So we can maybe shift. You know, if Joe Volunteer was in play, there's a ton of people that would go out and help those sort of people. You know, recovery centers, animal shelters, assisted living homes where people have to sit alone. And so I want to bring this back to, you know, I look at a guy like you, and I won't go into this whole story, but I had someone call me last night that I shared with you earlier that had started drinking again. That was. And I sent her one of your videos because it was fresh in my mind. And I just saw you last night, and you just drip hope on the people. You give them inspiration, and it's really powerful. And I think that's why you're blowing up right now. I think that's why. And I actually think you are a guy that will not only inspire people, help them make decisions in careers, jobs, relationships, family, like you say, you know, love people from a distance, even if you can't be close to them. But I also believe you're a guy that can save lives. I believe your message can get people to do things they typically would not do because you have this great ability to instill hope and you make it available to people for free.

This sheet is for me a first small step, but hopefully useful step to you in solving for me one of the biggest, most interesting and least acknowledged problems in the world. And so that problem is that human beings lack reliable access to the knowledge we need to flourish. Think about that. Human beings lack reliable access to the knowledge we need to flourish. And so by flourish, I mean live to our fullest potential. And that involves physical things, it involves social things, it involves being able to create wealth. And you might think, well, isn't it true that never in history has there been more knowledge in existence about how to flourish? That's absolutely true. The problem is there's also never been more non knowledge in existence about how to flourish. And so whether we're thinking of ourselves as knowledge consumers, people who want to find and consume the knowledge we need to to flourish, or knowledge producers, people who are trying to discover and share the knowledge other People need to flourish. I think we have to grapple with the fact that adding more claims to knowledge to the pile in people's minds and in our minds isn't really a solution by itself. And so my own goal is, instead of primarily adding new claims to knowledge, is to fix the knowledge system. So I think it's a system problem. And I think there are four aspects of what a proper knowledge system for human flourishing needs to do. One is it needs to validate knowledge, to separate truth from falsehood. Two is it needs to organize it to see how it all fits together, especially into principles. Three, it needs to be able to apply it so that we can use our knowledge in particular circumstances to benefit our life. And four, the thing we're going to be talking about today, it needs to be able to communicate. It needs to be able to actually communicate knowledge. And I think of proper communication as very difficult because what we have to do is we have to take someone from what I call context A, from everything that's going on in their mind, in terms of their ideas, their values, what they've been exposed to, and then bring them to context B, which is our own level, which is what we think is right. And this is hard for two reasons. One, it's really, really hard to be right. Really, really hard. It's so much work to be right. I try really hard and I'm wrong all the time. And to the extent I've been right, it's after a lot of struggles, it's hard to be right. And then it's hard to know or take into account everything that people have been exposed to and think about any idea you have that's meaningful, whether it's an idea about what your customer should do or an idea about what's healthy, the person you've spoken to has heard at least three contrary ideas on that topic, and those are bouncing around their head. And so if you don't know how to deal with their whole context, including what you regard as misconceptions, you're not going to be able to bridge from point A to point B. So I think of all communication, all persuasion, as context bridging, taking them from context A to context B through basically three things. One is you add context, add new knowledge. Two is you subtract context, and three is you modify context so they have an idea that's partially clear and you clarify it. So it's all about getting them from context A to context B through this kind of process. And so this part of what the overall thing is called Human flourishing project. But this part I call, at least right now, extreme clarity. And so then to break down one more thing, and we'll get into the tool in terms of getting this kind of extreme clarity. The first thing you need to do is identify the contexts really, really clearly. And that's today's tool. That's all it's designed to do. But I think you'll see if you can identify those contexts, you'll have a whole amazing kind of perspective. Then the next step, which is another tool in the future, is getting really. So first, extreme clarity on your perfect purpose, context A to context B. Second is extreme clarity on your ideas, on your ideas and on their ideas. Getting really to the point where you can make the absolute best case for their ideas and refute it. Think about how much credibility that gives you if you can explain the opposition's views better than they can. So they wish they could explain it that well, and then you can deal with it. And this is the reason I got good at this, is because I've always had controversial views. And it's really hard to explain. Explain to somebody if you're not a Republican, not a Democrat, why they should love fossil fuels. It's not an easy kind of thing. You need to be able to really. And I can explain my opponent's ideas way better than they can, but that's because I had to overcome this kind of difficulty. And I think most of the time we're communicating, we don't realize how difficult it is because there are a number of people who sort of are preexisting supporters who are inclined to go along. But imagine if you could really persuade everyone who's potentially persuadable if you were that good. So clarity of purpose, clarity of ideas, again, both their context and your context. And then the third one is clarity of structure. So what is the sequence of addition, subtraction modification that you need to undergo, that you need to put someone through, basically the outline to persuade them to get them from one context to another. So might sound like a lot of work, but if you can do it, people, when they talk to you, will experience, or when they read you, will experience extreme clarity. They'll think, wow, this totally makes sense. This person, he or she totally gets everything that I've been exposed to. I get why this person is right. And in terms of the culture, the more people who are right who can do this, the better ideas will be disseminated. Because if the people who are right can formulate their knowledge in such a way that it's differentiated, then more people will be persuaded. Whereas right now I think people who are right and people who are wrong are generally equally good or bad at communicating. And so it's just a mess. Does that make sense as context? That's the mission. And then here's the concrete thing. I want the whole world to be doing this for you. Concretely. I think everyone in here has some sort of content that they need to or could create some sort of persuasive content that would benefit you financially if, if you created it. And I do want to focus today on content that benefits you financially, though I'm happy to focus on other things just because I'm really interested in testing it in that respect. So what I want you to do is take out the tool and you'll see the first thing is I want to create a. And this is like paint by numbers, a number of page word minutes. It would be like I want to create a 200 page book that is tentatively titled the Moral Case for Fossil Fuel. That would have been mine. And think about what would be really valuable if you could make it way, way more persuasive. So just do that on the empty one and make sure to have an empty one. And then this one right here that has the black filled in because that'll give the instructions. So I'm going to walk you through three examples. They're kind of interesting examples. The first one I want to do is Johnson's Baby Shampoo. And then the other ones are going to be the case for voting for Donald Trump and the case for voting for Hillary Clinton. Because I want to show you how opposing views work and how good you need to be at presenting opposing views if you can somehow just have all of them accessible. And I realize this is challenging. I want to just, I'll just walk you through step by step, and I'll use these examples so you can get as much time as possible. Think about each one. So is everyone done with the top one? I want to create something of this length. Okay, so if you've done that, okay, so then the first thing is audience. And the instructions here are very, very specific. So name the specific audience you are trying to persuade. Your formulation must cover all of your audience members and only your audience members. So this is a tricky thing. All of your audience members and only your audience members. So for example, Johnson's Baby Shampoo. I want to persuade parents of babies and toddlers 0 to 4 years of age. If you just put parents, it would be too broad. And if you put just Parents of infants. It would be too narrow, assuming you want that other demographic. It's a really tricky thing. We have to do this all the time in thinking is how can we make it. It's not too broad, not too narrow. Okay, so this is this. And I think you'll see how these all fit together. So we want to get the exact audience. That's part of our purpose because we have to identify their context. Then this next one is trickier. Who are evaluating. So before you write this anything here, let me explain this. Who are evaluating area. So it's the specific area of life they are evaluating and you are trying to influence them on. Do not include an evaluation or opinion that comes later. So here it would be shampoo types, but it wouldn't be why Johnson's is great or something like that. But let's go to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. So with Donald Trump, it's undecided likely voters in the presidential election. And the thing they're evaluating is presidential candidates. So it's just. Exactly. If you were to just look with a lens, what exact area of something are they trying to evaluate? Are they trying to make a decision about that you want to help them with? Anyone want to share there? Oh, and just for equal time. So Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, you'll see they're both the same on this. They're trying to persuade the same audience the same area. They're going to have different views. Anyone want to share their area?

Yes, Entrepreneurs who are evaluating company culture.

Right?

Company culture. I like it. Okay, so then now we get into the more complex stuff. So values. So the values which they want. So there's an audience, there's an area they're evaluating and they want to pursue that area in a manner that. And notice the options, maintains gains, improves. So try to circle one of those three and then have a value. So with Donald Trump, it might be improves the economy, improves national security, improves health care. And I had the same for these undecided voters. For Hillary Clinton and Johnson's baby shampoo maintains their infant's health, improves their infant's comfort and improves the experience of bath time. So the value is some object, something that people want to gain or keep. Anyone want to share one or more of their values? John?

Okay, I'm evaluating copywriters, writers who are writing their emails themselves. And the values are improve email sales, gain subscribers, and maintain customer retention.

So if you ask them, those things would resonate with them?

Yes.

Okay, great. Anyone else want to share value? So audiences, married fathers with successful Jobs.

Who are regularly drinking, they're evaluating their alcohol consumption and the values.

Improves their health, improves their success, productivity and improves their relationships. Good. And by the way, that's. You see how that's an improvement over the one we talked about before? Yeah. So this, the specificity of the subject and the audience they want to pursue and a man. Or that. So it's not just their values in general. It's not just, oh, you know, they like, they like sex and they like food and whatever else they like. It's in this domain, in this area. What are the things that they value? So I think that that captures it. All right, everyone, good. So we got these. Okay, great. So then the next one is disvalues. So what are the things that they want to. That they want to fight and also that you want to help them fight. I should have said this before. With the values that it has to be something that you want to help them with. So it could be that you have an audience and certain things that they want, you don't want to help them with. Or for instance, even with the audience you're mentioning, maybe sometimes they want help concealing, if they screw up, concealing it from their family, but you don't want to help them with that. So it's important that this is aligned with what you want, not just, oh, you're serving them blindly. Okay, so disvalues is what do they want to fight that you also want to help them fight. Can anyone, if it's helpful to you at all, just to do this profiling part, in what way is it helpful? I'm curious because we're going to go to the ideas part and if it's not, that's fine. The ideas part should be helpful.

Well, I think it helps with your messaging.

I mean, if you're going to like I've got here, I'm putting a five minute video together.

So I'm like, okay, this helps me just really think through my messaging so I can, you know, do the objection.

And the, you know, take away the objection.

All those things right inside versus trying to shoot from the hip, you know, great.

Nick.

I think this would also help, let's say if, if it's a client intake.

Form to find out more about them and yeah. What their challenges are here.

Yeah, you modify it and get.

It's almost that. That way position.

Yeah.

Especially with the values and what. That. What they want to decrease and. Or avoid.

Perfect. All right, let's go to the next part. With Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, we have a Voids war or terrorist attack, decreases the influence of Russia in the Middle east and decreases illegal immigration. I think it's important that at least this is the demographic they're really fighting for in the election. It's important that so far in this exercise, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are exactly the same, Right? They're exactly the same in the audience they're trying to persuade. The audience has, in this case, has the same values, has the same disvalues. And so it's really instructive to think of it that way. I think in the last several months, I've just been obsessed with the issue of how do I present. How do I present my opponent's arguments as well as possible? How do I understand them as clearly as possible? And when I here's what's really changed for me with a podcast I'm working on. When I have a guest, how do I have them answer the opponent's objections? Because I don't want to. Just. Most podcasts are just these affirmation sessions where it's just, oh, you ask a question and you answer it, and I act like, oh, you know what you're talking about because you're here. But there are five other people with different views who aren't there. So what I want to know from my guest is why should I believe you? And what are his views or her views, and why are they wrong? And if you can summarize their views for me better than they can, and you can convince me of them and then explain to me how they deviate from reality, then I'm impressed. The same thing is true here. So what I want to do with the misconceptions is name the three most compelling misconceptions they've heard about advancing their values. So these all fit together. So not just misconceptions in general, it's misconceptions about advancing their values in this area of life. And it has. This terminology is very deliberate. Wrong action, object, wrong reason. So the idea is that any idea about action at a misconception, you can say, I'm taking this action about this object that will advance my values because of this reason. So with Hillary Clinton, or rather Donald Trump's view of the misconception is voting for Hillary Clinton will advance their values because Hillary Clinton has real experience growing an economy with her husband Bill. Voting for Hillary Clinton will advance their values because Hillary Clinton, as former Secretary of State, has real experience dealing responsibly with foreign policy. Vote for Hillary Clinton because Hillary Clinton knows how to improve our health care system, not blow it up and start from scratch. So notice that's, that's thinking. Notice those are pretty plausible arguments that this hypothetical Donald Trump architect is thinking of. And then if you look at Hillary Clinton's one vote for Donald Trump. He'll advance our values because he'll fix the economy using his experience succeeding in business and witnessing government corruption firsthand. Vote for Donald Trump. He'll protect us by embracing America's superpower status, the heart of our security not conceded to Russia in the Middle East. And then he'll fix health care with a fundamentally superior health care plan to replace the disaster of Obamacare. So these things should resonate as, oh, you've heard these, and they're some of the stronger arguments they make. And imagine you're making this argument, you're arguing your position and you understand those positions, you're much more powerful, or you'll discover you're wrong and then vote for the other person, maybe. So it has to be the best version of an idea. And then the Johnson's baby shampoo is, you know, the misconceptions are using any shampoo will advance their values because all shampoos are the same. Accepting their infants crying. So they don't. They're not usually going to be the same like that vote for accepting their infant crying will advance their values or protect them because all shampoos cause pain on contact and therefore cause infants to cry and then wash their baby's hair with water because it'll reduce screaming and probably not cause a problem, even though you won't get totally clean. Okay, we have to wrap up soon, so let me just make sure we go to the next. All right, let's go to the clarity thing, which is the major one before next action. So what you've done so far is, you know your audience, you know the area, you know the values and disvalues, you know what they're going after, you know what ideas they've been exposed to about how to advance their values and avoid their disvalues. Now and only now you're ready to think about, okay, what's your idea? And there are two aspects here. One is what is your fundamental idea? So if you had to put it into one idea, what's the fundamental action that will advance their values? And then what's your fundamental reason? So what's the fundamental action? Always includes an object. And then what's the fundamental reason? And then there are going to be three, three crucial aspects of this. And when it says object, it's the Same object. So here you're going to have repetition and they're going to be three different explanations. So with Johnson's baby Shampoo, the fundamental action is use specially formulated baby shampoo. Now why did I not say use Johnson's baby shampoo?

Self serving?

Yeah, it sounds self serving and it's not explanatory. Right. We want to be as causal as we can to explain the cause and effect. So every product is really just an embodied idea. You're saying, here's some cause and effect that I've discovered in the world that's embodied in my product. So it's much better to say, oh, here's this approach than just oh, my name on it. So use specially formulated baby shampoo will advance their values because it cleans hair while eliminating the causes of tears. So that's the fundamental. And then the aspects are the three ways in which it does this. Especially formula baby shampoo uses low irritation cleansers called surfactants, dilutes the cleaners to make them imperceptive, but still effective, has a Ph of 7, the same as water. So it's a fundamental because. And then three aspects of the because. But really make sure to use the. When it says object, use the same object. That's really important. Or so with, you know, vote for Hillary Clinton. She has the real experience and season judgment we need to move forward as a country. And then real experience growing an economy, real experience with foreign policy and knows how to improve our health care system. So Hillary Clinton is the object in the action. Vote for Hillary Clinton. Specially formulated baby shampoo is the object in used specially formulated baby shampoo. And then trump, you'll see just the opposite.

One day when I was coming home from school, this is in New Jersey, I'm walking home and I hear the sound of music kind of blaring from my house, which was not unusual. My mom likes to dance. As I got closer, the sound was coming from an unusual orientation, like high up. I look up and I see my mom perched on the top of our two story house very precariously. And you gotta get. I'm a little kid. So I'm looking at my mom on the edge of the roof and I'm like, mom, what are you doing? Are you okay? And my mom yells down, she's like, re, I'm fine, don't worry about it. The roof had a leak. I called the roofer, he said it was gonna be like 500 bucks. I said, screw that, we've got some asphalt in the garage. I'm Gonna fix it myself. That's my mom. Another day, I come home and I go in the house, and I hear the sound of this little radio coming from the back of the house. So I walk to the back of the house and turns out she's in the bathroom. And I push open the door, and there's, like, pipes sticking out of the wall and there's, like, dust in the air, and there's just. It looked like a bomb went off. And I was like, mom, are you okay? What's going on? She's like, maria, I'm fine. She's like, I'm just retiling the bathroom. I saw that a couple of tiles had cracks in. I didn't want the bathroom to get all moldy, so I'm doing it over now. You have to understand, I'm a child of the 80s, right? So this is like pre Internet. This is pre Google. This is pre YouTube, pre TikTok, pre everything. And my mom only has a high school education. So one day I come home from school. It was a fall, it was around this time, and it was getting dark out. And as I approached the house, it was completely dark and completely silent. And for an Italian American home, that's not good news. So I walk inside and I had that feeling that something was wrong. And I didn't hear anything. And I'm thinking to myself, like, where's my mom? Where's the Tropicana orange? And then all of a sudden, I hear these little clicks and clacks coming from the kitchen. So I tiptoe in, and I see my mom, and she's hunched over the kitchen table. It looks like an operating room. There's, like, little screwdrivers, there's electrical tape, and in countless little pieces is a complete little dismantled Tropicana orange radio. And I was like, mom, that's your favorite thing. Are you okay? What happened? Did it break? And she looks at me and she's like, re, it's fine. She's like, the antenna was a little off and the tuner was a little not working. So I'm fixing it. And so I sat there, my arms crossed, watching her work her magic. And I finally thought to ask the question I should have always asked, which was this. Hey, mom, how do you know how to do so many different things that you've never done before and nobody's showing you how to do it? And she puts down her little screwdriver and she cocks her eyes. She's like, ri. What are you talking about? This is no big Deal. You can take anything that you want to figure out in life and you can fix it. If you just roll up your sleeves, you get in there and do it. Everything is figureoutable. And I was like. And I just let that phrase wash over me. And I kept repeating it in my head. I was like, everything is figureoutable. Everything is figureoutable. Like, holy shit. Everything is figureoutable. And so that little phrase took root in my soul. And from that moment on, it has become the driving force in my life. From healing and getting myself out of an abusive relationship when I was in high school, to figuring out how to help pay for college, to getting every job I've ever had, from being on Wall street, to bartending in some of the top restaurants in Manhattan, to like, selling glow sticks at mega clubs. You know, anything I could possibly do, I just had weird oddball jobs. I was a Nike elite dance athlete. I created tons of fitness videos. And then eventually, you know, pulled everything together to have the business that I have today. And so this phrase, everything is figureoutable. It's so incredibly simple, but it's so incredibly transformative. And so I feel like if you're willing to try it on and willing to allow it to drive your life, there is nothing, there is no problem, there is no circumstance, there is nothing you could possibly face that you won't find some way to transform or transcend. Now, if I may, I actually remember talking to Joe about this when this book was coming out. And he actually said something to me, and this is like, why we're really good friends, because we're really honest with each other. And he said, I don't know if you remember this. You're like, marie, really, like, everything is figureoutable. Like, that's a super lofty promise. You know, what about addiction? What about death? What about life changing illness or diagnosis? And that's an awesome question. Let me tell you my response to that. So I've been talking about this idea literally for probably 15 to 20 years now, sprinkling linen. And so I've had the opportunity to hear a lot of different responses to how people interact with this idea. And the first time I shared it publicly besides my own audience was on Oprah's stage. So she had an event called Super Soul Sessions. And it was kind of like a TED Talk that I gave for her and her audience. And then she shared it with a wider world. And so I got an email one day from a woman named Jen. And Jen said, marie, I had watched your Oprah talk It was actually an idea that my mom had been trying to instill in me. And I showed my mom. We both loved it and we were so on board. And then everything changed. My beautiful mom, who meant everything to me, got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And all of a sudden, nothing seemed figureoutable. But she said when I stepped back and took a deeper look, I realized something extraordinary. What I could figure out was how to get nursing care for my mom. And we live in a rural area. What I could figure out was how to find foods that she could actually tolerate. And then this is the big one. I could figure out how to get medical equipment so my mom, who wanted to stay in her house for the last of her days, could spend the last five weeks exactly where she would want it to be, with her family and surrounded by her friends. And she said it made me realize that, yes, indeed, everything is figureoutable, even the things that seem so difficult. And then the last thing I'll say before I go back to the. Because I think it's important to have a mental framework to work with this idea. There's actually three rules to the figureoutable framework if you want to write this down. So rule number one, all problems or dreams are figureoutable. Rule number two, if a problem or a dream isn't figureoutable, it might be a law of nature, kind of like gravity. If a problem. If you don't care enough to solve a particular problem or a dream, you have to go back to rule number one. So essentially, here's how it works. All problems or dreams are figureoutable if you care enough. And that's the big one. Does that make sense? So if you don't care enough about it, you're not gonna spend the time, the effort, or the energy to go after it.

Am I, Tammy?

Yep. Okay.

I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you wanna get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you wanna watch some more videos that'll be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead, you're over here. Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you.

Watch em.