The Tim Ferriss Show - #186: Tony Robbins on How to Resolve Internal Conflict

Episode Date: September 18, 2016

"You can't be grateful and angry simultaneously." - Tony Robbins The last time Tony Robbins (@tonyrobbins) was on the show, so many listeners found this one exercise helpful that they suggested I feature it on its own. This guided meditation is designed to help you overcome stress in a way that's backed with quantifiable neuroscience. If you've been worrying about unfinished business without resolution, this is a powerful tool to help you resolve the situation. This is very short and very powerful. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This episode is brought to you by Exo Protein. These guys are making protein bars using cricket protein powder. Before you look disgusted, I bet they taste better than any protein bar you’ve ever had before! With recipes that were developed by a three-Michelin-star chef, the bars are paleo-friendly, with no gluten, no grains, no soy, no dairy, and they won’t spike your glycemic response. In fact, they’re less processed than any other protein bars you’ll be able to find. Exo Protein is offering a deep discount to Tim Ferriss Show listeners — if you go to ExoProtein.com/Tim, you can try a sampler pack with all of the most popular flavors for less than $10. This is a startup with limited inventory that sells out all the time,so act fast! ***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would have seemed the perfect time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take

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special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out. Tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely 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. Hey guys, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show. I'll keep this very short as this is actually a subsection, a snippet from the last Tony Robbins episode. Many, many, many of you asked for a standalone podcast episode just for this

particular exercise that he walks you through in real time. So Tony Robbins, of course, you can say hello to him at Tony Robbins on all of the socials, and you should definitely check out I Am Not Your Guru, which is a documentary about Tony Robbins now available on Netflix and much, much more. Say hi to him, but I'm going to keep this short and please enjoy. And hopefully you will listen to many times this exercise, which so many people have found extremely helpful. There's a scientific 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. 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 of 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 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 with me if you'd like to. Sure. 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, 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 it 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. 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. No one else tells 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, 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 anything. 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, 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, 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 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. 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. It 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.

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, it's 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? And feel the gratitude for that. And was it a coincidence or were you guided? 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 to keep breathing your heart, 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? Your heart knows. All I need to focus on, all I need to remember, all I need to do in that situation is what? 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.

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