The Tim Ferriss Show - #178: Tony Robbins - On Achievement Versus Fulfillment

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Starting point is 00:02:50 that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. if the spirit moves you. Hello, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, whether they're from the worlds of sports, investing, acting, military, anything and everything, to help to tease out the routines, habits, favorite books, et cetera, that you can use. This particular episode is a repeat guest, Tony Robbins. And Tony and I have gotten to know each other over the last few years since I first had him on the podcast, an epic two-parter, which was very long and very, very good. One of the most popular episodes I've had of the podcast

Starting point is 00:03:44 to date. Tony Robbins is the world's most famous performance coach. For those of you who don't know the name, he's advised everyone from Bill Clinton to Serena Williams, from Leo DiCaprio to Oprah, who calls him superhuman world leaders like Gorbachev. It just goes on and on. And in this particular episode, we talk about a number of topics we didn't cover in the previous interview. And we also drill into some new rapid fire questions. So for instance, his best investment he's ever made, quotes that he lives by, worst advice that he hears or sees being given out regularly, why he's changed his diet for the first time since he was about 17, I believe. And we also go into some very specific exercises. There's a

Starting point is 00:04:25 portion in the middle where Tony is effectively on his own. I just let him go for a good, I'd say, 30 to 40 minutes. And if you want a very specific exercise that you can apply in real time, because he walks me through it and I dug in because I could use it today specifically, I was having a very rough day called the 90 second rule and it's a process. And he brings up a personal challenging experience that he had not long ago in Dallas and then walks through exactly how he contended with it. And it's from roughly one hour and five minutes after this introduction ends to one 15. So one Oh five to one 15, roughly we get into a very nice flow. And I also have to recommend that you check out the brand new documentary out about Tony Robbins, which digs into one of his events

Starting point is 00:05:11 called I Am Not Your Guru. You can find it on Netflix. I saw it before it came out and found it extremely powerful. There's a good chance you will find yourself laughing and crying at different points. And I'm not much of a crier, so that should tell you something. So check it out, I'm Not Your Guru on Netflix. And without further ado, please enjoy this follow-up conversation with Tony Robbins. Tony, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me on, Tim.

Starting point is 00:05:42 Good to hear your voice. Good to hear your voice, too. And I've been thinking about you a lot and I've gathered questions as follow-ups and I've taken some from fans. And part of the reason I've been asking myself about you is because I've been wondering what would Tony Robbins do in certain circumstances I'm finding myself in. And I'll give you a perfect example. Today, I'm on book deadline right now, and it rolls around to around 3 p.m. And it's just one of those days where I haven't felt like my brain has been connected to the rest of my body, and I haven't really done anything. And so I start,

Starting point is 00:06:18 and I'm on book deadline, a very crunch book deadline. And for whatever reason, words just are not really very intelligible on the page. And that led me to want to ask you, I guess, A, a lot of my fans have asked this, you know, does Tony have bad days? And if you do find yourself in a situation like this, right, where you've tried the priming for whatever reason, it's like the mid-afternoon and you're like, wow, like, I really don't think I've actually gotten much done today. If that happens, what do you do? What is the internal monologue or the self-talk? I know that trying to think my way through it, it's not going to do squat.

Starting point is 00:06:59 Of course, I have those days at those times. I don't have days like that. I'm pretty rare to have a day like that. But if I feel that happening and I catch myself within a few hours, then I, I do something radical with my body because the body will change the mind the fastest. And you're never, you have to find that sense of energy and passion and intensity back inside yourself that, you know, what makes you go. And what I would do if it was my situation, I'd immediately go, I'd either do something

Starting point is 00:07:23 really hot or really cold, those two extremes, or go for a run or go lift, you know, anything that's going to pump the blood through me. But my first run would be jump in that freezing ass water that I always have nearby, uh, or jump in a cryotherapy. Cause I got to tell you, you know, you drop your temperature down to minus two 20 every night and you will, you will have a whole new mental state that's for sure and so but but really truly it's getting physical in some intense dramatic way that shifts the physiology and that's what's going to shift your mind and then the creativity comes and once i've made that shift then i'd focus on you know coming back to not the deadline but to my my reasons the why right and i know you do as well just what what am i doing I doing this for? What get reassociated? What am I most passionate about? And I won't read, write, speak, or do anything,

Starting point is 00:08:10 maybe read, but I won't write or speak about something I'm not totally passionate about. So if I'm not feeling it, cause my body is just thrashed, you know, I've been burning the candle on both ends, which is common. Um, that's when I've got to do something physical to shift it, to make that happen. But when I do those two things, it usually flows. And I bet it would be for you too. I remember years ago, I worked with John Denver, popped in my head just now. And he was stuck in every way, couldn't write a damn thing. And he was very, very frustrated.

Starting point is 00:08:37 And I just took him through three of his greatest songs that he'd ever done. And as he walked through the songs, I said, I want you to describe to me the moments that were coming through you. And all three of his examples, he was either skiing or he'd gone on a run or done something. And then boom, he was in this state where he was in the flow state again. And I remember I did that for him. And then I started doing it for myself ever since that time. And do you still travel with a small trampoline? Yes. I don't travel with it, but I have an army of goodies that go place to place. Yes. And how do you use that? How do you typically use it? I just use it. I do it because most people know you have more, you're lymphed in your body. There's

Starting point is 00:09:19 four times more lymph than there is blood. The lymph is the detoxification system of your body. When you're feeling tired or exhausted or lethargic, you know, outside of sleep and hydration and then food, you know, it's really making sure that lymph system is moving. So I jump on that thing for 10, 12 minutes, first thing in the morning and get my lymph moving, right? Especially if I don't have the cold nearby, if I can't, you know, if I don't have a cold plunge or something, I'm in a hotel, then my next piece is to lymphocytes for 12 minutes. And it's just amazing. You get all that lactic acid out of your body moving, and you feel like a different person.

Starting point is 00:09:59 So you mentioned John Denver. And of course, I've seen your documentary, which is quite the buzz at the moment. And we're going to talk a lot more about that. I wanted to ask, and a few fans also asked about this. If you, if you think back, is there a particular intervention or that is particularly or was particularly difficult and what made it difficult and how did you handle it? Oh my gosh, there's so many particularly difficult ones. Or are there characteristics that make particular interventions difficult? I remember one in particular. I know why this one flashes in my mind, but I don't know if I've ever shared this with you. We've talked a few times, but I had, I was, it was a really big deal. It was my date with destiny. It was the first time I brought any reporters in to see this.

Starting point is 00:10:41 This is gosh, 20 years ago, maybe. And, And, you know, I always read, I think, you know, I read people do 10 to 20 pages of homework. I read it all. And now it takes, you know, a couple of weeks to read it all. And I don't remember Rudy's name, but that information's in me. So I'm ready. And I'd done this. And Diane Sawyer was coming with her crew to kind of just do a brief filming and show all these incredible CEO types that were changing their lives and redesigning their destiny in the middle of this experience. And it was on day one, this woman kept trying to get my attention, I felt, and I don't reward that, right? I'm happy to do it if it's not for attention, if it's for help, but this woman, it was clear. And so I ignored, ignored it.

Starting point is 00:11:21 And all of a sudden she just exploded, ignited, started saying, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. And she started, she had her hand like she was stabbing at people and people were like running for her going totally berserk. And then I saw who she was. I saw the dynamic of what was going on. And instantly I realized who she was. She was a woman who had 50.

Starting point is 00:11:42 She was one of the first people, it was multiple personality disorders, MPDs as they called them, one of the first diagnosed ones when they first came up with the title of this. And she had been institutionalized. And her story was so brutal because she actually, her father had been sexually abusing her for a good portion of her life. And she finally told somebody and he had her institutionalized people that I guess were his friends. And they there, the doctor there actually sexually abused her. He would drug her and sexually abuse her. So you can only imagine going inside your head where there's pain no matter, when you're being trapped, for feeling like you have some significant control over your life, for the feeling of connection or love or growth or contribution. These are human needs that have to be found in our life for us to feel like we can function. So if we can't find them in good ways, we'll find them in bad ways. And her way was to just

Starting point is 00:12:36 change personalities. That's one way to get out of pain. If you're being viciously attacked and you're out of control, try to become someone else. And she kept doing it and doing it. Long story shortened, she's screaming, doing this, people are freaking out. And all of a sudden she starts talking like a little girl and like an old man. And I mean, it looked like something out of Exorcist. And in the middle of all this, I let her just go and go and go. And I finally just said to her, I said, you know, I understand you're in a lot of pain and I just want you to know that I know who you are and I know what you've been through. And then I told the room the story of

Starting point is 00:13:11 what she threw while she stood there with her mouth opening and just gapped open. And I said, so I want you to know that I know you believe you're all these personalities, but I said, there's probably a reason you're here. And I said, I think the reason you're here is because, you know, changing personalities was a brilliant solution for you to survive in those situations. And you had to keep more and more personalities, but you kept doing it so much. Now you're out of the institution, but you're still living in pain. And I said, the problem is, I said, you must be here because at some level, you know, this isn't working because no one can love someone when they don't know who they're going to be next. And it just grabbed her. I found her internal need. And then as I started working with her, she would jump back. She wanted control. She would try to

Starting point is 00:13:53 do something. And she said, I'm going to pee on this chair. And I said, you pee on that chair. I said, I'll slap you across this room. And you know, she wasn't ready for that piece. Obviously I'm not going to do it. I'm just using the shock factor. I said, I'm not some stupid psychiatrist that you can play these games with. I said, I know who the fuck you are. And you know who you are deep inside. And I said, all this stuff was brilliant, brilliant adaptation that helped you survive. But now it's separating you from everyone.

Starting point is 00:14:16 It's causing you to feel the deepest pain. And I said, I think it's brilliant you have so many personalities. Children have lots of personalities. You say, you know, I'm Superman. No, I'm Batman. I'm Superman and Batman. You can do all that stuff when you're a kid i said when you're an adult you say that shit people want to lock you up i said so you're probably great with

Starting point is 00:14:30 i said you're probably great with children and she looked at me and she goes i am great with children you know and you just watch you're going in and out so anyway you know it's an hour and a half process i'm trying to tell you in two minutes but the bottom line in the end is the way i finally kicked her over the edge was she goes yeah but i you I, you know, she says, I was one of the first MPDs. I said, I know. And they're so goddamn common now, aren't they? Because I knew, I knew her biggest need was to be significant. She was defeating all the psychiatrists. She wanted to be the significant drive needed to be met more than any other drive for her on the surface. What she needed more was love. So I said to her, I used the significance drive. I said, yeah, it's so common. I mean, MPDs are a dime a dozen.

Starting point is 00:15:09 There's nothing unique about them at all. You could just see her face just drop. It just took it all away. And then I turned around and I said, but you know, and the cameras are rolling, by the way. What I'm not telling you is inside my gut when this first starts, I'm like, are you kidding me? This woman is splitting personalities and being a freak in the middle of them filming here. They're going to like, this is who comes to Tony Robbins. I got the room full of like CEOs, you know, Mark Benioff, you know, from Salesforce and, you know, billionaires. And this woman is like taking away my entire ability to reach people is what ran through my head. But I let go of that and just worked on her. But at the end, the cameras are still rolling. And I said, look, there are a dime a dozen.

Starting point is 00:15:46 But I said, you know, I don't think there's ever been anyone in history that's ever had 52 personalities or even two and who integrated in a matter of two minutes or less on national television. But I said, I don't think you're capable of that. It was just the perfect double bind. And she went through all these conversions in her face. And anyway, long story short, she transformed. And then all I did for the next four days was catch her and show her. And I said, listen, you know, anyone can forget things. You certainly, we've all had the skill

Starting point is 00:16:13 of forgetting our keys where you go from place to place to place. And then you find in the place you've been looking for the fifth time through. I said, forgetting can also be a skill. And then I just helped her along the way to just let go of all those personalities. And the beauty of it, the reason I think it was powerful was, you know, they didn't do that story for a year because they wanted to see what happened with her. And a year later, she was still clear. And when Diane Sawyer interviewed her, psychiatry said, it's just a miracle. I can't explain it. Just a miracle because you never split again. So it was a fairly dramatic example. But, you know, I've gotten a call, as you know, and, you know, President Clinton in the middle of the night saying they're going to impeach me in the morning. What should I do? I've got a chance to work with Princess Diana to help her clarify what you really want to do to make one of the biggest decisions in her life and British history. I've had the chance to be with Mr. Gorbachev and really hear what ended the Cold War directly and then sit down with him and President Bush Sr. at that time and Mitterand

Starting point is 00:17:09 and Meg Thatcher and sit in like a fly on the wall in those conversations. There's just been some amazing times in this life that I've been privileged to witness and be a part of and sometimes influence. I view you as an expert question asker, a crafter of questions as a way of not manipulating, it's not the right word, but changing thought, right? Changing thought patterns. And if you could ask, say, all of the past podcast guests that I've had one question, what would that question be? First, I would never ask one question. Somebody counted one time. I was at an event and there's this woman who was suicidal. And someone counted. I asked 167 questions before I ever said anything. Of that one person?

Starting point is 00:17:58 Of that one person, right? And she was a person that was completely shut down, suicidal, non-responsive. So I would never ask one question. But the line of questioning would depend on the person. But I'm always fascinated by is what is the drive that makes someone the best of who they are? What is the uncovering? What is the piece that triggers that? And I usually ask people a question like, whose love did you crave the most growing up? Your mother, your father, I'm sure you love them both the most, but whose love did you crave the most? Whose love did you crave the most who what whose love did you crave the most oh you're asking me yeah uh probably my dad i would say i mean my yeah i would say so i had a very deep relationship with my mom uh and

Starting point is 00:18:36 i was i was i felt close to my dad in a lot of ways but it was a different relationship yeah who did you have to be for your father? If you had a first gut reaction without even thinking, just no filters. I had to be. I had to be. That's a good question. Man. It's pretty rare that I get stumped on my own podcast but it's good because this is deep in your unconscious because the reason i'm asking this question and

Starting point is 00:19:10 i'll give you a moment or two to think is what controls our life is our model of the world so our model of the world is we all have to have a set of beliefs a set of values a set of rules how you should be how i should be how life should be and of course life doesn't always match that which is where people get stressed out and thinking that all their preferences should be, how I should be, how life should be. And of course, life doesn't always match that, which is where people get stressed out and thinking that all their preferences should be met. But if they understand the driving force of your whole life comes because when you're first born, you're wide open. You can be anything. A child can do anything. You can laugh, you can cry, you can scream, you can throw stuff, you can go to the bathroom in your pants, try that when you're 40, see if it works. So the whole thing changes because you learn from the source

Starting point is 00:19:45 of love you crave the most, from both sources of love, you learn how you need to be. And you learn it by what they tell you or what they don't tell you, what you inherently make up in your mind based upon what you witness. So just tell me the first gut response. First gut response is, for my father, I needed to be, to have his respect, to have his love. I think to have his love and his respect. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is maybe obedient is not the right adjective, but the accepting of whatever his instructions were effectively. And as you know of me also, when you said I would never ask one question, well, I'm pretty prone to asking barrages of questions.

Starting point is 00:20:31 And I felt like that created a lot of friction. With him. I wanted to ask why a thousand times in a row before I would accept. And that wasn't acceptable. He wanted you to accept what he said? thousand times in a row before i would and that wasn't and that wasn't acceptable you wanted to accept what he said yeah i would i would say yeah it was a frequent source of of conflict interesting yeah interesting and what else did you have to be about besides you had to accept his view to some extent or not question it or not ask too many questions what else did you have to be? What are, well, let me ask, let me flip

Starting point is 00:21:09 this around. I'm buying myself some time. What are, how do you dissect it? Let me ask about your mom. Let me ask that question. What about your mom? Just out of curiosity, who did you have to be for your mom? I didn't, I didn't feel like I needed to be anyone for my mom. She was very, my mom, my mom was very good at exposing me to many different things. We didn't have a lot of money, but she would expose us to whether it was particular books or, say, going to the beach and gathering black sand with magnets, whatever it might be. She would expose us to a lot of different stimuli. And then if we became passionate about something, she would, to the extent that she could support that. And so I felt like it was very, my marching to my own drummer was perfectly acceptable.

Starting point is 00:21:59 And wherever I ended up, as long as I was happy, was a perfectly fine destiny, so to speak. So I never felt like I had to be anyone in particular for my mom, I don't think. Which is also why you didn't crave for love. You see, we crave the love that we feel like we didn't get as much of, and it affects our unconscious. So your pathway of your life of experimentation and feeling like it's not only something that is good, it's something that could be great. It sounds like it started with those experiences with your mother. Your experiences of anxiety, wherever you would feel them, would come from the experiences with your father because you couldn't win. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:22:41 You follow? Yeah. No, I do. So both of those pieces are inside you today, are they not? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, certainly. How could they not be, right? I mean. And so what happens is if we understand where those sources are, we can reclaim certain aspects. That's a little deeper, longer conversation, but it's like finding the pieces with your father, finding a different experience, a different set of memories even of your father

Starting point is 00:23:06 that there may be deep in your unconscious that have been pushed away by the times that tightened you. It's like very often when we have an experience where we feel constricted in some way, like we're not able to please the person we love at the highest level, there's a tension that grabs in our body, almost like a muscle walking up. And then what happens after that trauma or that frustration or whatever you want to call it, that intensity that happens in our body, almost like a muscle walking up. And then what happens after that trauma or that frustration or whatever you want to call it, that intensity that happens in our nervous system is we don't let it go. And so oftentimes it just stays with us and it can stay with us 20, 30 years later. We don't even know why we're feeling these feelings and we're trying to attack it from a million ways. Often you can reclaim and heal that by finding the memory before that, a much

Starting point is 00:23:42 earlier memory where perhaps your father was, maybe never was, but where you felt an expression of love that was not tied to behaving in a certain way, where you could actually feel that, remember it. And there's a liberation that occurs when we find that. So I'm interested in knowing what drives people because it helps you understand who they are and where it came from. It helps you understand their strengths and their weaknesses so you can help them. But I'm also interested in helping people to heal those pieces that have come that where a person has adapted so much that they've overused a part of themselves. I had to be, in my case, it was my mother's love that I craved.

Starting point is 00:24:18 I had four fathers, so I didn't really crave them. They weren't around long enough, right? But my mother's love and pleasing her was not an easy task. And she would beat the shit out of you if she didn't do it. I mean, I love her to death. I'm grateful. I am the man I am because I learned so much of how to adapt and I don't want people to experience suffering like I experienced. So a huge part of who I am came from my mom. I'm not dissing her in any way, but I had to go back and reclaim certain aspects of my life to have some real freedom in myself. And knowing where that came from was very helpful. Well, just as a side note also, I completely agree.

Starting point is 00:24:50 And I think that, and this is more just an observation that, you know, you can feel free to respond to, but you don't have to, which is I do have those memories of sort of deep bonding with my dad at a very young age that didn't, that weren't sort of predicated on any type of, uh, any of the things that we just discussed. And I've tried very hard in the last few years also with, uh, a lot of the, the work that I've done in the world of sort of in theogens and psychedelics and so on as, as a way of facilitating some of this very early, uh, reintegration and just self-examination. And it's actually, I've never been closer to my dad now. Oh, that's beautiful.

Starting point is 00:25:31 And just came back from a trip to Paris with both my parents. And so there's been a lot of growth as a result of looking at, trying to ask myself variants of some of these questions that you're posing. Well, you know, just so people are clear, I'm not a big focuser on your past, but this specific element of who did you need to be and who did you not need to be? Like when you look at people that you really like a lot, if you have tremendous passion or appreciation for respect for, invariably it's because you see in them something that's actually in you, but you've disidentified with it because the

Starting point is 00:26:11 source of love in your life that you were trying to please or prove to did not necessarily reinforce that form of yourself. So you disidentify, this is not me. I'm the person I need to be for my mother or my father or whoever the case may be. So it's really useful from that standpoint so that you can begin to enrich and expand your life. And it sounds like you've used psychedelics as a way to kind of go back there. It can be done obviously that way. It can also be done in very simple, direct ways through closed eye kind of hypnotic patterns that can be done over a course of an hour or two. I do those in many different events, including David Desning. Let's talk about investments for a second, but in a very broad sense. So if you had to think of the best or most worthwhile investment you've made, and what I mean by that is an investment

Starting point is 00:26:58 of money, time, energy. And I'll give you an example just because it might clarify the question. So Amelia Boone, who's the world's most successful female obstacle course racer, four-time world champion, for her, it was her first $450, which was a huge financial stretch at the time for her first world's toughest mudder competition, which she ended up winning. And it took her on this completely different life trajectory, right? does anything come to mind for you? Probably the first one was, uh, going to a gym around the seminar. I think I've shared with you. I had, uh, I was working for this man helping him move. I was 17. I was in high school and, um, I was just trying to earn extra money. And my family had talked about, my father had talked about this guy had been such a

Starting point is 00:27:45 loser before. And then now he'd been so successful. And so, you know, when you're 17, I told the guy, I said, you know, my dad used to be such a loser. Now you're so successful. How come? What did you do? And, you know, he didn't like that response at first.

Starting point is 00:27:57 But he told me he'd gone to this seminar by this man named Jim Rohn. And I said, like, what's a seminar? And he said, this man gets up and shares with you the best of what he's learned over, you know, 20, 30 years of his life in an evening and saves you all those years. And I said, wow. And I said, you know, is this happening soon? He said, yeah. He told me when I said, can you get me in? And he said, yeah. And he just didn't say anything after that. I said, well, will you? And he said, no, I said, why not? And he said, because you won't value it if you don't invest in it. And I said, how much is it? And he said, $35 for three hours. I said, $35 for three hours?

Starting point is 00:28:28 I make $40 a week as a janitor while I'm going to high school. I said, that's a week's pay. He said, well, then just go learn on your own experience and waste 10 or 20 or 30 years of your life, right? So it's up to you. But he said, I'm not paying for it. And I'm not, even though I could get you in, I'm not going to. You decide.

Starting point is 00:28:42 And I wrestled for a week with that decision because it seemed like such a giant decision. But, you know, I look back on it now, one of the most important decisions of my life because that night stimulated me. Jim Rohn became a model of what was possible to me, of how I could help people out long term. I mean, I had no direction or vision. I didn't even know if such a thing as a seminar or an event like that occurred. It all came out of that initial conversation.

Starting point is 00:29:04 So it was a damn good $35, even though it seemed like all the money I'd ever see in the world. And when I was interviewing these people, by the way, for the Money Master the Game, I interviewed 50 of the smartest financial people on the face of the earth. All these guys are self-made. None of them are from the Lucky Sperm Club. And every single one of them, as you dug in with them, had different things. I asked them about their best investment and so forth. You know, guys like Warren Buffett said his best investment was going to Dale Carnegie, he told me. He said, you know, it's what you do. It's investing in yourself is the most important investment you'll ever make

Starting point is 00:29:37 in your life. There's no financial investment that will ever match it because if you develop more skill, more ability, more insight, more capacity, he said, that's what's going to really provide economic freedom for you because it's those skill sets that really make that happen. So I found that most people, there's different types of investments where it's got to start with is your own development, which you've done your whole life. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. And I'm still a collector of quotes. I capture them in Evernote. And what surprised me is how many of them are misattributed to people that actually originate with Jim Rohn. It's been amazing. I remember I was at a gym not long ago, a few weeks ago, and there was a t-shirt

Starting point is 00:30:17 that this gym had made, which said, don't wish it were easier, make yourself better. And I think that actually goes back. A number of people pointed out to Jim Rohn in some wish you were better. Exactly. Do you have any quotes that you live your life by or any, any particular maxims? Oh my gosh, there's so many, but I mean, I think the core construct of my life is the decisions. It's your decisions, not your conditions that shape your life. And so it's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. So you want to choose really well. You know, you'd make a different decision. I tell people, I say, think of the last 10, 20 years of your life.

Starting point is 00:30:56 Think if there had been a decision that if you made a different decision, your life would be completely different today. Better or worse, I don't know, but completely different. Everybody can relate to it. So I think most of us forget the power of decision that, you know, you don't like your job, change it. You don't like your relationship, change it. You know, start by changing yourself because you just change people. You're going to, you get the same problems you're carrying with you, right? You know, you don't like your income, change it.

Starting point is 00:31:18 And all of us have that capacity, but it really comes down to making decisions. And most people, they don't make enough decisions. Decision-making is like a muscle. The more you make them, the stronger you get. And if all you make are the easy decisions, any idiot can do that. The most successful leaders are the ones that have to make decisions where they're likely maybe going to be wrong, but they figure out, you know, I got to make the decision quicker. So if I'm wrong, I can find out quicker and make a better decision, change to the next thing and make it go. So my life is about really how can I help people to change the structure of what creates decisions

Starting point is 00:31:51 and what filters that as our beliefs, our values, our rules, and our emotions, obviously, because that shapes it all. So I'm constantly looking for where is the tipping point that can change the quality of this person's life. Often we've made decisions five, 10, 20 years ago that still affect us today. Sometimes those decisions were made as a child about life, about yourself, about what you believe about men or women or people or relationship or finance or anything. And if beliefs create and beliefs destroy either, you know, there's no such thing as a belief that doesn't have a consequence. The only question is, is an uplifting consequence or a degrading consequence. And so I'm huge on finding what those are, eliminating the ones that are keeping people from making the decisions that move them

Starting point is 00:32:32 forward and making that happen. So I love quotes, but it's really more the hunt for excellence. It's the hunt for what's outstanding. It's the hunt, just like you. It's one of the reasons I love you so much and respect you so much is I feel like we're different creatures, but we're, we've got some of the same core stuff in us, which is we want to understand the truth and we're going to bring the truth to people. And we want to find that truth in all its beautiful forms and different forms. So people have a variety of ways of creating the quality of life they desire and they deserve. And we're both kind of experimenters in that area. So to me, that's what it's about more than the quotes themselves.

Starting point is 00:33:06 Love quotes, love anything that's inspiring. I'm touched by them all. But in the end, information has got to be converted. Knowledge has got to be converted to action or it's worthless. You know, it's what Jim Rohn used to say. He was my teacher. He used to say, you know,

Starting point is 00:33:18 if you let your learning lead to knowledge, you become a fool. If you let your learning lead to action, you become wealthy. And his idea of wealthy was not just money. It was really rich mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and financially, of course. And I really have lived by that. What is some of the, looking at the flip side, what is some of the worst advice that you see or hear being dispensed often in say the self-improvement world or self-development world. It could be, it could

Starting point is 00:33:45 be in any sphere, but I'm just wondering if, if any particularly common yet bad advice comes to mind that you think is. Oh my gosh, there's so much. Such a full floor to pick from. I mean, depends on the start. I'd tell you, I'd say, you know, financially, just cause I finished, you know, financially, just because I finished four years of obsession on that subject, you know, I'm doing Money Master the Game and getting that out to people and I'm still so obsessed by it. As you know, we live in a culture that, you know, most people allow financial quote professionals, you know, 95% of which in the marketplace, they call them wealth managers. There's 300 names, but 95% of the people you're talking about as a broker. And it might be a really nice person, but the advice they're going to give you is based on what the house has taught them to sell. And the house always wins. These corporations are not bad. They're trying to make profit for their shareholders. That's who they're focused on first. They're not focused on you. So finding a fiduciary, as you know, is one of the most important elements, somebody who's legally required to put your needs ahead of their own. So many people put their money

Starting point is 00:34:48 in mutual funds and, you know, 96% of all mutual funds don't even match the market over a 10 year period of time. Only 4% will match it or beat it. And that 4% is always changing. So you want to get someone who can give you advice, who is extraordinary. I'm actually really excited that, you know, I wrote that book and then I donated all the money and I fed a hundred million people and I'm feeding another hundred million this year. I'm going to feed a billion people over the next nine years, which I'm really excited about my partnership with Feeding America. But in doing that and writing the book, I wanted people to not be screwed over. So I spent half a million dollars, quite frankly, of my own money. And then I donated that just like the book to create this online site where people could go and they could

Starting point is 00:35:28 put their numbers in and they could find out what they actually were spending. As I think you know, 1% in fees makes up 10 years of income you lose. In other words, if you paid 2% when you could have paid 1% or 3%, 3% instead of 1%, you'd be paying 20 years worth of future income out just in fees for the same stocks, the same bonds, the same investments you could have owned for less. And people just don't understand this. So I created a site and I had people go there and I donated the pieces and it instantly pulled all your accounts in and showed you what you're really being charged so people can make better decisions. And then if you wanted a fiduciary, I recommended six of the best and largest firms out there. And then when I went to do my paperback,

Starting point is 00:36:09 Tim, something happened that just blew my mind, which was one of the guys on the site, his name is Peter Malouk from Creative Planning. It's the number one rated wealth manager for the last three years, to give you an idea. And number one for CNBC for the last two years. And Barron's was the first one for three years. No one's ever done it for three years. So he's brilliant, brilliant guy managing, you know, at the time about $17 billion. And he said, listen, Tony, I want to sit down with you

Starting point is 00:36:33 and have a conversation with you because you care so much about people, but there's a little gray area in the law that some of the people you do business with are taking advantage of. And he said, I think you're going to go berserk when you find it out. So when you and I, you came to LA for the UPW and I met him right afterwards,

Starting point is 00:36:48 same day and at my hotel there. And we sat down and talked and he showed me how these people that say they're fiduciary, you're saying I'm here legally required to take care of you. Now have this little component called dual registration where they're a broker and they're a fiduciary. So you're going to somebody thinking that they are legally required. And they're going to tell you, I'm legally required to take care of you. And in the middle of the conversation, you can sweat hats and be a broker

Starting point is 00:37:10 and sell you something that is inferior product that gives them just a higher commission that has no value for you. And they can do it. And so I looked on, I found out every person on the site but one was doing it. I couldn't believe it. And it's just gray area they're getting by with.

Starting point is 00:37:24 So I've knocked them off the site. And then, you know, I was talking to Peter and I said, Peter, I said, this is a great way to get rid of your competition. And he laughed. He goes, no, I'm just, it's the facts. I said, no, I get it. I said, you know what? Why don't, if you're number one for three years in a row and no one's ever done that. And he has this approach, you know, our billionaire friends all have family offices where, you know, you have seven or eight people who full-time are looking at your mortgages and looking at your accounting and your investment. They look at every aspect of your life and they make it work. You've got to be a billionaire to have it.

Starting point is 00:37:53 He created a billionaire family office type format for millionaires. And I said, listen, if you'd be willing to do this with people who lose $100,000 or even $50,000, you won't make money on it. I know you won't make money on it, but I want to help everybody. If they'll do that, I'd be interested in joining forces with you. So we spent several months together. So now, so you know, I'm pretty excited about it. I'm partners with Peter at Creative Planning. I'm a member of the board of directors, and I'm also their head director of psychology for their investment group. And now that's my focus is getting people to the right kind their investment group. And I'm, I've now, that's my focus is getting people to the right kind of person. And so I'm responsible for basically

Starting point is 00:38:30 helping educate the public. And of course, since I'm a partner in the firm, if I grow the firm, I'm going to get more clients. It helps my business, his business together because we're together now, but I could have been with anybody. I picked this guy because he's just second to none. So you got to find the right person. The other side of decision-making would be, I think, you look at health. Oh my God. There are so many things in the health area that are so conflicted. I think, you know, I just, you asked me last time about my diet and I told you I got a really boring diet for, I was, I was for what, 16 years.

Starting point is 00:39:02 I was, you know, a vegetarian and vegan. And then I began eating fish and that was the only thing I needed. I felt stronger. I needed that. And about, gosh, three months ago, I started, I had several challenges in a row. I had the challenge of first, you know, for years of pounding my arms together with such intensity, you know, 50 hours in a week on stage and the nerves in my arms, I couldn't sleep on my side. So, I slept on my back, not a big deal. But then my wife kept saying, honey, you're stopped breathing. I'm really worried. And I went to a sleep study and found that I stopped breathing 17 times in 16 minutes on my back. So extreme sleep apnea. So they give you this, this sleep

Starting point is 00:39:38 app, which is this like vacuum cleaner to put on your face. And it's extremely sexy. You'll get girls with it for sure. And, um, and I'm just like, are you kidding me? This is how I'm supposed to live my life. And then in the middle of this, I go snowboarding and I get a snowboarding accident and I rip, you know, three of my rotator cuffs. I'm good at handling pain. So it wasn't that big a deal, but then the pain starts going down my arm and I find this incredible, this level of pain that's nine, nine. I mean, I can handle pain, but it's, it was as severe as anything. I imagine couldn't sleep, couldn't anything. Went into the hospital for the MRI and found out that I had spinal stenosis where the nerves are being pinched and spine is tightening up.

Starting point is 00:40:13 And, you know, they tell me I can't snowboard again. I can't play squash. I can't, you know, I can't jump around on stage and be crazy. And so I wasn't willing to accept that. So long story short, I'm telling you this because I have a core belief. The core belief is, you asked me about quotes, it's a belief. Life is always happening for us, not to us. And it's our job to give up. And all these guys are telling me my life is over. Right. And in the midst of all this, I'm also experiencing something insane that I didn't even tell my wife because I don't want to worry her, but I'm only 56 years old and I've never, I'm on stage 50 hours. You know, I don't forget a thing. I mean, it's like my brain is just, it's a strength and I'm on stage and I'm trying to figure out all of a sudden, what did I just say? And why did I say it? It was like dementia. And I'm, stage and I'm trying to figure out all of a sudden, what did I just say? And why did I say it?

Starting point is 00:41:06 It was like dementia. And so that's freaking me out. All this is happening at once. While I've just maybe six months before made this decision that said, I am going to become a master of joy and happiness like I never have before. As great as I think my life is, I'm going to end suffering as it arrives. I'm going to realize that there's only two places you can live. Beautiful states of being, joy, happiness, love, passion, decisiveness, creativity, awe, all those states that when you're in those emotional states,

Starting point is 00:41:36 life is magnificent. You treat yourself and others at the highest level. And then there are suffering states. And none of us who are achievers would probably call it suffering, just like achievers are never fearful. They're just stressed. This is the achiever word for fear. But if I follow your stress, it'll take me to your fear. Same thing. So I never call it suffering. If you would have said, do you have a, you know, are you suffering? I would have said, suffer? Are you kidding me? I don't suffer. I have the most magnificent life. I have this incredible mission. I have millions of people that I meet and love. I got four incredible kids. I got the greatest wife in the world. I'm physically fit. I got financial freedom.

Starting point is 00:42:08 But I did suffer because suffering really is any emotion that takes you out of those beautiful states. So it would be, I'd get frustrated. I'd get stressed. I'd get concerned. I'd get overwhelmed. I'd get all kinds of feelings. They didn't last very long, but I'd feel them. And I'd say, well, that's part of life. But really what happened for me is you talk about better advice. The advice I gave myself, the advice I got, I went to India, spent some time with a friend of mine and came out of it and said, the next level for me is realizing how to experience life at the highest level every day, every moment, finding ecstasy and joy in this moment with you, in the moment with my wife, in the moment when I'm going to go talk with someone.

Starting point is 00:42:46 I mean, billionaires are common. Someone who is truly happy every moment of life is not. And so my, you know, you talk about advice or direction. My whole obsession became to say, look, my whole life is about helping people create an extraordinary quality of life, not a good one, not even a great one, just life on their terms, whatever that is. Some people, that's three beautiful children. Some people, that's a garden. Some people, that's poetry.

Starting point is 00:43:12 Some people, that's building a billion dollar business. There's no right or wrong, but whatever you really want to get it, you've got to master two skills. And the one everybody knows is the science of achievement. Like we've got to figure out how to take our visions and make them real. And the people that do that are the people that everybody knows the name of and respect and who have their life the way they want it seemingly. And it is a science in that achievement. There are rules. If you want to know finance, there are rules to finance. I just spent four or five years doing it. You follow those rules, you're going to have an abundance of money.

Starting point is 00:43:42 You may not be a billionaire, but you're going to have an abundance of money. You break those rules, I don't care who you are, you're going to have financial stress. Same thing with the body. You and I both know we're all biochemically unique, but there are certain fundamentals. If you violate them, you're going to have low energy and disease. If you align with them, you're going to have high energy. So that's science of achievement. You and I could dig into that forever. But the one I'm passionate about, the one I really want to jump on this call with you on, because I really want to spread the word, is two things. It's this idea that the other skill you need that is so boring and our culture does not reinforce it, does not show its true importance, is the art of fulfillment. And it's an art, Tim.

Starting point is 00:44:18 It's not a science. Because what's going to light you up, you and our good friends, and what lights me up, there's going to be a lot of things in common. There'll be some things that are different. There's a woman in your life. She's going to light you up, you and our good friends, and what lights me up, there's going to be a lot of things in common. There'll be some things that are different. There's a woman in your life. She's going to love certain things. You're going to have a little common in certain things. She's going to be excited by what don't excite you. That's just part of life. I was with Steve Wynn. And I think you know Steve. He's a dear friend of mine from built most of Las Vegas and Macau. And he calls me up one day. It's a perfect example of this. And he says to me, he says, where are you in the world? And I said, I'm in Sun Valley.

Starting point is 00:44:45 And we both have some escape homes in Sun Valley, vacation homes there. He goes, I'm in Sun Valley. He goes, do you know it's my birthday? I said, I do know it's your birthday, Steve. He said, I was going to call you. He goes, well, you don't need to call me. I'm here. Come see me.

Starting point is 00:44:56 So I said, I'd love to come see you. And he says, when you come, I got to tell you something. He said, I have been coveting a painting for 17 years. And he said, I just outbid everybody at Sotheby's for it. And he said, Tony, you've got to see it. It's incredible. I paid $82 million for this picture. And I'm like, oh, my God, I've seen some of his paintings.

Starting point is 00:45:18 Picasso's are amazing. He's got everything you can imagine, Rembrandt. And so I said, OK, I can't wait to see it. So I'm driving to his house. I'll never forget. I'm picturing my mind. It's like the Mona Lisa. This is like a Rembrandt and so I said okay I can't wait to see it so I'm driving to his house I'll never forget I'm picturing my mind it's like the Mona Lisa this is like a what is this is going to be incredible and I walk in his house he goes look and I look up and it's a big red square I mean if you know art it's called a Rothko yeah it's a big red square with a little bit of orange in it right and I look I look at him and say, Steve, you know, I first admired it. And then I started teasing him.

Starting point is 00:45:47 I said, you know, give me $100 in 15 minutes. I can do this shit. I'm telling you. He didn't like that. He goes, you know, you don't understand. The guy committed suicide. Well, if he committed suicide, that better be his blood on there for $82 million, for Christ's sake. So I teased him about it.

Starting point is 00:46:02 But the reason I bring it up is he finds $82 million of value in that paint. And I respect him because I don't. He knows each brushstroke and what it means and what went into it and what the talent is. I don't have that level of sophistication around that kind of art. So I look at that and I go, red square. He looks at it and goes, $82 million of the value. That's how humans function. So you and I have to figure out what it is that really lights us up because success without fulfillment to me is the ultimate failure in life. The worst advice you can get is go achieve all your goals. Most people do that and they go, is this all there is? What you have to find out is what's going to fulfill you.

Starting point is 00:46:41 And there are no, it's not like a science because it's different for everybody. You want to know what's, I'm up here in BC right now. I'm looking out at the forest and you look at this forest. You want to know what God loves, the universe loves. It's pretty obvious. Nothing's the same. It's all diverse. It's pure diversity, right? So that's what's real. But the principle that makes you feel like fulfilled is you've got to grow. Anybody, I don't care how much money they have, how many Academy Awards they have, how many people they like or like them. I don't care how much money. It doesn't matter what they have. It's never enough if you don't keep growing. Because if you don't grow,

Starting point is 00:47:11 you die. If your business is not growing, don't bullshit yourself. It's shrinking. If your relationship is not growing, it is shrinking. It is dying. There is no in-between in the real life of how things really live. And if you grow, the reason I believe growth is the imperative in the universe, it's not my rules, everything in the universe grows or dies, is because it gives us something to give. And I really believe that's what we're made for. We're most alive when we don't just do something for ourselves, but we really feel like our life matters because it extends beyond ourselves into contribution. So I'll give you a perfect example. And I've been sharing this example all over the world because it's just so relevant. And I also wanted to test how people responded. So during

Starting point is 00:47:49 these premieres of I'm Not Your Guru around the country, I've gone up afterwards for Q&A. And then I asked people, as well as in my seminars around the world, I'd say, how many of you, I said, we've lost a national treasure in the United States two years ago, and I asked this in China, Beijing, and Tokyo, and Sydney, down in Brazil, up in Toronto, in America, I said, this name is Robin Williams. I said, how many of you in this room, don't raise your hand if you liked Robin Williams, raise your hand if you love Robin Williams. And 98% of the room in Beijing, in Tokyo, in Sydney, I'm talking about all over the world. 98% of the people, 99% raised their hand. And then I give shit to the 1% that are assholes that didn't like it. But I see you asshole. I could do that like Robin Williams, right? But the truth is these people say they

Starting point is 00:48:36 love him. They didn't even know him. Now, was he a master of achievement, science of achievement? You bet. I mean, everybody comes to Hollywood, big dreams. Everybody tells you you're full of shit. This guy did it. He wanted his own TV show. He did it. He wanted the number one show. They all said, there's no way. And some people are ancient enough to remember Mark and Mindy.

Starting point is 00:48:52 And he did it. Then he wanted to have the most beautiful family. And he did it. Then he said he wanted to make more money than he could spend. And he achieved it. Then he said, this is not enough. I want to make movies, not just TV. And he did that.

Starting point is 00:49:03 Then he said, I want to win the Academy Award for not being funny. His number one skill. And he did it. He said he wanted to make the whole world laugh and he did it. He wanted to get the whole world to love him and he did it. And he hung himself, hung himself in his own home, leaving hundreds of millions of people around the world, literally that love this man. And screw us. He left his children and his wife scarred for life. And he was a good man. How do you explain that? I'll tell you how to explain it.

Starting point is 00:49:34 The worst advice a person can ever get, somewhere got stuck in his psychology, that achievement was more important than fulfillment. It's the biggest fucking lie on the planet. And if you get it, if you wake up to it, you can actually have a life that is so rich and so beautiful. But the only way you can do it is you got to understand that this brain inside our heads is a 2 million year old brain. And this 2 million year old brain was not designed to make you happy. It was designed to make you survive. And it's ancient old survival software that is running

Starting point is 00:50:03 you a good deal of time. Whenever you're suffering, that survival software is there. And the reason you're suffering is you're focused on yourself. You're obsessing on yourself. People tell me, I'm not suffering that way. I'm worried about my kids. My kids are not what they need to be. No, the reason they're upset is they feel they failed their kids. It's about them still.

Starting point is 00:50:21 In fact, I began to uncover where all suffering comes from. And I found the most simple little tools I dug in. Suffering comes from three thought patterns, loss, less, never. If you are in a situation where you believe that someone did something, the government, your friend, your coworker, your kid, whoever, and because they did that, you lost love or you lost an opportunity or you lost respect or you lost anything. The illusion of loss is the place we suffer. And it is unconsciously, even when it's not conscious, because we're obsessing about ourselves. We're having this illusion that something happened and now life as we expect it

Starting point is 00:51:01 to be is not there. And our expectations are what are keeping us from feeling that happiness. On the other hand, the other one is less. If you did something, I did something, you failed to do something as my friend, I failed to do something for you. And as a result, either of us starts thinking we have less respect, less love, less joy, less opportunity, less something, you're going to suffer. You're going to come up with those emotions that make you crazy. And the worst one is when you start thinking because you did this or I did this or you didn't do that or I didn't do this or the government or somebody did something, because of that, we will never have something again. Then people get crazy inside. And the antidote to that suffering is appreciation. It's getting outside of yourself and finding something to appreciate because we get so upset about stuff

Starting point is 00:51:44 today. That's nothing. I mean, I'll give you a perfect example. And, you know, I'm privileged enough now to have a intercontinental jet ride and go straight to China, nine stop. It's unbelievable privilege at this stage of my life, but my whole life I've flown commercial and I get on Qantas Airlines to go to Australia, 14 hours, you know, the drill. And what I'd be is like, I got 18 companies now, 12 of them that I actively manage. We got 1200 employees on three continents and seven industries. We do 5 billion in sales plus this year combined with all these people. With all that going on, I get on that plane and my brain would be like, oh my God, I'm going to be disconnected for 14 hours. And I'd go, I'd create all this stress. What's stressful about sitting or lying down if you're privileged enough to be in a first

Starting point is 00:52:27 class seat? I mean, the stories we tell ourselves that stress us out. But on this flight, it's like, you know, you're used to, you know, domestically, you got access to internet and you got, you can, thank God you got connection to Facebook and Instagram. God forbid that you'd be apart from that for a few minutes in your emails. And I get on the plane. It's like they announced for the first time we have internet. And Tim, I swear to God, it was like God entered the plane. People were cheering. People stood up, actually stood up and clapped. And I have to admit, I didn't stand up and clap, but I was

Starting point is 00:52:59 doing that inside. Like, oh yeah, this is so cool. And then what do you think happens 15 minutes later? Yeah, the internet. The internet is announced to not be working. For how long? I have no idea. 14 hours. It didn't never work again. And people are like, this is bullshit. I'm not putting up with this. What the hell is wrong with these people? My point is 15 minutes earlier, it was a miracle. Now it's already an expectation. You want to change your life.

Starting point is 00:53:27 You want to end suffering. Stop just focusing on achievement. It's easy to achieve when you're fulfilled anyway. You feel better. Actually trade your expectations for appreciation and your whole life changes in a moment. It's the whole game. So what I decided to do is to realize if I was going to take a different level of life, life is too short to suffer. You know what took me to suffer, Tim? I wouldn't call it suffering.

Starting point is 00:53:49 It's a little stressed or frustrated. I just had my phone nearby. It's all took. What do you think the chances are if you're a listener right now, or you, Tim, what do you think the chances are with 1200 employees across all these industries, multiple continents? What are the chances that someone is effing up something right now? I'd say 100%. What do you think the chances are? Yeah. It's 100%. And if I have my phone nearby, there's going to be a text or an email or a Slack or something to let me know that. And I'm going to go from this beautiful state I'm in to,

Starting point is 00:54:17 what the, are you kidding me? And that would be my life. And I realized that my happiness was so cheap. I would give my happiness over somebody not doing what I thought they should do. And the more people that you're then responsible to and for, the more likelihood, just the law of averages says it's not going to work out the way you expect. And so I finally decided I got a number one and this is my invitation everyone. It's why I came on because I'm so passionate about this you can tell this i hope that probably feels like a soliloquy right now i apologize my friend but i just want to plant the seed with everybody because it is is a beautiful life and it's blessed the life that i've had and i've worked my ass off for it and i've been blessed both

Starting point is 00:54:57 but out of all of that nothing compares the last year and a half when my wife and i both made this distinction and said there's only two states you live in, beautiful states or suffering states, and life is too short to suffer. So when we start to suffer, we have a 90 second rule, feel it for 90 seconds, figure it out, let it go. Because all these things we're so upset at, my preference is that everybody would do things a certain way. My preference is I'd have the internet on the plane.

Starting point is 00:55:22 We all have these preferences that we make life and death. It's like this survival mechanism in our brain is always looking for what's wrong. That's what it does. That's the survival mechanism. It's looking for what's wrong so you can fight it or flight it. But there's no longer a saber-toothed tiger to avoid. So now it worries about what are people thinking of me or do I have enough money in a country where if you live in poverty in the United States, you're actually in the 1% of the world. People say they're in the 99% are lying. Half the world lives on $2 and 50 cents a

Starting point is 00:55:50 day, 900 bucks a year. So I don't want anybody to be in poverty anywhere, but we live in a world where most of us are looking for what's wrong. What's wrong is always available. So is what's right. And if you don't take control of your focus, everything in your life will disappear. So we have this 90 second rule. And if you want later on the show here, we can wait, I can do a little process for everybody for two minutes and show them how to end some suffering as it occurs. Now suffering will show up again because the mind is always looking for what's wrong. And so it shows up. It's not like it won't show up. It's just, you kill it. I always tell people kill the monster while it's a baby. Don't wait until it's Godzilla eating the city. I mean,

Starting point is 00:56:29 whatever little challenge you got, you want to kill it right away. So in the beginning, it should have probably been a four hour rule, quite honestly, but you know, in years ago, it would have been a four month rule with upset and so forth, but we really got it down like a muscle to 90 seconds. And I cannot tell you the level of magnificence and joy and happiness you have when you don't stress out about all the stuff that you can't control. That's just a preference. And you find the beauty in everything and you use what life is offering you. I mean, I've always done this. It's just, it's like anything else. You can't manage something you don't measure. Right. And I wasn't measuring this because I just called these other emotions.

Starting point is 00:57:06 They weren't dominant. They weren't destroying my life. They were just showing up at times. I called that life. No, that's not life. That's survival software. That's an old brain. And I teach my brain what to do.

Starting point is 00:57:17 I don't let my brain, I don't have an argument. I don't have negotiations in my mind. I've trained my brain through conditioning to do this. And now this year, I've trained it to just let go and find what is beautiful in each moment. And I'm telling you, there is nothing on earth of experience that's brought more joy to me, to my wife. Because also when you're doing that, you're in a different place. You can't be present with someone when you're stressed out inside. And if there's really a problem, it's so much easier to solve when you're in a beautiful state of being with all your ability and strength than when you're in a stressed out state. And all

Starting point is 00:57:47 the people that are getting stressed out makes me better. It's bullshit. I can tell you, you might look like you're getting better, but you haven't really tried being in the ultimate beautiful states and solving something and seeing how much faster it'll be. So I am on a journey to invite people to make the most important decision of their life, which is deciding to end suffering, deciding to live in a beautiful state. That's my spiritual vision now. My friend, his name's Christian G. on India said, you know, what's your spiritual vision? That's how this conversation started. And he said to live in a beautiful state all day long, every day. That's my entire piece. Cause if I do that, everything else comes from it. And I thought someone asked

Starting point is 00:58:21 me the other day, what would cause someone to kill men, women, and children? And, you know, like you've seen happen in Paris and what happened in Nice recently, what's happened obviously in Orlando and San Bernardino. And I said, I can't tell you the kind of person that did it, but I can tell you didn't do it. A happy person didn't go kill all those people. A fulfilled human being, a person in a beautiful state does not plot or try to harm anybody much as kill anybody. A person in a beautiful state is not plot or try to harm anybody much as kill anybody. A person in a beautiful state is not out there trying to, you know, steal from somebody else. And so, you know, when you get on an airplane and the first thing they say is if we have a problem and we lose oxygen, the mask will drop down and put it on your child first, right? No.

Starting point is 00:58:59 They say put it on yourself first, which seems selfish with your child. We all want to take care of our kid first. But the reason is if you don't take care of yourself, you're going to have nothing for that child. That child's going to die too. Putting yourself in a beautiful state is putting that living oxygen inside of you. And then you have things to give other people. As long as you're suffering, suffering begets more suffering. So I always tell people, figure out what your favorite flavor of suffering is.

Starting point is 00:59:22 Are you the person that gets stressed out all the time? Is it anxiety? Is it worry? Is it anger? Is it pissed off? Is it, you know, trying to please everyone? What is your favorite style of suffering and end it? Because when you end that, there's a level of freedom, but no amount of money will give you no amount of love will give it to you. No amount of accolades, no amount of Academy awards, none of that shit. I get the call from all those multi-billionaire clients and from all those people in the entertainment business who've got everything and they're miserable. And they bring me in to help them with their business or whatever it is. And I'm the Trojan horse. I give them what they want, but then I know what I'm really there for is to also give

Starting point is 00:59:55 them what they need and to help them to find that joy and happiness. So I've been doing that, you know, like managing, coaching Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 financial traders in the history of the world. You know, a guy who in 1987, when the stock market took its biggest percentage drop ever percentage wise, still the most, and he made 200% for his clients. And then he lost money, but I've been coaching him now for 22 years. He hasn't lost money in 22 years. So I'm doing my job, but I also making sure that man is fulfilled. And that to me is my real mission with him, even though I'm helping him on the business side in a way that he's very pleased with making

Starting point is 01:00:30 sure that his life is fulfilled as my ultimate, ultimate drive. So I finished with a little piece. I just think a lot of people say to me, well, you know, God's not really in my life. I don't know there's a God or an infinite energy or whatever you want to call what you think has created you. And I always say to people, and you imagine if you were the creator and you come here to one of your creations and you say to this person, Joe, how do you like what I created for you? And he says, geez, God, I mean, it's hot as shit here. Couldn't you just kept it at 78 degrees? Why'd you have to change all these temperatures and make it so tough? And man, you've got these stupid people I got to deal with all the time. They're always getting in my way. And why do I have to work for a living? And plus, you've got these little red

Starting point is 01:01:09 ants. They're tiny little ants and they bite my ass and they hurt like hell. Why would you create these annoying ants? If you're God, do you want to hang out with this person? And if you're a human, do you want to hang out with them? And then you're God, you go to somebody else and you say, how's it going? The creation that created you, the guy who says, Hey man, God, this is so incredible. This is the most beautiful place I could ever imagine. The sky, the air, the water. Oh my God. There's so many different people that challenged me and helped me to grow and learn and people I can love. And oh my God, you've been created these red ants. I mean, these red ants are so tiny. I'm a thousand times their size and they're so courageous. They come even bite me. It's cool what you've created here. Who do you want to hang with? So a lot of people say, I don't got in my

Starting point is 01:01:48 life. It's probably because you whine and bitch too much. Do you feel God's presence, right? We have got to stop the suffering. I don't know many people that don't suffer regularly. They don't call it suffering, but that's what they do. And it's something you can end. Not like one time. It's like drawing the line in the sand and saying, if I want to take the island, I'm going to burn the boats. I'm not going back. And then committing yourself to it and not beating yourself up. Like, you know, I don't say to my wife, oh, you're suffering and you need to change.

Starting point is 01:02:15 We have a 90 second rule. It doesn't work that way. I'm just like, honey, I don't know if you're suffering or not. I feel energy in you right now. And I just want you to know I'm here for you and anything I can do to help. And we do our own internal work. But if she suffered for whatever period of time internally, I'm there for her, but I'm not going to make her wrong for it. Because what happens is your brain starts to see how life can really be. And it is more beautiful than most humans will ever dream

Starting point is 01:02:38 of. And so most people try to drink or smoke or do something to alter their state to get in a beautiful state. And I'm telling you can wire yourself to be that way. So this is my little soliloquy. Thank you for letting me pump it out because you're such a gem, Tim, to let me do it. But it's just like, if I could get every human being to truly make the decision, keep the word and keep practicing because it's a daily practice because I still feel it. Something shows up and you see it, you let it go. But as you do it more and more, it's like, like I said, it's like a muscle. There is a level of joy. As much as you've ever dreamed you have, I'm telling you there's a hundredfold out there. And I'm inviting your listeners to consider trying a real simple 10 day challenge to say for 10 days, I'm just not going to suffer. I'm going to end it.

Starting point is 01:03:19 I'm going to let it go. I'm going to realize don't sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff. I'm going to stop obsessing about myself. I'm going to focus, don't sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff. I'm going to stop obsessing about myself. I'm going to focus on what I can appreciate and what's beautiful and just try it and see what happens. At the end of 10 days, you really believe this is the most important thing in life like I do. Then you commit to that decision long term and maybe surround some of your friends and family sharing why you've done it so you've got some leverage on yourself and you keep

Starting point is 01:03:40 moving forward and keep expanding. And for people who, I'm going to take you up on what you said a little bit earlier, just in terms of describing how the 90 second rule works in practice. I think a lot of people listening would want to take you up on the challenge and to have the sort of 90 second rule process in their toolkit as part of that. What does it look like? Could you give us an example of what that might look like? I'll give you an example where I had to use it recently. I was in Dallas, I don't know,

Starting point is 01:04:09 three or four weeks ago, and I was doing an Unleashed Power Within event. We had about 7,500 people there, 8,000 people there. And we went to the firewalk. It was no different than any firewalk I've ever done in 35 years. We always have a quarter of 1% or half of 1%, under 1% of people that have hot spots or blisters. They know they could get it in advance. And it's like going, if you're going to go do a marathon, you know you could get blisters. And if you do, you don't quit. You push through it, and it's a badge of courage, and you're proud of yourself, right? And you know the firewalk. That's what it is. It's an experience of someone overcoming their fear. It's something real. It's

Starting point is 01:04:41 visceral. And you've got to get yourself to take action in spite of it. And there is some exposure or some danger, if you want to call it that. And we have medical professionals on site and they take care of people. It's aloe vera. It's some blisters. They go away. I'm not making it like it's no big deal, but it's not a big deal. And this happened to me five years ago in San Jose where somebody was driving by. I saw some people coming out, called 911, said, there's all these people burning here. And it became this story overnight that all these people had burned at this firewalk. It went around the world in the news cycle, the 24-7 news cycle, where people don't have, they don't send reporters out to interview. They just copy the same story,

Starting point is 01:05:19 do the same thing over and over again. They said people are hospitalized. Not a single person was hospitalized. None of it was true. Fox News, it took four weeks, but Arianna Huffington has been to our events. And so she put a reporter on this who actually went out and investigated, went to the hospital, found out no one was hospitalized, found out it was all bullshit. So they wrote a story and my lawyers actually worked and got Fox News, believe it or not, to do a reversal or they apologized and said it was incorrect. Then a few weeks ago, I'm in Dallas, same exact thing. Somebody doesn't know what's going on, calls 911, says you've got to send ambulances. There's hundreds of people burning.

Starting point is 01:05:54 Nobody was hospitalized. Five people wanted additional attention. They looked at it, saw they were fine, and released them. They're all in the seminar the next day. But everyone, my email box, my texting, everything's filled with people all over the world saying, I'm so sorry about this. What happened to you? What happened at the event? Nothing happened at the event. So you could only imagine. Now, this was not truly 90 seconds. So I'm telling you this one. This one was like 30, 40 minutes because every time I thought it was done, another thing came in. But here's what I did. Eventually, I got myself back of this process.

Starting point is 01:06:23 There's a set of scientific studies that show that when your mind and your heart, your heart actually has hormones that affect the way your brain functions. It's not just your brain affecting your heart. They interact. When they're in alignment, human beings are able to resolve internal conflicts. Often the conflicts we have are between our conscious and unconscious mind, between our mind and our heart, often as an example. And if I were to put electrodes on your brain and on your heart, as you well know, an EEG and EKG, we can see that they're both in your normal state, pretty jagged up and down, and they don't look anything like each other.

Starting point is 01:06:59 But if all you do is put your hands on your heart physically, and anyone listening, let's go ahead and do this right now in a second, but I'll first tell you what we're going to do. You put both your hands on your heart physically, and you feel your heart. You put all your focus in your heart. You breathe into your heart. And you feel gratitude for two minutes where you think of three events in your life you feel grateful for, and you step in and feel it. At the end of two minutes, you are in what I call a beautiful state because I can look at your EEG and EKG and it's dramatic. First, they aren't jagged, they're rounded, but what's mind-boggling, and I'm sure you probably know this, Tim, they literally sync up. They become identical. They look like they're tracing

Starting point is 01:07:39 each other. And when that happens, it's not just your mind. I always tell people, get in your head, you're dead. Your mind's great for strategy, but it'll never make you enjoy your life. It'll never let you enjoy the taste of an apple because it'll go, is it organic? Where did it come from? Versus your heart, which can bring the juice of anything back to you. So what really I'm trying to do with everyone in this situation is I'm trying to show them how to line these up. And it's really easy. So if you want to do it right now and you want to test that it works, let's do this. And Tim, you can do this with me if you'd like to. Think of a situation, you might not have any in your life, Tim, you're so crazy in this area. And so on top of it,

Starting point is 01:08:16 but most of us have situations where there are, for all of you listening, a place where you have some unfinished business. That's the story of my life, Tony. Okay, well, I have a story of all our lives, right? It's just being human, right? But it's a place where there's something that you should have handled and you haven't handled with a person or situation. It stresses you out. And so what we tend to do is focus on other stuff because we don't want to have to deal with that because it's stressful because it's painful.

Starting point is 01:08:42 And so think of something that on a zero to 10 scale where 10 is totally stressed out and zero is not at all. Pick something that's unfinished business in your business or personal life with something or someone, and it's at least a seven, eight, nine, or a 10, just so you can see that this really works. Now, by the way, there are hundreds of ways to do this. I'm just going to give you this one because we can do it in two minutes, right? So I'm hoping, Tim, do you have one by chance? I do. Tell me the content. Okay, you need to tell me the content.

Starting point is 01:09:07 No one else tell us the content. All right, everyone, if you would, just for a moment, I don't have any music in the background, which I do to enhance this normally, but let's just do it. Put both your hands on your heart and physically breathe deep into your heart. And as you're breathing deep in your heart,

Starting point is 01:09:23 feel the strength of your heart. feel the strength of your heart. Feel the power of your heart. Feel the beauty of your heart. What are you proud or grateful that your heart has guided you to do or to give or to feel or to enjoy. And feel the strength of your heart. Breathe into it. Feel the blood flow, the oxygen. And feel grateful for your heart first. Because think about it. You didn't have to earn this heart. It was given to you. You didn't have to prove your value or your worth. You didn't have to accomplish this heart. It was given to you. You didn't have to prove your value or your worth. You didn't have to accomplish anything.

Starting point is 01:10:08 Something loved you enough to give you the gift of life. As long as this heart is beating, you have that gift and you live. It beats 100,000 times a day. It pumps blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels. We put them end to end. They go around the earth twice at the equator. That's what's inside every one of us. You don't have to think about it. What a gift. So as you breathe in your heart, feeling your powerful heart,

Starting point is 01:10:33 I want you just for a moment, we're going to think of three, but just think first of one event in your life, one experience, one moment that you could feel so grateful for if you wanted to a magic moment a sacred moment a sexy moment a beautiful moment a loving moment any moment that really you could feel grateful for if you wanted to right now and then step into that memory for a minute like step in your body as if you were there see what you would have saw then as if you're there or hear what you'd hear back then or breathe the way you were breathing back then. And if you filled up with that sense of gratitude for that moment, how do you smile when you feel so grateful or so thankful?

Starting point is 01:11:19 What's the look in your eyes? How do you breathe? What's the look in your face when you feel really, really grateful. And just fill it up. Fill up with gratitude. The reason we use gratitude, by the way, is the two emotions that mess us up most is anger and fear. And you can't be grateful and angry simultaneously. It's the antidote. You can't be fearful and angry simultaneously.

Starting point is 01:11:47 So fill up with gratitude now think of a second moment you could feel truly grateful for and again breathe deep in your heart feel that power just think of any other moment it could be from your childhood or adulthood it could be last week could be today it could be 10 years ago any moment that you could just truly feel like that was grace that was magical that was beautiful, that's magnificent. Something that gives you the feeling of tremendous gratitude if you really focused on it. Breathe it, feel it, enjoy it, fill up with gratitude. Then finally, think of a third moment you could feel truly grateful for step in it see it feel it be there

Starting point is 01:12:29 feel the gratitude what were you so grateful for what are you grateful for and then maybe throw one extra one in think of a coincidence you know we all love when life happens for us, not to us. We love coincidences because we didn't do anything. Something happened for us. You were going to do one thing and you met somebody that you developed a partnership with or became a friend or a lover or the love of your life, or maybe a business opportunity came from a coincidence or an insight came from a coincidence that's been so valuable in your life. Something you're grateful for. What's the coincidence that led to something you're so grateful for?

Starting point is 01:13:07 And feel the gratitude for that. And was it a coincidence or were you guided? Hmm. Now, as you breathe in your heart, you've been doing this for about two minutes. Keep breathing. Keep feeling it, feeling grateful. Let's use this state to solve the problem state. So the easy way to do that is keep breathing your heart.

Starting point is 01:13:31 Stay out of your head, in your heart. And think of that situation that's unfinished business that stressed you out in the past. But keep breathing this beautiful state and ask yourself this question. Ask yourself, all I need to focus on in that situation, all I need to focus on, all I need to remember is what? Your heart knows. All I need to focus on, all I need to remember, all I need to do in that situation is what?

Starting point is 01:13:56 Your heart knows the answer. All I need to focus on, all I need to remember, all I need to do is, and then your heart probably knows the answer. I've done this a million times, not every one of you, but in normal room, I'd have some people say, raise your hand if you've got that answer. 98, 99% of people usually do even with a simple technique and you know what to do. What's next? What happened for you, Tim? Yeah, no. I did get a lot of clarity. And quite frankly, even if I didn't get the clarity on the problem, just the state shift.

Starting point is 01:14:32 And this is something, of course, I've been to Unleash the Power Within. And we don't have time to necessarily dig into it right now. But just the state story strategy as opposed to the other way around. I mean, it's very easy for so, it's, it's very easy for me to forget just because I'm so hyper rational and I like to depend on the brain, on the mind for strategy. But if, as, as I remember, and I'm just paraphrasing here, you put it, if, if you're in a negative state or a frazzled state, you only see the problem. You only see the problems. You don't see sort of the space in between.

Starting point is 01:15:05 And so, yeah, that's a tremendous exercise. That's great. Well, you know what it is? It's taking the power of your incredible cognitive capacity, but bringing in the infinite capacity of the heart, which changes. It changes the state, as you said. And in a different state, you get totally different answers. And beautiful states of being, we want to cultivate them. So two minutes, put your hands on your heart, breathe, think of three things you're

Starting point is 01:15:28 really grateful for, fully associate, and then think of what was bothering you, need to resolve and just go, all I need to focus on, all I need to remember, all I need to do is what? And you'll get your answer. That's just one technique, but it works so easily and works for most things. So to this, since it reminds me so much of my in-person experience with you at the event, and of course we've met outside of the event, but I wanted to ask you a question that's going to segue into a conversation about the doc, because I actually watched, I was very honored to get to see the doc before it came out publicly. And man, talk about, and I feel like good films, whether they're fiction or documentaries, tend to do this. But there are a

Starting point is 01:16:12 lot of moments when you don't know whether to laugh or cry. It's an emotionally, very emotionally powerful film. How has Date with Destiny evolved over the last, say, decade or so? And for those people who don't know, what is Date With Destiny? That's good. Well, you mentioned earlier Unleash the Power Within, which is my four-day weekend seminar that we do for 8,000 to 10,000 people. And I'd love it if you make any comments because I hope that some of your listeners will come join us. I know you've had a great time. Maybe you can share that.

Starting point is 01:16:44 But Date With Destiny, I see about 200,000 people a year in 12 to 15 countries. Some of the countries I go to three times, like Australia, London, and so forth. But I only see 2,500 people on Date with Destiny. I only do one event in the United States once a year there and do it in December, usually in Florida. It's six days long. I do one in Australia also, but in the US only one time, six days long, 2,500 people, people do 10, 20 pages of homework. I read it all. And it's an experience designed to help you to uncover the every, what controls every thought, feeling, and emotion of your life. Every thought, feeling, emotion, what you do, what you don't do is controlled by your beliefs, your values, and your rules. And most of us did not consciously pick

Starting point is 01:17:24 most of those. We adapted them to our environments and to the people we were trying to please. And so our life is a reflection of us and a lot of conditioning. This allows you to open it up and say, I am now the conditioner. What is it that I truly want most for my life at this stage where I am today, not 10 years ago, and what's in the way, how do I remove it? And what do I need to replace it with in my deep in my nervous system, not just in some thought pattern, but literally in the way my nervous system functions. And we do this six days and nights, it goes, you know, 12, 13 hours a day. And Joe Berlinger, who's, you know, an amazing two-time Academy Award nominated and two-time Emmy winning, two-time Peabody winning documentarian. He's done some amazing films. I'd saw Metallica, some kind of monster, which was a brilliant film. two-time Academy Award nominated and two-time Emmy winning, two-time Peabody winning documentarian.

Starting point is 01:18:09 He's done some amazing films. I saw Metallica, Some Kind of Monster, which was a brilliant film about these guys and going through a new stage of life and hating each other and how they're going to break through and intervene. He also did one called Paradise Lost, which was three films done over two decades where he got three men that were innocent off death row. That's the kind of guy he is, but he's seen the worst side of life. And I met him. We have a mutual friend that created the show Billions, which is an aside. If people have seen that show, the woman in that show is the coach to the billionaire hedge fund guys. I trained her. A lot of those things are actually things I really do. Her sex scenes, I did not train her in, but the other stuff. You don't do the domination and the stilettos? No, the domination. That wasn't my stiletto. Those weren't my st did not train her but the other stuff you don't do the domination and the

Starting point is 01:18:45 the stilettos domination that wasn't my stiletto don't wear my stilettos but the rest of it's there yeah brian brian koppelman right yeah you know brian that's right so brian koppelman introduces us and this is 2012 and i just sense here's this beautiful man i had so much respect for and he wasn't fulfilled perfect example he's like at all these academy awards he's i mean if you've got three people who are dying off of death row, I mean, what else do you do in your life to have value, to feel like your life was worthwhile? But I could feel he was turning 50. He wasn't there. So long story short, I invited him to date with Destiny. He's told me since that he couldn't understand why you went. He said, I'm not a seminar guy. I'm not into any of this stuff.

Starting point is 01:19:21 I'm skeptical. I'm pessimistic. I see the worst side of life. But something inside of our conversation intrigued him. And I got him there and within two hours, he wanted to run. He's trying to get out of the building. He just said, I can't take this energy and this jumping and this music and people want to talk to me and they want to ask me personal questions. He goes, I'm just not made for this. He called his wife and said, you know, Tony's such a nice guy. And he invited me here. What's my exit strategy? I can't do six hours more. I can't do six minutes more of this shit. And she said to him, honey, you know, there's a reason you were pulled to do this. You never would in a million years. You won't even take a six day vacation. Why don't you stay at least one more day before you bail? And the next day we did this process where I had him,

Starting point is 01:20:03 everyone reclaim, you know, I asked people what their earliest memory is. And then I have them reclaim the memory before that, that you don't realize is there. And when you do, it releases what was holding him back. And he woke up, you know, opened his eyes, flooded with tears. He said he hadn't cried in 20 years like that and felt this incredible relief. And he said, okay, I'm in, I'm going to play full out. And then at the end of it, he saw how cinematic this was. These interventions are just pretty dramatic, you know, suicidal ones, people that are so successful and miserable, all these things. And so he came and pitched me on it thinking I was going to say yes. And I said, no, for two years, because I just didn't want to disrupt the environment. I didn't want to disrupt the people there because I have cameras, but they're long distance lenses only so you can see the person's face on a giant screen with 2,500 people. So you get to be fully associated. But, you know, somebody doing a documentary with a camera in your face is a different game.

Starting point is 01:20:52 So after two years, he said, look, what if I came in and if you think it interferes with their experience, you end it. It's my loss. I said, if you're willing to take that risk, then I'm willing to do it because I just can't let it disrupt the people. And I was also skeptical. How are you going to take six, 13, 12, 14 hour days and put it in less than two hours? But that's why he's got the Academy Awards and he did a phenomenal job. And we had a half a million people join us just on Facebook Live on the day it came out after they watched the film for Q&A. It's just like the response to it has been

Starting point is 01:21:22 greater than anything we could have imagined. And I've had a number of friends reach out to me to recommend that I see the doc, which of course I appreciate. And I will say also for those people listening who don't have a lot of exposure to Tony or maybe have misconceptions, the most common thing I've heard from friends who've seen the doc is I thought Tony was X and now I think about Tony totally differently. And I think it's very hard to appreciate some of your unique abilities and tools without seeing some of the interventions, for instance. I think it's a very different, visceral, and powerful experience. So I certainly recommend it. I mean, I've already recommended it and watched it very early on and just love this. Where can people find The Doc?

Starting point is 01:22:15 I'm Not Your Guru. Where's the best place for people to check it out? It's on Netflix now. It's in 190 countries already translated. So we're pretty thrilled about the exposure that we've had around the world. But I just want you to know, I didn't make the film like so people would understand me more. I want people to have a transformational experience. And what Joe did so brilliantly is it's like a concert film. He like drops you, he's the fly on the wall and you actually get to enter that event and experience what it's really like. And just like a great movie, when you watch the characters, you feel what they feel while you feel these characters as they're transforming. And it has a transformative effect. I was, you know, I was just in New York the other day and

Starting point is 01:22:52 there was a woman who stood up after the premiere and she's crying. And she just said, I just have to tell you, I've been laughing and crying this entire two hours. And she said, you know, I have stage three cancer. And she said, you know, I've just had given up. And she said, I was coming here and I thought, who the hell is Tony Robbins? What the hell is this bullshit? But your friend dragged her there and she said, I'm going to heal. She goes, I'm in 1 million percent. She goes, I can't even tell you the transformation. I've had guys like, I just got back from Traverse City, Michigan. Michael Moore calls me up and he saw the film and he used to think, you know, what I did was BS. He didn't know me personally. He just thought personal

Starting point is 01:23:24 development. He didn't think of that nature. It's just all a lie. It's all BS. And he used to think, you know, what I did was BS. He didn't know me personally. He just thought personal development. He didn't think of that nature. It's just all a lie. It's all BS. And he called up and said, this film effed me up. He goes, this changed me. This made me a better person. It made me a better filmmaker.

Starting point is 01:23:35 He's put this in writing. A better filmmaker, a better person. He said, I think this film will save lives. And so he asked us if we'd fly out to Traverse City for his film festival, which we just did the other day. And I mean, I probably laughed harder than I ever have in my life hearing his tell the story of what this film did to him. We're really pleased. So it's free. Go on Netflix. It's free. And if you don't, in 190 countries anywhere in the world, and I know my followers are all over the world, so are yours, you can go on Netflix. And if you don't have Netflix, you can join for, I think, three the first month or eight bucks, but you get everything for it. So we're excited

Starting point is 01:24:04 to have this available for everyone. And just as a side note, because you mentioned the crying, I'm not much of a crier, never have been, but man, and I won't spoil it by giving too much context, but the intervention with the Brazilian woman, that completely knocked me on my ass. There's some really, really powerful moments and transformational moments in the doc. So I recommend everybody check it out. Uh, Tony, I want to let you get back to your day. Is there anything else that you would like to share with people? Any parting thoughts or anything else that you might want to add? Oh, actually there are two maybe quick things we could, we could touch on.

Starting point is 01:24:40 You mentioned your breakfast, but never came back to it. Oh yeah. Thank you for that. You were reading my mind. I want to close that loop. And then also if with your financial partner, if there is a particular website or service available that people should check out or that is going to be launching, if you want to mention that. Sure. If you want, if you would like to have a second opinion, like someone to look at your finances for you, they'll do it for free at creativeplanning.net. It's creativeplanning.net. And as I said, they do like a home office for someone who's not a multi-billionaire. I mean, they literally look at every aspect of it. And it's full disclosure, so you understand I'm a member of that team. So

Starting point is 01:25:18 if you join, I benefit in some way from an SEC perspective. But those are the, I just want you to be clear about that. But I could have teamed up with anybody. As I say, he's, he's been rated number one, three years in a row by Barron's. No one's done that in history, number one wealth manager. So he's phenomenal guy. As far as the other piece, what I, the reason I was telling the story was twofold is so I don't give up. Right. So I left off with, you know, now I got spinal stenosis and they're telling me I can't do anything. I'm going to doctor after doctor. I find a guy in Australia who says with a hundred hours of hyperbaric oxygen at two levels deep, 65 feet below, you will see changes in the spine that people say are impossible because the new science shows that you get 800% more stem cells released in the body when you do this. And it goes to the parts of the body need to be healed

Starting point is 01:26:02 or that are inflamed and starts to heal them. And he sent me some MRIs for me to look at before and afters. And it was, it looked like magic. So I said, okay, I'm doing this. I'll fly to Australia. I'll see this guy. I got to work on this. I got so much going on in my nervous system. And he says to me, Tony, before you come, I want you to these inflammation tests. I can see if you have any cytokines and he's, you know, kind of describing there. So I go get a blood test. And while I'm there, a man says says to me you want to do a metals test while you're here and i said well you know what metals is it like mercury lead i said you know i had my amalgams out 25 years ago so i don't think it's a problem but yeah why not let's do it that metals test came back uh the doctor called he said i must speak to you it's an emergency he wouldn't leave a message so i

Starting point is 01:26:42 finally call him and he says mr robbins he said, you know, mercury on a zero to five scale. If you're three, four or five, you're in danger. You've got to get it out of your nervous system. He said, the most I've ever measured in a human is 75. You're 123. Wow. And I was like dumbfounded. And he said, are you losing your memory at times? And I was like, I hadn't even told my wife this yet, right? Because I thought I got to figure this out. And I said, yes, it's been happening on stage. He said, look it up. This is, you know, a lot of people are misdiagnosed with dementia when really what it is is mercury poisoning. And it's just your short-term memory. And he said, it'll come back

Starting point is 01:27:16 once you get it out, as long as there's not long-term damage. And I said, I can't tell you, just made me breathe at a level I can't even tell you. And he said, in addition, he said, how exhausted are you? I said, I don't think I've ever felt some more exhausted in my life. I couldn't figure it out. I know I'm working my tail off, but I've always worked my tail off. You know, he said, Tony, it literally disrupts the, the inside, the, the, what do you call it? The mitochondria inside the cell, the mitochondria. And so that's the factory of energy in the body, right? So you literally are having your energy depleted out of your nervous system. And he said, you can have a cardiac arrest from this experience, especially at this level, even if your veins and even if your arteries are clean.

Starting point is 01:27:54 He said, we have to get this out. So I've been on this massive detox. And the reason I'm sharing it, though, is all this shit I went through, not being able to breathe and sleep, torn rotator cuffs, spinal stenosis that all seem like the worst things that could happen in your life. I was practicing beautiful state. And because I was practicing that, I had been practicing beforehand, this would have devastated me. It's like everything in my life seems to be gone.

Starting point is 01:28:16 And I'm doing seven hours a day, six to seven hours a day of oxygen therapy, of detoxification, of Myers into my veins, all the stuff that you got to do to do this and still running my companies and being on stage and doing all the crazy things I'm doing. But because I was practicing it, I was able to separate the nine, nine pain from suffering. So I want people to get this. You're going to pain without suffering. The pain was off the charts, hard, hard to sleep, hard to move, hard to do everything initially. But what was beautiful was I started realizing the suffering was the story I had, the story of why this happened to me.

Starting point is 01:28:50 Will I ever get this out of me? Will I ever be able to be able to play squash again, get on stage again, snowboard again? Like all that stuff that the mind wants to do because it's so fearful and it's trying to fight or flight. And I was just end it, end it, end it, end it, and just go, it's just pain. It's just pain. And I'm going to find the solution to this. And I kept putting myself back in that. If I had not been practicing this before, it never happened. Also, if I had not had all these pain and problems, I wouldn't have found out I had all these metals in my body and I'd be dead within a year or two. So the good news is I'm down to 32

Starting point is 01:29:21 from 123. And I think in the next 90 days, I'll have the rest of that out of me. I'm doing the oxygen therapy and I'm going to do stem cell therapy and I'm going to get myself back where it belongs. But I've been telling the story and sharing with everybody I know, all my friends to start with. I've had three different friends with incredibly high mercury lead. One guy had rat poison in him. He had stuff, he used to work in the dental field and you probably know dentists have the highest suicide rate in the world. And part of that has to do with all the metals that are, we live in an environment that's toxic. And you say, where'd you get all that metal in your body? I told you before, I'll eat was fish. And the two fishes I used to eat always

Starting point is 01:29:56 was swordfish and tuna, my favorite. I have salad, swordfish and tuna, like clockwork. And they live 75 years. They consume all the smaller fish and they have a thousand times more mercury in them and no one's going to talk about this because the fishing industry would be killed by it um so i've moved to land-based proteins for the most part with clean sources something radically different than i've ever been in my life i mean i haven't had anything of that nature since i was 17 but um i want to be healthy and be alive and the world has changed so you have to adapt with it so I really recommend anyone listening get a metals test takes nothing it's a little bit of

Starting point is 01:30:29 blood and know where you are because so many people are misdiagnosed with a variety of elements and it's it's these metals that are now so much a part of our environment and getting into our blood and pushed into our cells but you can get it out and there's a man named Dr. Shade by the way you him up on the web, who's, I think is one of the most advanced in this area. He has a PhD in metal detoxification. He had a mercury problem himself, and he's come up with some ways that are less intense than traditional chelation. So I just, it's my mission. Shade spelled like a S-H-A-D-E? Yes. Dr. Shade, S-H-A-D-E. And he's an expert in this area. Got it. I'll check it out. Well, Tony, I want to let you get back to beating the various drums and the mission that you have and the many missions that you have set before you. It's

Starting point is 01:31:16 always fun to talk and I really appreciate the time as I'm sure everybody listening does. I certainly wish you a speedy recovery with the mercury. And I do encourage everybody to check out. I'm not your guru. It's, it's time very well spent. And, uh, any final words, Tony, before we, uh, before we jump off. Love, love what you do, brother. I'm, I feel like you're, you know, we're aligned. We're on the same path here. And I, I'm such a big fan of your work. And I'm so thrilled so many people get to hear you. And I hope you continue to take care of yourself. And you're here a very, very long time, brother. Thank you. I really appreciate it. This was the conversation I needed. I was having a tough day. And after the heart,

Starting point is 01:31:55 after the 90 second exercise, I feel infinitely better already. So I'm ready to get back to it. And I really appreciate it, Tony, for everybody listening, as always, you can find show notes, links to many of the things, if not all the things we discussed in the show notes at 4hourworkweek.com forward slash podcast. And until next time, thank you for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is five bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a

Starting point is 01:32:32 short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And five bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness

Starting point is 01:33:07 before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor.

Starting point is 01:33:27 Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than two and a half billion dollars under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter

Starting point is 01:33:59 software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, et cetera. And I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com forward slash Tim. Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just wanna take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that.

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Starting point is 01:34:49 Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, etc., can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first $15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com forward slash Tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally when I have a sponsor on the show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a

Starting point is 01:35:30 user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account. But just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire

Starting point is 01:35:55 at wealthfront.com forward slash Tim. It's fast, it's free. There's no downside that I can think of. This episode is brought to you by Audible, which I've used for years. I love audio books, and I have two to recommend right off the bat. Number one is perhaps my favorite audiobook of all time, and that is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The only audiobook I've wanted to immediately listen to a second time as soon as I finished. It's

Starting point is 01:36:20 amazing. You will thank me. The Graveyard Book. The second is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which had a huge impact on my life and formed the basis for a lot of what became the 4-Hour Workweek. So all you need to do to get your free 30-day trial is go to audible.com forward slash Tim, T-I-M, and you can choose one of those two books or you can choose from more great options

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #178: Tony Robbins - On Achievement Versus Fulfillment

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #178: Tony Robbins - On Achievement Versus Fulfillment

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.