On Purpose Podcast: w/ Tony Robbins on Three Steps to Lasting Change (Transcript)

And so why do you do it? Because the alternative is to live at home and do nothing. Go back to the COVID days and be trapped, right? We know what that did to people psychologically, emotionally, because they felt completely at the effect of things.

So the fastest way to change your life is start making some real decisions. And I know it’s hard initially. The other part is it’s just the more you make decisions, the more decision-making muscles you get. You know what I mean?

It’s like, well, some people have weak decision-making muscles. You ever been to a dinner with somebody or a group of people and there’s always one person who’s hanging on to the last moment, still can’t decide? You see the waiter, waitress trying to be nice, you can see them kind of losing it. My wife’s nightmare, right? It’s like, “Just freaking decide, help this lady out,” right?

And they finally decide. Well, that’s the habit of a lot of people. And if they can’t make a decision what to eat for dinner tonight, how are they going to make a life decision, right?

So the first step is to make some, maybe make some small ones that you can do and get some momentum. But the more decisions you make, the faster it gets. I think the whole idea that I have to make the right decision is the wrong way to look at it. My whole view has been not deciding is the worst decision, right?

I need to consciously decide. If I don’t want to feel like things are affecting me, if I’m going to shape my world, I make a decision. And if I’m wrong, I’ll find out quicker.

General Schwarzkopf’s Lesson on Leadership

I’ll give you a real life example. I don’t know if you remember General Schwarzkopf. I got to know him pretty well. Those who are younger probably don’t even remember his name. But the first war that was done over in Iraq, he ran the allied forces. And he was a brilliant guy and he was very powerful. He could talk to guys that were from the barrio and he could talk to guys from Princeton incredibly well, and a really lovely human being.

But I asked him what the most important skill was of a leader and he said, “Decision-making,” which I agreed with, obviously. And I said, “Well, what do you think is key to making decisions?” And he said, “I’ll tell you a story.”

So he told me the story. I’ll tell you the short version of it briefly. When he was a private, he reported to a general. And the Pentagon had worked for almost, I think he said, more than a decade and a half analyzing this strategic decision they had to make. And there were people on both sides and they argued it on both sides so fully, so strongly that no one made a decision for over 10 years.

And they knew they had to make the decision. If they didn’t make it now, it could cost the country our security. Big decision. And so he, being the private, organized the team. They had to read all these volumes of material so they could summarize it so the general would have the information.

And he said, then the meeting got pushed up and even with a group of eight people, they could not gather all the information to fully summarize it. Meanwhile, the general was called overseas during this time when he should have been prepping. It wasn’t his fault, but he had to deal with it. Flew back the night before. They’re loading him up with all this information. He didn’t get back till 10 o’clock at night. The meeting was 8 in the morning, right? Most important decision in the Pentagon’s history was how it was framed.

He said, he came in the meeting, he said, “Give me your arguments.” One person stood up for 20 minutes and gave this full blown argument. “This is the direction to go.” “All right, give me your argument.” Twenty minutes, full blast, their argument. He said, “Okay, do this.” And they all saluted and he walked out of the room.

And he said, Schwarzkopf said he was a private, not a general right at that time, right. He said, “I don’t know what the hell to do. He couldn’t possibly know all this information. He couldn’t possibly know what to do in this situation.” And he was totally stressed by it.

And so he worked up enough courage to knock on the general’s door and said, “General, permission to speak freely?” He said, “At ease.” He goes, “General, I’ve worked on this for four weeks with eight people. You weren’t even here last night. This is one of the most important decisions ever. How could you know? You didn’t have all the information. How could you possibly make that decision?”

He said, “Young man, because the decision needed to be made. And both sides are equally strong. So I picked the one I believe is right. If I’m wrong, we’ll find out quicker. It won’t take a decade to find out. And if I’m right, we’ll continue. If I’m wrong, we’ll make a shift.”

And he said it just was outside of his world. It was so simple.

Rule 13 and Rule 14

And then he told me one other one that I thought was really good. He said he was leaving one time and he left him as a private in charge of things. He said, “You’re in charge. You make these decisions, you do these things.” He said, “General, how do I know what to do?” He said, “Rule 13.” He goes, “Rule 13, sir?” He’s starting to go out the door. He says, “What’s Rule 13?” Couldn’t figure out what Rule 13 was.

“When put in command, take charge,” okay? He goes, “But, but how do I make the right decision?” He goes, “Rule 14.” “Rule 14, sir, what’s Rule 14?” “Do what’s right.”

And those simple approaches, I think can guide us. And I really believe decision-making is the most important thing. So if you don’t like your body, change it. If you don’t like a relationship, change it. Maybe change you first, otherwise you’ll trade people and have the same problems, right? You don’t like your career, change it.

But for things to get better, we’ve got to get better. For things to change, my teacher Jim Rohn said, you’ve got to change, right? But it all begins with a decision. So maybe start with small decisions or maybe attack a big one, because when you do, you get momentum.

Taking Immediate Action

And by the way, it’s only a decision if you act on it immediately. And so I have a rule that’s anytime I set a goal, anytime I make a decision, I make sure that within a few minutes of making it, I do something that commits me to follow through.

Because here’s the other problem. Have you ever done this? You ever made a decision and not follow through?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

TONY ROBBINS: Why?

JAY SHETTY: Because I was, maybe because I made a decision and I was uneasy about it afterwards, or there was some fear that crept in, or I didn’t have a plan to execute on it properly.

# The Three-Step Process: Decide, Commit, Resolve

TONY ROBBINS: Maybe one of those, all those are the typical answers that you’re spot on in your experience. But the biggest reason is people think decision is a one-step process. And I found it’s three, right?

You can decide in the moment. The reason I make that commitment, that when I’m in the moment, I do something commits me when I leave that moment. You get in state, you get inspired enough, or you get pissed off enough, something moves you and say, “Not another day, not an hour, I’m changing this,” right?

But then when you leave that moment and you get caught up with some meeting or something with your family or something in your social media, email or whatever it is, gradually you’re in a different state and then you don’t follow through. And what you said is true, something else comes up that you weren’t prepared for, right?

So a real decision, the word decision comes from incision in Latin. It means to cut off from. When you cut off any other possibility except what you’ve committed to, you’ll find the way. I always tell people, if you want to take the island, burn your boats. As long as your brain has a way out, it’ll go back. And it’s amazing what you’ll do when there’s no option to go back.

Most of my career has been because I had no net. Serena Williams, and I got to turn around right now. She can’t get on. Her sister died. She can’t get on the US Open, but she can’t get on stand up. She can’t get up to do anything. Everybody knows I’m working with her. I don’t get her up, the whole thing’s over. I get her up, I turn the president around. I do whatever I’ve got to do, no matter who it was. With no net, you find a way.

So I think the biggest thing is once you decide you want to go to, the second step is commit. In fact, I hear women say this to me all the time. I know you have a large female audience. They’ll say, “You know, men don’t commit.” And I said, “Has he even decided?” Because there are different steps. Women jump to commitment very quickly. Men, not as quickly. Right.

And so deciding is like a war. Sometimes you figure it out, okay, I’ve decided. But then commitment. If I ask your audience to ask them, what’s the difference? Let me ask you, what’s the difference in deciding and committing to you?

JAY SHETTY: I feel like decide is I know which direction I want to go in. Commitment is I want to stay in that direction for a long period of time.

TONY ROBBINS: Yes, you just added that with exactly what it is. A commitment takes it into the future. Decision is the moment, and that moment can change, which is why so many people make a decision legitimately and don’t follow through. That’s why you need to take action immediately. That commits you to follow through.

Meaning book the meeting, enroll in the class, call the person and set it up. Organize so you can have that conversation you haven’t wanted to have, and put it on the calendar so that there’s momentum going out of it.

But then committing, deciding is really rough. Committing is not that rough. It’s just creating enough compelling reasons to follow through, even though it might be tough right now. But there’s a third step. And after you decide and commit, there’s resolve. What’s the difference? Decide and commit and resolve for you. What’s the emotional difference?

JAY SHETTY: Resolve, to me, at least from the way I’m hearing it, is just in your own experience. There’s a sense of, I feel a sense of confidence that I made the right decision so I can recommit and reconnect, or I get a sense of now’s the time to pivot. And so there’s a resolution of, am I continuing down this road or are we going to pivot?

TONY ROBBINS: Yes. At least how I hear it, I understand completely. You’re evaluating what something new came. But to me, resolve is, whatever you did in that moment, it’s done.

JAY SHETTY: Right?

TONY ROBBINS: Right. Right. I know Jim Rohn had told me one time that he was speaking about resolve to this audience of young people. I think it was like a nine-year-old girl, he said, “Who’s got definition? Resolve.” And this young girl stood up and she said, “I think it’s promising yourself you will never give up.”

JAY SHETTY: Great.

The Power of Resolve

TONY ROBBINS: That was a beautiful example. When you resolve, you’re at peace. Deciding’s like a war. Right. Committing requires energy and taking to the future as you describe. And the resolve, it’s amazing. It’s like it’s done. It’s done in me. It may not be done in the world, but it’s done in me. Now I’ll find the way or I’ll make the way.

And there’s no uncertainty, there’s no fear, there’s no anxiety, there’s no. It’s like when you get to that psychological, emotional place, that’s the place in which you get results.

If you look at an athlete, athletes are perfect examples. This. I’m sure you’ve seen a time where you watch an athlete walk up to shoot a free throw or let’s say a kicker in football, and you think it’s going to miss it.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

TONY ROBBINS: And then they do.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

TONY ROBBINS: How did you know they’re going to miss it?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Physiology. The, the, where their head was, where their eyes were.

TONY ROBBINS: Yes. You could see in their state a lack of certainty. When someone, when you see like, you know, something like LeBron take the ball to go straight ahead and go over top of somebody’s head and put it through, there is not. He didn’t just decide, he didn’t just commit. He has resolved every ounce of his.

JAY SHETTY: That’s where the ball is going.

TONY ROBBINS: That’s where it’s going to go. Right. So I think, just to summarize, I think there isn’t a more important skill than decision making. And if you’re not good at it, all you got to do is start making some decisions.

What would you, my question would be, instead of just listening to us today, if nothing else came out of this, what’s one little decision you could make that would increase the quality of your life that honestly, you know, you should make? Maybe even putting it off because it’s inconvenient. You’ve got lots of other stressful things in your life or you’re not really comfortable. But if you’re really committed and you followed through, you just cited committed and followed through. Right. Resolved. Where would you be a year from now? What would your life be like?

And I would take a little decision. And what action would you take today? Make that decision now and then, if you’re bold. What’s a big decision? What’s a tough decision? What’s the decision you’ve been putting off or you know, and you got it’s right. You know, it might be about a relationship, you know, it might be about how you’re dealing with your kids, it might be around your career or your business or your finances.

But that’s how life gets better. That’s how you start creating life as opposed to being a manager of circumstance. And I think when people are maintaining, when they’re managing their circumstances, when they’re surviving, they’re miserable. Like, we are made to grow and we’re made to give. When we grow, we have more to give. And so I think decision making is the pathway, one of them certainly to getting there.

Decision Making as a Continual Process

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, it’s so powerful listening to you talk about it, because I feel a lot of us, the second mistake we make is that after we make a decision, we hope that that decision solved everything. So it’s like you make one decision and then you’re like, all right, well, I quit my job or I left that person, or I got a new job and that should solve it.

And the reality is, what you’re saying is, no. Decision making is a continual process. It has to happen time and time again. You don’t get to make one decision and your life is solved.

TONY ROBBINS: That’s right.

JAY SHETTY: Life is made up of lots of little and big decisions along the way.

TONY ROBBINS: You know what the biggest problem is that people have? They think they’re not supposed to have them.

JAY SHETTY: Ah, right.

Problems Are a Sign of Life

TONY ROBBINS: Yeah. Problems are a sign of life. I remember I interviewed, Norman Vincent Peale, Dr. Peale, who wrote the original “Power of Positive Thinking” book when I was 32, he was 92 and he invited me because my career was growing, invited me up to Toronto to meet him at an event he was doing. So I came backstage and we spent about an hour in advance.

And I remember asking him, I said, “You know, I’m curious. I said, why are you still doing these events?” He goes, “Well, Tony, there’s still a few negative people around here at 92.” I said, “What’s the most, think about 92?” He’s men’s horse and carriage to rockets, right? You know, nothing to computers, right? Just the changes in his lifetime were just unbelievable.

I said, “What do you think is the most important thing people need to understand?” And he said, “The power of problems.” And I said, “What do you mean by that?” He goes, “Well, the only people without problems are in cemeteries.” And I said, “I think I heard that somewhere.” 1947. I said that. He said, “But they never finished my quote. I said, the only people without problems are in cemetery. So if you don’t have any, you better get on your knees and pray for some.”

Because he said, “Problems are a sign of life.” And what I found was problems call us. He said he was sitting one time at this dais. He was at a speaking dais. It was like a luncheon. And beside him was the heavyweight champion of the world. It was back in the 40s, right? And he said that he looked at him, his name was Gene Tunney. He’s a pretty famous guy.

And he said, “Gene, how do you get muscles like that?” And Gene said, “Do you really want to know, or you just asking?” And he said, he’s opened me in his head. He goes, “I was thinking, I was just asking. Now I really want to know.” Because he was so intense about it. Says, “No, I really want to know.” He goes, “Every day I push against unbelievable resistance, and that’s what sculpts these muscles. That’s how you build muscle.”

And he said, “I thought about a long time afterwards,” and he said, “I think that’s how we develop spiritually. We push against problems, and that’s what sculpts our souls.” And so I think to think you shouldn’t have problems. You can call them challenges. It feels better, but it’s part of life. It’s part of the journey.

And solving them makes you bigger, more alive, more spiritually developed, more human, more caring. You know, pain and suffering. You don’t have to suffer long, but we’re all going to experience some of it. Right? But decision making is how we get out of it.

Cutting Through Overthinking

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. And you’re so right, because one of the biggest challenges today is overthinking.

TONY ROBBINS: Yes.

JAY SHETTY: Right. We’re exposed to more information, or so we think. And I was reading a study that was saying we now consume 72 gigabytes of data per day.

TONY ROBBINS: I don’t know how much we have truly.

JAY SHETTY: Absorbed, but it’s like faced by it.

TONY ROBBINS: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And you think like that’s a lot. I remember when you were lucky enough to get 1 gigabyte on your iPhone and now we’re talking about 72 gigabytes coming at you. So decision making is the kind of arrow that cuts through that 100% because that’s the only way to get out of overthinking. And so if someone’s spiraling, if they actually listen to you and said, “Hey, if I just make one decision off of this,” that will actually create a shift for them.

The OOCEMR Decision-Making Framework

TONY ROBBINS: I can tell you too. It’s too long in a conversation like this to describe in detail. But I can give you how I make important decisions.

JAY SHETTY: Please.

TONY ROBBINS: I have a six-step process and if people want to jot it down, I call it OOCEMR. Those are the trigger letters for what I do. OOCEMR and I developed this years ago because I only had one business. Now I’m fortunate enough I have 114 companies, we do over $10 billion in business. I have no business background, all decision making, learning skills, et cetera.

But way back then when I had small business, these decisions were just, it was tough. They were important decisions. They felt like it was life and death decisions for the business. And I knew that. You know how smart I am? You’re better with a group of people around you because even if you have more information, they have another perspective, you know.

And so I was trying to find a decision making model and I thought, well, all decision making is really value clarification, like what’s most important to you, like what you decide. What someone else decide may be different, but may be right because it’s about what do you value most? Right.

So I thought I should start with decision making, not by all the emotion that I may have of either anxiety or fear or excitement or passion. Either one can lead you astray. It’s like what do I want? What’s the outcome? That’s the first O: outcome.

So I get people. And by the way, I tell people, do not do this in your head. The reason people get overwhelmed is they ask multiple questions too fast to answer their heads. Like “what am I going to do? I don’t know what to do. What if she says this? What if he did that? But what if it doesn’t do that” and you’re asking 20 questions and you don’t have the processing power to answer them.

So you just go in overwhelm, slow it down. One thing at a time, right? But start not with what you’re afraid of. Start with what you want, because that’s how the human nervous system is designed. It’s designed to make things happen, to create. So if you become a creator, you start with the one.

So what are your outcomes? And this is the reason it’s hard to make decisions for most people is they have multiple outcomes. They’re trying to get from the same decision, right? They want to make everybody happy and they want to make a million dollars and they want to have more free time, you know, all simultaneously.

So you have to say of those things is most important to you. Is it the free time? Is it the family time? Is it to make more money? Decide what’s most important for you, right? So I have people write down their outcomes and they’re usually multiple if they’re having a hard time, it’s because there’s multiple outcomes.

And I also say, don’t ever do this in your head because you can’t manage all your head pictures worth a thousand words. So you write down the outcomes and then you put them in order. And then you put the why. Because the why is what matters. Like what is the reason? What’s the emotion behind us? What is it?

I’m even though I say this is what I want, what do I want out of this? What’s it going to give me? It’s going to give me joy. It’s going to be happiness, fulfillment, spiritual development. What is it, right? So now when you’re crystal clear what you want and the order you want it in, and that’s critical, what’s number one? You got to be rigorous.

Now you can make decisions by going in the second O. What are your options? And I always tell people, one option is no option. Two options is dilemma. You need at least three choices to be a choice, right? And so, and when you get to three, usually find there’s four or five. Now you may not like them all, but you shouldn’t lie to yourself and say this is the only option that’ll stress you out. Or these two are the option. You’ll get stuck in a dilemma.

So I write out all the options, then I go to OOC is consequences, which is what you’re doing the decisions for. What’s the upside and the downside of each of these decisions? To the best of my knowledge, the upside could be this and this, the downcome that and that. I’ve concerted the first half, okay?

Now you know what exactly you want. You know what your options are and you know, upsides and downsides of each. So now we’re going to go into the last three stages. I’m going to evaluate, mitigate and resolve.

E: evaluate. Now I’m going to evaluate what’s the probability of those consequences. Because you might have something that’s like, “oh my God, if this happens, the worst thing on earth,” but the probability is next to zero. And you’re all stressed out unless you evaluate probability, you’re wasting your time.

You might have some go, “oh my God, if this works out, it’s going to be the greatest thing in the history of the world.” But the likelihood of happening is zero. Right? You can’t let those extremes get you. So you start to see by evaluating what’s there.

And then the last two steps are fast and it’s mitigation. Mitigation means okay, I’ve seen what I want. I know my options, I know the upside down, I know what’s probable. Now could I take something from this option and mix it with this one? Is there a way to mitigate the downsides? And almost always there are.

And at this stage your brain gets really creative because it’s not in fear or uncertainty or anxiety because you’re not in your head. It’s right in front of you. And the last part is resolve. And I gave you a million stories, but it’s too late to do. But I can just tell you I’ve made personally $400 million in one decision I made from this personally.

I’m just, I’m trying to give you an economic piece. What the spiritual emotional value has been on things is priceless. And I can honestly tell you by using the system. I’m writing this book right now called the Power of Decision because I want people to have that skill and I show them everybody Bezos decision making skills. I teach people everybody’s format, but this is my format for doing it.

And I found it to be incredibly valuable. Especially when you add commit resolve, you know, to it, not just decide to the process. So I hope that’s helpful for people.

JAY SHETTY: That’s a great system. That’s the best way I’ve had it explained. I really appreciate that model because I think too much of what decisions making is based on today is if you really want something and you go after it and you organize and you have a plan, you’ll get there.

And it’s like, well, wait a minute, you didn’t evaluate the probability, you didn’t look at it from a systematic point of view or the other side of it is like, all right, you made a decision, you get some good insight, get some good advice, get some good mentorship. You pivot, you pivot. But the point is you can save yourself so much time, you got it by doing what you just shared.

TONY ROBBINS: Huge amounts of time.

Balancing Spirituality and Systems

JAY SHETTY: Huge amounts of time, money and energy. I was going to ask you, Tony, you have such a systematic brain. Like when I’ve learned from you, listened to you, everything is so process oriented, which I love. But at the same time, you have this deep faith, this deep spirituality, and you brought it out there.

You said, “I made $400 million.” And at the same time, the emotional and spiritual benefits are off the charts. Talk to me genuinely, because I think today we all hear about, “oh, you can manifest this and you can get that and this.” I feel like you have a really pragmatic and process driven approach to both.

How does faith, how does energy, how does spirituality correlate with a very systematic, process driven approach?

TONY ROBBINS: That’s a great question. No one’s really asked me that question. That’s nice. It’s a reflection of your qualities as well, which I think you look at both sides as well as I do. I think there’s nothing more important than spirit, soul. There’s nothing more important than your spiritual development. Anything else is a joke.

And yet maybe the best way to describe it is think of about it as east and west, right? We both have experiences of both. I go to India at least once a year on average, and I’ve been going since I was in my 20s because I was fascinated by the cultural differences.

And as a gross generalization, the east is more about internal development. If you go to a place like Varanasi, which is one of the oldest cities on the planet, you know, 3,800 years old, they have fires that have been burning for 38 straight years, nonstop.

And for people who don’t know it, in that culture, you know, everyone has different perceptions of God or belief of what God is. But in that particular culture, it doesn’t matter what kind of Hindu you are. If you. There’s some believe you should give up all your clothing, everything but your clothes. Some people believe it’s studying the Vedas, some people believe it’s through Yoga. Different ways to get to God, million different ways.

And there’s more than 300 million different gods, your own personal God in that culture, right? Very different. But they have a belief there that if you die in Varanasi, it’s the only thing you have unified. Then you don’t come back because the belief is reincarnation. So they want to not come back, which would be nirvana, right?

And they burn these fires. And when someone dies, they try to get to Varanasi, no matter what they do, because they believe if they die there, they won’t come back. And the city is filled. You’ve been there, haven’t you?

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

The Balance of Achievement and Fulfillment

TONY ROBBINS: Filled with people that are dying and joyous. Like I remember we went to Mother Teresa’s facility and there’s a woman there that was, you know, tiny little lady and she was like in her 90s. And I was talking with her. She owned broken English and she was mad as hell. She was dying and she was mad. They scooped her off the streets and they’re helping her. She came here to die because this was her, I mean, really pissed off, right?

And then most Americans have, you know, they burn the bodies. I watch them burn the bodies. I’m on this boat and I’ll never forget the first time I did this. And I watched this little boy who’s flipping. This looked like stick or twig, and it was his grandfather’s leg. No one is crying. No one is sad. They believe that the body is the T-shirt. You burn it and it goes away. So the spiritual side of life is all that is seen there. But yet people live in squalor.

You come to America and people get stressed about they didn’t get the special burger sauce on their burger, right? And you see people that live with tremendous economic opportunity who spoil it and don’t take advantage of it. And people have tremendous second opportunity when they’re not fulfilled in their relationships. They’re not. Who’s to say they’re not spiritually developed, but looks on the outside. But the way they treat people, they’re not spiritually developed.

And so I don’t believe you have to pick one or the other. I believe that they go together. I’ve always believed. When I originally was learning, you know, constantly listening to albums that’s old I am and cassette tapes and reel to reels that’s old I am. Eight tracks of various professors, speakers. I was just immersing myself in things.

I noticed almost everybody specialized in either. How I look at is philosophy or strategy. Right? Philosophy is critical. It determines the quality of your life. It determines whether you’re happy or not happy, fulfilled or not fulfilled. Strategy is how. How do you get it done? And strategy is critical because you could save a decade with the right strategy. In business, in your personal life, with your body. The wrong strategy and you’re going to be ill, right?

And so early on I decided you need both. So I teach both. And I don’t think that’s anything but intelligence, you know, to do both. So that’s how I look at it. But if you think like what creates, you know, when you look, I try to look at what does everybody want and we’re all different.

Defining an Extraordinary Quality of Life

And I think the best example I can give is that people want an extraordinary quality of life, but that definition is different for everybody. Like some people’s idea of an extraordinary life is, you know, three beautiful children and a husband or wife that they adore. Some people’s is to write poetry or write music or to build a farm or garden. Some people’s is grow a business. Everyone has completely different eyes of what that is.

I don’t pretend that my life should be your life. I’m the example for you, but I’m an example of how you can take what you believe you want to create and make it real by combination and enjoy it. Because how many know have achieved everything you want and then said, “Is this all there is?” Because they didn’t have the right philosophy or they were trying to achieve something they thought would meet a need for significance and they missed love, you know, the more important pieces of life.

So I believe that there’s two primary skills to have an extraordinary quality of life which I would define as life on your terms.

The Science of Achievement

So the first one is the science of achievement. That’s a skill. So when I wrote my financial books, I end up writing three of them. I never intended that. But after 2008, I was so angry because I worked with Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 traders in the history of the world. And I knew this was coming. I try to warn people and only a few number of people almost destroyed the world economy, right? And then we punished them by giving them more of our money. This is the most crazy thing.

So I don’t have a lot of power, but I have the power to convene. And so I brought together 50 of the best financial people in the world and kind of dug into their brains and figured out what’s the common pattern. They’re all different that have made them go from nothing financially to financially free. And I want to show people that’s still doable because I think most especially young people, they don’t think that’s possible.

And they’re wrong. The system’s rigged is what everybody says it is rigged to some extent, but it’s still totally winnable. Life isn’t always fair, but it’s still magnificent, right? You can still make it magnificent.

So the skill sets, it’s like it’s a science. If you do certain things, you’re going to have too much month at the end of the money, you’re going to have stress. If you use certain other things, financially, you’re going to be free. That’s a science. Your body is a science. Every one of us is slightly different, but there’s certain patterns that if you violate them, you’re going to have illness, you’re going to have disease. Right? That’s what it is. If you surround yourself or apply them, you’re going to have a high level of energy, high level of health.

That skill is the one that most human beings in the Western world are pursuing. They want to achieve more. And the whole focus is, let’s get more. And we’re a consumer culture. And so as a result, a lot of people do that and they’re still unhappy. Right?

The Art of Fulfillment

That’s because the second skill is more important and is not promoted in Western culture very much. And that is the art of fulfillment. And notice I said art, not science. Because what fulfills you, and I consider you a dear friend, and what fulfills your best friend and what fulfills your kids may be really different. Even though you love each other and you’re all part of the same family, so to speak, we’re all unique in that way.

It’s like, what does God love? Go to a forest and take a look around. Everything’s different. It’s ultimate levels of variety of shapes and directions. It’s not supposed to be one thing. I think that’s the biggest challenge in our culture. We’ve experienced all this, you know, this pain and these shootings and so forth about people who want to shoot other people because they believe something different than them.

Man, what. We’ve really lost it when we can’t have a conversation anymore or we can’t learn to agree to disagree. You know, that’s part of you can love somebody and still disagree with them. I know in Congress I have friends who were, you know, worked at the vice president level and worked at the presidential level and worked in Congress and Senate. And they would fight like hell three or four decades ago and they go have a beer together. Now they don’t even talk to each other. It’s a crazy thing.

But my point is, fulfillment is an art. And fulfillment is as different as you and I are. There are no laws to fulfillment, but there are some principles, and one is growth. If you’re going to be fulfilled, you got to grow. In fact, the whole self care mentality we have, which I think was important, it was like the antidote to the, what they call it, the hustle, hustle, burnout.

JAY SHETTY: Coach.

TONY ROBBINS: And people are always stressed. You know, they’re stressed, they’re hustling just to make money. There’s no meaning when there’s no mean. You can work your a off and be so fulfilled if it’s meaningful to you, if you’re doing it for higher purpose than just money. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have money. You should. It’s part of a master skill of being alive and take care of your family. But if that’s the only thing you’re doing it for, you’re going to stress out and burn out.

I mean, stress comes to making things more important than they really is. Failure comes to making things less important than they really are. It’s an art, right? But the fulfillment side is finding what it is that allows you to grow. Because when you grow, you feel alive.

Progress Equals Happiness

I always tell people, people ask me all the time, they say, “What is it that makes people happy? You travel the world, you met millions of people. What’s the common key to happiness?” And I say, progress. Progress equals happiness. When you’re making progress, you’re happy even when you achieve it. Can you think of a goal you’ve achieved that you’re really proud of and then afterwards thought, “Is this all there is?”

JAY SHETTY: No.

TONY ROBBINS: Oh, good. I’m so glad. Well, you’re more purposeful.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, of course.

TONY ROBBINS: The purpose podcast. No, you too?

JAY SHETTY: No, but as in, like, I think that’s because. That’s because, you know, it’s about progress.

TONY ROBBINS: Yeah. Yes.

JAY SHETTY: No, no, no, I’m agreeing with you.

TONY ROBBINS: Yeah. Have you ever had, though, a goal where you achieved it and you’re out of your mind? Like, out of your mind and good, like you celebratory?

JAY SHETTY: Probably not either.

TONY ROBBINS: Oh, interesting. Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

TONY ROBBINS: Well, most people have had some celebration, and when they celebrate that, what I always ask people is, “You’re really celebratory. It was great. You achieved it. You were proud of yourself. Great.” I say, “How long did that feeling last?”

JAY SHETTY: Not long.

TONY ROBBINS: And I say, “Did it last six years? No. Six months? Six weeks?”

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, yeah.

TONY ROBBINS: Six days. Six hours. Most people somewhere between six days, six hours and six weeks max. Because you know why? Why does it go away? Because we’re not made just to achieve goals. We’re made to grow. We’re made to become more. Because when we grow, we make progress. We have something to give, we have more to give.

So it’s like everything in the world either grows or it dies. If your relationship’s not growing, don’t BS yourself. It’s dying. If your business is not growing, it’s dying. If you’re not growing, some part of you is dying inside. So. But I found that when people really grow, they’re happy, and then they want to share, and they have something worth sharing, right?

Success Without Fulfillment

So if you look at somebody like Robin Williams, I mean, Robin Williams, I think, was one of the gifts of our country to the world. You know, he made people laugh all over the earth. He came here to Hollywood, where we are right now. He had almost no resources except creativity. And he said, “I’m going to star on my own TV show.” Everybody says that nobody does it. He did it.

Then he said, “Okay, I want a knowledge. Star on my own TV show. I want to make it the number one show in at least five countries.” He did it in nine, right? Then he said, “I don’t want to do TV anymore. I want to make movies that’s more dramatic.” And he did. Then he said, “I want to win an Academy Award for not being funny. A dramatic Academy Award.” And he won.

He said, “I want a family that totally loves me. I love me.” He did it. He said, “I want to have more money than I could ever spend.” And he did it. And he hung himself in his own home. How do you explain that?

Now people say I had Lewy bodies in his brain, but he abused alcohol and cocaine and drugs his entire life, staying hyped up. He worked to make everybody as happy except himself. So I really believe that success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And you do not have to separate them.

Because if what you’re doing is designed to try and serve something more than yourself, you’re not going to be stressed. I mean, when you’re trying to serve your kids or you’re trying to serve your community or your country, when there’s something you care about more than yourself, there’s an energy that you have. All suffering comes focused on the self.

And ironically, again, I started mentioned self care. I’m not being derogatory towards self care because I think it’s important to take care of yourself so you can take care of others and take care of yourself. But it’s become the new. It’s the new hustle culture. Self care means you’re doing something directing your mind, soul and spirit to become more. Not just checking out. Right?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

The Mental Health Crisis and the Myth of Doing Less

TONY ROBBINS: And so many people are doing it now. And I think that’s a huge reason why. I don’t know if you saw. I looked it up the other day. I actually brought it on. Make sure I had the right numbers. It blew my mind. Yeah. 61% of Gen Z has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder. 61% of a generation. 54% of Gen Z women report diagnosed mental health conditions by American Psychological Association. 34% of Gen Z are currently taking the prescription medication.

And there’s been 129% increase in the trajectory use of antidepressants among teenage girls since the pandemic. I mean, it’s like there’s something wrong here. This mental health crisis is because we think we should do less and we’re going to be happier.

There was a study done right in the middle of COVID by a woman who wrote an article in the New York Times and she took people who are miserable and angry and sad and said, “We’re going to do a time management course with you for nine weeks. And I’m going to ask that you do more during these nine weeks.” And at the end of nine weeks, just by feeling control of their lives, right, 20% increase in life satisfaction. 18% increase in productivity by doing five times more than what they were doing when they kept.

Because the problem with pulling back and taking care of yourself when it’s the extreme side, not what you or I would do. I know you have the meds thing you talk about, right? In terms of meditating and eating well and diet and sleep. Right. Couldn’t agree more with you on that. But when people make it like just letting go and doing nothing, I understand the value of that. But the weaker we get, the harder it gets.

It doesn’t like you don’t hit a bottom and now you’re okay. You just get weaker and weaker and now little things are stressful. It’s just like the decision making. The more you don’t make decisions, the more anxiety you have. The more you start making decisions, the stronger you feel. You feel like you’re in control of your life and all it takes is a few good ones for you to start getting momentum.

Mastering Achievement and Fulfillment

So I think those two skills are the key to a great life. Master the science of achievements. You can study how people did it. Get the same thing with your body or your emotions or your relationships or your finances. But then when it comes to fulfillment, you have to discover what will help you to grow and what will help you to give more and what taps you.

I’ll give one final example because it’s humorous to me.

JAY SHETTY: Please.

TONY ROBBINS: Steve Wynn is a good friend of mine who built most of Las Vegas. About half of Las Vegas. Beautiful.

JAY SHETTY: My favorite hotel is.

TONY ROBBINS: Yes, beautiful. Beautiful old man. And Steve, quite a philanthropist. Great human being. A good friend of mine. So he lived. We both have vacation homes in Sun Valley, Idaho, for the snow. And I arrived one morning or one night, the night before. And I got there, like two or three in the morning. And the phone rings at 8am. I’m, you know, four or five hours sleep. Who could possibly be calling me this home, right?

Steve, “Tony, it’s my birthday. I want you to come over today.” I said, “Steve, I know, but it’s 8:15, 8:30 in the morning. I just got here.” He goes, “Listen, I got this new piece of art.” He said, “It’s unbelievable. I’ve coveted this piece of art for the last 13 years.” He said, “I outbid everybody at Sotheby’s. And literally, they delivered it late last night for my birthday. You must come and see this painting.”

I said, “All right, Steve, I have one question. How much did it set you back?” $86.9 million. $87 million. So I said, “Steve, screw lunch. I’m coming for breakfast. I got to see what an $87 million painting looks like.” And I’m picturing God crashing through the clouds. Some Renaissance image, you know, everything else.

I get there, and he takes me to the room, and he goes, “See?” And I look at it, and I understand what it is. It’s a Rothko. But it’s an orange square. If you’ve ever seen a Rothko, it’s literally an orange square. Orange and red square. And I said, “Steve, they missed a few spots.” Because it isn’t filled in right? He got a little. And I said, “This is a Rothko.” I said, “I know what it is.” He goes, “Yeah, but.” I said, “Steve.” I said, “Give me $100 worth of red paint. Give me a piece of paper. Give me 20 minutes. I think I can do this again.”

And it stirred him up a little bit. You know, he knew I was teasing him. He goes, “Tony, you understand he committed suicide.” Started telling me the whole story of the guy. I said, “Well, for suicide, he should be his blood for $87 million.” I mean, come on, right?

Finding Meaning and Fulfillment

But the reason I tell this story is he can barely see, but he can have almost an orgasm looking at that. Because he finds meaning in everything. Like he knows what every stroke means. I’m looking at. I see an orange square, I’m unsophisticated. So what makes you feel fulfilled depends on what you focus on.

And you know, people say, “Why did he do that? He should have given that money away.” He’s giving millions and millions and millions, hundreds of millions of dollars away. That’s just everybody’s judgment. I think you should figure out what it is that fulfills you. Because if you don’t find fulfillment, you’re going to be miserable.

More stress comes because you’re not fulfilled. It’s not because you’re not achieving. It’s because you’re not making progress on what matters to you. It’s because you feel at the effect of events versus your affecting events.

JAY SHETTY: So many breakthroughs there that I just want to flag for people that I think are huge. The first point being this breakdown of the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. It’s so important because I think today what people are getting confused is that they think if they’re more fulfilled, they’ll be better at the science. And that doesn’t work that way.

TONY ROBBINS: You won’t stay fulfilled either. Because the idea of fulfillment is what feels good in the moment. But what feels good in the moment is what feels good long term. What feels good long term is when you grow.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

TONY ROBBINS: And then. And when you give. The two things that make us feel alive is growing and giving.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

TONY ROBBINS: And you grow so you have something to give.

JAY SHETTY: Yes. And then same back the other way. The signs of achievement won’t make you more fulfilled, which you made one big breakthrough. Second one is what you just said. Now, this idea that self care is promoting this idea that we all want more comfort.

TONY ROBBINS: Yes.

The Comfort Trap

JAY SHETTY: That we should all have more comfort in life. And if we have more comfort in life, then we’ll be happier. And you’re completely kind of uprooting that and going, well, actually the discomfort makes you experience progress, which equals happiness.

TONY ROBBINS: That’s correct.

JAY SHETTY: Because that’s the algorithm that we want to be a part of. And that’s the hard choice. Because that hard choice is choosing the discomfort, choosing the discipline, choosing the decision that may feel hard but is right.

TONY ROBBINS: But the one that’s the hardest one is regret. Not making the decision almost always leads to regret. If you make a decision that’s wrong, you can change it, make another one. Even those type one decisions, you know, that Jeff Bezos talks about, most of them are still possible to change. This just takes a lot. So it’s always possible to shift.

What will screw your life up is not deciding, is living on the fence. Because the brain does not do well with uncertainty. Right. That’s one of the human needs is the need for certainty. And the fastest way to certainty is just make some decisions and act on them and discover what’s real.

So I appreciate your meta comments about that because I think it’s really important to master both skills. I know so many people that achieve so much and they’re so unfulfilled, and there’s so many people that are trying for fulfillment and they, you know, never lasts. It’s because, like, you got to think about it, everything in life is calling us to grow.

And if you want to know what doesn’t work, the pop psychology of self care is not working any more than the hustle culture did. They’re both extremes. My life’s a balance, right? And if you want to see what the results are, look at the medication. You know, and millennials are known as the RX, not the X generation, the RX generation, right? So it’s like that is not solving it to feel good.

Not feeling good is part of what gives you drive, either destroys you or drives you. You have to make those choices. And most of us will not let it destroy us. If we don’t medicate ourselves, if we don’t, we find a way to push through. But if. If you don’t have to, people go for comfort. And comfort will never make you proud. Comfort won’t make you strong. Comfort will not allow you to inspire your kids or your community or your friends. But there’s a greater thing than comfort that comes from fulfillment by pushing through.

The Truth About Self-Esteem

What? And here’s the other part. It’s like I hear the word, the other pop culture element drives me crazy. Self esteem. “Oh, I don’t have any self esteem because when I was a child, people said these horrible things to me.” And how convenient. You only remember the horrible things they said to you, right? They said lots of things.

But the truth of the matter is, what people said to you makes no means whatsoever as to whether you feel like you have high self esteem or not. Self esteem is earned by yourself, with yourself. Someone can say your whole life, “You’re beautiful, you’re gorgeous, you’re so smart,” and you can fear you’re not. Right? You know, people like that all the time, right? And they have all this anxiety because they thought they’re the best in the world and they find out they’re not. The parents over blew who they were at that stage. They didn’t teach them to develop it or to push through or develop the muscle that would make them the best in the world at what they do.

On the other hand, you can be told by people “You’re a piece of worthless piece of junk, you’ll never be this, you’re a piece of that.” And that person can say, “Screw you, I’ll show you who I am.” So what people have said has zero impact on your self esteem. And telling people they’re great or not great does not change it.

Teaching them to have grit, teaching them to push through. The way you develop esteem for yourself is by doing difficult things that you know are right. When you do something you know is right, even though it’s difficult, your esteem for yourself grows. And no one can take that way. They can take away money or material things. No one can take away who I’ve become as a man and my path or you as a man or anyone else as a woman.

I think it’s really important to know if you want to feel good about yourself. It’s not by relaxing. Don’t get me wrong, I know how to relax. I know how to take time. And I have a beautiful family. I have five kids and five grandkids. So I certainly have to be able to do that. And one of my kids is, thanks to Covid, I have a 51 year old daughter and I have a 4 year old daughter. So I have quite a spread at 60, when I’m going to be 66 pretty soon. So to give you a sense.

So my life was full, but it still has to have growth in it, it still has to have progress and that’s what makes it fulfilling.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. What’s the difference between growth and hustle? Meaning?

The Difference Between Work, Career, and Mission

TONY ROBBINS: Well, yes, exactly. Hustle. I’m just doing it to try to make money. If I’m busting my tail, but man, I know what I’m doing. You know what it is, I always tell people, I measure people’s lives. I’m asked to give a 0 to 10 score on their body, not compared to someone else. Like your idea of a 10 when I was 20 of that washboard abs was a 10 and they had them and my back hurt, you know what I mean? So I was out of balance, right? You know, everything else is screwed up. Big biceps and weak in other areas then.

So I ask people where are you 0 to 10 in your life today based on what you want for your life? Is it energy, whatever? Where are you 0 to 10 in the level of meaning and emotion? Because if you don’t measure something, you can’t manage it. I’m giving 0 to 10 a little description. Give me 0 to 10 where you are in your relationships. And the most important one, your intimate relationships. Because friendships are easy, right? Where’s that? And if you don’t have one, that’s zero. And you want to see that. So it pushes you, right?

Where are you in your work? And this is the one that led me to it. Is your work, or is it for you career, or is it a calling or a mission? And I already know who people are based on which word they pick. If it’s work, it’s work. If it’s a career, they work at it and they’re pretty fulfilled at that. But if it’s mission, like I know you and I are both called, I don’t have to do this another day of my life. I do it because it’s my mission, it’s my purpose. I believe it’s what I’m made for.

There is no amount of work that can wear you down when it’s mission. And if you haven’t found that, I caution against one other thing, if I may. You’ve stirred me up with some different questions.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, it’s good.

Finding Your Purpose

TONY ROBBINS: I think it’s important to understand a lot of people are trying to find their purpose. “What’s my purpose? What’s this big purpose?” Who said you had one? Who said you had one for a lifetime? If you write down a purpose statement, it’s long, mission statement, sounds real good and you read it, it’s never going to cover all of who you are, what you’re for.

You know, I have a different purpose when I’m sitting down with my daughter, my youngest daughter, than I am with my oldest. I have a different sense of purpose. And what I’m doing in this business is for that I have a different purpose. In our conversation today, purpose was what gives life meaning. But you don’t have to have one giant purpose that you’re struggling to find.

Life will evolve. And if you just keep moving forward in a purposeful manner, like whatever you do, there’s some meaning to it, then I think you’re going to find you’re much more fulfilled. And those measurements, by the way, I would do them on your finances. And I do them on the spiritual side of life. Not religious, but religio means celebration. Most people in religion don’t have a lot of celebration anymore. Right. Just a bunch of rules.

So it’s like, okay, I divided it between how much are you celebrating your life? Because isn’t this an unbelievable gift that we’re sitting here breathing, this heart’s beating, we don’t have to work at it. That the skin’s working. That we can have a conversation, that we can feel, that we live, that we can have our children. That’s a miracle. We forget what a miracle it is just to be alive. Right.

Celebration and Contribution

So are you celebrating and then are you contributing? Because celebration without contribution doesn’t last. So I say measure those things. But to answer your question specifically, I think it’s critical that you understand stress comes from having activity without purpose, is the drain on your emotional well being.

JAY SHETTY: And that’s what we’re struggling with. Yeah, that makes sense.

TONY ROBBINS: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: You just mentioned that you have a child who’s 51 years old and one that’s four and a half.

TONY ROBBINS: I don’t, I wouldn’t call her a child now. She wouldn’t appreciate that. Yeah, I have a daughter.

Fatherhood Across the Decades

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, you have a daughter. You have a daughter. Sorry, yeah, you said you have a daughter who’s 51 years old. You probably still see her as a child in some ways, I assume. I don’t know. My mom can’t stop seeing me as a child. But yes, you have a daughter who’s 51 years old. You have a daughter who’s four and a half years old. Talk to me about what being a dad at that age was like in your 20s.

TONY ROBBINS: Yes.

JAY SHETTY: To what being a dad in your 60s looks like. What’s different? What are the different challenges? What are the different lessons?

The Seasons of Life: Pattern Recognition and Mastery

TONY ROBBINS: It’s my favorite stage of life, is the stage of life. I would say that first for everyone listening, you know, I look at life in seasons. You know, it’s like, I’m a big believer that the three skills we need to teach our kids or ourselves, especially in a world that the next five to 10 years will have more change than any time in human history. Between nanotechnology and AI and robotics and everything else, the world is going to change like never before.

So how do you have an advantage there? You have to master three skills. You have to pattern recognition so that you’re not fearful. A lot of fear is because you think this is the only time it’s happened politically. It’ll never been this way. It’s bullshit. I can show you stuff that makes Republicans and Democrats look nice to each other from the past. You know, when you recognize a pattern, you go, “Okay, this has happened before.” And seasons are one of those patterns. Right. And then you’re not fearful. And then the second part, it’s not random.

The second skill is mastering really pattern utilization. That’s what gives you power in your life. Because now a baby can’t get out of this room until they recognize almost all rooms have an exit. And I look around there, it’s shaped a certain way and there’s a handle that if I push, pull it, I can get out of here. If you don’t, you’re trapped.

So pattern recognition is power at a little level. You know, the room at a big level. If you look at somebody that’s great in business, like, how do I have all these companies? I couldn’t even run one company with five employees. I was trying to do $1 million in business. I wasn’t hitting it and I was stressed out of my mind to now have 114 companies doing $10 billion.

The difference is pattern recognition. It’s like understanding and then learning how to use those patterns in those situations. So if you’re good in business, there’s certain patterns. If you’re good at investing, there’s certain patterns. If you’ve got good mental health, there’s certain patterns. You know, if you’re physically well, there’s certain patterns. If you know, somebody’s a good dancer, they recognize how to use patterns to produce a specific result.

Spielberg has made movies for 40 years. He knows if I’m moving slowly like this, he knows if I go fast, what’ll happen if I pull back, if I bring the music up here. So anyone you know, that you probably respect and like, doesn’t just recognize patterns, they got great at using them.

Pattern Creation: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

But the third level for me is pattern creation where you really, it’s like if you played music, you did it usually by playing someone else’s music. Beethoven, Bach, whoever you did, you learned someone else’s patterns. And you did that long enough, you could use it. And then one day you start to come through, you start to become a creator, right? We stand on the shoulders of the people before us.

And so those three skills are how you can compete or do well. And I want that for my 51 year old and I want my 4 year old having said that. You don’t recognize as many patterns when you’re 25. That’s your question, right?

And I’m proud of the father I was. I mean, I got married my first marriage to a woman that was 12 years my senior. And she’d been married twice before me. She had kids from both husbands and she moved in with me and she was so unhappy. And I was like, bring them here. And I adopted all those kids.

So if you can imagine, I was 24, just turning 25 years old. I had a 17 year old son, an 11 year old daughter, a 5 year old. And then shortly after, a blood child of my own coming on board. And so I was out to change the world and I had to learn how to manage my life and who I was. And these kids, I fell totally in love with them and the joy of my life today.

And that marriage lasted 14 years. And when they grew up, I really, I was there for the kids. Honestly, more than anything else, we weren’t the right match for each other. We’re still good friends. I married my wife. Now I’ve been together 25 years. The greatest gift of my life.

But my wife didn’t think we could have kids. The doctor told her point blank we couldn’t. So we ended up doing it with a surrogate and it was COVID. And I’m normally going on the road 225 days in a year, 200 days in a year with COVID they shut down every arena in the world. I mean, I went from doing 15,000 people to them saying I could put 100 people in the arena.

So we pivoted and I started doing digital seminars. We did the biggest ones in the world, 1.3 million people screens for three days, you know, and really made it an experience that was amazing. So there was time. So we got our daughter.

The Wisdom of Later Parenthood

But the answer question specifically, I think in my 20s and 30s, I was still trying to figure out completely who I was. And all I knew is I want these kids to be loved. I want them to know that they’re not here to demand from life. Life is expecting something from you and that if you’re here to be a contributor, you’ll always be happy.

And I really accomplished that. I’m proud of all my kids. They’re all contributors. They all contribute time, energy, money, resources to help people who are not as well off as they are. They’re all great parents and they’re all just good people.

But with my daughter today, it’s, you know, I had her at 61, so certainly not what I planned for. It brought more joy to me than anything else. Because you know so much more, you have so much more wisdom to share. You have more time to just experience things versus when you’re running, trying to make it all happen.

And I think someone like yourself at 38, we talked off the air here, that at some point you’ll probably have children. I think in that 38, 39, 40, you have more wisdom because you’re still, you know, who you are now. To a great extent. You’ll continue, yeah, continue. Especially you, right? I’m continuing to evolve. Right.

But I think there’s just more to give at that stage. But I also would tell anybody that I wouldn’t if someone would told me. If you think of 0 to 21 as being a pattern of seasons, like when I say pattern recognition, the pattern that has changed humanity the most, the first recognized pattern that we changed and started to use was seasons.

Understanding Life’s Seasons

Until then, we were hunter gatherers and starving to death unless we could find the right food. Total stress, way more stress than we have today. But then what happened? We realized, “Wow, there are these seasons and if I plant in the spring, I protect it during the summer, I get to reap in the fall, have enough for winter, I can do the whole thing again.”

Well, if you do the right thing at the wrong time, you get nothing. It doesn’t matter how hard you work. So I’m a big believer in looking at what season you are in your life, what season you are in history, right? What season I’m in with my family.

And so I think 0 to 21 is springtime. Everything grows in springtime. It’s easy to grow in springtime. If you start a business in springtime, you think you’re a genius, you’re a genius. You’re just in the right season, right?

But then summer comes and things are tested and God, or the universe, whatever you want to call it, has made it so we have an easy time. And then we have a tough time to test this to make us grow. An easy time, rewards and a tough time.

So summer, think of it as like 22 to 42, roughly 0 to 21. You’re taken care of. I had a childhood that was a little tough, but you know, I was 13 or 14. I had to work to support the family, but I still, I didn’t have to make all the money for the food. Someone else was housing me, someone else was taking care of me. At that stage of life, you’re taking in information.

The Testing Season: Ages 22 to 42

22 to 42. Now you go test it right now you go say, “Well, I was taught all this stuff, but what do I believe?” And in the early stages of that season, you think you’re invincible. You think you’re going to be a multi billionaire president of the United States and have 100 relationships simultaneously and everyone will be happy.

And then by the time you’re 32 or 33 or something like that, you start going, “I’m not a billionaire. I’m not the president of the United States, and I can’t even one person happy in the relationship. What the hell’s going on here?”

And that’s usually when people start to look out for people like you and I who are looking for some wisdom about how to live life in a way that’s happy and fulfilling and growing and expanding because they know they’re not invincible.

That stage, if you’re listening, if you’re in that 22 to 42, it is the most painful stage across all studies. Most unhappy stage. If you’re happy right now, that is awesome. And anyone can be. But most aren’t fully happy at that stage. It’s the most trying stage. It’s the testing time.

And if you didn’t grow during spring and take care of yourself summer, then you won’t reap in the fall. You’re going to weep. But if you grew in both those stages, now you go to the third stage. That’s basically 43 to 63. And both these numbers are round, right? Some people are early, some people are late.

The Harvest Season: Ages 43 to 63

But in that stage of life, you’ve accumulated enough skill and knowledge. If you’ve grown, you know, the people. I’m sure you’re already experiencing it now. Like, I was in Greece and I got stuck. I’m fortunate enough to have a private plane and I’m supposed to fly to Germany and I want to drop my family in Italy so I can have a good time.

And they, you know, we had two weeks in advance, they told us what the times would be, and then they changed the times and said I couldn’t get out until after my seminar started with 13,000 people in 54 countries, right? And I’m like. And they were immovable.

And so like, “Okay, my only option is find some other way to get to Athens and fly somewhere else.” And it’s like, no, you know, at this stage of my life, there aren’t very many people planet who do I know that knows, you know, the prime minister of Greece?

So I asked ChatGPT, “Tony Robbins, as soon as he knows it,” it gave me a list. It’s like Mark Benioff of Salesforce. My dearest friends and humans, Peter Diamandis is one of my partners in business. He’s, you know, he’s from Greece and he knows and went through the whole list. There’s like nine of them.

So I called three of them and, you know, the poor prime minister got about nine calls, and next thing I know, no problem. They move the time and everything else.

There’s a stage of life that if you’ve done your job and are contributing up to society that you know most of the players or you know most of the people in the industry and you, you’ve got relationships that are 20 years long or maybe 30 years long. And the talent pool is not elastic. There’s only so many people that keep growing and so you usually know those people and have a role in that.

So that stage is where most people have that stage that we can think of as autumn, as the fall, as the reward stage. That’s where most people earn the most. That’s when most people tend to grow the most. That’s when you start to really become a leader in that stage. Obviously it can happen earlier.

The Winter Season: Ages 64 and Beyond

And then 64 to 84, to 104 to 124, which is the oldest living humans is the winter stage, which is there’s a gradual decline in the body no matter what you do at some stage and you have to make sure you keep your mental facilities up.

But it’s also the most magnificent stage because you can make not only a phone call to get your plane out, but you are able. You have 30. I have 40 year relationships now. I’ve got five kids and five grandkids. You know, I’ve got people that I love with my soul that I would do anything more, do anything for me.

I don’t know many things in life. I feel closer to God in the universe than I’ve ever felt in my life. I feel like my life is such a blessing. If my life ended tomorrow, I’d be the most blessed man on earth. I’d like to continue contributing.

JAY SHETTY: But that’s not, yeah, we need you around.

The Beauty of Life’s Limited Racetrack

TONY ROBBINS: But that’s not in my hands. I go, it’ll be the right time. So I want people to know, and all the studies, by the way, show if you stay healthy, this stage I’m talking about is the most fulfilling stage. It’s the stage where you get to become an elder statesman and you’re not trying to prove to somebody who the hell you are. You don’t play the social media game. You know who the hell you are.

If people know you, people know you’re a good person. But if they don’t, you don’t really care, right? You just go deliver what you’re here to deliver and do what you’re going to do.

So those stages of life I think are useful because we’re all different. But there’s a racetrack to life and you’re not there yet. But there’s a stage in your life when your brain will go, there may be more days behind me than ahead of me. That’s usually midlife, whatever age that is in people’s heads. It’s different for everybody.

And there’s a beauty, there’s a massive increase of the beauty of life when you begin to realize it’s a limited racetrack. You value every moment, every relationship, every experience you have even more. And I’m at a stage of life where I have so many friends that are 20 years my senior. I have a lot of friends in their 80s and friends my age that have passed away just in recent years. And it just reminds you that it’s a limited racetrack. But I think that’s valuable.

I remember Ray Kurzweil sent me one time—Ray Kurzweil is a brilliant futurist, one of the smartest in the world, right? And one day he sent me this little story. He goes, “I think you’ll appreciate this.” And it was a write-up about a story from a TV show that was done years ago.

In the TV show, which has a little twist, it’s about a man who is a gambler and he goes to heaven. His idea of heaven is staying at the Wynn Hotel in the Presidential Suite, right? Or the Encore, the Presidential Suite. And he wakes up in heaven. He wakes up at the top of the Encore and he opens his closet. There’s all these suits and outfits, and he opens his drawers and there’s cash and there’s jewelry and watches and all these things.

And he goes downstairs and every woman notices him. And he’s playing blackjack. You win, 21. You win, you win. And all of a sudden he’s playing craps. You win, you win, you win. And he’s lit up like a Christmas tree. And he goes home that night with more than one person. And he thinks it’s the greatest experience of his life.

And he wakes up the next day and does the whole thing again. And the next day he does the whole thing again. The next day, does the whole thing again. After three weeks of this, he’s sitting at the table, he’s playing blackjack, and he goes, “21, you win.” He goes, “Of course I win. I always win.” He’s getting angry. He goes, “There’s something wrong here. I want to speak to the head angel. There’s something wrong here.”

And so the head angel comes over. He looks like Guy Lombardo in his tuxedo and says, “Can I help you, sir?” He says, “Yes. I win every single time. There’s a mistake here. I don’t belong in heaven. I’m not the kind of guy that should be in heaven.”

And the angel looks at him and said, “Who said you’re in heaven?”

If we always got everything we wanted, if time was unlimited, would you value life as much? So I’m here to make sure we make every moment matter with meaning and with love.

JAY SHETTY: It’s beautiful. I love that story. Love that story. And I mean, you’ve dedicated so much to this, and you keep doing it. Time to Rise Summit. Time to Rise is coming up at the end of this month, and it’s another opportunity for people to get better at making decisions, to decide, to commit, to act, to resolve, to have that energy. Everything we’ve been talking about today, plus—

Time to Rise Summit: A Fresh Start for the New Year

TONY ROBBINS: There’s something about the calendar that’s so funny. It’s totally arbitrary. But a new year is like a new life. It’s like a fresh start. And we all need a fresh start. But the problem is most people set a bunch of New Year’s resolutions and 98% don’t follow through on them.

So this is about, hey, let’s figure out what you really want, what’s getting in the way, what’s the plan? It’s only three hours a day, so think of it like a great movie, only you’re in it and you’re actually changing your life three days in a row. So it’s January 29th through the 31st, and you can attend from anywhere on earth.

We had 1.3 million people last year attend from 193 countries. Every country on Earth that exists, at least that the UN recognizes. And it’s an experience you probably won’t forget. Plus, there’s a community of people, and there’s zero charge. It’s not like partial pay or there’s zero charge. Once a year, I do this just to give back to people all over the Earth. And it’s really, really dynamic. And people create incredible changes, and they share them with the community on Facebook. I look forward to it every year. So I hope people will join us.

And then the other thing, I hope you’ll join me for that because it’s an immersion and it’s the beginning of the year, and you set yourself up to win and meet some great people. But then also, I’ve actually now created a partnership with Paramount, where I’m doing the Tony Robbins Channel, which we just launched, and it’ll be all over the world. They’re going to actually translate it in every language, a lot using AI. So I’ll be speaking with my own voice.

It’s amazing technology we have today, but it’s literally a 24/7 channel of nothing but—we’ve got dozens of programs we developed on how to improve your body, your emotions, your relationships, your finances. And there’s no charge for it at all. So anybody can dip in and have an experience there as well.

JAY SHETTY: Wow, that’s fantastic. I mean, what I love about Time to Rise is that those few days, those two to three days that people spend with you, it will create a shift.

TONY ROBBINS: There’s no question.

The Power of Immersion

JAY SHETTY: Because we all need those moments where we just immerse, we get absorbed, we get focused. Because some of us maybe will do 10 minutes of thinking about our life here and 30 minutes over there. And maybe you’ll spend an hour if you’re lucky. But to have three days of three hours each, it’s colossal what could happen in your life.

TONY ROBBINS: And I really believe in immersion. The reason I do live events and they’re usually 12 hours a day—to give you an idea, people won’t sit for a three-hour movie, but will go 12 hours and say, “This is the greatest experience of my life”—is immersion is the way to learn.

If you’re going to learn a language and you learn a little bit at a time, most people learned in high school and college, they don’t speak the language years later. But if I dropped you in Rome for 90 days with no teacher, I pick you up, you’re going to be speaking because you’re seeing it, feeling it, experiencing it.

So three hours isn’t quite that level of immersion, but it’s enough to really create momentum, make some real choices and really change your life for the better. And it’ll be my privilege to serve anyone who wants to join us. And again, there’s no charge for it.

Nurturing a Relationship with God and the Universe

JAY SHETTY: Last question, Tony, before we end. You mentioned there, and you’ve talked about in your seminars, I’ve seen you talk about it, your relationship with God, the universe. And I wanted to ask you about that because I think we often refer to a relationship with God, a relationship with the universe. What does a relationship with God and the universe look like? How does one nurture that?

The Spiritual Journey and Individual Faith

TONY ROBBINS: What does that mean? It’s more of what it feels like to me than what it looks like. It feels like I feel like I’ve been guided in my life because I’ve asked for guidance and I believe I’ve been created. I think we’re all created for different purposes.

And my own personal belief, which may be wrong, is that I’m here to make things better. I mean, I wear these silly baseball caps all the time just for fun, but if you read them on the side, it says “be a blessing and you’ll be blessed” is what it says underneath. And that’s my whole philosophy of life: be a blessing.

And I think I know one of my sons, Josh. I remember when he became a Christian. I’m of the Christian faith personally, but I’m quite broad in my approach and not restrictive in my thinking. And I don’t believe everyone should be what I believe, the belief. In other words, if you have a spiritual belief, I hope you follow it. Because whatever it is, if you don’t follow it, you’re probably not going to be happy.

And I’m not a proselytizer of people to have to be or think a certain way. But I remember my son, he became Christian. And when people find God in whatever way they find it, they often think no one else has that, it’s only their way. And he became very, very rules driven about “this is how it is, and that’s how it is.” And I was quite concerned.

But rather than trying to push him to be a certain way, I told my wife, Sage, I said, “Honey,” we were in Fiji. And I said, “You know, I’ve got a few days.” I said, “I’m going to go on a fast for the next four days, maybe five, four or five days, just drink juice and I’m going to read the whole Bible from cover to cover.” And I said, “Because I’ve never read it that way. I’ve never done total immersion like I talked about.”

I read the whole Bible and literally about 18 hours a day. And I was struck at the end by an overall pattern. So I went to my son. He was being very devout and very right, wrong, good, bad, and anytime you make things extreme, I think it creates problems, right? And I didn’t try and make them wrong.

Anyway, I said, “God’s this and God means this, and this is what Christ did and this is how it is.” And I said, “Okay, Josh,” I said, “Just, I have one question for you.” I said, “I just read the entire Bible from cover to cover.” And his jaw dropped open. I said, “I’m dead serious.” And Sage is with me. And he goes, “He did it.”

I said, “One thing that comes out of it: I read the Old Testament and God seems like a selfish bastard who’s mean and vindictive. And I read the New Testament and God seems incredibly loving and supportive of all.” So I said, “If that’s true, does God grow?”

And there’s this long pause. He felt like he was being trapped. And I said, “I’m not trying to trap you. I’m asking an honest question. I mean, everything in the universe either grows or dies. So does God grow? But if the Bible is a real reflection of God, and there are many other books that are a reflection of being inspired by the divine. But let’s say that’s the book. Does God grow? Because it sure looks like it in the book.”

And if that’s true, the only reason I’m bringing that up is I know what you’re fearing is that you can’t have absolute certainty about how things are, which is what everybody wants, but you could have faith. And I said, he goes, “Well, God knows everything. God knows what you’re going to do before you’re going to do it, how it’s going to be.” And he gave me this rattle, and I said, “Okay, I believe all that, but the question is, does God grow?”

And he couldn’t give me an answer either way because he felt like he was being trapped in it. But eventually he loosened up. And I could say, today he’s much more balanced in that area. He’s not trying to make everybody else believe what he believes.

But I think the universe grows. I think God grows, and I think it’s our job to grow. And I think that when I look at the spiritual side of life, the relationship I have is one that’s more emotional than visual. I feel like when I get up to serve, God comes through me.

When I stand, when someone stands up and I say, it’s a Date with Destiny. You’ve been to Date with Destiny. You never know who’s going to stand up. They could say, “I’m suicidal.” Or they could say, “I’m considering killing myself and my five kids.” I mean, I’ve had that happen. They could say, “I made $400 million and I’m depressed” and people want to slap them.

You never know what somebody’s going to say. But the minute they stand up inside me, it’s already done. Not because I’m so smart, because I know they stood up in this moment. I believe, because this is all by design, and the right answers will come through me. And they do.

I mean, I’ve never lost to suicide. Knock on wood. And, you know, 48 years and, you know, I’m sure people have seen, some people may have seen “I’m Not Your Guru” on Netflix. It’s a piece. But you see, fantastic. You see people six years later, like the woman that was there, that was suicidal, that was in that cult where they made you have sex with the adults.

And, you know, she got out. She’s now a psychologist. She’s rescued all these other kids. She doesn’t have an ounce of depression or suicidal thoughts. You know, Stanford did a study that shows that.

Finding Your Unique Relationship with the Divine

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that the spiritual side of life is critical. But what I said to my son is this. I said, “I want everyone’s relationship with God, if I had a choice, which I don’t, but if I had a choice, it should be as unique as your signature. Why should everybody be copying everybody else? You should have an individual relationship with God.”

So I said, “I really appreciate if you read the Bible or you read any great spiritual book.” I’m a Christian, but read any of them and let God speak to you. Don’t just take it from another man or woman standing on a stage telling you what to believe. I would tell people at my events, “I’m not here to tell you how to be. Who the hell would I be to do that? I’m just sharing with you insights and tools and strategies that can help you guide yourself to whoever you want to be and hopefully to ask you, who do you want to be in this lifetime?”

Because in the end, what you get is not going to make you happy. Who are you going to become? That’s going to make you happy or sad. So I think it’s an individual decision and I think it evolves for people over time. But I think it’s one of the most important things because for those who believe that there’s nothing, you know, nihilistic, but this moment or this body, I think that’s a big mistake.

It’s like saying Webster’s Dictionary is the result of an explosion at a print factory. It all came together perfectly in balance. I just don’t buy that, even logically. And I think you’re missing out on life if you don’t think there’s something more than you and also something more to serve than you. And that gives me personally a great sense of meaning.

JAY SHETTY: Tony, thank you for your work, your tools, your insights, your life service. Thank you for your time and energy today.

TONY ROBBINS: Thank you for all that you do. I appreciate it so much.

JAY SHETTY: I’m so grateful for our friendship. Honestly, it’s been a real gift and I want to push people to timetorisesummit.com. It’s timetorisesummit.com. That’s where you can subscribe. Remember, you can sign up for absolutely free to join the Time to Rise Summit. You can be a part of it with all of the seminars, the insights, three hours a day.

It’s very rare that we get to do a podcast and I get to direct you to something which will exactly solve what we’ve been talking about today. We get to do that, get to give you this summit as a gift. It’s absolutely free that Tony’s doing with him and his friends. Timetorisesummit.com. Please go do yourself a favor. It’s a gift. It’s free. Start your year off right. Get into that great season in the first quarter of this year.

And remember, I’m forever in your corner and always rooting for you. Tony, thank you so much.

TONY ROBBINS: Thank you, brother.

JAY SHETTY: Thank you.

TONY ROBBINS: Appreciate it.

JAY SHETTY: Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you’ll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you want to be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now. You set a goal today, you achieve…

TONY ROBBINS: It in six months, and then by the time it happens, it’s almost a relief.

JAY SHETTY: There’s no sense of meaning and purpose.

TONY ROBBINS: You sort of expected it and you…

JAY SHETTY: Would have been disappointed if it didn’t happen.

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