794 Tony Robbins: The Icon

THE SECRET TO WEALTH IS GRATITUDE. Money is not a bad thing. Money is portable power. It allows you to make the impact you want to make. It allows you to build your legacy. You have the power to take control of your money and start hoping for a better future. It’s all within your grasp. However, it doesn’t matter how much money you have if you’re not enjoying life. That’s why you need gratitude. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about mastering your money with a man who needs no introduction: Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, philanthropist and the nation’s #1 Life and Business Strategist. Author of six internationally bestselling books, including the recent New York Times #1 best-seller MONEY: Master the Game and UNSHAKEABLE, Tony has empowered more than 50 million people from 100 countries through his audio, video, and life training programs. Tony uses his money to help others and give back. Once he got rid of the scarcity mindset he was able to become the man we know him as today. So get ready to learn how to gain wealth and how to use that wealth to make the world better on Episode 794. Some Questions I Ask: If you could only use one strategy, what would that be? (5:10) How does someone continue to stay hungry? (7:30) How do you stay grounded in your relationships? (10:30) How do we invest without fear? (17:00) What are you the most grateful for right now? (32:00) What are some things people can do to stop living in scarcity? (40:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Tony’s mom thought his ego was too big when he was younger (11:50) How Tony views failure (8:45) Tony’s key to financial success (15:00) The difference between a correction and a crash in the stock market (22:00) How gratitude is an important part of building wealth (30:00) Tony’s system for strengthening your mind (40:00) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 794 with number one New York Times bestselling author, Tony Robbins.

• 0:09Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  The secret to living is giving. Tony Robbins said that, and it's something that I live by every single day. How much are you giving? Not how much are you taking and receiving, but how much are you giving on a daily basis? With your smile, with your energy, with your heart, with your hugs, with your generosity, how much are you giving? Today, we've got a special episode with the icon, Tony Robbins. Now, for those who don't know who he is, he is an author of a number of bestselling books, including the number one New York Times bestseller, Money Master the Game and Unshakable.

• 1:13Lewis Howes?

  He has empowered more than 50 million people from 100 countries through his audio, video, and life training programs. He created the number one personal and professional development program of all time, and more than 4 million people have attended his live seminars. This guy is the king of personal growth. And in this interview, we talk about how money is not an enemy, but a magnifying glass. Why diversifying is key for success in business. The power of gratitude, and why it's the secret to wealth. And how to feed your mind and strengthen your body for success.

• 1:53Lewis Howes?

  Now, I took the best clips of three different interviews I've had with Tony Robbins on. And we put them together for this special episode. And the reason I'm doing this is because Tony is now a part of the biggest online marketing launch in internet history. He partnered up with my buddy Dean Graziosi, who we had on about a month ago. And it's been amazing to watch them launch this program and to see the results and the impact that people have had by this course is unbelievable. You guys can check the replay and watch more at greatnesslink.com. A full training on how you can extract the information in your mind, your skillset, and how you can sell that information online.

• 2:37Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't matter what profession you're in. If you want to earn more with your passion, they're teaching you how at greatnesslink.com. Make sure to check that out. For me, Tony always taught me about the power of mentors. You know, he was one of the few people that I wanted on early on my podcast, and we've had him on three times now. And he always talks about the power of having an inner circle. You are like the people you surround yourself with the most. So make sure you evaluate the people that you're spending the most time with. So many things we're to cover in this interview. I think you're gonna love this. Make sure to share with your friends. LewisHowes.com/794. This one's gonna be a big one. All right, guys. Big thank you to our sponsor.

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  And without further ado, let me introduce to you to the one, the only, the icon, Tony Robbins. You've been doing the work for 40 years, right? Well, not quite. Almost 40 years. 39. It's my 39th year. 39 years. This is a question a friend of mine, Ed O'Keefe, asked. He said, "With all the tools you've learned and the wealth of information over 39 years, almost four decades, strategies to break people through, to help them overcome their challenges, if you can only have, if you had to strip them all away, you can only use one strategy or one thing to use?"

• 3:57Tony Robbins?

  What would that be? I wouldn't. Part of why I'm effective is because I don't buy that. I'm always looking for more strategy because one strategy will work with one person, not with another. But philosophically, I would say that the capacity to strengthen and increase your hunger is the one common denominator amongst the most successful people, you know. Richard Branson is a good friend of mine and Peter Guber, Steve Wynn, all these guys, they've never lost their hunger. Most people are hungry to achieve a certain amount, make a certain amount of money and then they get comfortable and relax. Or to get a certain level of fitness and then they relax. But Richard is as driven today as when he was 16 years old starting. I mean, he's like on fire and he's 65 years old.

• 4:43Tony Robbins?

  Warren Buffett is 85 years old. He's as driven today as when, you know, he began the journey, right? And so people that have that hunger, I believe intelligence. I love people that are wickedly smart and I work to be wickedly smart by educating and training myself and so forth and training my brain. But intelligent, there's a lot of intelligent people can't fight their way out of a paper bag, right? Hunger is the ultimate driver because if you're hungry, you can get the strategy, you can get the answer. If you can't model it, you can find it. So hunger, modeling would be maybe the next best skill, knowing that success leaves clues. Like why reinvent the wheel? If someone took this plane, was Mickey's plane, who owns the Miami Heat and owns Carnival,

• 5:26Tony Robbins?

  you can learn so much from him, like Mickey is blow your mind what this man has been able to do in his life. And so why would I go learn by trial and error and maybe take 10 or 20 years when I could learn from somebody in a few weeks or a few months or a few hours, something that could save me a decade? That's what it is. That's why, that's why I read 700 books in the first seven years because I was like, if somebody takes 10 years of life, they pour into a book and I can read that in an hour, two or three or four, why wouldn't I? So how does someone continue to stay hungry?

• 5:54Lewis Howes?

  Or rediscover what they're hungry about.

• 5:57Tony Robbins?

  The best way is get around where it's better and things will hit you.

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  Say it again.

• 6:01Tony Robbins?

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

• 6:41Lewis Howes?

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

• 6:49Tony Robbins?

  I saw, uh, have you seen Hamilton, the play in New York?

• 6:51Lewis Howes?

  I hear it's incredible. Everyone's raving about it. You've seen it, right Nick? Yeah, it's amazing.

• 6:55Tony Robbins?

  Isn't it extraordinary?

• 6:56Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 6:56Tony Robbins?

  Yeah, I, I loved it. I, I thought it was a lot, might be a lot of hype, but it was as good as, as The Promise.

• 7:01Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 7:01Tony Robbins?

  There's a line in Hamilton that I thought was really interesting. It says, "Legacy is planting seeds in a garden that you'll never see." And that was really interesting. But so for me, I know.

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  What's the garden you want to create you'll never see?

• 7:15Tony Robbins?

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

• 7:58Tony Robbins?

  Sometimes you're being a blessing because you coach them or you intervene with them. You can be a blessing in so many ways, but that's my daily focus. And it's not what I'm gonna build for the long term. It's really what am I gonna do right now?

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  Why is that? And why do you want to create that legacy?

• 8:13Tony Robbins?

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

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

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

• 9:07Tony Robbins?

  My mom's craziness gave me a great gift. I wanted to be a professional athlete, and I want to be a professional baseball player. And when I got cut from the junior high school team, I figured out, I'm in trouble. So, I decided to become a sportscaster and a sportswriter. And so, I took typing when I was in junior high school. I was the only boy in an all-girl shorthand class, so I could capture everything, because I wanted to be the best reporter, best sportscaster. I interviewed Howard Cosell, and Woody Hayes, and Dodgers and Rams. I got a job working for a daily newspaper when I was 13. And then, I got this huge break, which was, I got these interviews, no one had, like Joe Namath, when he was so famous. I got these interviews, and here in LA, KTV, Channel 11, it's now a Fox channel, they were trying to get viewership, and so, they kept trying

• 9:49Tony Robbins?

  different kinds of sportscasters. They even tried Fanny Fox the stripper. And somebody watched some interviews I did, and went, "Holy shit, this 14-year-old kid," I was about to be 15, "he's brilliant, he's getting interviews nobody else is getting," you know? So, they called me up, and they offered me the job to be the nightly sportscaster as I was turning 15. And I was out of my mind, like the dream I was going to have when I was like 25 or 30 was happening, you know, I was going to be 15. And my mom said to me, "Your ego's too big." And if I let you do this, you're getting bigger. And she not only would not let me take the job, she made me quit my job working for the Parkers Bolton, which was a daily newspaper in Pomona, California, doing sports.

• 10:33Tony Robbins?

  And I hated her and I was devastated. But it created a sensitivity inside of me that that along with, I think, watching athletes who would not sign a card for a kid because they were making money selling cards, would make me so angry that I said, I'm never going to be one of those people. And so I'm not, you know? I certainly have plenty of pride in what I've been able to accomplish and people I've been able to help. But I always know I'm just a guy. And while I've worked my ass off, I've also had grace in my life, you know? And I think when you achieve things, it comes from incredibly obsessive focus, massive action and figuring out how to execute and do things effectively. And it's grace. And I never forget that that's a part of the formula for where my life is today.

• 11:14Lewis Howes?

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

• 11:21Tony Robbins?

  I think ego can produce drive, but that kind of ego will make you not be fulfilled.

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:27Tony Robbins?

  And we all have it until we get a few hammers. Because in the beginning, when you're young, especially a young man, I think even more so than a woman, you know, you're trying to find yourself. You're trying to prove yourself to the world. And really, you're trying to prove it to yourself.

• 11:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:41Tony Robbins?

  Like, in the very beginning for me, I used to attack psychiatrists and psychologists because I care about people so much and because I learned how to handle them in an hour and they're working with someone for seven years and I would just go crazy. But I was also attacking them because I was also defensive because I didn't have a degree. And so I figured I'm going to be on the offense. I'm going to show them. But as I grew up, I realized, holy shit, these people care just as much as I do. Now I've trained 100,000 therapists around the world with my partner Chloe Madonna. So we make films of people's lives, like suicidal people, people who've been through hell. And you get to watch how I do it, as I do it. And then you get to see them two years later to know it really worked.

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

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

• 12:25Tony Robbins?

  No, of course not.

• 12:25Lewis Howes?

  No?

• 12:26Tony Robbins?

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

• 13:00Lewis Howes?

  And if everything you touch was successful, you probably wouldn't be able to relate to people as much.

• 13:03Tony Robbins?

  No, you wouldn't be able to relate, and also it'd be total bullshit, and everyone knows it's bullshit. And also, you'd be bored silly. I mean, think about it. If you just said, "I want this to happen. I want this to happen," you know, people don't value what they don't fight for. You know, it's like you see kids sometimes, you know, your parents will say, "You're not gonna value this if you don't work for it." And your kid be going, "Oh, value it. Just give it to me," right? But it's true, you know, the things we've worked the hardest for, we value the most. So I think the purpose of a goal is not getting it anyway. The purpose of a goal, you know, is what, who you become. Who you become is gonna make you happier, it's gonna make you sad. So I'm not looking for an effortless approach. There's no such thing.

• 13:40Lewis Howes?

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

• 13:56Tony Robbins?

  It won't affect how much you make, but it'll affect your relationship a lot, right? You know, getting on the same page is really, really important. But when my wife and I met, my wife, we both grew up very poor. But I decided that I was gonna find a way to add so much value that money would never be a question for my family and, you know, it would never stop me from giving or doing or sharing anything. And I made that decision early on, so I became an earner, ways of earning. She became a negotiator, a cost manager. Her mom's number one thing is somebody comes in, she goes, "Sharpen your pencil. It's not a good enough deal." And so, when we first met, I remember we were... We're in New York City and this dates me how old I am, but I remember when they first came out with digital cameras, the very first digital cameras from Sony.

• 14:38Tony Robbins?

  And it was like such a cool thing. You could take 12 pictures or whatever it was in those days. But we were down in, um, New York City, we're in Times Square. And we went into one of those camera shops and it was Christmas time. And I saw the camera and I was like so excited about this camera. And I said, you know what, I'm gonna get one for my brother, my sister, my mom. And you know, I came up with, I don't know, it was like 12 cameras. And they were very expensive then. I mean, they were like 1,200 or $2,000 each. They were really crazy. Not like 200 for the same. Yeah, no, not even. It's a million times better. But I went to the counter and the guy goes, "Oh my God, Tony Robbins, can I take a picture with you? I'll put it on the wall." And I said, "Sure." And she goes, "Hey," she goes, "Sharpen your pencil. What kind of deal are you gonna give my boyfriend here?" And I wanted to grab her by the throat and just go, "What are you doing here?" It's like, "What are you doing?"

• 15:22Tony Robbins?

  And she's like, "No, no, what's the deal here?" And he goes, "Oh, well, uh, I give it 10% off." She goes, "Sharpen your pencil, 10%." "You're not taking a picture with my boyfriend." And I wanted to murder her, right? And I was so mad. I mean, I was so mad. And so she got like 15% off and free camera cases, all this stuff. And I'm shaking my head. We left. I was like, "I'm so..." We had this big fight. Today, I just call her squeaky. She's my squeaky girl. She wants to go to Walmart, as if we'd ever need to go to Walmart, you know? And what I do is I'm delighted by the difference. And I go, "You know what? What a beautiful gift." I've been in relationships before where I gave everything and the people were totally unconscious with money. So to answer your question, it's nice to be on the same page, but you know, one day I told my wife, I was coaching someone.

• 16:07Tony Robbins?

  And a person gave me a quarter of a million dollar bonus. I don't care who you are, it's mind boggling. It was like, he didn't have to. It wasn't part of the deal. He pays me a million dollars a year plus a piece of the upside. And he just said, "Tony, you did so much for me. I just want to give you this additional quarter million dollar bonus." And it wasn't the money, it was the generosity that just knocked me off my chalk seat. And so I called my wife and I said, "Honey, Paul's giving me a quarter million dollar bonus." I mean, he's like, "He's so generous." And she goes, "Oh, that's nice, honey. Hey, do you know what I'm making for lunch?" And I'm like... Wow. So I used to get upset about it. Now I'm like, that's my squeaky little girl's. I'm thrilled she doesn't have to think about it. I'm in charge. I don't think your partner has to. One of you has to master it and you have to have some alignment. Okay. But you don't want them to be against you essentially?

• 16:51Tony Robbins?

  Well, sometimes they're gonna be. We were against each other in some ways. We're having fights. But what you eventually decide is do I want to be right or do I want to be in love?

• 17:00Tony Robbins?

  I'd rather be in love personally, right?

• 17:01Lewis Howes?

  That's a good quote.

• 17:02Tony Robbins?

  And then also, I just said, you know, to her, I'd say, listen, honey, I'm, I, I understand your intent. I had to go to her intent. Instead of being frustrated with her, saying, this is really actually a cool quality. And she's my opposite in that area. And it's a, and we're a good, we're a good balance together.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. You know, there's a lot of people that I grew up with who were poor, who had a negative mindset around money. They thought it was evil, that it was bad.

• 17:24Lewis Howes?

  What would you say to someone who has that mindset? Where they just, they have a story around money that isn't a positive one.

• 17:30Tony Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  I think of money, I think of evil, bad, corruption, whatever it may be.

• 17:33Tony Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Lewis Howes?

  How does someone shift it? Like what's, is it a daily practice? Is it something they can do right away?

• 17:38Tony Robbins?

  It's the truth. Get to the truth. The truth is simple. Money does not change people. Money makes you more of what you are. It's a magnifying tool.

• 17:52Tony Robbins?

  So what I show people is, what you really want to do is create an income for life without working. The goal, if you own a business, and I would assume a lot of your viewers are business owners or are getting started in business. No matter how good you are in business, think about this. The one universal rule that idiots in finance know is diversification. It's the only free lunch. You've got to diversify. Because if you put all your eggs in one basket, no matter how good the basket is, one day, that real estate market, that stock market, that bond market, that collectibles market, whatever you invest in, right now, you showed me statistically, it'll drop 50 to 70% on a day. Now, if you're later in life and that happens, it's over for you.

• 18:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:32Tony Robbins?

  So you have to diversify. And yet, most people, they know real estate, so they do it. Or they know stocks, they do it. Or they grew up with their parents flipping things. And it's the wrong thing to do. So you've got to diversify in order for you to be able to truly succeed. And that's why, when you own a business.

• 18:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:47Tony Robbins?

  If you put all your money in your business, which is what most of us do naturally.

• 18:52Lewis Howes?

  A lot of risk.

• 18:52Tony Robbins?

  Yeah. You put all your eggs in one basket and there's things that can happen. I mean, you know, you're, let's say you spent 20 years and you figured out how to put together the ultimate map. You know, and you remember Garmin came out with this thing called the TomTom. I don't know if you remember, you used to put on your, are you old enough to remember that?

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 19:08Tony Robbins?

  You put on your phone? Or you put on your dash? Cost a hundred bucks. It was a breakthrough.

• 19:14Lewis Howes?

  They were making like a hundred million or something.

• 19:15Tony Robbins?

  They were.

• 19:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:16Tony Robbins?

  Six months later, what happened?

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  The iPhone came out with Google Maps.

• 19:21Tony Robbins?

  These little bastards, excuse my French, came out with it, put Google Maps, put their own map on here. And it costs how much? Zero. What's it gonna do to your business when someone takes your product deserve and gives away for free? So I always tell people, competition happens, technology happens, what you must do is have a second business with no, with no moving parts, no people, no time, maybe it takes you two, two, three days a year for two or three hours after you've read the book, you put it in place and you measure it two or three times a year, that's it.

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:49Tony Robbins?

  Go on with your life. Now if there's a trouble in your business, you're financially set. I, in my life, have thirty-one companies now, we have, you know, what do we have, twelve hundred employees, seven different industries, we do five billion in sales. I mean, I, that used to be, you know, me and my seminar business, it's grown geometrically. But with all those moving parts, the only way I've been able to succeed is because I've taken every one of those businesses, I've diversified my assets so that when things were in trouble, I still have enough economics to take care of myself and keep the business going. So everybody needs to create a money machine that works while you sleep, that doesn't have moving parts, and that's what this is really about.

• 20:27Lewis Howes?

  You have a great cartoon in the book, um, where there's a kid asking his father, you know, something about like, how do you invest your money, or how's the stock market work? And he says, you put your money in at the peak, it starts to go down and lose money, and so you get scared and you take it out, and then someone smarter than you makes all the money. Something like that. So how do we, how, and I've done that in the past, where I put my money in somewhere high, it went down, and I was like, oh, I just lost a bunch of money, let me take it out.

• 20:56Tony Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:56Lewis Howes?

  And then I put it back in another time, and I'm like, what am I doing? So how do we invest without fear of, oh, it's going down, I need to take it out, or like, trying to time it? How do we do that?

• 21:07Tony Robbins?

  Great question. It's one of the main reasons I wrote the book. I always tell people, if you just read the second chapter of the book and nothing else, it'll change your life. You can do that with multiple chapters, but that chapter is really about teaching people that winter is coming, we all know winter's coming, you're right to quote a phrase, but that winter is the best time on earth. And I know that's counterintuitive, and I don't mean like being a positive thinker, I mean pure facts. So in the book, I take you through ten facts, I'll give you a couple of them right now. The first fact I give people is, why do people not invest? They're afraid of failing. They, you're a millennial, right? So you grew up witnessing 2008 when you were still relatively young. How old are you now?

• 21:45Lewis Howes?

  Thirty-three.

• 21:46Tony Robbins?

  Okay, so you were, what, twenty-seven? What, what, what?

• 21:49Lewis Howes?

  Two thousand eight? Yeah, twenty-seven.

• 21:51Tony Robbins?

  Yeah, twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old. So you're a young man and you're watching the world melting down in front of you. For most millennials, they are the first generation since the generation that went through the depression that is not investing at the ratio they need to even close.

• 22:05Lewis Howes?

  And they have more debt than everyone, probably, right? With all the loans.

• 22:07Tony Robbins?

  They have more college debt than everyone, absolutely true.

• 22:10Lewis Howes?

  I have a friend that has four hundred thousand dollars in debt. Dental school.

• 22:13Tony Robbins?

  President Obama just paid off his debt five years ago while he was still president.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  What? No.

• 22:17Tony Robbins?

  I swear to God.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 22:19Tony Robbins?

  It's mind-boggling. And he had a bunch of scholarships, but the last bit, it took him that long. So what I tell them is, listen, debt, paying off your debt's not enough. You've got to become an owner or you're always gonna be in that place. So yes, pay off your debt, but here's what you need to know. You gotta become an owner. You gotta get in the game, but you gotta understand the rules of the game. You don't know the rules of the game, the old phrase is, you get, you know, a person with experience meets a person with money, we know the phrase. The person with the money ends up with the experience. The person with the experience ends up with your money, right? So I teach people the rules of the game so they don't get screwed. But the most important thing is this. Winter's coming, but people react. So let's take last year. Last January, twenty sixteen, we had the worst stock market opening in the history of the stock market. Worst, first, I think it was ten days.

• 23:04Tony Robbins?

  There was a drop of two point three trillion dollars with a T.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 23:08Tony Robbins?

  Everybody's freaking thinking the bear market's here, the market's over, the crash is here. I think the market dropped eight hundred points one day. And on that day, all the richest people in the world were in Davos, Switzerland, you know, for the big conference that they do every year. And they went there, MSNBC went there, and everybody's freaking, what's happening? What are we gonna do? And they said, let's go ask Ray Dalio. Now, your listeners may or may not know who Ray Dalio is. If you're not in the financial business, probably never heard of him. You've probably heard of Warren Buffett, but Ray Dalio's been more. You're gonna have a five billion dollar net worth and a hundred million dollars to give him where he wouldn't talk to you ten years ago. Now, he doesn't give a shit how much money you have, he won't talk to you because he's got a close fund. But they go and they put Dalio on television, CNBC, he's the king. What do we do? And he says, well, you don't need to panic. Corrections happen all the time.

• 23:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:53Tony Robbins?

  But you need a strategy that when markets go up and down, you don't go up and down. And he said, I spent 15 years of my life to perfect such a strategy. All of my money's in that plan. And he said, it's called all seasons and I've never revealed it before, but I gave it to Tony Robbins. He extracted from me and it's his book. So you ought to go read his book. So he says on national television, the data markets are crashing. And that day, to give you an idea, which was beginning of February, I think it was nine days into February. The market was down nine percent in the first five weeks of the year.

• 24:24Tony Robbins?

  His strategy, which he gave me, which has made money 85% of the time for the last 75 years.

• 24:31Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:31Tony Robbins?

  It's averaged a 10% return, just under. And the average loss, when it 15% loss was 1.6.

• 24:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:38Tony Robbins?

  So if you go to Vegas and you could spend 85% of the time make money. And when you made money, it was 10% and your loss is 1.6, you could go forever. His plan made 2% while the market was down nine. So it was up 11% difference. Now, I'm not suggesting that's the only strategy to do. There's many. His is the smoothest ride with the least risk. But what it did was a combination of that. And then right after that, I interviewed Fed Chair Alan Greenspan. He was the head of our economy, the most powerful man in finance for 19 years, four presidents. He was there running. I was just with President Clinton this last week. He was, he was the Fed Chair for him. And I interviewed him for like two hours, you know, or three hours offstage, two hours in front. And I asked him in the very beginning of this thing, I said to him, I said, look,

• 25:22Tony Robbins?

  if you could be put in the Fed today, what would you do? And he looks at me and as I said, he leans forward and he says resign. So I look at that and go, oh my God, I need to write a book that'll free people. So here's what will free you. Everyone's afraid of the crash. So here's what you need to know, two terms you should understand. Correction versus crash. Anytime the market drops from its high by 10% or more, up to 20, it's called a correction.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:47Tony Robbins?

  If it drops 20% or more, up to 80%, like, you know, the, the Great Depression, then it's called a crash or called a bear market. Okay. So how often does a correction happen? How, how often do we have to be prepared for it? Since nineteen hundred, we've had a correction on average every year. Wow. For a hundred and sixteen years. So when is winter coming? This year on average. Every year. It's like, how often does winter come? You wouldn't be surprised if it stormed and rained. Now, some winters are long, some are short, some are harsh, some are light. But winter always comes. So I wasn't panicked when this happened last year. I'm not panicked whenever it happens because I know it's supposed to be. Yeah. How long does it last? Average, fifty-six days. Okay, so just under two months.

• 26:31Tony Robbins?

  What's the average drop during that time? Fourteen percent over the last thirty years, thirteen point five of last hundred years. So I use the more recent one. Fourteen percent gets your attention, right? Fourteen percent, you get a little gut check. Yeah. But here's what you need to know. Eighty percent of all corrections never become a bear market. Eighty percent. Hmm. So all this fear, and what people do is what you said you did is they see it, it's freaking out, I'm losing money. I'm the hell out of here. And they get out. The stock market never took a dime from anybody, only you can take it from you. You sold, that's why you lost. Right. Right? So if you look back and say, what was it like in two thousand eight? I can remember vividly being with my platinum partners and saying, you see these eighty dollar stocks? This is six months before the crash.

• 27:15Tony Robbins?

  I told them in April, I brought them to Dubai and I said, these stocks are gonna go to eight and some are gonna go to a buck. And by October, and I told them what to do, so they were able to get out. October, I go on the Today Show in October of two thousand eight and they go, Tony, there's been three trillion dollars meltdown. Pump the country up, you got four minutes. Ready, go. That's not what I do, first of all, and I said, that'd be a lie, I'm not gonna bubble. At that point, the eighty dollar stocks were eight. I said, some of those, I said, I'm not a market forecaster, but I worked with Paul Tudor Jones, one of the greatest investors in the history of the world. In the biggest market crash in history, you know, nineteen eighty-seven, he made two hundred percent. Wow. When everybody else was losing their entire life. I've been coaching him continuously now for twenty-four years, every single day.

• 28:00Tony Robbins?

  So I said, I work with the best in the world and they're telling me based on history in the thirties and history in the seventies, those eight dollar stocks, some are gonna be a buck. And I remember the day in March of 2009, Citibank, which had been, I think, $70, sold for 97 cents. You could go and take your money out of the ATM. Yeah. It cost you more to take your money out than to own the bank, right? And then I told people, it'll jump from 99 cents to $6, $10, $12 in a month or two. That's exactly what it did, right? So what you gotta know is corrections happen every year. You got another couple of months, gotta know it's 14% and you won't lose because 80% of the time it doesn't go to a bear. Now, what about the bear?

• 28:43Tony Robbins?

  The bear market, it happens, to give you an idea, in the last 100 years, every three to five years. You've gone eight without one. We're way overdue. Yeah. Though in modern years, last 30 years, it's about every five years. Uh huh. The average length of a bear is one year. The average drop is 33%. Wow. A third of those drops go 40% or above. That, I don't care how well prepared you are, that's a scary thing. Yeah. But it is the greatest opportunity in your lifetime to go from wherever you are financially to where you want to be. I hope your audience is listening right now. Hear me. If you want to leapfrog and you're a millennial and you think there's no future, or you're a baby boomer and you think you're too old and it's too late, the greatest gift you have is coming. I know it doesn't sound like it.

• 29:27Tony Robbins?

  This is not positive thinking bullshit. This is the truth. Hmm. Wall Street, the stock market is the only place that when things go on sale, people freak out. If I said, you like Ferraris? Sure. If I said to you, Ferraris go on sale for 50% off. Awesome. But when I tell you Apple's on sale for 50% off, you go, oh, what am I gonna do here? What's wrong? The world's coming to an end. If you think about it, how old are you? 33. 33. So let's assume if you were 35 and you lived to 85, you got 50, 52 years ahead of you. That means you have 52 more corrections to live through. Right. That means you're probably in those 50 years gonna have 10 more bear markets to live through. If you're gonna have gut checks every time, or you're gonna leave out of it. Right.

• 30:11Tony Robbins?

  If you didn't participate because you thought, oh, the market's too volatile, I can't trust it, all that stuff, you missed 250% return in the last eight years. Hmm. I mean, you've missed out on everything while you're waiting for things to be better. And if you won't do it when it's like this, when it crashes, you're not gonna get in. Sure. So here's the good news about the bear. Good news about the bear, average ones a year. Could be longer, but that's the average. Could be shorter. But here's what's cool. Every single bear market in the history of the United States has led to a bull market. Meaning, right afterwards. So 2008, this plummeting, what happened in 2009? Up 67% in a year. I can show you every single bear market, and the next year when it comes out, it's this explosion. Now, that's not true in every market in the world. It's true for two centuries

• 30:54Tony Robbins?

  in the United States. So that's why Warren Buffett says, "I want to be greedy when people are afraid." And I want to be afraid when people are greedy. If you remember 2008, he was telling everybody, "Buy." He was having the time of his life. Buy, buy, buy, everything's on sale. So what you have to do to become unshakable is turn, the metaphor I use is turn the snake into the rope. Meaning, we all know the story. It's the middle of the night, you're walking through the yard or someplace, and you see a snake, and you're freaked out. You pull back. You come in the morning, and it's a rope. Once you know it's a rope, you're never afraid again. I want to take for people investing, and show them how to turn that snake into the rope it really is. And I'll tell you one final stat on all this. People always say, and you started bringing up timing. How do I time it?

• 31:37Tony Robbins?

  Like, right now, things are too expensive. I want to wait. People have been saying that for eight years. Is there going to be correction? Yes. But when it corrects, you want to invest again. You'll get dollar-cost averaging. If you paid a little too much here, you'll be paying less here. It'll bring the average price to a reasonable place. It's going to allow you to succeed. But here's what people need to know about timing. If you are not in the market, it's the most dangerous thing. This is so counterintuitive, so I hope your audience is listening. Let me show you. There's two different research projects. One was done by JP Morgan. I just spoke for them the other day at their Alternative Investments Conference. And to be in the room, there are 400 people, you have to have a billion-dollar net worth to get in the room. It was mind-boggling, right? So JP Morgan did a study, and also Schwab did a separate study. 20-year studies.

• 32:20Tony Robbins?

  In the last 20 years, to give you an idea, the average S&P 500, that index, has produced 8.2%. Over 30 years, it was 10.28. But in the last 20 years, a little bit less. Still great. You double your money, roughly, you're in a position where you double your money a little more than every, you know, what is it now? 7.2. So it'd be like, a little more in 10 years. Here's what they found out. If you miss the 10 best trading days in 20 years, because you're trying to time the market and you're not in it during one of those days, you win from 8.2% return over that period per annum, per year. It dropped down almost half, 4.5. What are the chances of you knowing the past 10 days to trade in 20 years? None, right?

• 33:04Tony Robbins?

  Warren Buffett said, "Market timers and market forecasters are only there to make fortune tellers look good because no one can do it successfully. Even if they do it for a while, it doesn't last. It's luck." You know, Jack Vogel told me, he started Vanguard, you know, $3 trillion company. He said, "We took gorillas, a thousand in a room and had them flip coins and we did, we said, how many times they got heads, how many got tails, just gorillas flipping them randomly." And he said, "One gorilla in that set of those turns flipped heads 21 times in a row." Now, when you look at that, see all these gorillas doing it, you look at it and say, "What a lucky gorilla." He said, "But in the hedge fund industry and the mutual fund industry, when somebody does 10 in a row, you go, 'What a brilliant investor.'"

• 33:44Lewis Howes?

  Right, what a genius.

• 33:50Lewis Howes?

  In the book, I was really excited to hear you talk about, you say the secret to wealth is gratitude. Somewhere in the book it says that. I think maybe it was someone else you were referencing.

• 33:58Tony Robbins?

  Yes, it came from Sir John Templeton.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  And every day I practice gratitude. When I wake up and every night, I always try to say to my girlfriend or someone I'm talking to before I go to sleep, three things I'm most grateful for.

• 34:08Tony Robbins?

  That's great.

• 34:09Lewis Howes?

  Now, why, so I was pleased to see that. I was like, I'm on the right track if I'm living in gratitude. But why is that the secret to wealth?

• 34:14Tony Robbins?

  Well, Sir John Templeton is probably one of the greatest investors in history. People don't know his name. He started out with nothing. He wasn't sir, he wasn't from another country, he was from the US. And he decided that he wanted to understand wealth. And so he saved $10,000, a huge amount of money in those days. And when Hitler invaded Poland, he developed a belief. His belief was, "You make your money in times of maximum pessimism." Like if you were around in two thousand eight nine, you remember what it was like, right? You could have bought, you know, the Sands in Las Vegas, you could have bought their stock for two dollars and twenty eight cents. Today it's sixty seven dollars.

• 34:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:47Tony Robbins?

  It's a three thousand percent return.

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  Not bad.

• 34:49Tony Robbins?

  Um, you could have bought uh Citibank for less than a buck.

• 34:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 34:53Tony Robbins?

  Right? So people in those times, he understood that. And so what he did was, and everybody thought the world was gonna end. He took ten thousand dollars, he bought every stock on New York Stock Exchange that was a dollar or less, including companies everybody thought were going bankrupt. But we, when things are bad, people think it's gonna be bad forever. When things are good, they think it's gonna be good forever, and they're always wrong, life's cyclical. So there's a season for everything. So what, once we got through World War Two and went a few years later, guess what? Those same stocks made him a billionaire. So when I asked him, I said, what's the secret to wealth? His response was, he touched me, he goes, you know it, you teach it. I said, what's that? He said gratitude. And I said, why do you say that? He said, because if you got a billion dollars and every day you live pissed off and frustrated, the quality of your life is called pissed off and frustrated.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:34Tony Robbins?

  But if you have nothing but you're euphorically grateful for whatever you have, you're the richest person that you're gonna know. He said, so it doesn't matter how much money you got if you don't have gratitude. So I do the same thing, by the way. I have a process I call priming, where I get up every morning, I do mine in the morning. I do this radical change to my body, kinda alter my state. And then I do ten minutes, I never miss, and my first three and a half minutes is what I'm really grateful for. And I make myself think of at least one of those three that's something really simplistic. Instead of something giant, you know, the wind on my face, the look in one of my kid's eyes, you know, something of that nature. And then I do three minutes of strengthening healing, and I do three minutes of when I'm gonna create my world. And I do that for a minimum of ten minutes every day, cause I believe you have to condition it, you don't just hope that stuff shows up.

• 36:13Lewis Howes?

  You set your intention each morning.

• 36:14Tony Robbins?

  Well, no, no, every day.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, very cool. So what are you most grateful for recently in your life?

• 36:19Tony Robbins?

  So many things. Um, well, it's Thanksgiving, so one piece, well, one is my, my daughter is forty years old and she's, she's been my young child forever and she's gonna bring me a grandson.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:30Tony Robbins?

  So she's kinda cool.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  Congratulations.

• 36:32Tony Robbins?

  Thank you very much.

• 36:32Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 36:33Tony Robbins?

  Um, but also it's Thanksgiving, so for me it's a very emotional time because. My family was fed when I was eleven. We had no food at Thanksgiving and uh it touched me so deeply and I decided I was gonna get back. So when I was seventeen, I fed two families and then four and then eight and then I didn't tell me I was doing it and then I got my friends to do it and my companies grew and you know, I've fed forty-two million people now over thirty-seven years and uh

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  But you have a challenge for this, right?

• 36:56Tony Robbins?

  Well, this one, what I did is I decided, you know, writing this book and in the middle of writing it last summer, most people didn't even notice, Congress cut food stamps. They don't call it food stamps anymore, but I lived on them, so I know what they are, food stamps, but my family, family lived on them. But they cut it by eight point seven billion, which means you eliminate two million people from the rolls overnight and they still need to eat. So I support all these nonprofit organizations and Feeding America is the largest in the country. And so I thought, I'm gonna call attention to this. So if I donated all the profits of this book in advance, how many people could I feed? Cause I normally feed two million through my foundation and I match it, so I can feed four million a year. And uh they said you could feed ten million people. I was like, wow, I mean, and then as the years gone by, I've gotten more and more inspired and so now I'm gonna feed fifty million people personally.

• 37:40Tony Robbins?

  And not just with the book, I'm writing a larger check on top of it. But also I'm working with Feeding America to get matching funds to feed a hundred million people.

• 37:46Lewis Howes?

  Incredible.

• 37:47Tony Robbins?

  So to go from my family not being able to eat to feeding a hundred million people is a pretty amazing sense of gratitude and a sense of grace and I've done my part, but there's been grace in that as well.

• 37:56Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing. It's incredible what you're doing and very inspiring. So thank you for doing that.

• 38:00Tony Robbins?

  So anybody gets the book, I'm not giving prominence for you, but it'll also feed on average fifty families every book.

• 38:06Lewis Howes?

  A hundred percent is being done in.

• 38:08Tony Robbins?

  Not only a hundred percent, more than a hundred percent.

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. Now, I think I also read in the book, I don't know if you said this or someone else said this, but the key to living is giving.

• 38:17Tony Robbins?

  Yes.

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  Now, I think I might have heard you say this actually back when I first saw you when I was sixteen at an event. And um I remember thinking, I don't have anything to give. I don't have any money, you know, how am I supposed to invest my money?

• 38:31Tony Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  Ten, twenty percent every month and then how can I give on top of that? But I really understood that, you know, it's so valuable and important to give and I work with a lot of nonprofits myself, building schools for kids around the world. And uh I've seen a big impact in my life and the way I'm able to serve people.

• 38:46Tony Robbins?

  Sir John Templeton told me that uh he's never seen anyone tithe, which you know, tithing is usually ten percent of what you earn, for at least a decade, who didn't become incredibly financially free.

• 38:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:56Tony Robbins?

  And I think the reason is Uh, I had a moment like when my whole life changed. It was kind of twofold. I had, I was, I was really young like yourself back then, right? Working my tail off, trying to build a business. I mean, you have big goals, you know, you don't always succeed to start with.

• 39:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:09Tony Robbins?

  It just come together, right? You know, it was hard. And I remember I was so frustrated because I was working eighteen hour days and nothing was working and I was broke and I felt embarrassed, you know, I should be doing better than this. And so I was driving home from Orange County on the fifty seventh freeway in, in San Gabriel Valley out near a place in Pomona, California. Probably just not anybody else, but I remember it so vividly because it was almost midnight. And I was at this breaking point and then I was like, why am I not, you know, doing better? And then I just pulled over the road and I used to keep these journals. I still have them, written journals. And I wrote in big lines, you know, the secret to living is giving. And I started to cry. And I realized I am so focused on what am I not getting?

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  Receiving.

• 39:46Tony Robbins?

  Focusing on what I'm giving.

• 39:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Tony Robbins?

  So for six months, man, it turned me around. But then, you know, something else to get in your body. It was in my head, it was in my heart, but it had to get in there to stay. And I started getting through some really tough times and I lost everything financially and I was mad at everybody because like I loaned a friend a thousand bucks and you know, I had them doing well and he didn't even return my phone call.

• 40:05Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 40:05Tony Robbins?

  And what changed me was I, I was down to, I don't know, twenty two, twenty three bucks, something like that. I don't know, it was twenty four dollars. Enough that I knew that I didn't have money for food for the next week, clearly. And I didn't have any prospects. And I was living in Venice in this four hundred square foot bachelor apartment, feeling sorry for myself.

• 40:21Tony Robbins?

  And I thought, you know what? I gotta eat. So I'm not gonna drive my car because I'm not gonna spend the gas. I'm not gonna pay for parking.

• 40:26Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 40:27Tony Robbins?

  I'm gonna go to all you can eat place and load up for the winter, right? So I could get more, like one meal a day.

• 40:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:32Tony Robbins?

  And so, uh, in, there's a place called Marina Del Rey, not far from Venice. And it's beautiful community and it's right on the water. And there's a place called El Torito. It's still there. It's a little, uh, uh, restaurant. It had taco bar and all that kind of stuff. So I walked there for the three miles and I go, I gotta, I'm gonna go and load up. And it was all about myself and getting through this. And this little, well, this woman walked the door. I had a very attractive lady. That's probably why I caught my attention. And I'm waiting to see who her boyfriend is and there's nobody up there. There's a little guy down here. It was obviously her son. And he's wearing this three piece suit, you know, a little vest. He opens the door for her. He pulls out the chair for her. And it was just, he stared into his mother's eyes. I mean, it was just pierced into her eyes. I don't, I don't know what it was, but something about him was just so moving. He was such a sweet,

• 41:15Tony Robbins?

  caring, loving young man to his mother that moved me. So I, I paid for my meal. I always left seventeen eighteen bucks, put it back in my pocket was left. Walked up to this young man, I introduced myself and I said, hi, I don't remember his name, I think he said his name was Ronnie and I said, Ronnie, I said, uh. Said, you're really, I said, you're a class act, I saw you open the door for your lady, I saw you held up the chair for your lady, he goes, she's my mom. I said, that's even more classy. Right. And I said, so cool that you're taking her out to lunch like this. He goes, well, I'm not really taking a lunch because I'm just eleven and I don't, I don't have a job, you know. Right. I said, yes, you are, and I had no plan, I literally just reached in my pocket, took all the money I had, changed dollar bills and. Throw it right there in front of him. You look at me like this, he goes, I can't take that. I said, sure you can, he said, well, why, I said, because I'm bigger than you are.

• 41:59Tony Robbins?

  And he got this big grin in his face, his eyes got this big, and I didn't, I just shook his hand, I didn't even look at this wa- his mom and, and I just walked out the door, but. Reason to tell you the story is. I had no car, I had no money. Hmm. I did not, I was euphoric, I was like flying home, I mean, it's like, you know, I probably look like an idiot, probably skipping or something, I mean, I was just. I, and what I felt was, I should have been like, what the hell did you just do, I have no meal, what are we gonna eat? I went home that night, I laid out a plan. And the plan was gonna take me, you know, ten days, two weeks, so I thought, well. People fast for a week, I could fast for a week, you know, that type of thing, and I was this great mindset about it, and I woke up the next morning. And I get the old regular snail mail shows up. And it's this guy I've called a zillion times, he wouldn't return my call, I open it up, there's a check, thousand bucks, plus interest and an apology. Wow.

• 42:44Tony Robbins?

  So I'm sitting there and I, and I started to cry, honestly, and I was just like. Why did this happen, you know, and I don't know if it's true, but I decided that day this happened because I did the right thing. Because I didn't have a plan, it wasn't a strategy, I just felt this. Little soul beside me, I knew it was right and I did it, and I didn't do it because I thought I could or I couldn't, I didn't even think about it. And. That's the day I became a wealthy man, because I didn't have any money. But scarcity left my body, and I have plenty of ups and downs since that time and various times in my life. But I never went back to that, oh my god, you know, how's it gonna happen, it's like breathing, do you stop and say? God, is there gonna be any air before you take a breath? You know it's gonna be there. Right. You don't, you don't run your life by that aspect, and so that to me is what it's about, is showing people, if you won't give a dime out of a dollar.

• 43:29Tony Robbins?

  Don't bullshit yourself. You'll never give a million out of ten million or ten million out of a hundred million. It's just not gonna happen. But if you can do that now, you you don't ever get beyond scarcity. You start behind it. You you you make a decision to get beyond it.

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  So how does someone, you know, when they're living in scarcity, they're in fear?

• 43:44Tony Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:44Lewis Howes?

  And it's like this emotional feeling. It's in your body, like you say, when you're like, I can't even pay for my meal. How am I gonna like start giving? What are some things that people can do to start overcoming that mindset or start strengthening it or shifting it?

• 43:57Tony Robbins?

  I'll tell you what I did when I was first on my own. You know, I got my dad, my mom kicked my dad out when I was seventeen. She's very powerful. My father, so they all learned how to get the boot. She thought it was an aside, so she kicked me out next. I was seventeen. She chased me out with a knife. She wouldn't have hurt me, but I wasn't going back in the room.

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:14Tony Robbins?

  And um, I decided to figure out what to do. And I didn't know if I'd stay, and you know, I'd stay in somebody's laundry room for a while. And then I started reading and feeding my mind. And then I developed this little system. And the system was really simple. And I tell people now is I say, number one, every single day, you gotta feed and strengthen your mind. Until you do that, you're always gonna be in fear. Because fear is automatic. The human brain is designed for survival. It's not designed for success. Your brain is not designed to make you happy. That's your job. And the only way you're gonna do it is if you feed your mind, because otherwise weeds grow automatically. My coach, your mentor Jim Rohn used to tell me, he said, Tony, every day you gotta stand guard at the door of your mind. You gotta watch what's going in, because if you're not careful, stuff will go in. And he said, all the times it's somebody who cares about you. He said, you know, if you're

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  Your family.

• 44:55Tony Robbins?

  Yeah, yeah. If your worst enemy puts sugar in your coffee, he said, what happens? I said, you got sweet coffee. He goes, what if your best friend by accident, or your family, don't mean to, they drop one drop of strychnine in your coffee, you're dead. He said, so life's sugar and strychnine and watch your coffee.

• 45:09Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 45:09Tony Robbins?

  So every day I decided, I I I'm old enough, honestly, there was no internet those days. I'm pretty ancient. I used to go to the library, because it's the only place you go. And I would feed, I'd read biographies. I'd read people's lives. And it'd make me go, wait a second. As bad as I think it is, the greatest people in the world had it worse.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 45:24Tony Robbins?

  So there's something here. So you feed your mind. I I'm, Jim Rohn used to say to me, skip a meal, but don't skip reading. He said, read thirty minutes a day. I don't give a damn what it is. And today, I don't mean internet crap. I mean, read something that, a biography, read something that's a strategy, read something that's gonna change your life. And the second thing I tell people is feeding your mind's great, but you gotta also strengthen your body. And you do that as an athlete naturally. I learned to do that because fear is physical, right? You know where you feel it. And if you go work out, if you go lift, if you go run, even if you're out of shape, you just go for an intense walk, that experience alone changes your life. Every day in my life, the first thing I do before I do my priming, If I'm at one of my homes, I jump in some hot water for fun and I jump in freezing water. And I have, you know, a river, you know, in one of my homes in Savalli and I've got cold punches

• 46:07Tony Robbins?

  everywhere else. So I go in 57 degree water, boom. And what it does is like, it's teaching my brain, I do, I tell my brain what to do and it does it. It doesn't feel like it, doesn't want to do it. And every cell in your body is alive, right? So it doesn't have to be like two hours with something. It can be something you do for 30 seconds, but it's training your body to be strong because a strong body gets a strong mind and vice versa.

• 46:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:28Tony Robbins?

  The third thing I tell people is find a role model. You know, it, it seems impossible till you see somebody's done it. So, you know, Ray Dalio is one of the greatest investors in history. The guy was a caddy, right? You know, his dad was a jazz musician. His mom was a homemaker. Um, you know, he's worth 14 billion dollars.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  He found someone to mentor him.

• 46:46Tony Robbins?

  He found, well, he found multiple people to, to model, right?

• 46:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 46:49Tony Robbins?

  You don't always find a mentor, but you find somebody you can model. And when you start seeing that somebody else can do it and you see they really did, you start to believe, you start to get certainty. And then a fourth thing I tell people is it's massive action and constantly change your approach. And then it's find somebody worse off than you are and help them. Because when you do that, it gets you out of yourself. And that's what I, I really have people do. That's what we do at Thanksgiving. We have our basket brigade where 2 million people get fed.

• 47:11Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 47:12Tony Robbins?

  Um, not the one I do, the one that I, I get people to do. And it's amazing. People go in there and they see, my God, I thought my life was tough, but look at this person's life. It makes you appreciative. It puts life in perspective.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, very cool.

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it. Mind blown. If you enjoyed this interview, make sure to share with your friends. This is the best of Tony Robbins from three different interviews that I've done with him. We brought the best information. Share it with a friend today. Be a hero to a few of your friends. Just text them in a group chat right now. The link is lewishouse.com/794. Or you can copy and paste the link on the podcast app that you are listening to right now and text one, two, three, five friends. Post it on your Instagram story, tag me and tag at Tony Robbins as well. I know he checks out some of his stories, so make sure to tag him to send him some love. And again, Tony said that the secret to Giving is giving. What are you doing right now with your life?

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  Every single day, are you complaining or you upset that you're not receiving more than you want to receive? That you have accomplished everything you want to accomplish? The key to accomplishing more is to give more. The more you give, the more you will receive. It's a law, guys. This is a principle. It will happen. You just have to learn how to receive after you give. Some people are hard at receiving. I know that took me a long time because I was really good at giving, but I didn't know how to receive that well. If that's you, just nod your head. And again, if you want to be a giver today, you can just share this link with a friend. That's a way to give inspiration, to give insights, to give tools to help someone improve their life. So share this with a friend, lewishouse.com/794.

• 48:57Lewis Howes?

  And thank you guys so much for all you do to make this podcast great. We are almost at 800 episodes. It's crazy how much it's grown over the last six plus years. So thank you so much. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.