5 REASONS Why You're NOT MANIFESTING Success... | Tony Robbins & Lewis Howes

Look where I am right now. Because I wouldn't assemble the story that my past equals my future. The past only equals your future if you live there. If you're using a rear view mirror to guide yourself, you're gonna crash. So what you've been through is horrific. What you've been through is unjust. I'm on your side. But if you hang on to it.

Was there ever a moment where you didn't unconditionally love yourself? And if so, and if so, when did that shift where you stopped that and you started saying, okay, I appreciate myself because of my contribution and my service and who I am.

What was that shift?

I don't think it was ever, I.

Just didn't love myself. There were times obviously, be angry with yourself or frustrated with yourself or think, I'm not doing enough. I mean, I can remember my birthdays, to be honest with you, probably up till my 40th birthday, including my 40th birthday, you have a birthday with a zero on it once you're over past 30, 35, sometimes five years on it as well. People look at their life differently culturally. And I used to think it was bull. But sure enough, I would do it. I remember turning 40 and I was really, really unhappy. I was like, Jesus, I've not done enough. I've not helped enough people. I know tens of millions of people at that point already had done all over the earth in 100 plus countries at that point, but it was still kind of stuck in my head. So I would earn the love by over delivering, change somebody's life. I don't get it because somebody says, oh, I love you, Tony. I mean, I appreciate that or, oh, you're the greatest. It's got to be my standard. My standard is higher than their standard for me. So when I get up and someone's going to kill themselves and they're suicidal and boom, turn around, they're no longer not going to kill themselves, but they're transformed. Their life is there. That's when I go, okay, now we've hit the center of what I'm made for. Now I deserve to feel this euphoric feeling within myself and appreciation. And even then I still know it's God coming through me. I don't have the delusion it's just me. But I think sometime after 40, I finally saw the stupidity of it. I accumulated enough that I looked at life with fresh eyes. And I could say by the time I turned 60 a year ago, I noticed it was interesting because my birthday, I didn't have an ounce of it. I was just like, you know, how could I at this stage of my life when I've had the privilege of serving so many humans in so many contexts, you know, from turning around, you know, guys are going to kill themselves with PTSD to, helping kids turn around, to getting kids off cocaine or adults to, you know, helping people build multi-billion dollar businesses from nothing. And when I lived this long, I can't go by without hearing half a dozen stories a day or a dozen stories a day from people telling me how something I did changed their life. So it's not that I'm so smart now, it's just I stacked it. By the way, though, stacking is the way you can do things. Most of us stack the negative. If you are really angry, it's not usually because of just the moment. It's that it happened again. You know, it's like if you've ever lost it or overreacted to your kid or to a friend or a business or even within yourself, it's because it happened again. We hit this one, two, three, many point and then our nervous system overreacts. But what I've learned is you can stack the good. And, for example, if you're, if you go into a state of really strong anger for more than five minutes, your immune system is suppressed between an hour and a half to two hours. That's a physiological fact. But no one had done any study. I started stacking good, like, okay, let me stack a dozen great memories, feel them, see them, experience them. And I felt this biochemical change that didn't just last a half hour, an hour, or 10 minutes. It went on for a day or two. And so I think I've learned to stack the good. So just having the experience is not enough. You got to stack the good to be able to appreciate it. But I think just come back to the main point here from my perspective.

Which It could be completely.

It's just my perspective. So I want to point that out. I think the more you find unconditional love for others, the easier it is to find in yourself. And I think the focus is serving and loving. And that's what will get to the point where you start doing it. But if you want to speed it up, stack all the good you've done, you'll feel great about yourself.

I already know all the comments that have come through, thousands of comments telling me, but what about my family that's toxic? What about my partner who's toxic? And how do I love someone unconditionally when they don't respect me? I can't trust what about situations like that?

All those reactions are natural human reactions from ego. Because it's all about you, me, me, me, what I'm not getting, what I'm not doing, and that's why you're in pain. And so, I'm not telling you like I haven't done this. I've done it too in the past, but it's an old pattern I don't really do anymore. And it used to affect me. Now, not a dominant one, I wouldn't have become who I become. Early in my life, I developed this belief that life is calling not to give me something, life is calling for me to deliver things, for me to bring something to life. And I felt the joy that came from not getting but giving. And I got hooked on that core pattern and then the pattern of learning so I'd have something to give, which I know one of the things I respect about you, Louis, is that you have that same pattern in you. You're always trying to learn more because underneath it all, you also want to give it. You want it for you but you want to share it, right? And so those patterns help me not be in what they're not giving me. And all this language, language, today people don't understand the power of their language, like toxic. What the hell are you talking about? You've been reading too much social media and thinking about yourself, or somebody raised you to constantly judge everybody else. We live in a culture now where people, you know, you're evil or you're like me.

That's basically how it is, right?

The whole world, everybody else is immoral unless they do what you do, think what you think, experience what you think. I mean, being a liberal, I was a liberal, right? Being a liberal growing up meant, I would fight for your ability to say and believe whatever you want different than me. Today, now everybody wants everybody to think the same thing, otherwise they're evil or otherwise they could hurt me. Whatever happens, sticks and stones will break your bones, and words will never hurt me. We have this whole thing that words are evil, words are action, and all it does is make you incredibly weak as a human being, and you're more than that. We all are more than that. But you know what? Like a kid that's never broken their bones, deathly afraid of breaking the bone. But if you're a kid and you're rough and tumble, you broke multiple bones and they heal, you don't have any fear of it. There's so many kids that have been raised to be safe and secure every moment. Anything that's insecure or unsafe they don't want to be a part of, including language. And what it does is make you incredibly weak and fearful. And that's why there's so many people that are abundant, that are angry all the time. 'Cause they're angry 'cause they're not growing. So don't get me wrong, I know some people are not a good influence. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying you're more than somebody's influence unless you obsess about it every moment and make them wrong so you can make yourself feel superior morally, psychologically or spiritually. That's bullshit. Stop the pattern. We've all done it. Catch yourself. 'Cause if you want joy, happiness and freedom in an extraordinary life, it will not come from blame. Never. There's no pride that comes from blame. I don't mean fake pride where you make up to feel good.

I'm talking about real pride.

Pride is something you earn. Like people tell me, oh, I have no self-esteem because my parents used to say this or they'd say that. I'd say, that's such bullshit. I'm not saying it's bullshit. They didn't say that. I said, it's bullshit. That's why you don't have self-esteem. Self-esteem does not come from what people say about you. Self-esteem comes from what you experience about yourself. See, someone tell your whole life you're a piece of crap and a part of you go, you,'re full of it. I'm going to show you. Lots of people have done that. They never bought it. Or someone tell you're beautiful your whole life. You go, I'm not really beautiful. So what people tell you doesn't matter at all. It's what you stack. It's what you assemble. It's what you create. It's the habit of what you put in your head. And today I don't blame you because we got a whole culture that's always blaming somebody else for something in their life. But blame is not a strategy for pride. That's why you listen to these blaming people. They're all angry all the time. Listen, if I wanted to blame, I grew up in an environment, I didn't even share it to my mom past, and even then I didn't share. I grew up in a pretty rough environment. My mom was a beautiful soul, but when she drank alcohol and she mixed it with prescription drugs, it was a different creature and it was a violent creature. And I have a younger brother five years younger and a younger sister seven years younger. and my mom would get nuts, and I didn't want them to get hurt. So I was 5'1 in high school. She'd grab me by the hair and smash me against the wall till I bled. Now, I never shared this, and I'm not denigrating her in any way. I only shared it, like, four or five years after she died, because I was talking to a group of kids in New York City, all without fathers, 80% African-American, about 20% Hispanic out of their group, roughly, No white kids, and I'm talking about your biography is not your destiny. And it doesn't matter what you've been through, what you decide now is what's going to control your life, what you decide each day going forward is going to decide your life. And I look at them seeing me, I can read their minds. This big, tall, white, rich guy is going to tell me biography doesn't matter. So I said, you, let me tell you my story. And I told them the whole story way more than I'm telling you. And every one of them was crying their eyes out when they were done. I said, Look where I am right now. Because I wouldn't assemble the story that.

My past equals my future.

The past only equals your future if you live there. If you're using a rear view mirror to guide yourself, you're gonna crash. So what you've been through is horrific. What you've been through is unjust.

I'm on your side.

But if you hang on to it, you have no future and you have no one to blame but yourself. And these kids, to their credit, man, they just responded to the challenge 'cause they first cried their eyes out hearing all the stories. My mom would think I was lying and I wasn't lying. She poured liquid soap down my throat till I threw up. and I wasn't lying. So it's not the physical abuse, it's the fact that this is the person you love most that's trying to hurt you that messes with your head. So I could have been messed up for life, but I didn't. Because something inside me says, I'm responsible for this life. And part of that is because I started reading when I was 13, 14, biographies of people, the greatest people in history, and reading their lives and finding out, guess what? Their lives were far from perfect. Some of them had worse lives than I had. But when you have no reference and all you do is go online, you talk to other people making everybody else toxic and I'm like this and they didn't do that, then you get to have the s*** life just like those other people. Why are they online so much? Because they don't have a life.

Right?

Don't be one of those. Free yourself from the chains of your past. I'm not saying your past doesn't matter, but listen, my mother, I tell people this all the time and it's the truth. If my mother had been the mother I wanted to be, the mother she should have been, I would not be the man I'm proud to be today. Because I had to become a practical psychologist way before any schooling, figure out when's she going to go in the mood? How do I change her state? How do I protect her from the kids? I mean, it was felt life and death, and it was to some extent. So I developed skills at such a young age that when I learned things, I just added to my skills, but I had a core sense of certainty that I could turn anybody around because it started with my mother. And thank God for her. And she encouraged me in so many ways. She did so many great things. And she loved me, even though it didn't look like it at times. So, but if your parents, if the people around you said all the things you thought they should have, if they had just not been toxic, if they'd encouraged you, you wouldn't have any muscle. And right now, you don't have any muscle because you're using that as an excuse if you're thinking that. And I'm not Attacking you brothers and sisters. I'm calling to you because I know you're more. Otherwise I'd just keep my mouth shut. You've been hypnotized by a culture of weakness. Now having said that, I'll say one last thing. I know you've got other questions, but it's so important what you asked. Yes, there are people that you don't want to hang out with that will not serve you. But then move on. Don't sit there and talk about it constantly. Don't waste your time. And you say, but what if it's family, Tony? Mine was family too. You learn to grow. You go, there in my life, if someone can get your goat, if someone can piss you off, if someone can make you feel less than, that's God coming to you saying, grow. You need some spiritual growth. There's got to be some change in your perception, your belief, your emotions, your spiritual look of life. So that can't happen anymore. And when it happens, like at 61, I've been through so many of those things, and I like to do things in mass. I took on big challenges so I'd.

Have to grow more.

But then life throws them at you too. When they come, you just go, okay, it's going to have me until I grow. What needs a shift in me so that it no longer has an impact? But you know, Jim Rohn used to say, my original teacher used to say, Tony, what happens if I've got a cup of coffee here? And he'd say, what if your worst enemy drops sugar in your coffee? What's going to happen? And I go, well, you don't have sweet coffee. And he goes, what if your best friend, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your loved one drops one drop of strychnine?

I said, you,'d be dead.

He goes, that's right. Life is both sugar and strychnine, so watch your coffee. His whole thing was stand guard at the door of your brain. But some people take it and go, oh my God, you can kill me. It was a metaphor. These people are not so toxic. They're toxic because you give them energy. So if your mom's crazy and constantly criticizing you and it drives you nuts, just go, that's my mom. That's her way of showing love. And I find a new perspective and no matter what she does, just stay in a beautiful state and love on her and think, boy, think of all that she cares and feels for, all that she's frustrated in life, all that she's she's going through that's made her this way. And thank God I don't have to go through this. I can love her. It's like your growth is the only limit to your happiness. If you're not happy, you're not growing in some area. And usually it's a place where you're blaming, you're pointing the finger. I don't care if it's government, don't get me wrong, people can be unfair, unjust, that's for sure happens. But you can't control that. You can't make it not happen. What you have to do is become stronger than any of it so you're free. Freedom comes from growth. Freedom does not come from control. Because control is an illusion. You can't control everybody. No matter how hard you try, you can't control what they think or feel. And not everybody's going to be fair and just. And you, my dear friends, and I have not always been fair and just. Whether we admit it or not, it's just the nature of being a being, a human being. But we can make the largest pattern fair and just and loving and powerful and serving and growing. until it becomes the dominant thing inside you. And then you experience life as being great, not your great. Life's great because you're living a great path.

It seems like what I'm seeing and hearing from a lot of people that this past year everything has fallen apart for them. Their health, their relationships, their finances, their mission or purpose, and these, their spiritual awareness, like every area of life has been in breakdown mode for some people. Not everyone, some people have had incredible lives and have stepped up to the occasion and broken through on all these things. but I'm seeing a pattern of a lot of people breaking down in many areas. Hypothetical scenario, let's say you could only focus on one thing to get you started. You only have the time and energy to focus on one of these areas. Your health, your relationships are all breaking down, your finances are failing everywhere. Where should people lean into first to kind of create that foundation so that everything else can start to rise as well?

I think before you answer what to.

Do, you're going to answer why you're there.

It is not because of the pandemic. I remember when 9/11 happened and people tell, oh my God, my life was destroyed because of 9/11. And there were people in the same building who turned their life around, grew spiritually closer to their family, made their businesses larger, and the same building burned down. I know in my case, 9/11 comes, if you can imagine, I'm fortunate to have now more than 80 companies in all these different industries. Obviously, you know, I've done pretty darn well by most people's standards of business and life. But my core mission is what I do for a living. It's why I'm here talking to you right now. It's getting people to be free and alive and have the level of fulfillment that they deserve to have. I know they desire, but I also believe they deserve to have it. To deserve to have it, you got to do certain things, right? And so you're not in the place of being overweight because you lost your job. So stop the bullsh*t blame. Blame is not a strategy for a meaningful life. Blame is not a strategy for greatness. So you've got to resolve that number one. And then your question was, what's the one thing to focus on if you only focus on one? I think it's smart to focus on one thing primarily. Focus on too many can be overwhelming. Other people, it's good to focus on multiple things. It depends on your personality. So I wouldn't presuppose. But then the answer would be whichever thing you're most desirous of changing. Whatever thing is giving you the most pain. So if it's your relationship, I go full force on that. Now in the world we're in today, you know, you don't usually have the privilege of going, okay, I want to work on just being happy. Well, I can train you to be happy while hell's breaking loose. You can sit in this chair and be totally euphoric. But if you do that in a Western culture, people come and take your furniture, right? So you probably have to work on both your business or financial side and some personal side. I would be working on both. And to me, the way to attack that, if you're not sure which area.

Is to start with the body.

And I know you can relate to this, Louis, because you and I both share this in common. It's like, I always teach physiology first, as you well know. If you change the body, you'll change the emotions. If you change the emotions, you'll change your decisions, you'll change the quality of your life. Because the quality of life is your emotions. It's not what you're getting. You have a billion dollars and commit suicide. People have done it, right? You can have beautiful relationships and commit suicide.

You can have people loving you and.

Be sad all the time. Our pattern of emotion is our home. And you have to upgrade your home. You have to train it. And one way to train it is the emotion comes from the way you move, the way you breathe, the way you speak. So if I said to your listeners, there's a depressed person behind the curtain over here and I'll give $100,000 to their favorite charity if they had to describe their body, their posture and they're depressed, you tell me. I'll just use you as the example. What does that person look like?

They're slouched down. They're looking down at their feet. They're not looking upward. Their shoulders are over.

Are they breathing full or shallow, do you think?

They're shallow.

Are they talking fast or slow?

They're talking, if they're depressed, they're probably talking fast because they're not calm.

Well, no, that's usually stressed.

Depressed is different than stressed.

They're probably talking low volume, slower than.

And all those physical characteristics change your biochemistry towards this feeling of being depressed, and in a depressed state, you won't do anything. When I used to be depressed, I don't get it anymore, I just took it out of my life. I even took the language of it out of my life. Because the words you create create a biochemical response. But when I did that decades ago, because I was like having those thoughts like, is there a reason to still be here? That kind of crazy in your head. I got out of it by using anger originally. I'd much like sometimes if somebody's really sad or depressed, I'll make them angry and be like, what's he doing? He's making them angry. Because anger is much more resourceful than depressed. From anger, I can get you to laughter. I can get you to taking action. so, and then gradually I got where I didn't need anger. It was about growth. It was about contribution. It was about meaning. So there's like stages to go through. But to answer your question, they should work on both their business side of their life and personal, one of each. And in order for either one of those to work, you need to be in a strong emotional state. And if you start with your body, like, you know, I start every morning in my cold water, start every morning with my workout. I started every morning on feeding my mind, right? So there's certain things you got to do physically so you're strong enough to remember the truth. Because remember, fear is physical. you feel your throat or your gut. So it's courage. Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you're strong enough you push through in spite of the fear, right? And courage feels different in the body. So when you go lift or you go for a sprint or a strong run or you jump in that freezing water, when you push your mind to go beyond what's comfortable, you feel a strength inside you and that strength will help you to change your body, your emotions, your relationships, whatever. But then the other thing I have to say is model someone who's successful. Don't just do this shit. by trial and error. Like find somebody who has what you want, ideally maybe more than one person, two or three, and see what are they doing different than you in their relationship? What do they believe different than you about relationship? If it's their body, what are they doing different?

They're not lucky.

They're doing things differently. You might be slightly biochemically different, but there's patterns there that you can see. And so instead of learning by trial and error, which can take decades you may never learn, Jim Rohn taught me success leaves clues, man. Find someone who's got what you want, study what they do, every aspect of it, and then add yourself to it. And that's the pathway to speed of transformation. So now, like, you know, I've done it. I'm not the only person. There's so many companies that went from worse off than they'd ever been in their history to the best off because they found a way to pivot. But that required a psychological piece of not blame. So maybe it's time for you to think for yourself. and model what works instead of just what you're told. That's something to consider for yourself.

You've shown that you have the financial freedom, but you didn't always have financial freedom. In fact, when you were growing up, you were really poor, right?

Extremely. Extremely poor. We had no money for Thanksgiving for food. It's part of why last year I fed, I started feeding when I was 17. I started feeding families because I was fed when I was 11. and I've had two families, literally, and it was so moving. I said, I'm gonna double it. I went to four and then to eight, and then it was like a game to see if I could reach more people. And then I started with some of my employees, and then eventually I got to million people a year, then two million. Then I started matching my foundation with two million. So for 12 years, I've had four million people a year. And then when I was writing this book, I'm interviewing, if you can imagine, all these people start with nothing and are multi-billionaires at the same time, Congress cut food stamps called Snap Now, but it was food stamps originally by $8 billion. So it's equivalent to give you an idea of every family that's being supported giving up all their meals one week out of every month for 12 months. So I decided I wanted to do something about it. So I got a $5 million advance for the book. I gave all the money to Feeding America. And then I said, if I want to feed 100 million people, what I got to do is I run a much bigger check. And now I'm so, we did 102 million people last year, but now I'm going to do 100 million again this year. And I got plan to feed a billion people over the next 10 years. So, it's so full circle from where I began. It's crazy and it's an incredible privilege to be able to make a difference like that.

Why is it important to be thinking of giving and contribution in order to generate wealth? When people say that, well, I don't.

Have much to give.

I'm barely making enough to pay my rent, my food. How can I have the mindset of.

Giving in order to build wealth? What would you say? It's the only... you never get beyond scarcity. You've got to start beyond it. You've got to plant your feet. And, you know, so many people say, well, when I'm rich, I'll give some money. If you won't give a dime out of a dollar, I can promise you, you're not going to give 10 million out of 100 million, not a trillion years. So, if you, but if you start, what I always believe is it transforms you. When you, I had a group of kids that I went to, like, when I was 31 years old, I was invited to this grade school in Houston, Texas. and I each grade did a little mini assembly for me of what they how they used my stuff, you know, at that year. And at the end, I was really emotional. And I was like, you guys asked me to come inspire you. You've inspired me. And so the sixth graders have only done it for one year. And I said, I'm gonna sponsor your college educations. I had no idea I was gonna do it. I didn't have the money to do it. I was 31 years old. I was doing well, but not that well. And I said, I'm gonna pay for your college education. I said, Here are the rules of the game. I just made it up while I was right there. I said, you, got to keep it B average. I'll get you mentors. There's no excuse not to be above average. You got to not use drugs, you not get yourself in prison, and you got to give me 20 hours of community service a year. Wow. And the reason I did that is I don't have a college education, but I knew if I got these kids who thought they needed something to be the ones to go give something, it would change their identity. it would change their life more than college. And ironically, I think we had 70 kids originally. I lost 95% of kids I was gonna lose. I lost the first year, like 30 kids. And the reason was their parents did not want them to have to do community service. They said they should be receiving, they shouldn't have to work. And it was just staggering to me. But the ones that did it, I mean, some have PhDs now, went through that process. So I really believe that the secret to living is giving is corny as it sounds. I had an experience where I was driving on the 57 freeway not far from here in San Gabriel Valley and it was midnight. I was driving my 1968 Volkswagen Baja Bug and I was been in business for a year, year and a half and I was working my guts out and I was so frustrated because I always say that most people overestimate what they can do in a year and they underestimate what they can do in a decade or two or three, right? So I'd been working for this year and a half as hard as I can work and nothing was working at the level I wanted. I was so frustrated, I was mad with myself, I was mad with the environment, I was feeling overwhelmed and stressed. It's midnight, I'm exhausted and all of a sudden this thought hit me and I literally pulled over on the side of the road and I've always kept physical journals. I still have the journal to this day and I wrote on this one whole page the secret the living is giving. and I sat there and I cried because I just realized my life for the last year had gotten focused on why isn't it working instead of how do I give more? And I made that shift and it was one of the most important shifts in my entire life. And for probably a year, things started to get better. And then, you know, you're in business, you make mistakes, you know, to, you know, as a young, young kid, and I found myself all of a sudden in a 400 square foot bachelor apartment. lost the progress that I'd made. And I was so broke that I wrote about this at the end of my book, because I was trying to think, how do I get this thought across to somebody? And the most seminal moment for me was I had, I don't know, 21, 22, whatever it was, to my name. I'm living in a foreign square for a bachelor apartment. I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm watching Luke and Laura on General Hospital. I mean, I was a mess. I was a total mess. And I realized I've not paid my rent and I'm out of money and I don't have any prospects for some new cash in the short term. How am I even going to eat? So I decided to go to this all-you-can-eat salad bar that they had around the corner of this place called El Torito. Still there, Marina Del Rey. And I lived in Venice, so it was about a three mile walk. I didn't take the car because I couldn't pay for parking, you know, for the gas. And I walked there and I went in and I had this meal right basically loaded up for the winter. I ate plates of food, tacos and salads and everything else. And while I was sitting there, there was this little boy that came in. He opened the door and he was wearing this little vest, this little suit, and he, I don't know, probably nine years old, something like that, you know, eight, nine, ten. And he held the door open and in walks behind him, this beautiful woman who was clearly his mother. And so, you know, I definitely took it in. And then he sat down. I pulled out the chair for her and he was just so attentive to his mother. I mean, he was just so with her that honestly, I was moved. And so I finished my meal and then I got up and I paid the bill and I was like $6 in those days, you know, for all you can eat salad bar or whatever it was. And so I had whatever was left, 17, 18, $19. And I walked over to this little boy before I left and I said, hi. And I introduced myself. I said, I'm Tony and he told me his name was Paul or whatever it was. I don't remember his name. this little boy, I said, Paul, I said, you are a class act. I said, I saw I held the door open for your woman. I saw you pull up the chair for her. I said, taking her out to lunch like that, that is really cool. And he goes, well, she's my mom. And I said, that's even more cool. And I said, taking her to lunch? He goes, well, I didn't take her to lunch. He goes, you know, whatever. I think he said it was eight or nine. He said, I'm nine years old. I don't have a job yet. And I said, yes, you are taking her to lunch. And I reached in my pocket and I all the money I had left, whatever it was, 17, 18, 19. And I dropped it in front of him. I had no plan to do this. It wasn't, like, manufactured. I wasn't trying to impress this woman. And he looked up at me, like, shocked. And he goes, I can't take that. And I said, sure you can. He said, how come? I said, because I'm bigger than you are.

Right?

And he laughed like crazy. And I didn't even say another word. I just walked out the door. Didn't even look at his mom. You didn't get her number, huh? No, I didn't get a number. And I gotta tell you, it was the most powerful. whole experience of my life because I didn't walk home. I kind of flew home and I should have been like, what is the matter with you? You have no money for food. You get the last little pennies you have left. But I had no fear. I had no scarcity. And I got home and I realized what I'd done. I was like, I have no money now. I have no money, nothing. I was trying to conserve by going there, you know? And I don't know that. I just, I've worked on a plan. I'll figure this out. And the next day I got the old snail mail and came in around like noon and I pull out this letter and there's a young man that I had loaned $1,200 to and he had not paid me back and I was desperate for cash. I probably called him 10 times trying to track him down, not a single response. And I was so hurt and pissed. And here's the letter from this guy saying, I'm really sorry. I know you've been trying to reach me. I've been avoiding you and here's the money you owe and I'm gonna give you some interest as well. So I got at that point that was like more money than anything and so once again I'm sitting there tears rolling down my face. I'm an emotional character and I just thought to myself, you know, why did this happen? And I chose to believe, I don't know if it's true but I chose to believe that it's because I let go of trying to just take care of myself. I did what was right. I didn't plan it. I did it spontaneously. I saw it. It felt right to me.

I did it.

And I felt no scarcity. And I can tell you, I've had plenty of tough times. You know, 18 companies and 12, I manage actively. I got 1200 employees on multiple continents. We do 5 billion a year in sales across different Industries now. I mean, it's a different world for me now, but since that, and I've been near bankruptcy. multiple times in companies and things like that. I didn't, I pulled it off always, never went bankrupt. But I faced really tough times. I never went back to that level of scarcity, not since that day. So it's a long way of saying when you have nothing is when you need to give. You know, if you're gonna wait till you think you have something, you're never gonna have something of any size or scope. There's something inside the human psyche that when you do what's right and you get outside of yourself, there's something that'll click for you. And also, you know, tithing is a perfect example. I don't know anybody, regardless of religious belief, who's tied 10% of their income for a decade and not prospered massively. And Sir John Templeton was the first billionaire investor who was the first person who said that to me. He said, Tony, I know you tithe, but he said, tithe more. He said, do more, give more. And he said, you'll receive more, just how it works. And I found to be absolutely true. Really? You continue to give more and more every year? Yeah, well, I was thinking, I'm writing checks for 5 million bucks. I mean, we work on a book for four years and I give up all the profits for it. And then I want to feed more people so I wrote another big check above that.

And now I'm doing it this year, I'm going to do it for the next 10 years.

Amazing.

If you can only have, if you.

Had to strip them all away, you.

Can always use one strategy or one thing to use. What would that be? I wouldn't. Part of why I'm effective is because I don't buy that. I'm always looking for more strategy because one strategy will work with one person, not with another. But philosophically, I would say that the capacity to strengthen and increase your hunger is the one common denominator amongst the most successful people. You know, Richard Branson's a good friend of mine, and Peter Guber, Steve Wynn, all these guys. they've never lost their hunger. Most people are hungry to achieve a certain amount, make a certain amount of money, and then they get comfortable and relax or to get a certain level of fitness and then they relax. But, you know, Richard is as driven today as when he was 16 years old starting. I mean, he's, like, on fire, and he's 65 years old. Warren Buffett is 85 years old. He's as driven today as when, you know, he began the journey. Right. And so people that have that hunger, I believe intelligent. I love people that are wickedly smart. And I work to be wickedly smart by educating and training myself and so forth and training my brain. But intelligent. There's a lot of intelligent people can't fight their way out of a paper bag.

Yeah.

Right. Absolutely. Hunger is the ultimate driver. Because if you're hungry, you can get the strategy, you can get the answer. If you can't model it, you can find it. So hunger modeling would be maybe the next best skill, knowing that success leaves Clues. Like, why reinvent the wheel? If someone took this plane was Mickey's plane, who owns the Miami Heat and owns Carnival, right? I mean, you can learn so much from the man like Mickey is. Blow your mind what this man has been able to do in his life. And so why would I go learn by trial and error and maybe take 10 or 20 years when I could learn from somebody in a few weeks or a few months? for a few hours something that could save me a decade. That's what it is. That's why I read 700 books in the first seven years. Because there's like, if somebody takes 10 years of their life, they pour into a book, and I can read that.

In an hour, two or three or four, why wouldn't I? So how does someone continue to stay hungry?

Or we, you know, rediscover what they're hungry about? The best way is get around where it's better and things will hit you. Say it again. Get around where it's better and things will hit you. Who you spend time with is who you become. So, you know, when I started coaching all these billionaires, you know, there's a part of me that said, I, you know, I'm as smart in these certain areas as they are. I got to step my game up. It's not about the money. It's about how can I take the invisible and make it visible? How can I find a way to add more value to other people to such an extent where economics are not a question whatsoever? And then I can take those economics and do even more where I'm not there. I look at the money as portable power. I can leverage my money to do things for people even when I sleep. I love doing these for people and I work 18-20 hour days still, but it's really nice to have the leverage of that as well.

Sure, sure. In a few sentences, what would you say is your current vision for life? What's the vision you have and what's the legacy that you want to leave behind?

I saw, have you seen Hamilton the play in New York? I hear it's incredible. Everyone's raving about it. You've seen it, right, Nick? Yeah, I Isn't that extraordinary? It's amazing. Yeah, I loved it. I thought it might be a lot of hype, but it was as good as the promise. There's a line in Hamilton that I thought was really interesting. It says, Legacy is planting seeds in a garden that you'll never see. I thought it was really interesting. But so for me, what's the garden.

You want to create you'll never see?

Yeah, for me, it's human lives. For me, it's, I love, my life is about being a blessing in the lives of the people I meet. I hope that whoever decides to watch your video, I hope something here will strike them and they can say, you know, I got to get in proximity or I got to raise my standard or I'm going to go master my damn money. I'm not going to dabble. I hope that it stimulates someone in a way where it becomes a blessing in their life. And my legacy is the lives that I've touched and my legacy is the institutions that I'm building right now that when I'm gone will continue to touch people. My foundation, the work that I'm doing with mentoring with kids, I mean the ability to touch another generation. But my heartfelt prayer every day is be a blessing. And you know, it's interesting. Sometimes you're a blessing just by giving somebody a few moments, just by loving on them, just being with them. Sometimes you're being a blessing because you coach them or you intervene with them. You can be a blessing in so many ways, but that's my daily focus. And it's not what I'm going to.

Build for the long term. It's really what am I going to do right now?

Why is that?

Why do you want to create that legacy?

Again, it's less about legacy than it is about doing what I'm made for while I'm here and maximizing. I want the end to have me, I want to be climbing the mountain when I die, not sliding. So to me, it's about growth and it's about giving. Those are the only things that fulfill human beings. I always tell people, if you want to be happy, it's one word, progress. If you can make progress and if your progress is not only within yourself, but it's actually doing something of value for more than yourself, you're gonna be a damn fulfilled person.

How do you stay grounded in your personal and intimate relationships when everyone wants a piece of you? You sell out events, 10, 20, 30,000 people come to your conferences, pay tens of thousands of dollars, everyone wants to interview you, you're coaching presidents, billionaires, world-class athletes, they call you, they want you, to help them break through the next level. How do you stay grounded in your marriage or with your kids or with, you know, friends? -Yeah.

-My mom's craziness gave me a great gift. I wanted to be a professional athlete and I wanted to be a professional baseball player. And when I got cut from the junior high school team, I figured out I'm in trouble. So, I decided to become a sportscaster and a sports writer. And so, I took typing when I was in junior high school. I was the only boy in an all girl shorthand class so I could capture everything because I wanted to be the best reporter, best sportscaster. I interviewed Howard Cosell and Woody Hayes and Dodgers and Rams. I got a job working for a daily newspaper when I was 13. And then I got this huge break, which was I got these interviews. No one had, like Joe Namath when he was so famous. I got these interviews. And here in LA, KTTV Channel 11, it's now a Fox Channel, they were trying to get viewership. And so they kept trying different kinds SpOrtscasters. They even tried Fanny Fox the stripper. And somebody watched some interviews I did and went, holy shit, this 14-year-old kid, I was about to be 15. He's brilliant. He's getting interviews nobody else is getting, you know? So they called me up and they offered me the job to be the nightly Sportscaster as I was turning 15. And I was out of my mind. Like the dream I was gonna have when I was like 25 or 30 was happening. and, you know, I'm gonna be 15. And my mom said to me, your ego's too big, and if I let you do this, you're gonna even get bigger. And she not only would not let me take the job, she made me quit my job working for the Paragons Bulletin, which was a daily newspaper in Pomona, California, doing sports. And I hated her and I was devastated, but it created a sensitivity inside of me that that along with, I think, watching athletes who would not sign a card for a kid because they were making money selling cards, would make me so angry that I said, I'm never going to be one of those people. And so I'm not. You know, I certainly have plenty of pride in what I've been able to accomplish and people I've been able to help, but I always know I'm just a guy. And while I've worked my ass off, I've also had grace in my life, you know, and it, I think when you achieve things, it comes from incredible obsessive focus, massive action, and figuring out how to execute and do things effectively and it's grace. And I never forget that that's a part of the formula for where my life is today.

Do you think people need a little bit of ego to have that kind of drive and insanity or obsession? Or is it more just belief and a bigger vision?

I think, you know, ego can produce drive, but that kind of ego will make you not be fulfilled. And we all have it until we get a few hammers. Because in the beginning, when you're young, especially a young man, I think even more so than a woman, you're trying to find yourself. You're trying to prove yourself to the world and really you're trying to prove it to yourself. Like in the very beginning for me, I used to attack psychiatrists and psychologists because I care about people so much and because I learned how to handle them in an hour and they're working with someone for seven years and I would just go crazy. But I was also attacking them because I was also defensive because I didn't have a degree and so I figured I'm gonna be on the offer offense. I'm gonna show them. But as I grew up, I realized, holy shit, these people care just as much as I do. Now, I've trained 100,000 therapists around the world with my partner, Chloe Madison. We make films of people's lives, like suicidal people, people who've been through hell, and you get to watch how I do it as I do it, and then you get to see them two years later to know it really worked. Right, right.

Do you ever question choices of decisions you make today? And does everything touch turn into what you want it to be?

No, of course not. No. Failure is part of life. I mean, the difference for me though is I look at failure as a stepping stone to success. It's a speed bump. I know I'm gonna fail, but it's not failure if you learn something. And so, gosh, I've made so many mistakes. I've screwed so many things up, but every time I do, it just becomes a way for me to explain to someone else what it takes. You know, it's like, here's what I've done. I think I have the ability to influence people because I talk about my failures. I talk about all the things that messed me up, but I show people that I didn't let it stop me and you don't let it stop you.

And I think that's really the secret in that area. And if everything you touch was successful.

I wouldn't have to relate to people as much. No, you'll be relate and also it's be total bullshit and everyone know it's bullshit. And also you'd be bored silly. I mean, think about it. If you just said, I want this to happen, I want this to happen, you know, people don't value what they don't fight for. You know, it's like you see kids sometimes in it, you know, your parents will say, you're not gonna value this if you don't work for it. And you're keeping going, oh, value it. Just give it to me.

Right.

But it's true, you know, about things we've worked the hardest for, we value the most. So I think, you know, the purpose of a goal is not getting it anyway. The purpose of a goal, you know, is what, who you become, who you becomes going to make you happier, it's going to make you sad. So I'm not looking for an effortless approach. There's no such thing.

I'm curious about relationships and building wealth. Is it important to or how important is it to have the right partner in a marriage or an intimate relationship and relating to building wealth? Does it matter who you choose? Their mindset? Does any of that play the effect in how much you're going to make.

Or... -It won't affect how much you make. But it'll affect your relationship a lot, right? You know, getting on the same page is really, really important. But when my wife and I met, my wife, we both grew up very poor. But I decided that I was going to find a way to add so much value that money would never be a question for my family. And, you know, it would never stop me from giving or doing or sharing anything. And I made that decision early on. So I became an earner, ways of earning. She became a negotiator, a cost manager. her mom's number one thing is somebody comes in, she goes, sharpen your pencil. That's not a good enough deal. And so when we first met, I remember we were, we were in New York City, and this dates me how old I am. But I remember when they first came out with digital cameras, the very first digital cameras from Sony, and it was like such a cool thing. You could take 12 pictures or whatever it was in those days. But we were down in New York City. We're in Times Square, and we went into one of those camera shops, and it was Christmas. this time. And I saw the camera, and I was, like, so excited about this camera. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna get one for my brother, my sister, my mom. And, you know, I came up with, I don't know. It was like 12 cameras.

And they were very expensive then.

I think they were, like, 1200 or 2, 000 each. They were really crazy. Now they're, like, 200 for the same. Yeah, no, not even. It's a million times better.

Yeah. But I went to the counter, and.

The guy goes, oh, my God, Tony Robbins, can I take a picture with you?

I'll put it on the wall. And I said, sure.

And she goes, hey, she goes, show up in your What kind of deal are you gonna get my boyfriend here? And I wanted to grab her by.

The throat and just go, what are you doing here?

It's like, what are you doing? And she's like, no, no. What's the deal here? And he goes, oh, well, I give it 10% off. She goes, Sharpen your pencil.

10%.

You're not taking a picture of my boyfriend. And I'm wanting to murder her, right? And I was so mad. I mean, I was so mad. And so she got like 15% off and free camera cases and all that stuff. And I'm shaking my head. We left, I was like, I'm so We have this big fight. Today, I just call her squeaky. She's my squeaky girl. She wants to go to Walmart as if we'd ever need to go to Walmart. And what I do is I'm delighted by the difference and I go, you know what? What a beautiful gift. I've been in relationships before where I gave everything and the people were totally unconscious of money. So to answer your question, it's nice to be on the same page. But, you know, one day I told my wife I was coaching someone. and the person gave me a quarter of a million dollar bonus. I don't care who you are, it's mind-boggling. He was like, he didn't have to, it wasn't part of the deal. He pays me a million dollars a year plus a piece of the upside. And he just said, Tony, you did so much for me, I just want to give you this additional quarter million dollar bonus. And it wasn't the money, it was the generosity that just knocked me off my truck seat. And so I called my wife, I said, honey, Paul just gave me a.

Quarter million dollar bonus.

I mean, he's like, he's so generous. And she goes, oh, that's nice, honey. Dude, do you know what I'm making for lunch? And I'm like, Wow. So I used to get upset about it. Now I'm like, that's my squeaky little girls. I'm thrilled she doesn't have to think about it. I'm in charge. And so I don't think your partner has to. One of you has to master it.

And you have to have some alignment. Okay.

Right. But you don't want them to be against you, essentially. Well, sometimes they're gonna be. We were against each other in some ways. We're having fights. But what you eventually decide is, do I want to be Be right or do I want to be in love? There you go. I'd rather be in love personally, right? That's a good quote. And then also I just said, you know, to her, I said, listen, honey, I understand your intent. I had to go to her intent instead of being frustrated with her saying, this is really actually a cool quality. And she's my opposite in that area. And it's a, and we're a good, we're a good balance together.

If you let the outside world control you, you're toast. Because when anything goes wrong, it's in control. When you control from the inside, like we're in control of ourself, we're in control of our world. So it doesn't matter what happens, you figure out how to get to where you're going. The goals don't change. Sometimes the methods of getting there do.

But.

I have never, I think probably I had great teachers. I had a half a dozen phenomenal mentors. And I think I was raised the right way. You stay in control regardless.

Yeah. What would you say are some of the habits that you have that people wouldn't expect that you would have? Maybe they would expect certain things like waking up early or journaling or, you know, getting eight hours of sleep. But what are some habits that you do differently that maybe are unexpected in the personal growth space.

I study every day. Every day. I've studied every day now for 60 years. I started to study this book in 1961, and I read it every day. Same book, think and grow rich. I have just here behind me. I've got the laws of success, the original ones that Napoleon Hill wrote in 1928. And then he'd come up with this in 1937. And the man that gave it to him, he said, if you'll study this every day, he said, you,'re going to have a wonderful life. And he pointed out, Napoleon Hill spent his whole life studying the lives of 500 of the world's most successful people. He was mentored by Andrew Carnegie, who at the time was the wealthiest man in the world. And he said, since he spent his whole life putting this together, he said it would be a prudent move on your part if you spent the rest of your life trying to understand and apply what he was teaching. And that just seemed to make some sense to me and that's what I started doing. I've never stopped.

If there was only one principle inside of Think and Grow Rich that you could only live by and only talk about, and you wouldn't be able to talk about anything else inside the book. What would that one principle be?

Persistence. He said there, he said in the book, he said, there may be no heroic connotation to the word, but the quality is to the character of the human, like what carbon is to steel. See, I think the trick, Lewis, is get some good habit patterns and live with them all of your life, because you're either going to grow or you're going to die. It's create or disintegrate. There's no such thing as leveling out and staying where we are. And some people think they can just hold it where they're at, but they can't do that. You're either going to go ahead or you're going to go backwards. It's create or disintegrate. And so if you have good habits, you're going to keep growing. Way back, I think around 1938-39, Albert E. N. Gray worked for the Prudential and he wrote the Common Denominator of Success. It's a great article. And he said, the common denominator of success is informing the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do. And he was speaking one time, a young guy said, why do successful people like doing these things? and he said they don't. That's why they've turned them into habits. I thought that was beautiful. That's why they've turned them into habits. They don't like doing them. And of course a habit is something we do automatically without any conscious thought. We just, it's part of our paradigm. We're programmed.

What do you think are the three most difficult habits to develop? that actually will support us for the most growth long term if we can take these habits on.

One of the things I think the most difficult is repetition of studying the same thing. I have a book here on my desk. It's in a book holder.

And.

When I went to visit Earl Nightingale way back, 1968, No, it was other than that. It was around 66. And I saw he had this bookstand on his desk and I asked him what it was. He said it was a book holder. And I said, why do you have it? He says, Because I want to read those two pages every day for the next month, maybe two months. I said, Really? The same thing. And he said, yeah. He said, Then they'll become a part of me. And he said, that's really the secret of success is repetition of an idea. You see that in sports, you play ball, I mean, it's definitely part of your game. You know, how many plays would you have in your head? Whoo.

Well, a lot of different plays, but in football, there's really only like nine different routes a receiver can run.

Yeah.

As part of the tree of running a route. But there's so many different variations within plays that that one receiver could run and then another person could run in tandem with that.

Yeah.

So you have to, there's a massive playbook that you go through at the beginning of the season and you've got to remember a lot of different things. But if you typically know the route you need to run and what other people are doing around you, then you can, you can figure it out.

But it's repetition that enables you to do that, isn't it?

Over and over and over and over and over. You see, the same route over and over.

That doesn't just apply to football. I think that applies to life. And if a person will really understand that, it's through repetition that you program your subjective mind. And it's your subjective mind that controls your behavior. Doesn't make sense to some people, but if they would study it and start to understand it, they would start to do it.

What's the most important thing on those two pages that you have open in front of you?

Most important thing here. Read it to you. The lesson to be learned from the practical aviation of the present day is that of triumph of principle over precedent, of working out of an idea to its logical conclusion in spite of the accumulated testimony of all past experiences to the contrary. With such a notable example before us, can we say that it is futile to inquire whether by the same method we may not unlock still more important secrets and gain some knowledge of the unseen causes which are the back of external and visible conditions? And then by bringing these unseen causes into a better order, make practical working reality of possibilities which at present seemed but fantastic dreams. They were talking about the Wright brothers. He said there was a secret. They got off the ground because nobody knew how to fly and neither did they until after they got it in the air. But he pointed out that it was principle over precedent. And we let precedent control us too often.

What's the difference between principle and precedent?

Well, precedent, you're letting something that has happened in the past control you. The principle is that there's always a better way. Doesn't matter what you're doing, better is a beautiful word.

What's something in your life that took a long time where you were holding on to the precedent of something for a while? Maybe it was months, maybe it was years, decades that eventually the principle finally started to fly and you had a breakthrough. Is there an area of your life you can think of?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Just as soon as you said it, yeah. You see, when I started in this, when I first got this book, I was such a loser. And I mean in every, every way you look at it, I, I went to high school for two months and I didn't quit. They kicked me out. They didn't want me there. And I was kind of happy because I didn't like it there anyway. I held dumb jobs. I never had a half decent job. The idea that I could even get a good job never entered my mind. I had such low self-esteem. I didn't understand that at the time. I didn't even know what self-esteem was.

And.

Letting go of the fact that I didn't have a formal education, that I never had any business experience. The man that gave me the book, he said, none of that matters, Bob. That's the past. He said, let it go. Well, I had a difficult time.