My First Million - Tony Robbins Changes My Life (48 Minute Coaching Session)

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Episode 542: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) talks to Tony Robbins, the #1 life and performance coach in the world. Tony has built a $7 billion dollar empire and helped people like Ray Dalio, Connor McGregor and Nelson Mandela level up. In this conversation he shares what makes a championship mindset and what he’s learned from working with the top %1.  No more small boy spreadsheets, build your business on the free HubSpot CRM: https://mfmpod.link/hrd — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (4:30) How Tony Robbins became Tony Robbins (10:30) You're rewarded in public for what you practice in private (13:30) Lessons from the top 1% (19:00) “Honey, I’m home” energy (22:00) 90 Seconds of Suffering (24:30) The Holy Grail of Investing (36:00) Owning a professional sports team (40:00) Giving early (48:00) Shaan is sending 40 people to go see Tony — Links: • The Holy Grail of Investing - https://theholygrailofinvesting.com/ • Time to Rise with Tony Robbins - https://timetorisesummit.com/ • Apply to attend Unleash The Power Within for FREE - http://tinyurl.com/ykheacrn — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Try Shepherd Out - https://www.supportshepherd.com/ • Shaan's Personal Assistant System - http://shaanpuri.com/remoteassistant • Power Writing Course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing • Small Boy Newsletter - https://smallboy.co/ • Daily Newsletter - https://www.shaanpuri.com/ Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

I cannot believe who we have here today. Tony Robbins is coming on the podcast. Tony Robbins is the number one life coach, performance coach in the world. He's the highest paying public speaker of all time. This guy's built a business empire that does $7 billion a year in revenue. Incredible entrepreneur and coach. I mean, this guy's customers, his clients, the guys who pay him to coach them are like, you know, top athletes, you know, Serena Williams and Tom Brady and Connor, you know, to politicians, Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton. the top traders and investors in the world, Ray Dalio, Paul Tudor Jones, they pay him because they know that Tony can help be their edge, right? He can help them level up. So if he can help them level up, I think we can learn a lot from him. I'm going to ask about three specific things.

The first is I actually went to a Tony Robbins event eight years ago. This is my notebook from that event. I still have it eight years ago, eight years later. And the reason why is because I hate to be that guy who's like, I went to a self-help seminar that changed my life. But it did. I really came out a different guy. I came out a happier guy.

I ended up, you know, at the time, I, you know, this podcast called My First Million. I didn't have my first million then. And I came up with a plan. I came up with a strategy and I stuck to it after that event. And I made, I did it because I made three specific shifts. And so I know most of you will never go to one of his events. You'll never go to the seminar. It's a four-date thing.

It's kind of weird. It's not as cool as just going to Coachella or whatever. But I want to ask Tony about those specific three shifts so that you can hear from him, exactly what I heard in that event that changed my life. That's what we're going to do on this podcast today. Those same exact things that changed my life, I'm going to have him explain on the pod today. It's kind of like a live coaching session,

which is people pay this guy a million bucks to do this, and we're going to get it for free. Also, at the end of this, Tony doesn't know this, but I'm going to actually give away just under $100,000 worth of tickets to his seminar. So for people who are listening to this, there'll be directions at the end

of how you can actually get a free ticket to go to one of his things if you so choose, so that money is not your limitation. least I can do. This guy's helped me out so much in my life. I would love to pay it forward to the next person and send them to the seminar. Lastly, we talk about his new book, which he's been interviewing all these billionaires, right? There's this championship mindset, right? He works with the top 1% of the 1%. And I want to know what's different. What are they doing differently? He tells a story about an investor who bought 40 million nickels, like literally the coin,

the nickels, why they did that and why that was such a good idea. I wanted to hear some of these stories from him hanging out with these billionaire investors because he doesn't talk about that a lot. And I'm, I nerd out about that kind of thing. So enjoy this episode with Tony Robbins. This is a real cool moment for me with this podcast to be able to do this. I thank Tony for coming on. And I hope you enjoy it. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off on the road. Pull this one out today to just do a little refresher. Where'd you go? When did you go? I went to New Jersey. It's actually a funny story. I, I, I, I had heard, oh, Tony Robbins, his motivational speaker.

And I kind of was like, oh, do I need motivation? I don't need motivation. I don't either. But there was something inside me that because when I had watched your videos, I thought, well, it's not just that. I mean, he's an entrepreneur. He's companies are doing billions in revenue. He's clearly a leader.

And when I went to this event, I knew that it wasn't just like, it wasn't just some generic self-help BS. And I go and a couple of things stood out right away. I just want to tell you about this. My experience is your event. So I go. And the very first thing that happens is, I plan to just sit back.

I'm here to learn, okay? I'm not going to jump. I'm not going to do all that dance and jumping around stuff. This is my mentality. 15 minutes later, that's out the window. I'm into it. I'm having a great time. The second thing is I notice,

I see these celebrities up front. These are some of the most successful people I know, right? I hear this scream that almost sounds familiar. I look over and it's Gerald Butler, the guy from 300, like the Spartan. I'm like, all right, if he's into this, I think I could be into this. You know, like, you have this thing.

Give your neighbor a high five. I turn it's Vanessa Hudgens. I'm like giving her a hug. I had this amazing experience. When I was there, it was one guy who turned and looked at me. And he said, first time,

huh? Because he just see this grin on my face. And I was like, yeah, this is not your first time? He goes, no, I've been to five of these.

And honestly, I was like, a little discouraged. I was like, you had to come to this thing five times? I don't know. Is that how this works?

And I go, why did you come five times? He goes, because when Michael Jordan's in his prime and he comes to your town, you go watch him play. And I thought that was one of the best confidence. I said,

Michael Jordan. He said, Yeah, this is the Michael Jordan. He's like, he does many things, but he's the Michael Jordan of public speaking. And after that, I started looking at what you were doing differently. You work with billionaires and presidents and athletes and all this stuff. But every superhero has an origin story, right? Like Spider-Man got bit by the spider.

And that's, you know, that's where he got his powers from. I think your origin story is amazing. And not a lot of people know the full story. Can you take me back? You're 17 years old. I think you're a part-time janitor. And you'd never been to a seminar in your life. How did you, what was your spider bite?

How did you stumble into this? Well, it's interesting question. I was already interested in personal development because I had a kind of a rough background. I had four different fathers. We had no money for food. I had to work two jobs and work as a janitor. And my mom had a friend and dad had a friend that had been, my dad, my dad's description was he used to be such a loser and now he's really successful.

And so you called and said, listen, I hear your son's gotten big. I was 5'1 in high school and I was 6'2 by my senior year. I grew 10 inches in a year. I tell people the difference is personal growth, by the way. But the bottom line is, he said, you know, I got to move some furniture and things. I heard he's big, you know, could he come work for the weekend for some extra money? So I did. I worked really hard.

And the guy really was impressed by my work ethic. So he said, I'm going to take you to lunch. We'll go to this lunch and, you know, and he's saying, you know, I really think you go places. You've got a lot of drive. And I said, well, I'd like to ask you some questions. And he said, okay. And I said, my dad used to say, used to be such a loser. And now you're so successful.

How did you do that? Only a kid can say this, right? I wasn't trying to be cute. I just literally repeated it. You said, what? And then he's like, well, it's kind of true. And he said, well, I went to this seminar. And I said, what is this seminar?

I've never heard of such thing. He said, well, man, who has really become accomplished, takes 20 years of his life and teaches you in three and a half hours the best of what you need to know and make your life work. I said, wow, that sounds really interesting. I said, could you get me in? And he said, yeah. And there was no follow up. So I said, well, will you?

And he said, no. I said, well, why not? He said, well, because if you don't pay for, you won't value it. And at the time, I was working as janitor and making 40 bucks a week. So I said, how much is it? He said, $35. It'd be like $250 and today's dollars to give you an idea. But it was a week's pay is all I knew.

And it was like, are you kidding me for three hours? I said, no, one of the guy's rich. He goes, no, that's not it. He said, he really has these tools. But he said, if you think it's too much, then you go learning your own experience and take 10 or 20 or 30 years and maybe never learn it at all. And so, long story short, I mean what I thought was the biggest decision of my life to take a week's pay. And I went and heard Jim Rhodes speak. And I was deeply moved.

I left there going, okay, I'm going to become president of running for junior in high school. I'm going to run for a student body president. I'm going to be a state. So I was just looking to have the most impact. But what it led to was me just really digging in and learning everything I could about human development. And then very quickly, because I was studying anything, I get my hands on, I came across neurolinguistic programming. the NLP, which at the time was a breakthrough new technology of how to use language to change human emotion and behavior. And I talked my way into this, you know, six-month class. I was the only

non-therapist in the class. And after the first weekend, I was just out using it. I'd stop. I'd go to literally, the program I went to was at the airport, all at Ian and L.A.X. And I'd go to the Denny's that was right next door afterwards and look for people to help. It's like, I'm going to change your life. But, and they'd make. Gradually, I started modeling and I started figuring other skills and I started challenging traditional psychologists and psychiatrists saying, give me your worst patient. I'll handle them in an hour. And I took people with lifetime phobias, you know, been in therapy seven years and turned

around in an hour. And that built my reputation. And so then I started with with athletes and then I started with with Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela and Gorbachev and, you know, President Clinton had just grew and grew and then along the way, I used some of the same skills called modeling, finding out what makes the difference in performance around businesses when I started building companies. So today, you know, now I have 111 companies. We do over $7 billion in business across radically different industries. But this is my mission. This is what I do on a daily basis here. My education

company is what I value most. But that's kind of the journey. And I have lots of ups and downs along the way. Obviously, it wasn't like a straight up experience by any stretch. It's not a straight line. But I've learned a hell of a lot. I've been surrounded by a lot of great people along the way. I don't know if you've seen this. Have you seen this? Have you seen this little clip of Jim Rome talking about you? No, I'm not. Let's play this. All right, can you play that clip?

Tony Robbins sat in my seminar when he was 17. 17. He was on the outs with his parents and he was sleeping in his car. And someone got him to come to my seminar, age 17. So you never know who's in the audience. And he worked for me for three and a half years promoting my seminars. Back then called Adventures in Achievement. Three and a half years.

Finally ran one of my offices at age 20 in Los Angeles. Tony Robbins. Now he's a big-time superstar, bigger superstar than I am around the world. Unbelievable. And he mastered all the stuff. I didn't teach him to firewalk and all that stuff, but that's Tony style. He can get by with that. I couldn't do that.

I did say to him one time, Tony, you've got to do water instead of fire. They'll come from all over the world. And knowing Tony, guess what, he'll probably try it. The kid's unbelievable. He's unbelievable. So what's it like? I mean, hearing your mentor, you know, somebody who became a friend, but started off as you were the student. He was a teacher in a way. How does it feel hearing that? No, he was a teacher for sure. He taught me some most important things. I think the most

important thing he taught me was when I was, you know, I had all these different fathers and we're always broke. And so he said, change your mindset. Change it from can I earn twice as much in the same amount of time, 10 times as much, 50 times, 100 times, a thousand times. Yes, if you're you become more valuable. So you have to work hard on yourself than you do on your job. And he said, you've got to understand whatever you do, do add more value than anybody else in the marketplace of what you do. And that really, it's sung to me because I always try to over deliver in anything I did, even at that stage of my life. And that's been the basis of every company that I built across all these different industries. I mean, there's no way I'm

who I am without that piece. So I'm indebted to Jim as my first mentor. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is you can't ask stuff. F. Curry, how do you make a jump shot? It's too complicated, right? I can't ask you, how do you be a good public speaker? But I can't ask you, how did you get good? Because my sense is, yes, you had some natural gifts. However, I want to bet. And you tell me if I'm right or wrong. That from the ages of kind of like 17 when you went to that first seminar to maybe 25, 26, 27. I would bet that you probably got more reps in than anybody else in your field. Is that I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I went to work for Jim Lohn, the personal development speaker. And so you would go out and make two talks, maybe three talks in a month. where you would go to a real estate office or a stock brokerage or someplace where you would do a talk and show them by improving themselves, they could also improve their income. That's usually what they were interested in. And so what I did different was, I went out and said, I remember the guy that was number one in the whole company, who were about a thousand employees in that company. And I went up to him the first day because he was such a jerk to people. I mean, it's like total jerk. And so I, you know, I've always been a kind of protective of the little guy.

I was a little guy. I was 5-1. I was protected back then, right, when I was in high school. So I went up to him and I just said, you know what? I said, you're an absolute idiot. And you better remember my name. I said, because it only be a few months before I'll dwarf you. And I said, I'll tell you why, you're lazy. You do three talks a month. I'm going to do three talks a day.

So it doesn't matter if I'm as good as you are. I'm going to destroy you. And I did. I booked myself to every kind of group you can imagine. But yes, you know, I'm fortunate enough to own a piece of the Golden State Warriors and I've coached the team. I haven't been there this year. I've been on a chance, but they need it.

But Steph is a perfect example of what you're describing. Because people don't know. The greatest three-point shooter in the league, when he was, you know, at high school, he was really good. The dad trained him continuously. His dad was an NBA player. But his dad, at one point, he's the best player in the league, told him we've got to change your jump shots.

We've got to change it. You start it too low. You'll never make it the NBA. And so he made him have to do this new form of jump shot. And he became terrible because you're terrible where you try to do something new. But he wouldn't let him play competitively until he could shoot well in this way.

And then now he still does it. He shoots, you know, 500 shots a day to give you an idea, 3,500 shots a week. Think about it, 14,000 shots a month, 168,000 shots a year. These are practice shots. So he's been in the NBA 15 years. He's done 2.52 million shots in practice. And his entire career has only taken 15,000 shots.

And he's made 3,000, three-pointers. And he's the greatest in history. less than one-tenth of one percent of his shots have actually shown up at a game. So I always tell people you're rewarded in public for what you practice in private. I think that's an amazing strategy. Is that your method to kind of learning in general? How do you think about that? I think of learning at two levels.

I think of learning as immersion. The reason I do 12 hours a day for three or four days in a row, most people wouldn't sit for a three-hour movie, someone spent $300 million to make, I can do it because I know how to engage people in all their sense. In other words, how much is a long time? Some people say 10 minutes. Some people say 10 years, right?

But really, a long time is when you're not enjoying yourself. You know, a minute can feel like eternity if you're in pain. But if you're enjoying yourself, time flies. And so my whole mindset was, I got to immerse people because that's how we learn. If you learn a language and you learn a little bit at a time in high school and college, most people don't speak the language. But if I took you to Italy and dropped you in Rome and so I'll pick up in 90 days with no teacher, you're going to speak in Italian by the time I pick you up because of the immersion.

So I like to immerse myself, but immerse myself with someone who is the best in the world of something, someone who's already done it, not somebody who's teaching me intellectually. I go into a university with somebody understands it, but has never done it. I wanted to model the very best in the world. So I would go interview with that. I'd go to work for people in the very early days as a janitor so I could get around them so I could learn how they think and what they do. Gradually, I got to the point where I had these skills and so I could

I'd help people. And so I'd help them, but then I'd also learn from them. Everybody I've ever coached who calls me a coach. I'm no dummy. I learned from them. So some of my dearest friends in the world, when people started as coaching like Mark Bennyoff of Salesforce. He came in my seminar, I think four times in a row. And he's the big as I am. He stands out. And on the fourth, when he came up, introduced himself and said, you know, I'm Mark Benioff. And you've convinced me to leave Oracle. I'm going to start my own company. It's called Salesforce.com. And I want to come on the journey with me. And I'll never forget, he said to me, he said, we're going to do We're going to change business around the world, and I promise you we'll do $100 million in business.

And now he's doing $35 billion, right? He's worth of $15 years. You know, the growth has been unbelievable. So Mark says I'm his coach. Yeah. I've learned as much from Mark or more than he's learned from me. Same thing with Peter Goober. You know, Peter and I are partners in the Gold State Warriors, the L.A. Dodgers.

You know, we both invested and started with the L.A.F.C. Football Club. He's got 52 Academy Award nominations. He's, you know, he's one of the most brilliant human beings that I know. So I learned from him. So all the people that I've coached over the years I've learned from, and I've tried to do it through immersion, the more you can immerse yourself where you're thinking, breathing, doing something 18, 20 hours a day,

the faster you're going to learn. So that's how I go about it. What's something you learn from Peter? Because he's a fascinating guy that I think most people don't. You know of his work, because you don't know him necessarily. He's not super out there publicly talking all the time and trying to share knowledge. Do you have any good Peter Gruber stories or, or lessons learned you've had now that you partner with him on some things,

how he thinks. I'll say one of the most viable principles I learned from him, him and a friend of his. When we became friends at one stage, you know, he said, changed my life. I want to do some more things with you.

And he had a small group of men about eight to ten that had been getting together twice a year, sometimes three times a year. They go on these amazing trips and they just brainstormed. But everybody there was the master of their universe, right? So it would be like, Pat Riley,

you know, at the time, you know, the winning his coach. in NBA basketball. You'd have the richest man in Canada, like this amazing Uzu group. And so he invited me to come on this trip with him.

And he said, look, we've never brought anybody in before. You're 18 years younger than just about everybody here. But you have so much dad, I convince the guys let you come on the trip. And if they like you, maybe you come part of the group and come on a regular basis. Now, this is I'm just starting my businesses. I'm early on in my career of 30, 31 years old. And I've been a place where he wants me to go off on this 12-day triple. I couldn't leave my business for 12-day.

days. In those days, I was a business operator. I wasn't an owner like I am today. So I had to go on the trip. And on the trip, though, it was such a push. I didn't want to miss it. I did it. I was so stressed out because I felt like it didn't belong there. So he didn't have this conversation with me about what I want to do with my life. And then he said, well, let me tell you the most important principle to get you there. He said, proximity is power. And he and Peter both started nodding and saying, this is what makes everything work? And I said, what do you mean proximity is power? What do you mean by that he said to me at the time, you know, how many investment bankers do you know? I said, no, I don't know, maybe a dozen. He goes, how do you spend time with? I said, not. He goes,

that's a huge mistake. You must go spend time with them. Because as you spend time, they will think of you and they will come up with deals that will help you generate the economics you want to generate if you want to run for office or do something of that nature. And I said, okay. And so I started doing it. I felt really uncomfortable. And then I saw him again and he really gave me stuff. And so that I did it deliberately, ongoingly. And for a year and a half, I'd go, meet people. I'm not a networker per se because I felt like I don't know. I'm not asking for something and I don't know what I can do for them. I try to always be a giver. And but nothing came out of. I mean, some good friendships and so forth, no business came out of them. One day I got a phone call

that led to a $50 million deal for me. And then another day, about a year later, converted that into making it in one single day $400 million, taking a company public. So I always tell people, if you think about important principles, one of the most important ones I'm learning from Peter and his friends was you've got to get in the environment where the best people in the world are on a regular basis and have value and then things will start to happen. Nothing accelerates more than that other than your own skills and develop. One of the things I got from being in proximity with you at your events immersion going there for four days and really soaking it all in was when you came on stage, there was an energy shift every time. And you mentioned Mark Benioff. I know you've talked at the Salesforce conference and I watched the video and he said, something great. He goes, the next guy who's coming out here, he doesn't, I mean, Salesforce is like, you know, a bunch of sales reps in the audience. It was a white collar crew. They're all sitting down. They've been at a thing all day. He says, he doesn't come out to a cold room. And he goes, so if you want, if Doty's going to come out here, we better warm up right now.

And immediately everybody raised their standard of how they were going to show up for you. And you came out and you had a certain energy with you. I sold that. And I started using that. I said, I don't come out to cold rooms anymore. As I raised my own standard in that way. That's great. But it was not just in the work content. because even though I went to your event, because I wanted to be more successful and more ambitious, whatever, and I had these goals. I wanted to have $10 million by the time I was 30.

And then today, it's like our companies this year will do like $50 million in revenue. It's continued to grow. But the thing I took away the most wasn't any of the work stuff. It was how you show up at home. You had this thing that I want you to talk about called the Honey I'm Home Energy. I've been doing this now for like eight straight years since I went to your event. People don't know this.

Explain what coming home with the Honey on Home. about that. Yeah, it's just really simple. It's just, I remember my father used to come home, my fourth father, especially. When the door closed, there was this pause, and we waited to see what kind of state he was going to be in. And you could tell if he was an unhappy state, you want to avoid the environment, or if he'd say monkey gurus, you used to say this free, monkey gurus made no sense, but he had so much enthusiasm and excitement in his voice that we knew it was a good day. So I thought, when I come home, I want to make a difference. So my wife and I have this little thing that we do is like, I'm home, and then we look at, honey, I'm home. And then we look

for each other, we run towards each other. We just hugged each other and kiss. But it's a beautiful ritual that we've, you know, we've been together 24 years and we still have this aliveness and passion for each other because we still put ourselves in those high-energy states. It's easy because of being worn down by work or environments or kids or some of your family's ill or financial pressure in your business, let's say, to let your state drop. And then when you're around your partner, that's what they experience all the time.

And then their state's low. And then you're both filtering wife through that. So I think it's really important, just like if you're going to get up and be a perform in a peak state, if you're going to prove peak results, you've got to be in a peak state. You've got to train yourself to do it at home. And then after a while, it's not phony. It's just like, if you see an athlete, they have muscles. You know, why do they have the muscle?

Because they work out regularly. Well, when you push yourself into a great state regularly, it becomes your standard. And it becomes how you feel all the time. You kind of wire yourself for that. It's not so you don't have down times or frustrating times or sad. bad times or whatever, have all those things. But they're not the majority of the time. And if they happen, you can snap out of it fast because you know how to. I think that's a huge part of what I try to teach people, is that you don't have to accept how you feel. And people all the time say,

I don't feel like it. Well, if I waited until I felt like it, I wouldn't do 90% of stuff I've done in my life. I've learned how to meet myself feel like it. Because if you don't do that, you're not going to accomplish or achieve or enjoy your life at the level that you deserve and probably desire. Right. You said something about. the 90 seconds of suffering. Can you explain this concept? Because I stole this like it's Ocean's 11. And I came into you, I stole this framework from you and I have been using it since then.

Why did you stole it? That's a lonely thing is still stealing. Life is too short to suffer. I'm not going to suffer. I know how to change my state, but I want to create a rule that within 90 seconds, if I start to suffer, I'm going to snap out of it. Now, don't let me wrong. It doesn't mean you don't get angry or frustrated or pissed off or worried or any of those

things. I can have all those feelings. But if you train yourself to snap out of it in 90 seconds, and by the way, in the beginning, no problem, 90 seconds and easy things. But then life gives you some big tests, right? You get something feels more like 90 days than 90 seconds. But it's like any skill, like shooting the basket. You do it again and again and again.

You get better and better and better. And it's changed my life because no matter what's going on, I can still find the beauty in that. And in a beautiful state of mind, you'll come up with the answer is much quicker than a pissed off state or a fearful state or allows us. state. Plus, it gives a gift to everybody else. Who wants to be around somebody who's in a crappy state?

Right. Think about it like this. You know, if you have a, if you have cable or you have satellite and you turn the channel, there are certain channels where it's all comedy, other ones, all drama, other ones, it's all horror, right? Other ones, it's, you know, romance. Well, the channel changers your body. Because if you look at the greatest athletes in the world, Tom Brady, you know, locally here in Florida, you know, we have a group that's won the Stanley Cup over and overgun

the Tampa Bay Lightning. and they're famous for coming from behind and winning. So the same group did tests on them before they ever worked with me, and they discovered there's a biochemistry of what they call championship biochemistry. It's where these people like Tom Brady is down by 10 points, and it's the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, and he comes back to the way to me. How?

He has this huge surge of testosterone, which gives you total focus and drive. It also makes you remember everything. It's like if I asked you where you were at 9-11, everybody remembers the moment. I actually wear 8-11 and no one knows where they were, right? Because you don't have that surge of testosterone, the energy. But usually testosterone is masked by cortisol, which is a stress hormone.

But in this case, their cortisol drops to the floor. So all they get is pure focus and drive. That doesn't guarantee you're going to succeed, but it increases your chances about 10-fold. Every time I get on stage, I develop that biochemistry. Love it. And I have so many more questions, but I also, I feel like your PR team, I feel like there's a red dot that's going to come on me. if I don't talk about your book.

So I want to ask you a question about this. So I read the advanced copy of your book, so the Holy Grail of Investing. It's the third of these kind of like money-related books that you've been doing, which has been fun because I like the business side. That's obviously where I kind of nerd out. Tell the story about the guy you know who, I think he's a billionaire who bought millions of nickels and why this guy bought millions of nickels. I think this was so fun. And you got to tell that story. Well, let me give people a little background.

So I've written three books on finance. I started back in 2013 because after the 2000. dropout. I've been working with Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 financial traders in the history of the world. I've coached him for 24 years. He hasn't lost money during that time, so I've learned a lot. But when I saw that the way we dealt with 2008 was instead of punishing the people that almost destroyed the system, we gave them more of our money. It just blew my mind. And so I found I can't change everything, but I have access. So I decided to write a book where I interviewed 50 of the smartest financial investors in the world, the most successful, all self-made billionaires.

Nobody from the Milwaukee Sperm Club. They didn't inherit it. They created it. You know, Ray Dahlia, Carl Icon, Warren Buffett, Paul Tudor Jones, all of them. So I was interviewing a gentleman that took $30 million and turned it into $2 billion in 2008, 2009, the worst economic time. And I asked him, I said, how did you do this? And he went asymmetrical risk reward.

I've heard that from every great investor. I said, okay, I understand what that means, but how'd you do it? How he did it was, he saw the... the mortgages, and everybody thought these mortgage were going to hold up and that real estate was going to grow forever. And he knew that wasn't true. And he bet against it with unique tools. So he literally, he could be wrong 13 times to still make money.

So that's how he turned that money around and made the greatest return in just about a period of time. So I asked him, I said, his name is Kyle Bass. I said, Kyle, I said, how would you explain this to like someone was unsophisticated? And how would you explain it to your kids? He goes, Tony, I can't believe you said that. I just recently asked myself the same question. So I want my kids to understand this principle because that's what will make them wealthy.

And he said, so I thought, how can I do this? And he said, for six months, I kept asking the question, where can I find an investment that is so asymmetrical? There's no downside. And there's huge upside immediately. Now, most people say you're an idiot to even ask that question. There's no such investment, right? No risk to reward.

And he goes, no, he goes, smart people ask questions nobody else asked. I kept asking, and I finally came up with the answer. Nichols. I said, Nichols. He goes, yes. He goes, here's how it works. Nichols, to make a nickel costs 11 cents. That's how screwed up our government is. And he said, so years ago, pennies used to have copper, and that's almost no copper net.

He goes, those pennies are worth two cents. He said, the reason is because the copper value is there, but also now they're so unique, right? He said, so I thought, Nichols, the never we live worth less than five cents. I want to buy as many nickels as I can because he said the meltdown value alone would give me 30% return on day one, 30%. I'd like an investment where you can't lose money and you're guaranteed at least 30%. I said, yeah, but I've seen the rules. You can't melt money anymore. He goes, yes, I know. That's what they say.

He said, but I don't even have to melt it, Tony. The same thing they have to pennies will happen in nickels. He said, they can't do 11 cent, five cent nickels forever. Once it changes, the value of these original nickels is going to be Great. So he went to the Fed and asked how many nickels he could buy. I figured the number was millions of nickels. It was truckloads of nickels. He said, if I could push a button and convert my entire assets to nickels, I do it tomorrow. I can't ever lose money. And I'm up at least 30%. So that's Aesemacherous award. Another good example is my friend Richard Branson. And if you know, Sir Richard now, as they call it, Richard's a fun guy. He's like, he'll take risk with his life. He'll like get in a balloon, go on a spaceship. He's like the oldest 21-year-old in the world. That's right. That guy's just having fun all the time. Except not when it comes to investing.

When it comes investing, he's like, what's the downside? How do we protect against the downside? That's why he's so successful. And so when he was going to take on British Airways with, you know, building his own airlines, think of the expense and the risk of buying Boeing Jets, 150, 250, jets. So he negotiated for a year with Boeing until he finally got them to agree that he'd buy all these jets. but a year from now, if he was not able to be profitable in business or stay in the business, he could return all the jets with no credit loss, no cost to him whatsoever.

So we had zero downside, only upside. That's how these guys play. And then the fourth one is diversification. And when I went through those and saw them with everybody, what triggered this latest book, and the reason I cited to write this final book was I saw that, wait a second, the most successful people have a different asset allocation. they're getting much more asymmetrical risk reward.

And I also, my conversation as Ray Dalio, learned a principle. I asked Ray 12 or 13 years ago, we first became friends. I said, you know, I prepared for like 11 hours from my interview with him. It was supposed to be 30 minutes and with three and a half hours because he got into it with me. It was great. And we became friends. And I asked him, one question I asked him was, okay, out of all things we've talked about, is there one principle above all others that would be the most important investment principle

that would make somebody wealthy if they're going to be. They practiced it. He goes, Tony, I have wrestled with that for more than a decade, and I can tell you what it is. He goes, I call it the holy grail of investing, which is why that's the title of this book. It's really Ray. It's not me, right? And I said, well, I'd lean forward. What is it? He said, Tony, in order for people to get what they want, financial freedom, they've got to compound, right? Well, in order to get higher rates of return, you've got to take bigger risks, which then could cost you getting to the goal. That's why I asked an allocation, finding that balance, what's right for you is so important. He said, but I discovered something mathematically. If you can find eight to 12 uncorrelated investments, he said, you can reduce your risk by 80% and make a slight increase in your upside. He said, you're eliminating 80% of the risk. He was telling you that is the most important thing that's out there and people don't know this. But now for your audience, I'm sure they understand in case they don't.

If you think about correlated versus non-correlated, stocks and bonds would be an example, right? When the economy is going great, people want the growth that comes in stocks. Whereas not going to go great, they expect the bonds are going to get them through it, right? They're not necessarily correlated. So I wrote down the principle. I started looking to try to find things that are not correlated. It's rough in the world we're in today. So much is tied together in the public markets.

And so sure enough, as I started doing this looking around, I came across an interesting statistic that blew my mind. And here's what it is. In the last 35 years, every stock market in the world has produced a smaller return than private equity, average private equity in that same time. So I'll give an example. Most people know the S&P 500, the index of the top 500 companies in stock market. And if you invest in the S&P over the last 35 years, you had an average of a 9.2% compounded return, which is amazing.

You know, you're 5%. You're doubling your money every 14 and a half years. If you're at 9%, it's every 8 years. Big jump. But if you're an average private equity, not the people I interviewed this book, people I interview this book are the 13 biggest in the world. So they have like 20% or more compounded for decades. One of them in this book is 37% compounded for 26 straight years. I mean, it's unbelievable, right? So when you're compounding that, it goes crazy. But the average is 14.2 per year. So understand this. You're compounding 50% greater every single year

compounded. So what does that mean? If you put a million dollars in the S&P 535 years ago and forgot about it, it's worth $26 million today, it's unbelievable. But if you put a million dollars in the average, not these guys, in the average private equity of 14.2, you have $139 million in the same money in the same amount of time. So I was like, whoa. Now, what are the ultra high net with people have 47% of their assets in private equity and private real estate? So I started digging into that area, and that's what this book was all about. Yeah, I really liked it. It was a great chart we should throw up. It said, what was the lowest five-year returns by asset class? Lowest five years. So, like, how bad can the bad get? Because everybody tells you about the good. Nobody tells about the

bad, usually. And I love this one because private credit was the only one that had a positive return in its lowest five years in the last 30 years, 20 years, something like that. So it was cool to see these different asset classes that most people don't have the knowledge of or the access to. And I think that's the premise of the book. So who are the people? What's the largest number of billionaires? And most people think it's tech and it's not. And then they think it's real estate and it's not. It's financial services, but it's not hedge funds. And it's not VC funds, some VC funds, but not most.

I have very small. It's private equity because they have the money for five years. So when the market goes down, they don't have to sell. They buy. When the market goes up, they sell. We have the room to play, right, to get things done. And they're not just trying to buy something with the right timing. They're buying a company and making it better.

Bring in new marketing, bring in a new CEO, bringing in new systems and building up and then selling it private. or taking it public. So they have a lot more flexibility. And they're the masters of the universe. So I was like, okay, let's see what they're doing. And my friend, I said, I'm getting into some of these private equity, but the very best are like, you know, going to a club and you've got plenty of money and you're outside. If you're not good looking, you don't know everybody, you're not getting in that club. I don't care how much money you have, right? It's very similar, like, you know, buying a Ferrari and any Ferrari, yes, but the newest hot SP3, you know, it costs four million bucks.

you can't even buy it because they're all gone already by collectors and buy them before they even come out. Well, it's very similar for the best people in private equity. I'm saying, I've gotten a few because of my name and some relationships, but the amount I'm getting is too small. And he says, Tony goes, I'll tell you a little secret. I'll tell you where I put the majority of my money. And this guy is very, very well, be very successful. So I'm leaning in. And he goes, there's a sperm in Houston, Texas. I guess Houston, Texas. I was going to say Singapore, London, New York, Connecticut, right? He goes, yeah, they're off the beating path.

They're the best of this. They have found a way. They're the biggest in the world right now, one of the three biggest. And they said, they found a way where you don't have to buy into the fund, where you can buy into the company and own a piece of the company and you own all their funds. Now, if you know what these funds work, they make 2% on your money. They're tied up for five years. And you're willing to tie it up because of the greater returns, right?

They make 2% of your money if they don't make you anything every year. So they have a built-in income that's great. and then they get 20% of the upside. If they make you a bunch of money, they get 20% of that. And it's not uncommon for them to go from a billion to two billion in five years. So they make $100 million in fees in those five years. And they make another 20% of a billion. They make $300 million in a billion investment.

That's why they're the wealthiest people in the world. I'm like, I got to know how to do this. So I met with these guys in Houston. I became a client. And then I eventually invested with them. I'm a partner with them. And then I was like, man, we got to get this out. But nobody could take advantage of it.

Now they can't. So as a result, we put it out there. So you can imagine, I own now 65 of the largest private equity firms. I own a piece of them as a partner in every fund that they have. So, and I'm not there working every day till two in the morning like they are on those pieces. The other one I'll tell you about is, you read the book so you know, is sports. I always want to own a sports team. I was really, totally poor. You wanted to be a baseball player, right? That's right. You got a good memory. I used to go to Dodger Stadium every once in a rare moon, way off on the deep sparse. seats in Whitefield, the cheapest say you could buy, and I bled

Dodger blue, I'm in a piece of the Dodgers. But to get to that point, the first team I was able to make a purchase of and be a partner in was the LASC football club, the soccer team there. We built the stadium. I got to help design it. It was fun. I got to with my friend Peter Goober. It was just a genius.

But the amount of money, time, and energy and the amount of like a microscope in your bum that they do to qualify you is mind-boggling, right, to do it. But now in all these sports teams, I even have competing teams because a rule was changed three years ago. This is amazing. Only a few firms have been able to do it.

And the rule allows you to buy a small sliver of teams. And why would you want a sports team? Because they're not correlated to the stock market. In inflationary times, sports teams do it well. They've done extremely well. They raise the price to odd dog people pay it. It doesn't matter. And they used to be just putting butts in seats.

That's not true anymore. So I'll give an example. You know this if you read the book. My partner, Peter Gurr bought the Dodgers with the group of people, Magic Johnson of all group people. I'm part of it now too. And when they bought it, they paid $2 billion for the fur. And everybody's freaking out, right?

I remember the news. People are like, this is a crazy buy. Because nobody paid more than $800 million for a sports team. And most people believe the Dodgers is worth a billion, but not $2 billion. So I went to Peter. I was like, I know you're not dumb. I know the smartest guy I know. So you must know something.

No one else knows if we're going to do this. Tell him, he goes, Tony. You know, I like making movies with cliffhangers. He said, I want to make you wait three days because I'm making an announcement. When you're the announcer, come over and love a little party together. They made the announcement. He sold the local TV rights, just the local TV rights for $7 billion, made $5 billion on the spot. So why?

Because sports teams now are media enterprises. Of 100 best shows, most watched shows last year, 92 were sporting events. And they'll watch the ads because everybody's cord, cutting everyone else and going and watching things, you know, streaming, sports, the only thing why do you want to see it in real time for it to have value for you, and they can do those ads. So, and they buy real estate today. They are unbelievable organizations.

So now I'm a part of the Dodgers, of the Warriors, the Red Sox, the Pittsburgh Penguins. I mean, I go on and on and on, and I have the ownership benefits, but I also have something that's not correlated, so it's 1 by 8 to 12. Plus, on top of that, you share in the revenues that every other team's media. In other words, it's equal share. If you're a small team or a big share, you'll keep your local media that you get to sell locally. So the income streams are amazing. Look at an example. Michael Jordan, we actually bought it. Michael Jordan bought the Charlott's for $275 million controlling interests 12 and a half years ago. He just sold us, we're one of the buyers, is a group of buyers,

for $3 billion. That's his return on that time period. In the last 10 years, if you take the NBA, the Major League Baseball, soccer and hockey, those four together. They've averaged between them 18% compounded during that time versus 11% there in the S&P 500. So just you're only doubling your return, having fun, having something you're part of that's really cool. And people can have an experience that they once dreamed about without having billions of dollars and go through all the hell of it. So there's so many opportunities like this. And people can get the book. It's at the Holy Grail of Investing.com.

I think there's like a free chapter. go download the free chapter and check it out. There's a free audio chapter you can listen to and then you can pre-order the book. It comes out in a few weeks. I know we're over, but I got to ask you for one thing. Sure. The one thing is we talked a lot about money and making it and all that stuff. One of the things I pulled away from you was about giving. And I think, you know, when I was at the event, you were talking about, oh, I've given, I give this many meals every year. I think now it's like a billion meals, some insane number of because, you know, you remember what it was like to not have food. And a part of me was like, I'm going to do that something.

I should do that. I should do that the future. You know, when I'm rich, I'm going to do that too. And I think this is probably a pretty common thing. Easy for him. He's rich. What does it mean? What does it matter to him to write a $5 million check, right? I wish it was just $5 million.

Until, right, fair enough. Until you told a story about giving early on and give me. And I just want you to tell us one story because I think for most people, if they made it to this part, this will make a bigger difference in their lives than anything else that you tell them, because I know he did for me. You told the story about going to the salad bar.

Oh, yeah. Go into a salad bar. you're 24 years old and you're broke and you had a giving moment that sort of shifted you. Would you please just tell that one? Because I think giving is not something you got to wait until you're rich to do, which is, I think, the common misconception. I tell people, if you won't give a dime out of a dollar, you're not going to give 10 million out of a hundred million or a hundred million out of a billion.

Don't kid yourself, right? And also the value of giving transforms you on scarcity. But the background on it is I was working for Jim Roan, this personal development speaker. And I really did well. And then I did poorly for a while. And I was really frustrated. working hard. I wasn't giving the return. I was totally broke. Sure, you're in business and make some mistakes. And I found myself totally broke again. And I'm in this 400 square foot bachelor

apartment in Venice, California, feeling sorry for myself and watching Luke and Laura on General Hospital. It was just terrible. And I'm down on my final, you know, $19, $20, $21, $22. I don't know it wasn't some change. I haven't paid my rent. And I got to figure out what to do and want to eat. So my focus was, okay, I'm going to go to this all you can eat salad bar, taco bar, and I'm going to load up for the winter and, you know, spend five bucks. And then I didn't drive there because it was only about three miles, but I couldn't pay three bucks for parking too. It was just, I couldn't do that.

So anyway, long story short, I get to the place. It's on the water in Marina Del Rey. It's why I went there. There's boats going by. And I can't, I don't want to pot to pee in, right? But I'm visualizing. and then my stack of food this high

and then I could see the front door because of where I was sitting and the front door opens in this beautiful woman walks in and she was just absolutely gorgeous I couldn't help but look and then we didn't see if there was a guy with him as if I had any shot at this right and she had a guy with him

unfortunately and he was about three feet tall and he had a little vested suit on a little tie and he opens the door for her and he pulled out the chair for her and I was just I was mesmer memorized and I was moved and I got emotional. I don't know why. I don't know if it's thinking my own mom. I don't know what it was at the time. But anyway, the bottom line is when I was

done eating, I went dated and it was $5.95 or something like that. And I had the rest of the money in my pocket. I had no plan for this. And I was walking out the door. There's that little boy with his mom and her back to me. So I didn't talk to her. I wasn't going to her. I just went up to him because I was so moved and I just said, hey, I said, my name's Tony. What's your name? I can't remember his name anymore. is, you know, Johnny or whatever it was. And he goes that. I said, Johnny, I said, you are a class act.

I said, I just want you to know, I have so much respect. I saw you hold the door for your lady. I saw you pull the chair out for her. You're so present with her. And I said, taking her to lunch like this, he goes, well, she's my mom. He said, well, that's even more impressive. He goes, well, I can't take her to lunch because, you know, I'm just 11. And I said, yes, you can.

I have no plan for her. I just reached in my pocket. I took all the money on the world, $19, whatever was left over. and dumped it on him with the change and everything right in front of him. And his eyes got big and garbage can't covers. And he goes, I can't take that. I said, sure you can't. He said, how come?

I said, because I'm bigger than you are. And then I smile. And he laughed. And I didn't even look at the woman. I didn't do it for acknowledgement. I just walked out that door to get my car. And then realized I didn't have my car there. And I'd walk.

So I look like a stupid white guy skipping my house, I'm sure, all the way home. I mean, I was high as a kite. and I had no money. And I got home and I was still cool about it. And I was full glad so much. And I woke up the next morning with no plan, no idea, no nothing and no money. And it's like, I mean, no money, not a dollar. And no one to call to get money from.

And there was a guy I'd loaned $1,000 to about two and a half years before when I really didn't have it, but he needed it more than I did. I loaded to him. So I've been for months and calling and sending, you know, regular mail to him here because it wasn't answering the phone. There was no email in those days. And that morning, I got my mail. And no call, no response.

That morning I get my mail. There's all the bills and there's a handwritten note. And I opened the note. And it's from this guy apologizing to me and telling me that he was so sorry. I was there for him when he really needed it. And he had not been there for me. And he had put in, you know, an extra $200 for interest and so forth. So it was $1,200.

$1,200 is more money than I could live on that for a month in those days. right? And I just started crying uncontrollably. I was like, you know, why am I crying? This is beautiful. This is beautiful. You know, it's like, and then I realized, wow, you know, when I had nothing, I gave everything and here this is. What does this mean? I said, I don't know what it means, but I'm going to decide it means because I didn't give to get and I didn't give what was easy. That's why I'm receiving. And it's like that day on, I can tell you, I've had ups and downs. I have so many companies in the early days. I had a couple companies on the verge of bankruptcy. They didn't go bankrupt. Thank God. I hung on and made it through it. But I never felt that scarcity. I never felt

that scarcity again since that day. Because if you get to that point, your brain realizes there's more than enough. And you can give when you feel like there's nothing there. That's what transforms you. When I interviewed Sir John Templeton, who was the first billionaire investor, started with nothing. He said to me that the secret to wealth is gratitude, right? Because It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you're not grateful, you're not rich. But then he said also, I've never met anybody that tithed for at least 10 years who didn't become wealthy.

He said, tithe, it doesn't have to be a church. It's just taking 10% of what you're earning and giving it away. And I'm proud to say I've given away 17% and I've done quite well. But I did it when I had nothing. It's there. I want to plant one more seed with the audience, though, and that is if they'd like to have an experience, you know, it can't come for the three or four days yet for an event, but they like to have an experience since.

COVID started four years ago. Everyone was trapped at home and I was doing stadiums, you know, and they started shutting down the stadiums till I could put 100 people in a stadium. So I decided I'd build a studio and I built these 20 foot ice, you know, walls, 0.67 resolution. I could see everything. And I went to the guys, you know, built Zoom and I said, look, you know, I needed you to help me get to 20,000, 30,000 people, not 1,000.

I built software so the people could, instead of clapping, could shake their phone. It would send electric signal. And if one person did you or nothing, when 20,000 people do it, it's like thunder. And it allowed me to literally explode in the number of people I reach. So now I do a free seminar once a year for three days. It's coming up January 25 through 27, just in about a week and a half.

If you want to go, there's zero charge. It's not partially free. It's totally free. And it's about two and a half hours, three hours a day of immersion for three days in a row. And it's really designed to help you get a plan and make the changes necessary in your energy and your emotions, in your business, in your finances, and your career. And we just, we put the most we can in those three days and create huge momentum. And last year we had over a million people again from 195 countries in the world. And then

you're part of a community of people helping each other. So if anyone like to go, you're welcome to, you can do it from your home or your office. You can bring friends or family. Again, there's no charge. You just go to what is the, what is the, what is the, highlight? It's the, it's the time to rise summit.com. Time to rise summit.com. And starts January 25th the 27th that I'd love to serve you guys and go deeper. Amazing, Tony, I don't know if you know this, but at that event when you told some of these stories, I will on the moment, in that moment, I was like, you know what, I'm going to start giving. And the idea I came up with, I go, you know, this was a pretty crazy experience I had.

I just got lucky. I bought some Black Friday tickets. I don't know how I stumbled into this, but this was cool. And I've, I'm a different guy right now. And I decided, all right, I'm going to start giving. What I did was I said, all right, next year, I'm going to send one person to this. I'm going to give somebody an experience, to UPW. And I was like, every year, I'm going to give more people than the year before. So I've sent 44 people to your events, you know, my mom, my dad, I know, people, anybody, anybody who, you know, other entrepreneurs who I thought, you know, might like it. Yes. And, uh, how they responded as a result? How do they react at these events? 15% of people are, um, like me.

They're like, they come back and it's like, did somebody plug you in? You're like electric now. What happened to you? So 15% of people, they're a new person never looked back. I would say, 70% of people were like, that was a great experience. I loved it. And they're like, you know, but they didn't fully get like, you know, for me, it was like a full transformation. Just being totally honest. So 70% of people would say, well, it's all the Paul experience.

Yeah, exactly. And then I would say 50% of people were like, what the hell is this? You know, this was, I don't know what this is. And they often, a lot of people I send are like successful tech people. And they come in almost like they want to be the smart guy in the Reddit comments almost. And they're like, you know, they're so worried about. he said this and is that the real statistic is it 54% or 51% I'm like you're missing the point trying to be so you know you're you're being so smart you're being dumb right now and so people have everybody

has their own experience I think it's you know what I tell them is just go have the experience right go decide for yourself so you know for people who listen to this I'm going to put a thing in the description I want to send people who actually listen to the podcast because I've been sending people I know but now you know this year I'll send I want to double it so I think I've sent 44 people lifetime on a decide another 44 people this year. So I'll put a thing in the comments for people who go to the four-day UPW. That's the kind of like starter event. That's the one I've been to a couple times. And I think you'll really like it. Since you're going to do that, I'll match it. So we'll make it to meet it in total. You do your 40 and I'll give you 40 to match it since we'll invest

in these people's lives together. Amazing. Thanks so much, Tony. I really appreciate it. They talk with you and congratulations on what you built. Yeah, likewise. I feel like I can rule the world I know I could be what I want to I put my all in it like no days off on the road let's travel never looking back