0:00 I'm trying not to cry. I'm just like, um, [snorts] I hate suffering. [music] I've suffered myself and so I hate to see anybody suffer. And so, um, this is my mission. This is what I'm made for. And, um, I'm just one guy. I can't do everything, but I can do a lot. Um, I always try to help people say, "How can you turn your worst [music] day into your best day?" >> Please help me welcome to the stage, Tony Robbins. He's the nation's number one life and business strategist. >> He's worked with royalty, elite athletes, Oscar winners, scientists, [music] and everyone in between >> to overcome their limitations and accelerate change. >> Can you take us back to the environment that shaped you into the man that you are? >> So, I grew up in a tough environment. I had four different fathers. My mom,
0:46 [music] she drank alcohol and took prescription drugs. We had no money, no food. And then the thing that changed my whole life was a knock on the door on Thanksgiving. There was this tall guy standing there with two bags of groceries and an uncooked frozen turkey in a pan. And my dad saw this man. He said, "We don't take charity." And he went and slammed the door on the guy. But it became a very useful and distinction for me about how he and I process that day differently because there's three decisions you make every moment of your life. And the real problem is the story you have. For example, that day my dad's focus was the fact he not fed his family and he was worthless. However, I took that as strangers care. And so the story is the belief you've [music] told yourself over and over because belief is the invisible force that controls everything in your life. And then there's the third decision. What am I going to do? And [music] so what I decided to do is someday I'm going to do this for others
1:31 and end suffering where I can. And so I'm going to show you how to get clear what you really want. Figure out what's been stopping you. Put the plan in place and teach you the most important thing that's made me successful. >> And I don't think people fully realize the significance of how many of the most influential people on planet Earth you have worked with and continue to work with. What is the pattern that you noticed in those people? >> So, I found four things with them. And the first thing is, >> listen, my my team gave me a script that they asked me to read, but I'm just going to ask you um in the nicest way I possibly can. Thank you first and foremost for choosing to subscribe to this channel. It is um it's been one of the most incredible, crazy years of my life. I never could have imagined. I had so many dreams in my life, but this was not one of them. And the very fact that these conversations have resonated with you and you've given me so much feedback is something I will always be appreciative of. and I almost carry away
2:18 a sort of burden of uh responsibility to pay you back. And the favor I would like to ask from you today is to subscribe to the channel if you um would be so obliged. It's completely free to do that. Roughly about 47% of you that listen to this channel frequently currently don't subscribe to this channel. So, if you're one of those people, please come and join us. Hit the subscribe button. It's the single free thing you can do to make this channel better. And every subscriber sort of pays into this show and allows us to do things bigger and better and to push ourselves even more. And I will not let you down if you hit the subscribe button. I promise you. And if I do, please do unsubscribe, but I promise I won't. Thank you, [music] Tony. I was I was shocked. It was so surprising to me that you had the
3:04 childhood you had based on the outcomes that you've accomplished in your life. And as someone that has followed you for a very long time, I imagine that there's many other people that have followed you for a very long time that have no idea about the early context. For those people, >> can you take us back to the environment that shaped you into the man that you are? >> Well, I think, you know, I grew up I grew up in a tough environment. I had um four different fathers. My mom was a very intense and passionate woman. Uh we never had any money. We're very very poor. Uh my mom was probably the most important influence in my life by far. Um very loving woman but a very stressed woman and under that stress she drank alcohol and took prescription drugs and when she did that she became very violent. So I took the brunt of that and then figured out how to manage her
3:49 emotions basically. Uh it's where all my beginning training really happened and yet at the same time she was loving it. She pushed me. She believed in me. Uh she wanted me to be something. So she influenced my life in so many beautiful ways. And then probably what changed my life the most though is my forefather especially made it clear no one gives a damn about anybody else. We lived in a um what I thought was an upper class uh community or city but we were on the other side of the tracks. It was lower middle class and we were you know literally right by the railroad tracks where the worst of the worst live so to speak. And so we're kind of looked down on. And so it really looked like nobody cares. And then the thing that changed my whole life a single event was a knock on the door on Thanksgiving. We had no money, no food. When I say no food, we had crackers and peanut butter, but not a Thanksgiving dinner, right? And uh my
4:35 dad has been mom are screaming each other through a door and my dad had lost his job. You get the knock of the door and I go open the door and there's this tall guy standing there with two bags of groceries, one in each hand, and at his feet he had an uncooked frozen turkey in in a pan, you know. And he said, "Is your father here?" And I was like, "Just one moment." You know, and I was like, it was Christmas morning. So, I go to my dad and I go, "Hey, Dad, there's someone at the door for you." And he goes, "Who is it?" And I said, "I don't know. It's for you." He goes, "Well, you answered." I said, "I already did. It's for you." So, he goes over there and I'm waiting like with such excitement for him to open the door. And he saw this man and he was not happy. He looked at this man before the guy say a word and he said, "We don't take charity." And he went and slammed the door on the guy. But the man had leaned in because of the groceries and it hit his shoulder and it bounced
5:20 off, which made my dad even matter. And they said, "Sir, sir," he said, "Somebody knows you're having a tough time. Everyone has tough times. They want you to have this food for your family for Thanksgiving." He goes, "I'm just the delivery guy." And my father said, "We don't take charity." And he pushed the door again. But this time, because the guy's leaning, his foot now has stepped in. It hit his foot and bounced off. And then now my dad's getting more fired up. And I'm standing looking at this whole thing, and it's like a car crash happening. And the guy said something to my dad. I thought my dad was going to punch him in the face. He didn't say it meanly. He said, "Sir," he said, he saw me. He said, "Don't make your family, you know, suffer because of your ego." And I can still see it like yesterday. My dad's veins on both sides of his neck were just pumping and he was red as can be. And then he just dropped his
6:07 shoulders. He took the groceries. He slammed it on the table and he slammed the door. And he never even said thank you. It took me maybe a decade to eventually figure it out. And it became a very useful and distinction for me about how he and I process that day differently because I believe there's three decisions you make every moment of your life. You're making them right now if you're listening to me and so is your audience. The first one is what are you going to focus on? You're going to be focused on what happened yesterday, what you're going to have for lunch, what I'm saying, how it relates to you. There are millions of things you can focus on. But you don't experience life. You experience the life you focus on. And most of us are distortion deletion creatures. Our brains don't take it all in consciously. it's too much. So our brains delete things. We distort things. We generalize things so we can make it through our lives. And so if you don't
6:53 control your focus, you react. And that day, my dad's focus was the fact he not fed his family. It wasn't hard to figure out. He said it over and over again after after he slammed the door. And my focus was, "Wow, there's food. What a concept." You know, I was excited. But the second decision you make every moment, the minute you focus on something, your brain has to figure out, what does this mean? Is this the end or the beginning? Is this person dissing me? Is they are they challenging me? Are they coaching me? Are they loving me? And whatever meaning you give, it produces emotion. And out of that emotion, you make the third decision. What am I going to do? And that day, I know the meaning my dad did. It wasn't just that he didn't feed his family. It's that he was worthless. You know, I can't even feed my family. And he muttered all this stuff continuously. But I I took that as stranger's care. It
7:41 completely violated everything I had experienced in my life up until that point. And my brain was like, if a stranger doesn't even want credit for this and they fed my family on Thanksgiving, I got to care about strangers. And so what I decided to do is someday I'm going to I'm going to do this for others. And so when I was 17, I went out and I uh I didn't have a lot of money, but was doing okay. And I went to a grocery store and I told the manager what happened in my life and I said, "I want to feed two families. Help me out. Give me a discount." And he gave me 10% off. And I thought, "Cheep bastard." But I took it. I had the most enjoyable shopping. I took two shopping carts and just filled it up with two families. And then I um I called this church and I said, "Who do you know that needs help but won't ask for it? Won't come for it." And they gave me two families names. And so I wrote a little note. I
8:26 just put this is a gift from a friend. Everyone has tough times. I hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving and someday if you can pay this forward. I didn't use the word pay it forward. I said do this for someone else. But now you look at us pay it forward. and I put love a friend. And then I I realized I was going to the bario area of the city and I was like maybe they don't speak English. So I had a friend of mine write in Spanish on the back. So I figured I could flip it over. And I the first house I went to, it's a little tiny place. I knock on the door and this woman about this tall asmatic woman sees me and sees the food and screams and then grabs my head and pulls it down, starts kissing me on the cheek and said, "No, no, no. Delivery boy, delivery boy." And she and I and I pull out the note and I flipped it over in Spanish and she read it and then she started to cry and she goes and she started giving me kissing. I said, "No, deliver." She
9:12 goes, "No, gift of God. Gift of God." And I'm trying not to cry, you know, just like um I feel like it was yesterday still. And so, um I the door opened. It's a tiny little place size of your kitchen here or reminder of your kitchen. And um and I I was so excited to start food down. All a sudden I heard screams and then next thing I know I'm hit by one and by another four boys. And one hit one leg, one hit the other. They saw the food they went crazy. Um and I said, "Come help me." You had other stuff in the van. And when they saw the pumpkin pie, it was really over, you know, and we bought all this food in and it was time to go. And um the father had left them. I found out later 4 days
9:57 before Thanksgiving with no money and no food. And I'm anyway I'm looking through the mirror and I just started crying uncontrollably and I'm like why am I crying so bad? This is such a beautiful moment. And I just realized you know my worst day of my life was really my best day. That the day that was the most painful to me cuz that father is the one who he adopted me. I carry his name. um that I wouldn't be there that day. I'm a good human being, but you know, would I work as hard as I worked to feed other people? I mean, I'm next year I did four, then eight, then 12, then I had a little company. I got my employees involved. Then I got to a million people, two million people. And then about 12 years ago, I decided I want to throw I want to feed a billion meals here in the United States in 10 years.
10:42 And so, it's grown and grown and grown, all from not being fed. And so, I I I see it as a blessing. I see. I always try to help people say, "How could you turn your worst day into your best day?" That's when life is really magical. >> How many years has it been since you met that young mother with her four children? >> I was 17. I'm going to be 66. >> Wow. 50 years. >> Yeah. >> And it still brings you to tears to recount that. >> It really does. >> Why? Why is that? >> Um I have a I hate suffering. I've suffered myself and so I hate to see anybody suffer. And so I'm unbelievably driven to end suffering where I can to help anyone do that. Whether it be hunger or emotional hunger or depression or sadness or relationship or I just I
11:28 don't know what it is. I just I love human beings. I hate suffering and I hate and I love to see when somebody awakens to who they are. And we all are so much more than we ever you know perceive oursel to be. But many times you don't discover that until you have to. I like to try and show people how to do it. So I have to wait till life hits them. you know, anything you can imagine. We're all going to go through extreme stress in our lives, but how do you do stress or distress? Use you. And so, my whole thing is help people show them how to use stress. Cuz I don't care how good a person you are. I don't care how spiritual or religious you are. I don't care how smart you are, how rich you think you are. Every human being is going to go through extreme stress multiple times in their life. And the real question is, what are you gonna do with it? And the first thing is, if you're going through hell, keep going. But if you keep going, you discover
12:14 number one how strong you really are. Cuz if you don't give up, you'll discover who you are. The second thing you find out is who your real friends are. Cuz when things aren't so great, you get to see who those are. And then third, it almost gives you like an inoculation to future stress. Cuz like I had a friend that was shot down in Vietnam and was in a prison there for seven years in solitary confinement. And um Captain Coffee is his name. And I remember I met him later in life and he was going through this tough thing with the IRS and it was so unfair. It took him three years. He got his money back. But I said, "Doesn't that drive you crazy?" He goes, "After being with the North Vietnamese," he goes, "You know, what could the IRS do to me?" You know, so I think those pieces are there. But everyone gets called on the journey. Most people try to resist it, but that journey, that's what the call is. It's a call to grow. So I'm I'm big on change
13:02 your story, change your life. And I'm big on understanding the narrative of where you are in the story of your life. Because if you understand where you are, it gives context. It gives meaning and it doesn't make you feel overwhelmed. >> Had your mother not suffered in such a way, do you think this would be so important to you had you not observed that suffering? >> Yeah. No, I I I I've often said I'm like I said earlier, I think I'm I'm a good human being. I think I still to help people, but would I providing 62 billion meals and working around the clock on top of, you know, my 114 companies and all that? No, I don't think I would. And that hunger comes very often from pain. But pain's not enough to keep you going. Pain only goes so far. You've got to find something that it's like I I tell people there's two types of motivation, right? There's push motivation. You know, you're making something happen.
13:48 And I have enormous willpower. I'm sure you do. Most of the people we probably interact with have great willpower, right? >> But there's still a limit to it. But there's no limit to pole motivation. Pole is there's something so magnificent you want to serve something that you care about more than yourself. That's where all the energy in life comes from. You know what's in your heart and your soul. What wakes you up in the morning and makes you go. And I think if I hadn't had the pain, I don't think I would have been sensitized. But I also if I hadn't felt the pleasure of serving and seeing impact on such a large scale, then you know, you'd be limited because you listen, meeting your own needs is not that hard. Like I my biggest beef with right now is since co is this whole self-care revolution we've got. I mean, you got to take care of yourself. Don't get me wrong. I take care of myself. And
14:34 you know, you get weaker and weaker the more you focus on yourself. The human mind is always going to figure out something that isn't good enough. But when you're serving, you're not there. Like your mind's not there. You're with the people. You're with what you're doing. And it's the escape from the mind's reductionism. And so I really believe that people the secret to life is to find something you care about more than yourself that gives you that pull motivation. And then you're never going to lack for energy. You're never going to lack for passion. You're never going to lack for anything. And you're going to have a life that's extremely meaningful. It's not happy every moment there. They're not meant to be. If you smile, have you ever smiled so much face hurt? >> You know, we need variety. So you But meaning that's something you can find no matter what. >> I asked you before we started recording
15:20 um a question I almost never ask any of my guests, which is what is the thing that we should be talking about the most? and you told me, you know, shortly after um what your answer was, but you know, even shortly after that, you then went on to talk to me about how you're driven to end suffering. Now, if I compare these two answers, the answer you gave me to the question I asked about what's the most important thing for us to be talking about and your second point about your desire to end suffering, there's probably some kind of overlap. >> There is. Yeah. So, if I were to ask you just for because we weren't recording then, what you think maybe the most consequential thing we should be talking about right now is as it relates to suffering and everything that's going on in society, what would that answer be? >> I think it's uh AI, but it's not just AI, it's nanotechnology, it's how technology, the rapid change in technology and if you don't believe it's going to destroy humanity and it's going
16:06 to liberate us from a lot of labor, if you believe that, the ones that promote that concept. If that does happen and we displace this many jobs in this short a period of time, jobs are not just money. Jobs are meaning. It's not the only form of meaning, but it's meaning. So, it's like you talk about, well, we'll do give people UBI and okay, I think you might have to because the changes are going to happen so rapidly. Like I said, you know, farming, 80% of us were farmers 150 years ago. Now, it's 3%. We feed the world. That's a long transition. Uh, I think I mentioned to you off the air here, I was visiting with President Obama 10 years ago and towards the end of his term there and I was saying, "Hey, I just got to talk to you. You know, you inherited a pretty tough economy from the original 2008 explosion breakdown. We lost 8 million jobs." So, I said, "There's technology coming right
16:54 now that we can predict is going to displace more than those 8 million jobs." And I talked to him at that time just about I said, "Just take one like self-driving cars." We were just starting to come out. I said, "In the next 10, 12, 13, 14 years, they're going to become ubiquitous." And I said, "There's 8 million truck drivers, Uber drivers, and taxi drivers. And [clears throat] are you doing anything to retool them?" I said, "Because >> just in the US, >> just in the US." I said, "Because if you don't, think about this. If I'm a business person and I can hire a person to drive a truck only eight hours a day, I have to pay for the healthcare, which gets more expensive every year. Um, they're going to [ __ ] at me about things. And I can buy a truck that can drive 24 hours a day. My insurance is cheaper because it doesn't make mistakes and I can depreciate the asset. Am I going to hire anybody? I said, so those
17:41 jobs going to go that's 8 million. That's one sector. We could look at pharma. There's so many industries affected. So I said, we've got to retool those people now where there's 10 years to gear them up because these are not people that are going to do it on their own and they're going to be shocked. The shock to their system. The loss of dignity of of being in control agency of their own life, of their own job, of their own direction is huge. And if you go back to like the Ludites, you know, you're from the UK, right? You must know your history there. 1800s, you know, Merkantile, they come up with these machines and how did people react? And by the way, this story is the same across history. We have a radical change like this. All these people are displaced and what did they do? They rioted. They took hammers and they destroyed those machines. They threatened to kill the owners of those companies and some were shot and killed.
18:27 They blew up and firebomb places. And what did the UK uh you know do about this? They passed a law in the first year of this of these ludites saying you destroy machine, it's capital punishment. They hung people because they couldn't have them destroy the growth of the of the economy, right? And guess what? 15 years later, the same thing happened again with the thrashers. thrasher machines that were used for wheat and they lost all the jobs and the people and the government overreacted. I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, but if anything this transition is just going to be smooth by us doing nothing, they're wrong. And the problem is, as I mentioned to you before, I think the leverage is not in favor of us taking care of society. The leverage is the carrot and the stick. The carrot is I can make a trillion dollars if I have
19:12 the right LLM or, you know, if I get to artificial general intelligence. Who knows? And if we don't do it, China's going to do it. That's the stick. And then they're going to run the world. So there's no focus on safety virtually, as you well know. And there's certainly no focus on what's happening with these jobs. Right now, high school students are getting jobs more than college students for the first time in 50 years, right? You see the displacement. You know, you got friends just like I do. Mark Benoff's one of my dear friends. They let go of like what was it? I think it was was it 5,000 customer service agents and now it's done with AI now. Now he wants to elevate them to other jobs. So we have to look at what this means to our society. We have to anticipate what this means and we've got to retool not just the jobs but the psychology because people talk about a
20:00 post-work world. You hear people talk about this all the time. Elon, people like that. They labor is not like electricity. You just take it for granted. It's so cheap. It's so easy. Well, if that's true, and he's talking 3 to 5 years, and a lot of people say Elon's early, he usually is uh in his predictions, but Ray Kerszwell is a good friend of mine. He's the most accurate predictor of technology in history. And he's been saying 2029 for almost 20 years is when we have artificial general intelligence. If you go to Hinton, I think you've interviewed Hinton, haven't you? Right. So, he's the longest. He's saying 2030 to 2040. He's given us a little more room. In the next 3 to 10 years, this is going to happen. How are we prepared for this? And so this is the questions I'm trying to bring up to people that have influence to say if you're in business, you got to take a look at this. If you're in government, you got to take a look at this. And so I I just got um
20:46 they haven't announced yet, but I just got selected to be on the federal advisory committee for the president and for the health and human services and I'm on the mental health side and I'm hoping to use that position to bring more of government's focus into this category as well because it's it's got to be addressed >> when we recite these. And that's by the way the answer to your question is and that's suffering. >> That's suffering at the highest level. Not just financial suffering. That's emotional suffering. That's loss of identity suffering. If I am a coder, I am a truck driver and I lose who I am. Now I just want to say one last thing. We've already been in a postwork world because I one person said to me recently, well, for 4,000 years we tied our identity to our work. I said, no, Americans all go, what do you do? Not everybody in the world does that. And
21:32 for 4,000 years, our connection post before the agricultural revolution was really what tribe we're connected to. And our sense of significance was maybe our courage in battle, not our financial component. Or maybe it was our creativity, our poetry, our storytelling capacity, or maybe it was our generosity. Um maybe it was our wisdom. So we can find other things to have meaning besides a job. But if you don't take a culture that's been conditioned for 200 years to think a certain way, we're going to have a lot of pain. And I would like to see us have less of that if we could. And I'm only one person, but I'll do my best to help people make that transition. >> It's funny because when we think about those historical examples of transition, I for many reasons think this is even more extreme.
22:17 >> I agree. >> Because you have intelligence and you have you've basically disrupted both the muscles and the mind. But you know if the reason it's going to explode even faster is because we're moving from LLM to now actually studying visually what's happening in the real world. And when robots do that then the game changes their tempo of learning. And just think about this. You and I are having a conversation. I picked up one of your books here and I'm reading through your book. So I want to get a feel for who you are and everything else before I came here. I've seen some of your videos but and I know like I really enjoyed it. But I had to go get that. I had to take a couple hours to dig through that. You and I have a conversation. If either one of us learn something we're a machine. every machine knows it instantly. You push one button and they have all of that knowledge. There's none of this word transfer. It's just it's now. So, [snorts] people don't realize what this really means. And when you're learning from the real world, not just LLMs,
23:03 right now, you and I are our brains are predictive devices. They're predicting what is going to happen next to the best of our ability. And we're trying to close that gap as much as we can or we get jolted. Well, think how predictively that's going to do to people's heads when all of a sudden their labor is not needed. >> And it's no longer blue collar labor, which is what people thought it would be. It's white collar labor. I mean, like my financial I have a lot of I have uh I own 95 different private equity firms. I have own the firms, not the actual funds, right? So, I get to do and 20 of them and I got pieces of all of them. So, they're biggest in the world. And so, I get to take a look at some of the things that are happening so fast. And I look at all those jobs and I see people in those industries and quantum is taking it took over maybe five years ago. I've seen the shrink in these
23:48 offices from staffs the guys who are making 5 million $10 million a year that are now unemployed. Right? It's not just the blue collar worker. It's everyone. So you're right. This has never happened before in history. And what's being done about it? >> More money's been put into it to accelerate it. >> The carrot and stick, the trillionaire and China, those two pieces are driving it all. And a few people are trying to hammer like Hinton and a few other people. We got to work on safety here so it doesn't eliminate the human race. And I'm not a reactionary person, but you know of what is it 25 30% of them people that work in AI say that they think it could potentially do that. I mean like you could use electricity to kill people or light up a city. So all technology is that challenge. But this is a different technology. This is a technology that keeps learning can replicate itself. Right now they don't even know how some of this actually works. They don't know
24:34 how the AI is actually working. It's teaching itself. These AIs now have their own language. I'm sure you know they're talking no longer in English to each other. And you know, I'm sure you've seen the studies, right, where they give them information on in the email and then they say they're going to shut shut off the AI and it blackmails them by giving them they g information about somebody having an affair and it blackmails them. I mean, it lies. So, we're we're living in a crazy world where the opportunity is greater than any time in his history for us to be creators. We were created and we're meant to create and we've got tools to create like never before. But we we're going to have to make sure that as we're doing that, we've got some parameters around safety and some parameters about what does it do to society. And I don't have the perfect answers for it. But I do know one thing, retooling is the answer. And I don't believe most people will be replaced by an AI. They'll be
25:20 replaced by somebody who knows how to use AI. >> Yeah. One of the things you said there really blew my mind when I watched a video from Boston Dynamics this week where they the guy explained how these robots are going to learn. And he goes there's two ways. One way is we're going to get our factory workers to wear a suit and every time the factory worker does something the the all the robots are going to learn that thing. And the other thing is he said is if one of our robots learns something whether it's how to pick up a book or how to make an omelette every robot learns it instantaneously. And my mind was like wow that is I personally don't know where this leaves us. to well neither do I but there are certain things you know it's leading us towards you know it's going to lead us to a great deal of violence because there are going to be people like have always
26:06 happened with technology displaces them only this is going to be a global event across multiple areas and not just drivers of Ubers and truck drivers if we don't get our act together and have a plan there's going to be violence for some period of time there'll be there's that grief period of loss and that people go through when something jars them that much and some people don't return from that grief. And some people are going to take this technology and they're going to go off. It's already happening now even without AI. There are more males at home 25 to 35 living at home with their family not working than any time in human history including the depression. Right? There are I think it's 25% or I think it was 30% I forgot the number. I just saw it recently of young men have never approached a woman to ask her out for a date. They play
26:52 video games all day long. their mom does their laundry and they order Uber Eats. This is a mass number of people. That's just the technology of getting somebody gamified. Imagine with AI. So, some people are going to go live there and some people are going to go the Star Trek route and say, "I'm going to figure out what makes human existence be here." But it's not hard to figure out. The majority are not going to go the Star Trek route. And so, we've got to have a bridge because of the time compression. If this was a hundred years to do it, we could adjust. There will be more jobs. There'll be new jobs. There'll be new time. But it's the time frame that I'm most concerned about. So when you ask me what I'm concerned about, that's what I'm concerned about because it creates suffering. And it's something that we can predict is going to create suffering. And yet I see very few people in positions of influence and power doing much about it. >> So on an individual level, if you were
27:38 an 18-year-old Tony Robbins, what would you be doing at this moment? What would you be focusing on work-wise? How would you be designing your life for such a world? >> I have five kids and five grandkids, right? So, I have a 52-year-old daughter and I have a thanks to CO a 4-year-old daughter. So, CO was good to me. I was home. So, um I look at my my especially my grandkids and my daughter and I say they're entering a world that none of us have known before. And so, how do I arm them for it? And the answer is a couple of things. Number one, I have to teach them not to do what most people in the world do. Most people you talk to of any even quote successful people, whatever that means, they're stressed all the time. Stress. I'm so stressed. You hear
28:24 people talk about stress all the time. It's like they argue about who's more stressed. And I I look at that and go, why are they stressed? And the answer is because they're managing their life. We're not made to manage circumstances. We're made to create. We were created by something. Call it your creator. Call it the universe. Call it God. Whatever you want to call it. And we were made to create. And when we create, we're alive. When we just try to maintain or manage or hold on to something, if we're just caught up in making a living instead of designing a life, life is a [ __ ] And that's why so many people have so many challenges. So, I'm teaching my kids to be creators and I teach them the second piece, the most important thing I believe that's made me successful. And anyone I've ever interviewed, you interviewed a million people. You see if you agree or disagree with me. The three most important skills in life now are
29:09 the ones that allow you to learn more rapidly. If you learn rapidly, you can win no matter what happens with the technology. And what are those three skills? Number one, the skill of pattern recognition. When you can recognize patterns, you eliminate fear. Fear comes from this has never happened before. I don't know what this is. Chaos. Like I hear people all the time talk about how we've never been this place politically where here in America where the most we're going to have a civil war. The And they don't do any history whatsoever. I I have these two placards that I have because back then they didn't have ads, right? They had placards and one is from Thomas Jefferson talking about Adams and one of Adams about Jefferson and they said stuff that make Republicans and Democrats look like they're nice to each other. I mean it's just unbelievable the stuff they said. This is a cycle. And so when you recognize a pattern it gives
29:55 you power, potential power at least. The first power is you're not not afraid anymore. You go now this is not something that's never happened. This is not something that's going to I I can see this. I can see how this has been dealt with. What took us from living in fear, from being hunter gatherers or trying to survive every day, didn't know if we're going to survive every day to being able to stay in one place? What pattern recognition? >> I was going to say the seasons, but >> you got it. >> Really? >> That's it. The seasons. I figured you got the seasons. Because before that, you could do the right thing at the wrong time and you get pain. And three of the four seasons are the wrong time. So once we figured out, oh my god, if I plant in the spring and I take care through the hot summer, I get this big
30:40 reaping and if I hang on to some of it to make it through the winter, I can live here. I don't have to worry. All my fear disappears. So we have the minute we understood seasons, it changed humanity. And by the way, there's the seasons to your life. You could say 0 to 21 is springtime. Springtime. How hard is it for something to grow in springtime? If you start a business in an economic spring where everybody's optimistic, you think you're a genius, you're just in the right season, right? >> So 0 to 21, you're taken care of. And that season, you grow like crazy. Somewhere around in roughly, and everyone's different, 21, 22 years old, you go the next stage, 22 to 42, and that's your summertime. That's the testing period of your life. What happens? You are 21, you've heard all this stuff, and now you go, you know
31:26 what? I don't know if I believe this [ __ ] I want to see what I believe. But I'm going to test all history, all studies of psychology show this is the most difficult time in most people's lives, right? 22 to 42. So if you're in that range and you're listening, I love you. Hang in there. [laughter] You know, this is this is your ground. If you keep growing, this is a great time. All right? Somewhere in that range, you make a transition. Somewhere around 30, 35, you're 33, you just got engaged. Congratulations. Right? You start to move towards a family. You start to have those experiences. I'm sure yours will be very successful. many aren't. Right? So at 42 43 to 63, that's the fall. If you planted in the spring, right, and you worked your tail off during that hot summer, now you can do
32:11 more with your pinky than working around the clock. You know more people, you have relationships. You recognize the patterns. You know what's going on. It's nothing's really a shock or surprise to you. You're more strategic. You're more efficient or more elegant. You have more choices. um you've learned a lot of lessons if you grew. Now, if you didn't plant in the spring and work hard in the in the summer, you're going to weep in the fall, not reap in the fall, right? But so now this is this is your power period. This is when most people earn the most money in their life if they're going to grow because they've accumulated knowledge, skills, relationships, and so forth. And then the winter is comes back to that 64 to 84 to 104 to the oldest humans 124. That period is a transition period to where you become a real leader because you're no longer, you know, in that 22 to 42,
32:58 you're trying to prove yourself to yourself or maybe other people or both. But there's a point when you get into your power group. You know who you are by the time you get into this last season, this, you know, 64 to 84, 104, 124, you know who the f you are. I mean, and and you you want people to like what you do, but if they don't, it's like, you know who you are. You don't give a [ __ ] I've just entered that season myself. I'm about to be 66 in a few weeks and um it's the most fulfilling season of all. Um it's mindbgggling. I wouldn't believe that when I was your age. That's why I'm sharing it. It's if you're healthy, if you're fit, if you're strong. Um if you don't do that, then it's can be a [ __ ] that time. But if you're healthy and strong, you have 40 year relationships, 35 year business relationships. You have friends that
33:44 adore you and love them and you're it's unbreakable. It's unshakable. you have an intimate relationship or a family or husband and wife relationship if you've built to that point that is beyond anything you could have dreamed of or hoped for. You wake up every day and you know that life is a gift and you want to give back even more. Like you're more driven than you were when you were in the 22 to 42 stage. Those are the seasons. There's one more. Your seasons of history and your season of history shapes how you shape your life. So you can look at a thousand years of Roman history. I'm very much in history and 500 years of Anglo-American history. Um, and you start to see patterns. In fact, I'd recommend for everyone there's a book called Generations. Have you read it? >> No. >> When I was working with President uh Clinton
34:29 in those days, I worked with President Clinton. I went across the other side and worked with the speaker of the house Gingrich. I on the same day on Clinton's on on his desk on the resolute desk was this book generations. And I asked him about it and he told me about how it it's amazing. It shows how history is somewhat predictable and why the cycles are generated by different generations, how we react the way we're we grew up. And then I go over to Gingrich's office and he's a historian. He's got it on his desk. >> It's a pretty thick book, good size book. My point is it if you want to navigate your life, you need pattern recognition so you don't go in reaction. And one thing is to understand seasons are a great pattern. They freed us. There are seasons of your life. You
35:14 should think about this season. What's this season about for you? What do you want to extract from this season? And every season has predictable challenges and predictable opportunities. And where am I in the season? Some people go through their springtime during a war, a winter time. Some people go through their springtime in a fall. We all grew up with different environments. And so we're shaped by that. And that's why history's changed. So, but let me finish the last last piece. I've gone way long. I apologize. But I said there's three skills. What What do we need, right? First one is pattern recognition. The second one is pattern utilization. So I watch you like you, you and I both, we develop companies, took them public very early ages, made a lot of money and figured out it wasn't just about money, right? You know, looking at your history. You didn't just recognize patterns, you used them. You saw them in
36:01 marketing areas. You saw online opportunities. You saw things. You didn't just, oh, now I understand it. You jumped on it. Anyone who's incredibly successful in anything, if they're great at dance, if they're great at investing in companies, they're great in running companies, if they're great in singing, they recognize there are certain patterns. And then the final skill, and this is what I'm teaching my children, is you ultimately want to become a pattern creator. Take an example. Same learn to play the piano, right? Yeah. How do you learn to play the piano? You got to recognize patterns. And usually you're taught someone else's patterns that produce something beautiful, >> right? could be Bach Beethoven, it could be some rock, it could be whatever you're learning. And so you learn those patterns and you practice them. You learn to use them, right? And now you can produce the same music. There is a point and I'm sure you've experienced
36:46 this already and you're going to experience a lot more in the next 10 years of your life. You've taken so much input in, you've recognized so many patterns that now you come through and you become the pattern creator. And that's when you start to become the goat of your industry, the best of all time. You look at, you know, Tom Brady's a friend of mine. Like he made pattern distinctions no one else made on how to keep his body strong, one of the most important ones. So he had the duration, but also how to read the defense, know what's happening. Those tools, he started create his own patterns about how to deal with that, right? And so once you create your own patterns, you bring something to the table that's never been there before. And when you make something never been there before, your value goes through the roof. When I met Jim Ran, my original personal development teacher, he changed my life
37:32 radically. I went when I was 17 years old. He Oh, yeah. That's great picture. That's great. I love that man. Beautiful man. I I went What I did was I was working as a janitor. I'm in high school, sophomore year, and I had um my mom came home one day and said, "Uh, we've got a friend that needs somebody to help move stuff." And I was always trying to earn some extra money. And so, and it was the weekends and I wasn't doing the janitorial work on the weekends. So, I said, "Okay, I'll I'll I'll do it. Volunteer." And my dad said, "Yeah, you got to find out what he did. He used to be such a loser. Now he's so successful, right?" And so, when I went to go see this guy, you know, I'm a hard worker, so I worked really hard. And so, he took me to lunch and he starts asking me questions. I said, "I want to ask you questions." And I said, "You know, my father said, "You used to be such a
38:18 loser and now you're so successful. How'd you change your life? I'm just a kid." I wasn't trying to be funny or mean, right? The guy you said your dad said, "What?" He goes, "Well, it's true." And he said, 'Well, what changed my life is I went to a seminar. He goes, "Yeah, I was, you know, three and a half hours. His name is Jim Ran." He told me the whole thing. And he's here in Orange County. He's coming up to an event pretty quick. I said, 'Could you get me in? And he goes, "Yeah." I said, "Well, how much is it?" He said, " $35? It' be like $250 in today's money, right?" And I said, " $35? I'm making $40 a week as a janitor, right?" He go I said, "I I I can't do that." He goes, "Well, then just learn on your own experience and waste a few decades." I said, 'You really think it's that valuable?' He goes, "No, you have to decide if it's that valuable." And so I remember I I wrestled with this like it was the biggest decision of my life, a week's
39:03 pay. And and I went in and I heard this man speak. He said some simple things like, you know, for things to change, you got to change. For things to get better, you got to get better, right? Interesting things. But at the end, I was so excited. I went up to him and I said, I want to come work for you. I want to learn this. I want to be a part of this. And he turned to me and said, "Look, kid." He goes, "Uh, um, you know, if you want to come work for me, you got to go through all my programs." And I said, "What does that mean?" And he said, "Well, you got to this, this, this." You know, it was like $1,200 for just one of the programs for a weekend. $1,200 is like $10,000 today to give an idea. $12,000. I'm at the time sleeping in my car, working as a janitor. My dad left, my mom kicked him out. Mom's a strong woman. And then she chased me out with a knife. She wasn't going to kill me, but I wasn't going back in that place. And so I'm like, I I can't I
39:50 can't do this. And then said something, he said, you know, decide. He goes, some people have to survive, some people succeed, decide which one you are, and if you're ready by next Saturday, a week from Saturday, he goes, um, I'm starting a training and you can join it, but if you if you don't have the money for it, you won't be able to do it. And I remember leaving thinking, this guy just wants my money. He's such a jerk. And I was so angry. But then in my head, I was like, he's right. He's right. You know, I've always gotten what I had to have. I haven't had to have much. And so I started going to banks. I walked in this place, five banks turned down and I saw this woman who looked persuadable and sweet. And her name was uh Mrs. Williams. This woman looks at me and she goes, "The bank's not going to loan you this money." And I'm she's like my fifth bank. And uh I said, "You don't understand." And I got all passionate. She goes, "With this kind of focus and energy, I think you can do something.
40:36 I'd like it to be something good." And she goes, "Um, I want to talk to the bank, but if the bank will ling the money, I will. if you look me in the eye and you swear to me I'm never going to have to come find you and you will take care of this. And I jumped across, hugged her and kissed her. She wasn't quite ready for that. I went to Jim Ran seminar. I went to work for him. And the first question when I got finally got a private moment with him that I asked was, I had four fathers. They were all good men. They all worked hard. How come we never had any money and sometimes no food? I said, I look over at the school teacher who makes $35,000 a year, I think, in those days. And then I see this hedge fund guy who made a billion dollars in a year. I said, 'Th that is so unjust.' And he gave me a lesson that changed my whole
41:21 life. He said, Tony, he said, 'You right. We're all equal as souls, but we're not equal in the marketplace. I said, what does that mean? He said, well, let me ask you a question. Is it possible someone to make twice as much money in the same amount of time? Yeah. Four times, 10 times, 100 times. Yeah, people do it. How? He goes, you have to become more valuable. He goes, "If you go to work at McDonald's, you get this tiny little income. It's not made to be an ideal job. It's a first-time job. Anyone can learn to do it in two hours." And I've been obsessed about it ever since. And I that changed everything in my life. My whole life became how do I add more value? And so today I have 121 companies and we're doing 12 billion dollars in business across almost every
42:06 industry you can imagine that I'm a part of. And I couldn't run one company in the start and you know and make it successful at 300,000 a year you know for the revenue all that became in every industry and I'm a lot of them I'm the number one in the industry it's because I'm obsessed with adding value and so I think that piece is what's missing also from our youth you're saying what do they need to do they think I'm here to get something no life is calling you what are you going to give not not just what you want to give but what people need and so my focus is I give people what they want. They want to make more money. They want a better relationship. But my goal is so I can give them what they need, which is a life that has more meaning. And that's one that goes beyond yourself. >> It's going to be a stressful period. >> Yes. >> To say the least. >> Um I I think algorithms are actually
42:52 making our online experiences more stressful. I think >> 100%. >> Because you know, they're designed to retain our attention. And the best way to retain our attention is probably fear. >> Yeah. And I think this with myself, I find myself watching all these [ __ ] short form videos that are just like they feel like they're at some level frying something, depleting something in me, but they're they're design it's designed the algorithms to serve me up the next one that's going to hold me or scare me or whatever. >> So in such a world where we're the algorithms are probably going to, you know, in the online world, especially for younger kids, is going to really >> it's going to is going to be better at taking hold of us. What are the tools that I need to deal with this stress and this angst? >> The first step to me would be take 15 minutes out of your day and go for microlearning. Like decide you're going to learn what matters, right? About
43:38 yourself, about AI. We tell people like you already have habits, right? Most people are scrolling a good portion of the day. Give me 15 of those minutes and let's do microlearning on something, a new language to stimulate your brain, philosophy history AI something pragmatic, something that's valuable. It's just getting people to have some habits that you know the 1% growth metaphor right you know you know 27 times at the end of the year it's like it's pretty simple all we have to do is create a new direction if you try to do it one giant step it's overwhelming for people that the secret to life is chunking think of it this way some people never work out but they eat easily so I'll say to them why don't you work out and they'll give me all the reasons and I'll say but you know you know I'd have to I'd have to join a gym
44:24 and I said okay well tell me what's entailed and they'll go I got to look up where the gyms are and then I got to I got to drive to each of the gyms and then I got to you know I got to park the car each place and find it and then I got to get out and then you know get hopefully get a pass and then they take you on the tour and and then they will sit you down and sell stuff to you and they got to back in the car and you got to drive things and then when you go do it let's say you sign up then you go and you got to check check in and take off all your clothes and then they drop and get wrinkled and then you go work out and it's sweaty you got to wipe other people's sweat off and then afterwards you got to go do a shower and your hair is messed up and your makeup you got start all over and everything else and you got to get the thing and you got to back out. It's like it's too much work. What does it take to eat? Well, you just go. They chunk eating is one thing. They chunk working out as 29,000 things, right? So, if you chunk too big, try to
45:10 do everything in one bite. It's overwhelming. And if you chunk it too small, it's overwhelming. So, there's a different size for different things. And if we want to learn and grow, which is what the secret is to your future is to become a learning machine about what matters. Like most people major in minor things, they know more about some actresses or actors love life um than they do or their skin regimen than they do about their own values and needs and what makes them tick as a human being. Today you can learn from the brightest, smartest people on earth. They're available. They're available by online. They're available by by contracting or coaching them. They're they're everywhere. There isn't a limit anymore. There's zero limit except you're deciding to be a creator and not a maintainer. He said you're deciding I'm
45:55 not just going to manage my life. I'm going to design and create something cuz the tools are available everywhere. And so I'm just one of those. >> I have a couple of questions based on what you've just said. The first one starting at the top was around you talked about this idea of pattern recognition uh utilization and creation. The question I had from that section was is there a way to get better at pattern recognition? >> Yeah. Well, first by understanding it's the most important key. >> Okay. Okay. So, it's like if I'm fearful, what's the pattern I'm missing here? What's something that could give me some history to understand that this isn't random? Like, you know, people say, "I overeat. I overdrink. I I get really angry at every you don't overread every moment. You don't smoke every moment." What are the triggers that you use >> and do you do you recommend people write? How do they how do they raise their self-awareness enough to start spotting these patterns?
46:41 >> I believe in diaries. You call it diary. I call it journals. I believe in journalism to be able to do that to guide yourself. But yes, but it's more than that. You have to you have to not only make the distinction, but you also have to have a different state to it. For example, let's say um let's say uh I say to you, I know I know um I need to lose weight. Um I'm going to do it. I'm going to go on a diet. Um I'm going to work out. Am I going to do it? [laughter] >> No. Because I'm not in the state to do it. Now, most people are trying to figure out what to do. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's the wrong sequence because when you think about what to do, if you've never done it before, you feel uncertain, you don't follow through. If you have done it before, but you don't feel strong enough, you're not going to follow
47:27 through. So, I tell people, if you want a breakthrough, it's three things. Strategy, story, state. Most people, if they want to have a breakthrough, they want to change their body, you want to change their life, they look for how to do it. And that's natural, but it's the absolute wrong order. And if you do things in the wrong order, it's like having the numbers to a phone for someone and you dial the wrong order, you don't reach somebody. Or the vault, right? You got the right numbers the wrong order, vault doesn't open. Why are so many people overweight in this country? Like 60% of the population is overweight. How is that possible? Is it because what it takes to be fit and strong is so incredibly complex? No. Only the 1% knows. No. It's super expensive. No, you have to work not to know what to do. So that the how is not the problem. So I say strategy story state that's how you have a
48:13 breakthrough. Yes, I'm a strategist. The right strategy can save you 10 years. I love that. It's fun. But if I start with a strategy, you'll listen and go, "Yeah, that's cool." And you won't do it. The real problem is the story you have. The story you have is I've tried everything. >> The story you have, nothing works. The story has all the good ones are gone and I'm gay and they're not or they're gay and I'm not. It's the story is the belief you've told yourself over and over because belief is the invisible force that controls everything in your life. And when you have a belief that you've honed because you're fearful and you've never done this before, then I can show you exactly how to do it and you'll say, "It doesn't work. I've tried that." Yeah. How many times? How hard? How many minutes? Right? But what's behind the story is your state. Your
49:00 mental emotional state. If I said to you, I am going to lose 12 pounds in the next 6 weeks. There is non-negotiable. Here's why I do this and this and this and this. Do you think I'm going to do it? >> Yes. >> You bet your ass I'm going to do it. Right. You can feel the state. >> Yeah. >> So, people are usually trying to figure out how to do something and they got a story about it when what they need first is the state. When you go in the right state, have you had this happen where you get in a flow and and something comes through? You're hitting a tennis ball or you're doing or you're speaking and at the end of you're like, "That was pretty awesome. I did that. How'd I do? I don't know. That [ __ ] just flowed. That was pretty awesome, right? You're in a peak state. I put people in a peak state while they're doing the things we're talking about. >> So, what do you do right before you come out on stage? And what can anyone listening at home do before the big meeting, the big moment in their life or
49:46 really like on a daily basis to configure our state? >> The first thing I do, my little daily routine is I go out, I use the jacuzzi for a moment to open my body up and everything else and then I go on the cold plunge. And I've been doing that for 18 years now. Everybody talks about it, but I go into that cold plunge. And the secret though is I don't negotiate with myself. I go on the cold plunge for both the health purposes because it floods your body, right? Completely. But the the real value is is the mental discipline of I don't go, okay, I'm ready. And I don't get in one just lie lying here. I dunk under. I jump in. Not one that goes above my head. I go under under the water. I dive into it. Right? And I don't stand there. I don't stand there and go, "Oh, I feel cold right now." or another minute or like I've trained my brain when I say go, we go. And I've done that for decades. And so
50:33 I'm not I'm not in the place when I say go somewhere else, my brain obeys. I'm not I don't have these stories in my head back and forth trying to have a conversation with myself, trying to convince myself to do something I've decided, right? So decision point is everything. So I've trained myself to do it, but also it produces a massive change. It is not comfortable. I don't think there's been a morning in my life that I've looked forward to doing it, but it changes you. So, that's one thing. The thing I do before I go on stage, I have a routine of how I shift my body. I have a I have a prayer that I do, which is use me, Lord, and I picture being to serve as many human people as human beings as possible. I see them not only where they are now, I see where they're going to be by the end of what I'm done. And then I make this radical shift in my body. I make these moves and explosive breath. And then I storm out
51:18 there. And then I've I've taken myself imagine on a zero to 10 to a 20 of intensity. So now I can drop down to a nine feels like I'm very relaxed and but I've got a lot more gears in me than you know. And that's how I can project to the guy at the top of the stadium and hold them for 12 hours, you know, who wouldn't sit for a three-hour movie someone spent $300 million on. >> And do you think a lot about your diet and nutrition? >> I'm Yeah, I'm totally committed to that. And I also train like a crazy person and I do hyperbaric oxygen. And I I you name it. I'm a I'm a biohacker. Um and I'm committed to that. I have a whole company that does it for people as well. So I've always done that because I've had to to perform. And I'm 66 going to produce results that, you know, were designed by a 25-year-old, right? But I'm stronger today than I was then. I
52:04 got more aerobic capacity. I've got more muscle capacity. So I mean, there's a limit, but I haven't found it yet. >> If you follow me, you've probably heard me talk about hiring more so than anything else. So, you probably see me on Behind the Diary, which is our other YouTube channel, talking about how
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