How To Become a MILLIONAIRE: Index Investing For BEGINNERS | Tony Robbins & Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes 0:05 So I'm here with Tony Robbins. Thanks so much for coming.

Tony Robbins 0:08 Thanks for having me.

Lewis Howes 0:08 And, uh, very excited about this interview. You are actually one of the three people I've been wanting to get on the show since I started The School of Greatness.

Tony Robbins 0:14 Wow. I'm complimented. Thank you.

Lewis Howes 0:15 You are one of them, Will Smith, and-

Tony Robbins 0:17 That's awesome

Lewis Howes 0:17 ... and The Rock.

Tony Robbins 0:18 [laughs] I know both of them great.

Lewis Howes 0:20 So [laughs]

Tony Robbins 0:21 Great, great people.

Lewis Howes 0:21 All, all three of you are extremely inspiring, and you're just up to such big things in the world.

Tony Robbins 0:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 0:25 And that's what The School of Greatness is all about. So very excited. Very excited to talk about your new book.

Tony Robbins 0:29 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 0:30 Money: Master the Game. I am a very slow reader.

Tony Robbins 0:32 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 0:33 Um, and I've only probably read four books cover to cover. One's The Alchemist.

Tony Robbins 0:38 Yeah, great book.

Lewis Howes 0:39 One's The 4-Hour Workweek, and I'm almost finished with yours.

Tony Robbins 0:42 Okay. Wow.

Lewis Howes 0:42 I'm on like the fourth week.

Tony Robbins 0:43 This is quite an accomplishment then. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 0:44 It's a huge accomplishment for me.

Tony Robbins 0:46 It's a big book for anybody. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 0:47 It's a huge accomplishment, but so interesting, and I feel like I've done a pretty good job of earning a lot of money over the last few years.

Tony Robbins 0:54 Yes.

Lewis Howes 0:55 When before, I never knew how to make money.

Tony Robbins 0:56 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 0:57 I was a, an athlete.

Tony Robbins 0:58 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 0:58 I was trying to make it to the NFL. That was my only focus, was playing sports.

Tony Robbins 1:02 Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:02 I didn't, never learned about how to make money.

Tony Robbins 1:05 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:05 So when I was able to dive into this and really to learn the ins and outs of making money, but actually allowing money to make money for you.

Tony Robbins 1:12 Yeah, exactly. Make money while you sleep.

Lewis Howes 1:13 Make money while you sleep.

Tony Robbins 1:14 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:14 It was so interesting, and I feel like I've done a good job of making money over the years, but there's so much more in here that I'm, like, fascinated by.

Tony Robbins 1:21 Well, it's interesting 'cause the, I did the same thing. You know, I come from a very poor background-

Lewis Howes 1:24 Uh-huh

Tony Robbins 1:24 ... and we had no money for food at times, quite literally, and, uh, it was, it was rough. So I'd, I wanna make sure money wasn't a, you know, an issue for my future family, so I figured out how to make money. And I figured when I was, I don't know, 23, I figured how to make a million dollars in a year, and I went from 38,000 to a million. And you don't do that by some new strategy. It was a psychological shift as well as a strategy shift.

Lewis Howes 1:44 Right.

Tony Robbins 1:44 But then I made the same amount of money for seven straight years, even though I built a dozen more companies, helped more people than ever. But it was like unconsciously, "What do you want more than a million dollars? What are you? You know, are you greedy?"

Lewis Howes 1:54 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 1:55 And, and I was at, I was actually staying... Where was I? I was in, um, I was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Lewis Howes 2:00 Uh-huh.

Tony Robbins 2:00 And I arrived at 2:00 in the morning on my birthday. I didn't have a private plane, so I had to go, like, four different connections from where I was.

Lewis Howes 2:06 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 2:07 And I get in this place, and it's a horrible place, and I call my kids, and I'm talking to this woman on the phone named Maria, who used to run my house and take care of my kids. And I said, "You know, Maria, I'm sorry it's so late, but I wanna talk to my kids." "Oh, happy birthday." She gives me this whole thing, and then she walked me to, "Mr. Robbins," you know, she says, "I never dreamed I'd live in a castle," 'cause I had a place called the Rover Castle.

Lewis Howes 2:23 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 2:23 "And I, and I just wanna thank you. I feel like a princess." She goes-

Lewis Howes 2:26 Uh-huh

Tony Robbins 2:26 ... "Last night I was sitting in a jacuzzi looking out at the water and thinking how lucky I am," and I'm in the Ramada Inn in those days. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 2:31 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 2:32 Looking at this moose head going, "This woman is really rich." So I finally decided, listen, if I can make a, you know, 38,000, a million, that like, it's not about money, it's like growth.

Lewis Howes 2:40 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 2:40 So I went, you know, I wanna make 3 million, but I wanna make more of it while I sleep. And, but then I really be- began to realize it doesn't matter how much money you make.

Lewis Howes 2:47 Mm.

Tony Robbins 2:47 It's really your capacity to take your creativity and stop trading time for money. It's the worst trade in the world. Everybody's a financial trader.

Lewis Howes 2:54 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 2:54 They don't realize they're a trader. They're trading time, and you can't get more time.

Lewis Howes 2:57 Right.

Tony Robbins 2:57 So this book is how to take anybody, an average person, a millennial just getting outta college with a bunch of debt and saying, "How do I really make this work?" Or a baby boomer saying, "How do I still retire?"

Lewis Howes 3:06 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 3:06 And the way I did it was I said, I want to interview 50 of the most brilliant financial people in the world. 'Cause most people don't know that I've, I've been working with Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 financial traders in history, for 21 straight years, and he hasn't lost money in one year in 21 years.

Lewis Howes 3:20 Right.

Tony Robbins 3:21 We made money in the, the tech blow- you know, blow up that happened in 2000 and 9/11. In 2008 when the market was down 51% from top to bottom, he made 28% positive. Right?

Lewis Howes 3:31 Incredible.

Tony Robbins 3:32 So every day, literally, he emails me. I monitor him. I come see him. I work with him, and he pays me seven figures a year to be able to do this, and I've been able to continually help him go to the next level.

Lewis Howes 3:41 Mm.

Tony Robbins 3:41 But quite frankly, I've learned more from him, I think, than I could ever teach him.

Lewis Howes 3:44 Right. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 3:45 And he helped me open these doors. So this book-

Lewis Howes 3:47 Mm-hmm

Tony Robbins 3:47 ... is the best from every self-made billionaire that I could find. Carl Icahn, I mean, I'm sitting down with this guy. He just made $2 billion in the last 18 months off a $30 million investment off Netflix. He sent an email or a, a tweet out-

Lewis Howes 4:00 A tweet out

Tony Robbins 4:00 ... a- about Apple-

Lewis Howes 4:01 He said-

Tony Robbins 4:01 ... saying it was undervalued, and became, two hours later it was worth 17 billion more by a tweet.

Lewis Howes 4:06 Wow.

Tony Robbins 4:06 So the people I've got to hang with over the last three, four years have been... I've got a PhD in finance from the people controlling the world's finance, and what I've tried to do is, the reason I did that, is make it simple, bring it so I could train anybody else.

Lewis Howes 4:18 Mm.

Tony Robbins 4:18 'Cause in this business, what you don't know will hurt you financially.

Lewis Howes 4:21 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 4:21 So I wanna know how to protect people and how to help people maximize, and that's-

Lewis Howes 4:24 Right

Tony Robbins 4:24 ... why I did the book.

Lewis Howes 4:24 It's, it's incredible. And what I wanna know is why we weren't taught these things growing up. You know?

Tony Robbins 4:29 Me too. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 4:30 Why-

Tony Robbins 4:30 Tell me. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 4:30 Right? So if you were, if, if they were like, "Okay, Tony, we're giving you the, the key to the education system-"

Tony Robbins 4:36 Yeah

Lewis Howes 4:36 ... and how would you apply, what teachings would you apply into about finances? Learning about this, how to generate wealth as opposed to trading time for money, but really-

Tony Robbins 4:45 Yeah

Lewis Howes 4:45 ... leveraging it and investing it-

Tony Robbins 4:46 Yes

Lewis Howes 4:46 ... the right way. What would you start implementing?

Tony Robbins 4:48 Well, the first thing you wanna teach anybody, a, a, a child, a kid, anybody, is that you'll never earn your way to freedom.

Lewis Howes 4:54 Mm.

Tony Robbins 4:54 You just don't. You look around and you see, you know, Curt Schilling, if you remember, from Boston Red Sox.

Lewis Howes 4:58 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 4:58 Made $100 million a year. He's broke, bankrupt. I asked Warren Buffet, I said, "What made you the wealthiest man in the world?" And he smiled and he said, "Three things." He said, "Living in America," so great opportunities.

Lewis Howes 5:08 Mm.

Tony Robbins 5:08 "Having good genes so I lived a long time." And he said, "The last thing is compounded interest."

Lewis Howes 5:12 Mm.

Tony Robbins 5:12 And we all know about compound interest, but I, I give an example in the book of this guy, Theodore Johnson, worked for UPS. Never made more than 14,000 in income in his entire life in a year. And in old age, he was worth $70 million. And how'd he do it? All he did was he took a percentage of his income. His percentage was 20%.

Lewis Howes 5:30 Mm.

Tony Robbins 5:31 Now, his family said, "You can't, we can't save any money."

Lewis Howes 5:33 Right.

Tony Robbins 5:34 But he met a friend who said, "If you pretend there's a tax, and the tax just took the money away from you, and you never see it, the money just comes out of your account and goes in an investment account, you'll be financially free." And so he was disciplined. He didn't look at it. It happened. $70 million by compounding. So people's mistake is, and kids don't know this, adults don't know this, that you won't earn your way there, but you can compound your way there.

Lewis Howes 5:54 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 5:54 What I wanted to do is say, "Where do you put that money?" And not from me.

Lewis Howes 5:57 That's the trick, right? It's like-

Tony Robbins 5:58 That's the secret. Well, the first trick is actually doing. Almost nobody does.

Lewis Howes 6:01 Right.

Tony Robbins 6:01 The second trick is you really have to understand where you're gonna get hurt because-

Lewis Howes 6:05 Mm, the fees

Tony Robbins 6:06 ... the fees are, just destroy people. You're correct.

Lewis Howes 6:07 You have a whole chapter about the fees, and I was like, "This is incredible."

Tony Robbins 6:09 Isn't it wild?

Lewis Howes 6:10 It's nuts.

Tony Robbins 6:11 How do you-

Lewis Howes 6:11 Like, you lose so much money just on the fees.

Tony Robbins 6:13 Well, uh, just so people have a, an understanding. 96% of all mutual funds-

Lewis Howes 6:18 Mm

Tony Robbins 6:18 ... never match the market, meaning they never beat the market.

Lewis Howes 6:20 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 6:20 So I was just on a m- morning show this morning and, um, and Michael Bloomberg's, uh, one of his guys now has some of his money. So I'm, you know... This is the only industry I know of where people think they can be a doctor, they think they can be a financial planner.

Lewis Howes 6:32 Mm.

Tony Robbins 6:32 And I said to him, I said, "Well, look, the statistics," Warren Buffett taught me this, is that Ray Dalio told me this, uh, David Swensen, who took Yale from one billion to 24 billion-

Lewis Howes 6:40 Mm

Tony Robbins 6:40 ... in two decades. These are people telling me this.

Lewis Howes 6:42 Right. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 6:42 Nobody beats the market except a couple unicorns that nobody has access to.

Lewis Howes 6:46 Sure.

Tony Robbins 6:46 And I said, I didn't say, "You're not one of them." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 6:48 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 6:48 But I said, "Here's the truth. 96% of mutual funds don't match the market." That means 4% succeed.

Lewis Howes 6:54 Mm.

Tony Robbins 6:54 Now, what are your chances of picking the right mutual fund? People don't know what they're doing. They put their money in a 401 [k] . They pick-

Lewis Howes 7:00 Yeah

Tony Robbins 7:00 ... a mutual fund not knowing what it is. If you play blackjack, and you and I play and you get two face cards, and your inner idiot says, "Hit me-"

Lewis Howes 7:07 It's stupid. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 7:07 ... "I wanna, I wanna..." You have one chance in a million where you go, "Ace."

Lewis Howes 7:10 Right.

Tony Robbins 7:10 You have an 8% chance of winning.

Lewis Howes 7:11 Right.

Tony Robbins 7:12 If you try to get a mutual fund, you got the 4% chance of winning. So what I show people is not only do you not get the result-

Lewis Howes 7:17 Mm

Tony Robbins 7:17 ... thinking logically, if I hire someone else to do it, they'll do better than me, but in addition, you pay around 2,000% more than it's worth, meaning you get the same exact product-

Lewis Howes 7:27 Mm

Tony Robbins 7:27 ... the same stocks. If you own the index, right, you own a piece of all America's-

Lewis Howes 7:31 Yeah

Tony Robbins 7:31 ... best companies. Say, the Vanguard 500 Index, 500 top companies. That costs .17%.

Lewis Howes 7:37 Mm.

Tony Robbins 7:37 Like, less than 2/10 of a percent versus the average mutual fund is 3.17.

Lewis Howes 7:42 It's incredible.

Tony Robbins 7:43 So you get the idea.

Lewis Howes 7:43 And compounded over, and compounded over time.

Tony Robbins 7:45 Compounded over time. But l- but first just hear that so you understand. It's like if y- the average car sold in America is a Honda Civic. It's $20,000. You can get the Honda Civic for 20,000 or you can pay 350,000. That's the difference between .17-

Lewis Howes 7:57 Wow

Tony Robbins 7:57 ... and 317. But if you look at it over a period of, like... How old are you?

Lewis Howes 8:02 31.

Tony Robbins 8:02 31, okay. So let's assume you and a g- a buddies at 35 manage to put aside 100 grand, and you manage not to add any more money but to grow it at 7% in spite of ups and downs in the market, and you're 65. How much money do you have? Well, if you paid 1% in fees, over those 30 years, your 100 grand became 574,000 bucks. Not bad for never adding another dime.

Lewis Howes 8:23 Right.

Tony Robbins 8:23 If you had 3% in fees, had the same growth but 3% in fees, you now have 300-

Lewis Howes 8:28 Oh

Tony Robbins 8:29 ... and 24,000.

Lewis Howes 8:30 Almost, almost half as much.

Tony Robbins 8:31 A quarter million dollars, 77%-

Lewis Howes 8:32 Oh

Tony Robbins 8:33 ... less money.

Lewis Howes 8:34 Wow.

Tony Robbins 8:34 And, and you had the same return. It was just the fees. So the world, most people you ask them, "What are your fees?" They have no clue.

Lewis Howes 8:39 Right.

Tony Robbins 8:40 So I've created a site where people can go. They can type it in. You find exactly what your fees are-

Lewis Howes 8:43 Right

Tony Robbins 8:43 ... and what you should be paying, and it just, it's highway robbery. Where in the world would you pay 2,000 doll- 2,000% more for the same exact product? You can only do it-

Lewis Howes 8:51 Mm

Tony Robbins 8:51 ... because the financial industry makes things so opaque, so convoluted, and people feel overwhelmed. They don't know how it works.

Lewis Howes 8:57 And hard to understand. It's like-

Tony Robbins 8:58 Very hard to understand. That's why I try to come in here and go, "Look, time to become the chess player-"

Lewis Howes 9:02 Yes

Tony Robbins 9:02 ... "not the chess piece."

Lewis Howes 9:03 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 9:03 Let me teach you so you understand what's going on. It's not that complex. They use all these-

Lewis Howes 9:07 Mm

Tony Robbins 9:07 ... big words.

Lewis Howes 9:08 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 9:08 But when you know what's going on, you don't get screwed, and more importantly, you take advantage of the system instead of letting the system take advantage of you.

Lewis Howes 9:13 Yeah, I like that. Now, you've coached some of the world's greatest athletes-

Tony Robbins 9:17 Yes

Lewis Howes 9:17 ... former presidents-

Tony Robbins 9:18 Yes

Lewis Howes 9:19 ... biggest CEOs.

Lewis Howes 9:20 Who, who coaches you? I've g- I've had a lot of people asking me to ask you this question.

Tony Robbins 9:23 Yeah. I-

Lewis Howes 9:24 Who mentors you? Who coaches you today?

Tony Robbins 9:26 I've, I have always looked for people that were playing the game at a different level than I am and/or, or knew the road ahead.

Lewis Howes 9:32 Mm.

Tony Robbins 9:32 I always tell people, um, anticipation is power. If you ever play a video game against a child, it's pretty disastrous, right?

Lewis Howes 9:38 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 9:38 Maybe not for you. You're maybe a different generation, but for me, it's like, you know, it's not the kid is faster and smarter, it's they've played this game before-

Lewis Howes 9:44 They have. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 9:45 ... like 8 million times. So they know the first shot's here, the second shot's here-

Lewis Howes 9:48 Right

Tony Robbins 9:48 ... the third shot there, and you're, like, reacting. So when you're reacting to things, you fail. So my mentors have been people over the year, different people. My earliest mentor was a man named Jim Rohn.

Lewis Howes 9:56 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 9:56 He was a personal development speaker, just touched my life. Then I was involved in neuro-linguistic programming, NLP, when I was, gosh, 21, 22, 23 years old. I became partners with a man named John Grinder. Brilliant man.

Lewis Howes 10:07 Mm.

Tony Robbins 10:07 Co-founder of that. But in my last couple decades, it's been people like Peter Guber, who's, owns the-

Lewis Howes 10:12 Yeah

Tony Robbins 10:13 ... the LA Dodgers and, and owns, uh, you know, the, the Golden State Warriors NBA team, and he's just brilliant. He's got 52 Academy Award nominations.

Lewis Howes 10:19 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 10:19 So he's a, a mentor for me. Um, uh, Paul Tudor Jones, I coach, but also I'm coached by him 'cause-

Lewis Howes 10:24 Wow

Tony Robbins 10:24 ... we get to pitch and catch. Um, and then, you know, I've got some people in my life that, you know, like Steve Wynn is a dear friend of mine.

Lewis Howes 10:31 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 10:31 Built, built most of Las Vegas.

Lewis Howes 10:32 Man, he's, he's brilliant.

Tony Robbins 10:32 And these guys are all 18 years my senior, so they know the road ahead, and I'm able to learn from them in advance and then kind of anticipate things.

Lewis Howes 10:40 Mm.

Tony Robbins 10:40 And that to me is incredibly valuable.

Lewis Howes 10:41 Yeah, very cool.

Lewis Howes 10:42 Now, I wanna ask you how you personally handle a breakdown.

Tony Robbins 10:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 10:45 'Cause you, I've been to your workshop, and, uh, incredible experience.

Tony Robbins 10:49 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 10:50 And you teach people how, how to overcome their fears-

Tony Robbins 10:52 Yeah

Lewis Howes 10:52 ... and how to handle breakdowns.

Tony Robbins 10:53 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 10:53 But how do you personally deal with it, and do you even have any breakdowns?

Tony Robbins 10:56 Yeah, I, I, uh, they sent me a list of questions you had just to kinda give me a-

Lewis Howes 10:58 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 10:58 ... peek, and that was one of the questions, and I was like, you know, uh, it's interesting. It, it's, breakdowns, it's certainly not something I experience, but it's not 'cause I'm so talented or so-

Lewis Howes 11:07 Mm-hmm

Tony Robbins 11:07 ... brilliant or so fearless. It's just you're like an athlete. You're an athlete.

Lewis Howes 11:11 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 11:11 You're in shape.

Lewis Howes 11:12 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 11:12 Right? You're not gonna have a reaction in your body like somebody who doesn't take care of themselves.

Lewis Howes 11:16 Right.

Tony Robbins 11:16 So, you know, I believe n- I don't believe in emotional intelligence. I think it's useful, but I'm-

Lewis Howes 11:20 Mm

Tony Robbins 11:20 ... more interested in emotional fitness.

Lewis Howes 11:22 Mm.

Tony Robbins 11:22 'Cause intelligence is a capability. Fitness is a state of readiness.

Lewis Howes 11:26 Interesting.

Tony Robbins 11:26 If you are fit, you can take that demand right now, and you can deal with it. You can deal with that physical stress, that emotional stress. Same thing's true with psychological fitness, emotional fitness, right? So I'm, I'm pretty fit, and part of that is not 'cause I'm so smart. Part of it is that I, I've taught this for decades.

Lewis Howes 11:40 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 11:40 I remember I had a woman who came to one of my seminars in, um, in her, I don't know, early 80s probably, and she would run in this room, 5,000, 10,000 people. I think it was, you know, two or a couple of 10,000 person events, and she would get in this front row and fight her way through there. And she'd jump and go for it. At one break, she came up to me. I was signing a book for her, and she says, uh, she goes, "Mr. Robbins, I've seen you at, like, eight of these."

Lewis Howes 11:58 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 11:59 She goes, "I've seen you, like, when you're really... I know. I can hear your voice."

Lewis Howes 12:02 Uh-huh.

Tony Robbins 12:02 "You're hurting, or you haven't slept." And she goes, "You always seem to be so up all the time."

Lewis Howes 12:06 Right.

Tony Robbins 12:06 "How come you're so up?" And I said, "Well, part of it is I attend all these seminars." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 12:09 Yeah, yeah.

Tony Robbins 12:09 "So I'm teaching it." So, uh, there's a fitness of that, but there's also, you know, I've, I've buried three fathers and, and one mother, and, you know-

Lewis Howes 12:17 Mm

Tony Robbins 12:17 ... that affects your life. I've, uh, you know, I've had a physician look me in the eye and say, "You have a tumor in your brain."

Lewis Howes 12:22 Wow.

Tony Robbins 12:23 And so I've had those moments that- When you've had extreme stress and you push your way through it, you build psychological muscle.

Lewis Howes 12:30 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 12:30 And it's like it takes a lot to knock me off. You know, in the early days we didn't have $50,000 to keep the doors open, how do we do it? Then I had, you know, graduated to five million [laughs] then I graduated to, uh, a partner that, uh, mine who kind of didn't do things well and I ended up owning $100 million 'cause I had to take on his debts.

Lewis Howes 12:45 Uh huh.

Tony Robbins 12:45 $100 million. And but when you do all that stuff, you know, now my companies do five billion-

Lewis Howes 12:50 Right

Tony Robbins 12:50 ... a year, so, uh, w- you, you, you keep expanding what I would call really the circle of your, the threshold of your influence.

Lewis Howes 12:58 Sure.

Tony Robbins 12:59 You know, everybody has a threshold of control, and if you get beyond it you kind of freak out. So i- it takes a little bit more, I don't have, I can't really-

Lewis Howes 13:05 So you don't have breakdowns?

Tony Robbins 13:06 I never breakdown. Do I get pissed off or get frustrated-

Lewis Howes 13:09 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 13:09 ... or tired? Yeah, but a breakdown, honestly, no.

Lewis Howes 13:12 So, so how do you handle it if you get tired of something?

Tony Robbins 13:14 I sleep. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 13:15 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 13:16 When I can.

Lewis Howes 13:17 Okay, cool. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 13:17 I mean, it's honestly, it's pretty simple. But you know, when I've, when I've had, uh, challenging times, I mean, I have so many tools-

Lewis Howes 13:23 Yeah

Tony Robbins 13:23 ... um, you know, I, I-

Lewis Howes 13:24 Doesn't happen

Tony Robbins 13:24 ... I pull them out.

Lewis Howes 13:25 Get back to it.

Tony Robbins 13:25 And mostly it's, so it's like you as an athlete, you know? You don't just physically break down.

Lewis Howes 13:29 Right.

Tony Robbins 13:29 You take care of yourself, so I think-

Lewis Howes 13:30 You're constantly training that, that muscle

Tony Robbins 13:31 ... I think most people don't train their mind and emotions.

Lewis Howes 13:34 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 13:34 It's like I think the most powerful muscles to me are not physical, as strong, as important as they are, it's like faith is a muscle.

Lewis Howes 13:40 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 13:40 Courage is a muscle. Determination is a muscle. Playfulness is a muscle. You know, passion unexpressed weakens. You know? Faith untested gets smaller.

Lewis Howes 13:50 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 13:50 So, uh, I'm always, I, I, I call it deep practice, I'm always pushing myself to the edge.

Lewis Howes 13:54 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 13:54 And pushing yourself to the edge makes you stronger.

Lewis Howes 13:56 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 13:56 You know?

Lewis Howes 13:57 In the book, uh, I was really excited to hear you talk about, you say the, um, "Secret to wealth is gratitude."

Tony Robbins 14:02 Yes.

Lewis Howes 14:02 Somewhere in the book it says that.

Tony Robbins 14:03 Yes.

Lewis Howes 14:03 And I think maybe it was someone else you were referencing.

Tony Robbins 14:05 Yes, it, it came from Sir John Templeton.

Lewis Howes 14:07 And every day I practice gratitude.

Tony Robbins 14:09 Oh, that's wonderful.

Lewis Howes 14:09 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-

Tony Robbins 14:14 Yeah

Lewis Howes 14:14 ... three things I'm most grateful for.

Tony Robbins 14:15 That's great.

Lewis Howes 14:16 Now why, so I was, I was pleased to see that. I was like, "I'm on the right track if I'm living-

Tony Robbins 14:20 Yeah

Lewis Howes 14:20 ... in gratitude," but why is that the secret to wealth?

Tony Robbins 14:22 Well, uh, Sir John Templeton's probably one of the greatest investors in history. He, people don't know his name. Uh, he started out with nothing.

Lewis Howes 14:28 Mm.

Tony Robbins 14:28 Um, he wasn't Sir, he wasn't from another country-

Lewis Howes 14:31 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 14:31 ... he came 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.

Lewis Howes 14:37 Uh huh.

Tony Robbins 14:37 And when Hitler invaded Poland he developed a belief. And his belief was you make your money in times of maximum pessimism. Like if you were around in 2000-

Lewis Howes 14:46 Really?

Tony Robbins 14:46 ... eight, nine-

Lewis Howes 14:47 Yeah

Tony Robbins 14:47 ... you remember what it was like, right?

Lewis Howes 14:48 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 14:49 You could have bought, you know, the Sands in Las Vegas, you could have bought their stock for $2.28, today it's $67.

Lewis Howes 14:55 Wow.

Tony Robbins 14:55 It's a 3000% return.

Lewis Howes 14:56 That's not bad.

Tony Robbins 14:57 Um, you could have bought S- uh, Citibank for less than a buck.

Lewis Howes 15:01 Mm.

Tony Robbins 15:01 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 $10,000, he bought every stock on the 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.

Lewis Howes 15:16 Right.

Tony Robbins 15:16 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.

Lewis Howes 15:21 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 15:21 So o- once we got through World War II and a few years later, guess what? Those same stocks made him a billionaire.

Lewis Howes 15:27 Wow.

Tony Robbins 15:27 So when I asked him, I said, "What's the secret to wealth?" His response really 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."

Lewis Howes 15:41 [laughs] Right.

Tony Robbins 15:42 But if you have nothing but you're euphorically grateful for whatever you have, you are the richest person that you're gonna know.

Lewis Howes 15:48 Mm.

Tony Robbins 15:48 He said, "So 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 it priming where I get up every morning-

Lewis Howes 15:54 Mm

Tony Robbins 15:54 ... I do mine in the morning. It does radical change to my body, kind of alter my state, and then I do 10 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-

Lewis Howes 16:06 Yeah

Tony Robbins 16:06 ... instead of something giant. You know, the wind-

Lewis Howes 16:08 Right

Tony Robbins 16:08 ... in my face.

Lewis Howes 16:08 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 16:09 The look in one of my kids' eyes. You know, something of that nature. And then I do three minutes of strength and healing, and I do three minutes of what I'm gonna create in my world, and I do that for a minimum of 10 minutes every day-

Lewis Howes 16:17 Yeah

Tony Robbins 16:17 ... 'cause I believe you have to condition it. You don't just-

Lewis Howes 16:19 Mm

Tony Robbins 16:19 ... hope that stuff shows up.

Lewis Howes 16:21 You set your intention each morning through that.

Tony Robbins 16:22 No, no, every day.

Lewis Howes 16:23 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 16:23 Every day.

Lewis Howes 16:23 Very cool. So what are you most grateful for recently in your life?

Tony Robbins 16:27 Gosh, so many things. Um, well, it's Thanksgiving so one piece... Well, one is my, my daughter is 40 years old and she's, she's been wanting-

Lewis Howes 16:35 Wow

Tony Robbins 16:35 ... a child forever and she's gonna bring me a grandson-

Lewis Howes 16:37 Wow

Tony Robbins 16:37 ... in a few months, which is kind of cool.

Lewis Howes 16:38 Congratulations.

Tony Robbins 16:39 Thank you very much.

Lewis Howes 16:40 That's cool. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 16:40 Um, but also it's Thanksgiving so for me it's a very emotional time because my family was fed when I was 11, we had no food at Thanksgiving-

Lewis Howes 16:47 Mm

Tony Robbins 16:47 ... and, uh, it touched me so deeply and I decided I was gonna give back. So when I was 17 I fed two families, and then four, and then eight, and the neighbor didn't tell me they was doing it.

Lewis Howes 16:55 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 16:55 And then I got my friends to do it and my companies grew and, you know, I've fed 42 million people now-

Lewis Howes 17:00 Mm

Tony Robbins 17:00 ... over 37 years. And, uh, what I've been doing-

Lewis Howes 17:02 But you have a challenge for this, right? 100 million.

Tony Robbins 17:04 Uh, well, with this one what I did is I decided, you know, I'm writing this book, and in the middle of writing it last summer most people didn't even notice Congress cut food stamps.

Lewis Howes 17:11 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 17:11 They don't call them food stamps anymore, but I lived on them so I know what they are, [laughs] food stamps.

Lewis Howes 17:14 Right.

Tony Robbins 17:14 With my family, family lived on them. But they cut it by 8.7 billion-

Lewis Howes 17:18 Mm

Tony Robbins 17:18 ... which means you eliminate two million people from the rolls overnight, and they still need to eat.

Lewis Howes 17:22 Wow.

Tony Robbins 17:22 So I support all these non-profit 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-

Lewis Howes 17:35 Right

Tony Robbins 17:35 ... so I feed four million a year. And, uh, they said, "You could feed 10 million people." I was like, "Wow." I mean-

Lewis Howes 17:41 Wow. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 17:41 And then, and then as the year's gone by I've gotten more and more inspired, and so now I'm gonna feed 50 million people personally, 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-

Lewis Howes 17:53 Mm

Tony Robbins 17:53 ... 100 million people.

Lewis Howes 17:54 Incredible.

Tony Robbins 17:54 So to go from my family not being able to eat to feeding 100 million people is a pretty amazing sense of gratitude-

Lewis Howes 18:00 Mm-hmm

Tony Robbins 18:01 ... and a sense of grace.

Lewis Howes 18:02 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 18:02 And I've done my part, but there's been grace in that as well.

Lewis Howes 18:04 That's amazing. It's, it's incredible what you're doing and very inspiring, so thank you for-

Tony Robbins 18:07 Thank you

Lewis Howes 18:07 ... for doing that.

Tony Robbins 18:08 So anybody who gets the book, [laughs] you know-

Lewis Howes 18:09 You're feeding families

Tony Robbins 18:10 ... I'm not getting any profits for you.

Lewis Howes 18:11 Yeah, yeah.

Tony Robbins 18:11 Um, but it'll also feed on average 50 families every book.

Lewis Howes 18:13 Yeah. 100% is being donated.

Tony Robbins 18:15 100%.

Lewis Howes 18:15 100%.

Tony Robbins 18:15 No, wait, not only 100%, more than 100%.

Lewis Howes 18:17 More than that.

Tony Robbins 18:18 Yes.

Lewis Howes 18:18 That's amazing.

Tony Robbins 18:19 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 18:19 Now, I think I also read in the book, I don't know if you said this or someone else said this-

Tony Robbins 18:22 Yeah

Lewis Howes 18:22 ... but the key to living is giving.

Tony Robbins 18:24 Yes.

Lewis Howes 18:25 Now, I think I might have heard you say this actually back when I first saw you when I was 16 at an event.

Tony Robbins 18:31 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 18:34 I remember thinking, "I don't have anything to give." I don't have any money, you know, I'm... How am I supposed to invest my money-

Tony Robbins 18:39 Yeah

Lewis Howes 18:39 ... 10, 20% every month-

Tony Robbins 18:40 Yeah

Lewis Howes 18:40 ... and then how can I give on top of that?

Tony Robbins 18:42 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 18:43 But I really understood that, you know, it's so valuable and important to give.

Tony Robbins 18:46 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 18:46 And I work with a lot of nonprofits myself-

Tony Robbins 18:48 That's wonderful

Lewis Howes 18:48 ... building schools for kids around the world.

Tony Robbins 18:50 That's wonderful.

Lewis Howes 18:50 And, uh, I've seen a big impact in my life-

Tony Robbins 18:53 Well-

Lewis Howes 18:53 ... and the way I'm able to serve people

Tony Robbins 18:54 ... Sir John Templeton told me that, uh, he's never seen anyone tithe, which, you know, tithing is usually 10% of what you earn, for at least a decade who didn't become incredibly financially free.

Lewis Howes 19:04 Wow.

Tony Robbins 19:04 And I think the reason is, uh, I had a moment like when my whole life changed. It w- it was kinda twofold. I had... I was, I was really young, like yourself back then, right? Working my tail off, trying to build a business.

Lewis Howes 19:14 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 19:14 And you have big goals, you know?

Lewis Howes 19:16 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 19:16 You don't always succeed to start with.

Lewis Howes 19:17 Right, right. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 19:17 Things just come together, right? You know, it was hard. And I remember I was so frustrated because I was working 18-hour days and nothing was working, and I was broke, and I felt embarrassed, you know?

Lewis Howes 19:26 Mm.

Tony Robbins 19:26 I should be doing better than this.

Lewis Howes 19:28 Sure.

Tony Robbins 19:28 And so I was driving home from Orange County on the 57 Freeway in, in San Gabriel Valley, out near a place called Pomona, California.

Lewis Howes 19:34 Uh-huh.

Tony Robbins 19:34 It probably doesn't help anybody else, but I can remember it so vividly-

Lewis Howes 19:36 Uh-huh

Tony Robbins 19:36 ... 'cause 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."

Lewis Howes 19:49 Mm.

Tony Robbins 19:49 And I started to cry. And I realized I am so focused on what am I not getting-

Lewis Howes 19:53 Receiving

Tony Robbins 19:54 ... I'm not focusing on what I'm giving.

Lewis Howes 19:55 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 19:55 So for six months, man, it, it turned me around. But then, you know, something has to get in your body. It was in my head, it was in my heart, but it had to get-

Lewis Howes 20:02 Wow

Tony Robbins 20:02 ... in there to stay.

Lewis Howes 20:03 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 20:03 And I started getting through some really tough times, and I lost everything financially.

Lewis Howes 20:07 Mm.

Tony Robbins 20:07 And I was mad at everybody, 'cause like I'd loaned a friend 1,000 bucks and, you know, I'd been doing well, and he, he didn't even return my phone call.

Lewis Howes 20:13 Oh.

Tony Robbins 20:14 And what changed me was I, I was down to, I don't know, 22, 23 bucks, something like that. I don't know if it was $24. Enough that I knew that I didn't have money for food for the next week, clearly.

Lewis Howes 20:22 [laughs] Right.

Tony Robbins 20:23 And I didn't have any prospects.

Lewis Howes 20:24 Mm.

Tony Robbins 20:24 And I was living in Venice in this 400 square foot bachelor apartment feeling sorry for myself-

Lewis Howes 20:27 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 20:28 ... and getting pissed off. And I thought, "You know what? I gotta eat, so I'm not gonna drive my car 'cause I'm not gonna spend the gas. I'm not gonna pay for parking."

Lewis Howes 20:35 Sure.

Tony Robbins 20:35 "I'm gonna go to an all you can eat place and load up for the winter, right?"

Lewis Howes 20:38 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 20:38 "So I can get more, like one meal a day."

Lewis Howes 20:40 Right.

Tony Robbins 20:41 And so, uh, in, there's a place called Marina del Rey not far from Venice.

Lewis Howes 20:45 Mm.

Tony Robbins 20:45 And it's a beautiful community, and it's-

Lewis Howes 20:46 Very beautiful

Tony Robbins 20:46 ... right on the water. And there's a place called El Torito. It's still there. It's a little ta- uh, uh, restaurant. It had taco bar and all that kind of stuff. So I walked there for the three miles, and I go, "Okay, I'm gonna go in and load up." And it was all about myself and getting through this, and this little, well, this woman walked through the door. Actually, a very attractive lady. That's probably why it caught my attention.

Lewis Howes 21:03 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 21:03 And I'm waiting to see who her boyfriend is, and there's nobody up there. There's this little guy down here, and it was obviously her son.

Lewis Howes 21:09 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 21:09 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 in his mother's eyes.

Lewis Howes 21:17 Mm.

Tony Robbins 21:17 I mean, it was just, he pierced into her eyes. I don't, I don't know what it was, but something about him was just so moving. It was such a sweet, caring, loving young man to his-

Lewis Howes 21:25 Mm

Tony Robbins 21:25 ... mother that it moved me. So I, I paid for my meal. I don't know what was left, 17, 18 bucks. Put it back in my pocket, what was left. Walked up to this young man, introduced myself. And I said, "Hi," I don't remember his name, but I think he said his name was Ronnie. And I said, "Ronnie," I said, uh, I said, "You're really," I said, "You're a class act." I said, "I saw how you opened the door for your lady."

Lewis Howes 21:42 Mm.

Tony Robbins 21:42 "I saw you held out the chair for your lady." He goes, "She's my mom."

Lewis Howes 21:44 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 21:45 I said, "That's even more classy."

Lewis Howes 21:47 Right.

Tony Robbins 21:47 Right? And he s- And I said, "So cool that you're taking her out to lunch like this." And he goes, "Well, I'm not really taking her to lunch 'cause I'm just 11 and I don't, I don't have a job, you know?"

Lewis Howes 21:54 Right.

Tony Robbins 21:55 I said, "Yes, you are." And I had no plan. I literally, I just reached in my pocket, took all the money I had, change, dollar bills, and pff-

Lewis Howes 22:00 Wow

Tony Robbins 22:00 ... threw it right there in front of him. He looked at me like this. He goes, "I can't take that." I said, "Sure you can." He said, "Well, why?" I said, " 'Cause I'm bigger than you are."

Lewis Howes 22:07 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 22:07 And he got this big grin on his face. His eyes got this big, and I didn't... I just shook his hand. I didn't even look at this wi- his mom, and, and I just walked out the door. But the reason I tell you the story is I had no car, I had no money.

Lewis Howes 22:18 Mm.

Tony Robbins 22:19 I did not... I was euphoric. I was, like, flying home. I mean, it was like, you know, I probably looked like an idiot, probably skipping or something. I mean, I was just-

Lewis Howes 22:26 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 22:26 I... And what I felt was I should've been like-

Lewis Howes 22:29 Mm

Tony Robbins 22:29 ... "What the hell did you just do? I have no meal. Where are we gonna eat?"

Lewis Howes 22:31 Right.

Tony Robbins 22:32 I went home that night. I laid out a plan, and the plan was gonna take me, you know, 10 days, two weeks. So I thought, "Well, people fast for a week. I can fast for a week."

Lewis Howes 22:39 Mm. Right, right.

Tony Robbins 22:40 You know, that type of thing. And I had 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 who wouldn't return my call. I open it up, there's a check.

Lewis Howes 22:49 Wow.

Tony Robbins 22:49 1,000 bucks plus interest and an apology.

Lewis Howes 22:52 Wow.

Tony Robbins 22:52 So I'm sitting there, and I, and I started to cry, honestly, and I was just like, "Why did this happen?" You know?

Lewis Howes 22:58 Mm.

Tony Robbins 22:58 And I don't know if it's true, but I decided that day this happened 'cause I did the right thing.

Lewis Howes 23:01 Mm.

Tony Robbins 23:02 'Cause I didn't have a plan. It wasn't a strategy. I just felt this little soul beside me, and I knew it was right, and I did it.

Lewis Howes 23:07 Right.

Tony Robbins 23:07 And I didn't do it 'cause 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, 'cause I-

Lewis Howes 23:13 Wow

Tony Robbins 23:13 ... didn't have any money, but scarcity left my body. And I had 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?"

Lewis Howes 23:24 Right. Yeah.

Tony Robbins 23:24 It's like breathing. Do you stop and say, "God, is there gonna be any air?" Before you take a breath?

Lewis Howes 23:28 Right.

Tony Robbins 23:28 You know it's gonna be there.

Lewis Howes 23:29 Right.

Tony Robbins 23:30 You don't, you don't run your life by that aspect.

Lewis Howes 23:32 Right.

Tony Robbins 23:32 And so that to me is what it's about, is showing people if you won't give a dime out of a dollar, don't bullshit yourself. You'll never give a million out of 10 million-

Lewis Howes 23:40 Right

Tony Robbins 23:40 ... or 10 million out of 100 million.

Lewis Howes 23:41 Right.

Tony Robbins 23:41 It's just not gonna happen.

Lewis Howes 23:42 Right.

Tony Robbins 23:42 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.

Lewis Howes 23:49 So how does someone, you know, when they're living in scarcity, living in fear-

Tony Robbins 23:52 Yeah

Lewis Howes 23:52 ... and it's like this emotional feeling. It's in your body, like you say.

Tony Robbins 23:55 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 23:55 When you're like, "I can't even pay for my meal."

Tony Robbins 23:57 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 23:57 "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-

Tony Robbins 24:05 Yeah

Lewis Howes 24:05 ... shifting it so that they're not living-

Tony Robbins 24:06 I tell you a couple things. I'll tell you what I did when I was first on my own. You know, I got... My dad, or my mom kicked my dad out when I was 17. She was a very powerful woman.

Lewis Howes 24:13 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 24:13 I had four fathers, so they all learned how to get the boot. She thought I was on his side, so she kicked me out next. I was 17.

Lewis Howes 24:18 Uh-huh.

Tony Robbins 24:18 She chased me out with a knife. She wouldn't have hurt me, but I wasn't going back in the room.

Lewis Howes 24:22 Wow.

Tony Robbins 24:22 And, um, and so I had to figure out what to do. And I end up, I stay and, you know, I ended up staying 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, so I tell people now, I say, "Number one, every single day you gotta feed and strengthen your mind."

Lewis Howes 24:38 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 24:38 Until you do that, you're always gonna be in fear.

Lewis Howes 24:40 Oh, yeah.

Tony Robbins 24:40 Because fear's automatic. The human brain is designed for survival. It's not designed for success.

Lewis Howes 24:45 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 24:45 Your brain is not designed to make you happy. That's your job.

Lewis Howes 24:47 Right.

Tony Robbins 24:47 And the only way you're gonna do it is if you feed your mind, 'cause otherwise weeds grow automatically. My J- my coach, you know, mentor, Jim Rohn, used to tell me, he said, "Tony, every day you gotta stand guard at the door of your mind."

Lewis Howes 24:56 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 24:56 "You gotta watch what's going in, 'cause if you're not careful, stuff will go in." And he said, "And a lot of the times it's somebody who cares about you." He said, "You know, if your-

Lewis Howes 25:03 Your family

Tony Robbins 25:03 ... y- yeah. If your worst enemy-

Lewis Howes 25:05 Yeah

Tony Robbins 25:05 ... 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."

Lewis Howes 25:14 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 25:15 He said, "So life's sugar and strychnine, and watch your coffee," right? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 25:17 Right, right.

Tony Robbins 25:18 So every day I decided, I, I, I'm old enough, honestly, there was no internet those days. [laughs] I'm pretty ancient. I used to go to the library 'cause it was the only place you could go.

Lewis Howes 25:25 Wow.

Tony Robbins 25:25 And I would feed, I'd read biographies.

Lewis Howes 25:27 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 25:27 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."

Lewis Howes 25:32 Sure.

Tony Robbins 25:32 "So there's something here." So you feed your mind. I, um, Jim Rohn used to say to me, "Skip a meal, but don't skip reading."

Lewis Howes 25:38 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 25:38 He said, "Read 30 minutes a day. I don't give a damn what it is."

Lewis Howes 25:40 Wow.

Tony Robbins 25:40 And today I don't mean internet crap. I mean read something that, a biography. Read something-

Lewis Howes 25:44 Hmm

Tony Robbins 25:44 ... that's a strategy. Read something that's gonna change your life. Then the second thing I tell people is feeding your mind's great, but you've gotta also strengthen your body.

Lewis Howes 25:50 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 25:50 And you do that as an athlete naturally.

Lewis Howes 25:52 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 25:52 I learned to do that because fear is physical.

Lewis Howes 25:55 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 25:55 Right? You know when 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-

Lewis Howes 26:01 [clears throat]

Tony Robbins 26:01 ... that experience alone changes your life. Every day of my life, the first thing I do before I do my priming, I have, if I'm at one of my homes, I jump in some hot water for fun, and then I jump in freezing water. And I have, you know, a river, you know, in one of my homes in Sun Valley, and I've got cold plunges everywhere else. So I go in 57 degree water.

Lewis Howes 26:17 Right. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 26:17 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.

Lewis Howes 26:23 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 26:23 It doesn't feel like it, it doesn't want to do it.

Lewis Howes 26:25 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 26:25 And every cell in your body's alive, right? So it doesn't have to be, like, two hours worth of something.

Lewis Howes 26:29 Right.

Tony Robbins 26:29 It can be something you do for 30 seconds. But it's training your body to be strong, 'cause-

Lewis Howes 26:34 Hmm

Tony Robbins 26:34 ... a strong body gets a strong mind, and vice versa.

Lewis Howes 26:36 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 26:36 The third thing I tell people is find a role model. You know, it, it seems impossible till you see somebody who's done it. So-

Lewis Howes 26:42 Yeah

Tony Robbins 26:42 ... 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.

Lewis Howes 26:50 Right.

Tony Robbins 26:50 Um, you know, he's worth $14 billion.

Lewis Howes 26:52 He found, he found-

Tony Robbins 26:52 How the hell did he do that?

Lewis Howes 26:53 ... someone to mentor him.

Tony Robbins 26:54 He found, well, he found multiple people to-

Lewis Howes 26:55 Right

Tony Robbins 26:56 ... to model, right?

Lewis Howes 26:57 Right, right.

Tony Robbins 26:57 And you, 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-

Lewis Howes 27:04 Mm-hmm

Tony Robbins 27:04 ... you start to believe. You start to get certainty. And then the 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.

Lewis Howes 27:12 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 27:12 'Cause when you do that, it gets you out of yourself.

Lewis Howes 27:15 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 27:15 And, and that's what I, I really have people do. That's what we do at Thanksgiving.

Lewis Howes 27:17 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 27:17 We have our Baskets Brigade, where two million people get fed.

Lewis Howes 27:19 Amazing.

Tony Robbins 27:20 Um, not, and the one I do, the one that I s- I get people to do.

Lewis Howes 27:23 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 27:23 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.

Lewis Howes 27:27 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 27:28 It puts life in perspective.

Lewis Howes 27:29 Yeah, very cool.

Lewis Howes 27:30 Now, talking about feeding the mind-

Tony Robbins 27:31 Yes

Lewis Howes 27:31 ... uh, if you could only leave three books behind-

Tony Robbins 27:34 To, to who? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:35 ... it's the end of your life. Three books behind to your, to your kids.

Tony Robbins 27:38 Yes.

Lewis Howes 27:38 And, uh, or the me- you know, the message to your, to the world of, like, "Here's the three most important books that you should read."

Tony Robbins 27:44 Gosh, that's tough.

Lewis Howes 27:45 What are those three books that you want-

Tony Robbins 27:46 All the books I've read? Three. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:47 [laughs] You wanna pick three.

Tony Robbins 27:49 That's a tough one. I, I don't know if I can do that, but I'll, I'll tell three off the top of my head.

Lewis Howes 27:52 Okay.

Tony Robbins 27:52 I'd say Man's Search for Meaning-

Lewis Howes 27:54 Uh-huh

Tony Robbins 27:54 ... of Viktor Frankl, um, because all of us in our lives are gonna experience extreme stress.

Lewis Howes 27:59 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 28:00 I don't care how much money you have, I don't care how many people love and respect you, you'll have your time.

Lewis Howes 28:04 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 28:04 It might be a health issue in your family, it might be something happens to the economy. There's, something happens to all of us. And so to see how people that were put in the most insane, unjust environment, people that were in Auschwitz, how they dealt with that unbelievable situation, and how the ones that thrived in spite of it, and to go through Viktor Frankl's way of understanding how to create meaning in your life, I don't think there's a, a more important book. I think maybe another one-

Lewis Howes 28:27 Hmm

Tony Robbins 28:27 ... might be As a Man Thinketh.

Lewis Howes 28:29 Uh-huh.

Tony Robbins 28:29 Because it's a book that you can read dozens of times in your life. It's small, and it's the core of everything. As you think, so you are. I mean, obviously the Bible's an extraordinary book, or whatever religious document a person believes. I, I'm personally a Christian, but I tell people whatever you believe-

Lewis Howes 28:42 Hmm

Tony Robbins 28:42 ... you need to practice it.

Lewis Howes 28:43 Interesting.

Tony Robbins 28:43 Whatever it is.

Lewis Howes 28:44 Right.

Tony Robbins 28:44 Um, 'cause there are many different ways of connecting, you know, to, to what has created us. And then, um, that's three already, but I'll give you one more. I think another one that's important would be-

Lewis Howes 28:53 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 28:54 ... um, understanding the life cycles of humanity.

Lewis Howes 28:57 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 28:58 There's a book called Generations. It's a big book. It's, I think 1,000 pages, 800 pages.

Lewis Howes 29:01 Bigger than this book. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 29:02 Uh, much bigger than this book. Um, but it's a book worth reading 'cause it shows you how as every hundred years, 80, 100 years, we run through the same cycles.

Lewis Howes 29:10 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 29:10 Like what we've just gone through economically in 2008-

Lewis Howes 29:13 Yeah

Tony Robbins 29:13 ... happened 80 years before. And, and you can go through 1,000 years of Roman history and you see it.

Lewis Howes 29:17 Hmm.

Tony Robbins 29:17 And when you begin to be able to anticipate what's coming, you know how to take advantage of the season. Some people freeze to death-

Lewis Howes 29:22 Yeah

Tony Robbins 29:22 ... in the winter. People that are prepared might snowboard or ski and have a good time.

Lewis Howes 29:25 Right.

Tony Robbins 29:26 So, uh, it's a brilliant book, and it's by Strauss and Howe.

Lewis Howes 29:29 Okay.

Tony Robbins 29:29 It's worth reading.

Lewis Howes 29:30 Cool. All right, so those are four. I'm, I'm curious, why didn't you recommend one of your books?

Tony Robbins 29:33 Uh, I, I, I don't think I'm the greatest book in history.

Lewis Howes 29:36 [laughs] I'm just teasing you.

Tony Robbins 29:37 I'd, I'd rather... I'd frankly have to put someone in an event.

Lewis Howes 29:39 [laughs] Exactly, yeah. Events are incredible. This is a, uh, a question from your son.

Tony Robbins 29:44 Yes.

Lewis Howes 29:44 And, uh, I said, "Is there any question you haven't asked your dad?"

Tony Robbins 29:47 Wow, that's fascinating.

Lewis Howes 29:47 "That you're still curious about." And he said, "Yeah." Uh, you know, he's pretty calm, actually. You know, he's a calm guy. He's not outrageous like you.

Tony Robbins 29:54 [laughs] He's pretty outrageous when he wants to be.

Lewis Howes 29:55 And he said, uh, he said, um, you know, "My dad does everything on such a big scale. Everything is big. Everything is huge, impactful. It's, like, the biggest it can be, the best it can be."

Tony Robbins 30:07 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 30:07 He said, "But I wonder what something small he's done that he's so proud of."

Tony Robbins 30:11 Hmm.

Lewis Howes 30:12 So is there something small you've done? You know, an example was-

Tony Robbins 30:15 I just-

Lewis Howes 30:15 ... you giving money to, you know, that child was a great example of that. But is there something recently you've done that's so small that you're, like, really proud of?

Tony Robbins 30:23 I know a, a lot of people don't think proud is a good term. I think it actually is

Lewis Howes 30:28 Mm.

Tony Robbins 30:28 Um, ego is edging God out. That's when you make shit up to make yourself feel good.

Lewis Howes 30:32 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 30:32 But I think if you've really done something, you know you have, and no one can take that from you.

Lewis Howes 30:36 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 30:36 And so I'm proud of who I am as a man. I'm proud of the things that, you know, what goes on when the camera's not on.

Lewis Howes 30:41 Mm.

Tony Robbins 30:42 And there are people around me all the time that will tell other people stories about what I'm really like, so I don't have to communicate that to people.

Lewis Howes 30:47 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 30:48 It gets shared. So, um, I don't know. I don't know if there's... There's so many things in life. I, I don't measure them as big versus small.

Lewis Howes 30:54 Sure.

Tony Robbins 30:54 My, my, my wife s- was somebody who would see one person and be thrilled.

Lewis Howes 30:59 Mm.

Tony Robbins 30:59 And I had to see, you know, 10,000.

Lewis Howes 31:01 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 31:01 I think so she's balanced it out for me. I still... I feel like life is short, and while you're here I wanna have the most impact that I can.

Lewis Howes 31:08 Mm.

Tony Robbins 31:08 So I go deep and I go wide.

Lewis Howes 31:11 Right.

Tony Robbins 31:11 Um, but every interaction to me is an important interaction.

Lewis Howes 31:14 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 31:14 And, and sometimes that interaction is just being kind. I know it sounds stupid.

Lewis Howes 31:18 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 31:18 But kindness can, to the right place at the right time, you know, somebody could be suicidal, you don't know it, and you're being kind, and it changes their state.

Lewis Howes 31:24 Right. Yeah.

Tony Robbins 31:24 There's a... It's an interesting story of, um, there's a gentleman who w- who wanted to kill, uh, Nixon. And he couldn't get access to Nixon. It's a true story. And so he became... He wrote a journal, that's how we know the details of it. And he decided he's gonna go after Wallace.

Lewis Howes 31:38 Mm.

Tony Robbins 31:38 And he goes to shoot Wallace, and he actually did do that shooting. And when they read his journal, it was fascinating. He didn't wanna kill Nixon 'cause he didn't like him, or Wallace, he just wanted to be famous.

Lewis Howes 31:48 Mm.

Tony Robbins 31:48 He wanted to be worth something. And one of the reasons he didn't kill Nixon is he was going after Nixon and he was this far from the president, and an old woman bumped into him just as he's reaching in his pocket to get this gun. And in the middle of this, everything's frenzy and he wants to shoot and become the most famous man, you know, another one of those assassins. And this woman grabbed his hand and said, "I'm so sorry. I'm just so sorry."

Lewis Howes 32:10 Sorry, right? [laughs]

Tony Robbins 32:10 And he said in his journal afterwards, his hand was on the gun-

Lewis Howes 32:13 Wow

Tony Robbins 32:13 ... and her looking in his eyes, with this love in her eyes and this kindness in her eyes, he said, "I couldn't make her witness that," and he put the gun away.

Lewis Howes 32:20 Oh, man.

Tony Robbins 32:21 That saved Nixon's life.

Lewis Howes 32:23 Wow.

Tony Robbins 32:23 Right. So he went after Wallace, [laughs] you know. But that's the power of a moment of kindness.

Lewis Howes 32:28 Wow.

Tony Robbins 32:28 So I think we underestimate, uh, you know, somebody came and fed my family when I was 11 years old, you know?

Lewis Howes 32:32 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 32:32 Um, obviously the person must not be alive still 'cause I've told the story these last 20 years.

Lewis Howes 32:36 And they haven't reached out to you.

Tony Robbins 32:36 And they haven't reached out to me.

Lewis Howes 32:37 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 32:38 But, I mean, imagine what the impact of that was by that one little act of kindness.

Lewis Howes 32:41 Crazy. Yeah.

Tony Robbins 32:42 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 32:42 Amazing. Um, so you're...

Lewis Howes 32:44 Go back to 31. You're 31.

Tony Robbins 32:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 32:46 You're, you're my age.

Tony Robbins 32:47 Yep.

Lewis Howes 32:47 What are the three things you'd do with your money based on the information in this book? You know, talk a lot about asset lo- uh, allocation.

Tony Robbins 32:54 Yes.

Lewis Howes 32:54 The fees, understanding where you're putting your money and understanding-

Tony Robbins 32:57 Yeah

Lewis Howes 32:57 ... uh, finding a fiduc- a fiduciary, right?

Tony Robbins 32:59 Yes, yes.

Lewis Howes 32:59 You talk a lot about that, but what would you do if, uh, you're making-

Tony Robbins 33:03 Knowing what I know today? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 33:04 Yeah. Go back. You're 31 years old, what would you be doing?

Tony Robbins 33:07 Well, I would-

Lewis Howes 33:07 Three, three things you'd do first.

Tony Robbins 33:09 Uh, well you have a good income, so we're talking about you-

Lewis Howes 33:11 Yeah, sure

Tony Robbins 33:12 ... right? Okay. So-

Lewis Howes 33:12 Say you're making six to seven figures

Tony Robbins 33:13 ... great. That's wonderful.

Lewis Howes 33:14 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 33:14 So what I would do in that range is I would take and I would model one of the best masters. If it was me, one of the people... Asset allocation, so people are clear-

Lewis Howes 33:21 Mm-hmm

Tony Robbins 33:21 ... is the one thing that... I met with, uh, David Swensen. He took one billion, turned it into 24 billion-

Lewis Howes 33:27 Mm

Tony Robbins 33:27 ... in two decades, in 20 years.

Lewis Howes 33:29 Amazing. Amazing.

Tony Robbins 33:30 Just mind boggling.

Lewis Howes 33:30 Amazing.

Tony Robbins 33:31 A billion a year, right?

Lewis Howes 33:32 Amazing.

Tony Robbins 33:32 Just think about that level of doubling. It's just mind boggling. And I asked him, I said, "What, what are the dials? What are the only dials we can touch?"

Lewis Howes 33:39 Mm.

Tony Robbins 33:39 And he said, "Tony, to increase your return, there's only a few things you can do." He said, "You can make better selections of stocks," he, he said, "You can have better timing," he said, "and you can have better asset allocation." He said, "The first two will never happen," 'cause the first two costs you money.

Lewis Howes 33:52 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 33:52 Gotta hire somebody, everybody's wrong on the timing.

Lewis Howes 33:54 Ah.

Tony Robbins 33:54 He said asset allocation, which simply means dividing your money into different buckets. Some of those buckets are secure-

Lewis Howes 34:00 Mm

Tony Robbins 34:00 ... so that even though you think you're gonna be a genius, you're gonna make money no matter what, that money grows slower, but it'll always be there, and it'll give you freedom for the rest of your life.

Lewis Howes 34:09 Mm.

Tony Robbins 34:09 There's a growth bucket, which is also a risk bucket.

Lewis Howes 34:12 Right.

Tony Robbins 34:12 We forget that.

Lewis Howes 34:13 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 34:13 Because one of the things Ray Dalio taught me, he said, "Tony, everybody invests in what they think they know." So you grew up with real estate, you're not a genius, but you made money in real estate, 'cause anybody can when real estate's going up.

Lewis Howes 34:22 Sure. Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 34:23 You think you're a genius. You think you know stocks. Oh, you're a genius, you know, in, in 1999, right?

Lewis Howes 34:27 Sure.

Tony Robbins 34:27 You know, you're a genius in 2000, you know, uh, 10 when things started to grow a bit.

Lewis Howes 34:31 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 34:32 He said, "Now, whatever you invest in, in your lifetime, that area is gonna drop 50 to 70%."

Lewis Howes 34:37 Mm.

Tony Robbins 34:37 "There is zero exception." He can show you mathematically and he can show you historically.

Lewis Howes 34:40 Wow.

Tony Robbins 34:40 So he said you have to diversify even though you don't want to, and you have to div- divide these monies up. So every one of them taught me different asset allocations. But one, the one that I think is the most valuable for anybody to, to really take advantage of is Ray Dalio's. Because Ray Dalio's figured out why is it in 2008-

Lewis Howes 34:57 Mm

Tony Robbins 34:57 ... if your stockbroker, your financial planner said, "We're gonna protect you. We're gonna put you half in stocks and half in bonds."

Lewis Howes 35:03 Uh-huh.

Tony Robbins 35:03 Why did they both go down?

Lewis Howes 35:05 Mm.

Tony Robbins 35:05 You weren't protected at all. Same thing happened in 2000. And he figured something out. When you think you're in a balanced portfolio, you're not balanced, and the reason is stocks are three times more volatile than you'll find in bonds.

Lewis Howes 35:18 Mm.

Tony Robbins 35:18 What does that mean? It means when you think you're 50/50, you're 50/50 with your money, but you're not 50/50 with your risk. You're 95% at risk-

Lewis Howes 35:25 Wow

Tony Robbins 35:25 ... and 5% on the good side. That's why everybody loses. So he figured a formula, 'cause he said, "Look, someday I'm gonna be gone."

Lewis Howes 35:31 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 35:31 "I want my kids to have the money longterm. I want, you know, all the philanthropic things I'm doing to be taken care of." So he spent 15 years studying the markets-

Lewis Howes 35:39 Mm

Tony Robbins 35:39 ... and figured out how do I design a portfolio that'll make money every time?

Lewis Howes 35:44 Wow.

Tony Robbins 35:44 Like, if it loses money, it lost in 75 years, it's lost 1.6% when it's lost, but it's been right 85% of the time.

Lewis Howes 35:52 Wow.

Tony Robbins 35:52 If you went to Vegas-

Lewis Howes 35:53 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 35:54 ... and you had a plan that worked for 75 years, and made money 85% of the time, and when you lost you lost 1.6%, and when you gained you gained more than 10%-

Lewis Howes 36:02 Wow

Tony Robbins 36:02 ... the biggest loss in 75 years is 3.95%, less than 4.

Lewis Howes 36:06 Wow.

Tony Robbins 36:07 So why did people not make it in the stock market? 'Cause when you take a 50% hit, they all say stay in. Nobody, the, the average person never stays in.

Lewis Howes 36:14 Sure.

Tony Robbins 36:14 If you look at the last 20 years, the average pers- the stock market over 20 years, from 1993 to 2013-

Lewis Howes 36:20 Mm

Tony Robbins 36:20 ... has averaged 9.2%. Pretty cool compounding.

Lewis Howes 36:24 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 36:24 You double your money pretty damn quick doing that.

Lewis Howes 36:25 Right.

Tony Robbins 36:26 But the average mutual fund investor has made 2.5%.

Lewis Howes 36:29 Oof.

Tony Robbins 36:29 Why? 'Cause they freak out, they sell when it goes down, they buy when it's looking good, which is the wrong time to buy it.

Lewis Howes 36:35 Uh-huh.

Tony Robbins 36:35 They don't know what to do. So what Ray Dalio's strategy does ... And, and by the way, he's never shared this strategy ever publicly.

Lewis Howes 36:41 And he gives it in here.

Tony Robbins 36:42 He gives it in here-

Lewis Howes 36:42 Yeah

Tony Robbins 36:43 ... which is mind-boggling.

Lewis Howes 36:43 Very cool.

Tony Robbins 36:43 Now, I pushed him, I teased him-

Lewis Howes 36:44 Uh-huh

Tony Robbins 36:45 ... I compelled him. In the end, I said, "Look, you're not taking any more money. Help the average guy out."

Lewis Howes 36:48 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 36:48 He lays it out. You can do it yourself-

Lewis Howes 36:50 Yeah

Tony Robbins 36:50 ... or you can have someone else do it for you, but it takes 15 minutes a year-

Lewis Howes 36:53 Mm

Tony Robbins 36:54 ... and 85% success over 75 years.

Lewis Howes 36:56 Wow.

Tony Robbins 36:56 And, and I can take any time period, the last 30 years, he lost money four times. One of those was .003%, so it's really break even.

Lewis Howes 37:03 Wow. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 37:04 So, and the, and again, the most he ever lost, less than 4%.

Lewis Howes 37:06 Right.

Tony Robbins 37:07 Average 1.9%.

Lewis Howes 37:08 Right.

Tony Robbins 37:08 So if you're looking for a plan, I'd put some money there. Then the other money that I would do is I'd take some of that money and I'd look at, what are the biggest trends?

Lewis Howes 37:14 Mm.

Tony Robbins 37:15 I have a lot of my money also in senior housing, and the reason is twofold. Um, it's a demographic inevitability. There's this giant wave of baby boomers, and there isn't enough-

Lewis Howes 37:24 Yeah

Tony Robbins 37:24 ... senior housing to take care of them.

Lewis Howes 37:26 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 37:26 And I also, I like it. I like to create a quality place for someone to be able-

Lewis Howes 37:29 Yeah

Tony Robbins 37:29 ... to be lived and taken care of and so forth. But there's huge income from it, and there's the growth in the asset itself.

Lewis Howes 37:34 Sure.

Tony Robbins 37:34 So I'd be looking at, what are the big trends? But I would make sure I lock down a segment of my money that just I, I took a percentage of my income no matter what-

Lewis Howes 37:42 Mm

Tony Robbins 37:42 ... and I made it really big, and I made it so I'd never have to work again.

Lewis Howes 37:44 Sure.

Tony Robbins 37:45 And that's where I am now. I don't have to work.

Lewis Howes 37:46 Right.

Tony Robbins 37:46 And what's ironic is when you interview people that make at least 750,000 a year, right? Just under a million, 80% of them say they'll never retire.

Lewis Howes 37:54 Mm.

Tony Robbins 37:55 When you interview people that make a very little amount of money, they all talk about wanting to retire.

Lewis Howes 37:58 Right.

Tony Robbins 37:59 And the people that do retire say they'll retire after 75. Like, you know, Steve Rinz, my buddy, he's 72. War- Warren Buffett's 80-what? Four now.

Lewis Howes 38:04 Still working.

Tony Robbins 38:05 You know, um, uh, you know, I met with Jack Bogle who created Vanguard.

Lewis Howes 38:08 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 38:08 He's been in the business 63 years.

Lewis Howes 38:11 Wow.

Tony Robbins 38:11 He's 85 years old and such a genius. Sitting down there, he spent four hours with me, by the way. Just-

Lewis Howes 38:16 Wow

Tony Robbins 38:16 ... he's, uh, came by for 45 minutes, he wrote in, in the book here, he goes, "Tony Robbins came by for 45 minutes. Four hours later-

Lewis Howes 38:21 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 38:21 ... I had the most provocative and probing interview of my life," he said.

Lewis Howes 38:24 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 38:24 But, uh, but you know, the guy's still in the game.

Lewis Howes 38:27 Sure.

Tony Robbins 38:27 'Cause the real goal is not to have to work.

Lewis Howes 38:30 Mm.

Tony Robbins 38:30 If you don't work, you go stark raving mad-

Lewis Howes 38:32 Mm

Tony Robbins 38:32 ... because we all need to be productive to feel alive.

Lewis Howes 38:34 Yeah. Interesting.

Lewis Howes 38:36 Couple questions left for you.

Tony Robbins 38:37 Sure.

Lewis Howes 38:37 One of them is, what's your definition of greatness?

Tony Robbins 38:41 Mm. I don't know. I think everyone has greatness. I, I don't like that separation. I, I, I respect it-

Lewis Howes 38:47 Mm

Tony Robbins 38:47 ... because in sports I think it, it's really easy to measure, but sports is one aspect of life.

Lewis Howes 38:52 Mm.

Tony Robbins 38:52 You know? I think everyone has the opportunity to be great. To me, being great is being outstanding, to stand out from all the rest. And, and as you know, in sports it can be by, you know, a few microseconds, right?

Lewis Howes 39:01 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 39:01 You know, in the Olympics-

Lewis Howes 39:02 Yeah

Tony Robbins 39:02 ... you know, it could be a nose hair-

Lewis Howes 39:04 Mm-hmm

Tony Robbins 39:04 ... and you stand out. If you stand out, you show the people what's possible.

Lewis Howes 39:08 Mm.

Tony Robbins 39:08 Not everybody likes that. Some people get angry and think you're showing them up. Other people get inspired. I've always been inspired by somebody who's the best in the world at what they do.

Lewis Howes 39:16 Mm.

Tony Robbins 39:16 And so I think greatness is somebody who just will not settle, and finds a way to do, be, share, and create in life what they want.

Lewis Howes 39:24 Right.

Tony Robbins 39:24 As opposed to fitting in. I think most people are trying to not be rejected. I, you know, I wrote in this book, [laughs] I, you know, I took a, a quote from, um, Aristotle saying, you know, "How do you really live your life?" Well, if you don't wanna upset anybody, it's really simple. Don't do anything, don't say anything-

Lewis Howes 39:39 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 39:39 ... don't be anything, and everybody will like you.

Lewis Howes 39:41 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 39:41 You know? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 39:41 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 39:42 But if you wanna have a quality life, I think you just have to put yourself on the line, and-

Lewis Howes 39:45 Mm

Tony Robbins 39:45 ... so to me, greatness is people that put themself on the line, they keep growing, and they won't settle.

Lewis Howes 39:49 Mm. So what's next for you? Why are you still ... What are you still up to? I mean, why are you going after-

Tony Robbins 39:55 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 39:55 ... inspiring 100 million people, feeding 100 million people? What's next?

Tony Robbins 39:58 Why not?

Lewis Howes 39:59 Right. [laughs] Sure.

Tony Robbins 40:00 It's like, what else are you gonna do with your life? I, I, I-

Lewis Howes 40:01 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 40:01 ... I look at, there are lots of challenges. I mean, this was a problem I wanted to go after.

Lewis Howes 40:05 Mm.

Tony Robbins 40:05 It's a problem because people are being abused by a system-

Lewis Howes 40:07 Mm

Tony Robbins 40:07 ... that nobody means to abuse it, it's just-

Lewis Howes 40:09 Sure.

Tony Robbins 40:09 Uh, it's not an evil system, it's just you have large corporations that are set up to make a profit, and that's their job.

Lewis Howes 40:14 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 40:15 They're not set up to make you as an investor more profitable.

Lewis Howes 40:17 Right.

Tony Robbins 40:17 So they take care of their shareholder first. So they get all the fees they can. They manipulate the system. So I wanna give people freedom.

Lewis Howes 40:24 Mm.

Tony Robbins 40:24 You know? To me, that's valuable. But, you know, uh, what I do with my life is I look at what I see that moves me. I mean, I, I always tell people, people ask me about speaking, they say, you know, "How do you be an effective speaker?" I say, "Don't speak about shit you're not passionate about."

Lewis Howes 40:36 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 40:36 You know? And that you don't have a true-

Lewis Howes 40:38 Right

Tony Robbins 40:38 ... true edge where you can help somebody.

Lewis Howes 40:41 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 40:41 If you can add massive value and you're passionate about it, then talk about it. Otherwise, shut the you-know-what up. You know?

Lewis Howes 40:45 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 40:45 That's my view. So when I find things that I, I'm very passionate about, I like to go deep.

Lewis Howes 40:49 Sure.

Tony Robbins 40:49 I think we live in a, you know, a Facebook world, a Twitter world, a tweeting world, texting world, where people are, by technology, not realizing they're becoming more and more shallow.

Lewis Howes 40:57 Mm.

Tony Robbins 40:58 I mean, there are people ending relationships by texting now.

Lewis Howes 41:00 Right.

Tony Robbins 41:00 It's like, [laughs] you know-

Lewis Howes 41:01 Right

Tony Robbins 41:01 ... it's just, are you kidding me?

Lewis Howes 41:02 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 41:02 They're going, "Why is the person upset? I can't understand. Did you see this? I texted them."

Lewis Howes 41:05 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 41:06 And I, I look at them going, "Are you kidding?" But technology is making us think-

Lewis Howes 41:09 Mm

Tony Robbins 41:09 ... that our Facebook friends are our friends. I mean-

Lewis Howes 41:10 Yeah

Tony Robbins 41:10 ... give me a break. There's only a few friends you can go deep with.

Lewis Howes 41:14 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 41:14 You can't have 10,000 friends-

Lewis Howes 41:15 Yeah

Tony Robbins 41:16 ... and go deep. And I think a lot of people are dissatisfied because technology's making us go faster and faster. So I look for things to go deep in.

Lewis Howes 41:23 Mm.

Tony Robbins 41:23 And I think in, in our lives, there's a few areas that matter. Your body, your emotions, your spirit, your relationships-

Lewis Howes 41:29 Mm

Tony Robbins 41:29 ... um, your economics, you know, your business. Those half dozen or so areas, I like going deep in, and I'm gonna keep doing it.

Lewis Howes 41:35 Sure. Uh, Chad Maretta asked me to, he said, "All the interviews you've done lately for promoting this book-"

Tony Robbins 41:40 Yes

Lewis Howes 41:40 ... "have been very intellectual." And he said, "I'd love to see you get him in his physical state and show your move."

Tony Robbins 41:45 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 41:46 So in a second, I wanna see if, uh, if you'd be open to doing a, a thumb wrestling-

Tony Robbins 41:49 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 41:50 ... and getting into state so we can show people how you do this.

Tony Robbins 41:53 [laughs] You get-

Lewis Howes 41:54 If you're open to it

Tony Robbins 41:54 ... you gotta, I'm, I'm gonna do it

Lewis Howes 41:55 ... if you're open to it, in a second.

Tony Robbins 41:56 You go, you go-

Lewis Howes 41:56 In a second

Tony Robbins 41:57 ... you go, getting in state, getting in state is, that's not what it's about, but go ahead.

Lewis Howes 42:00 I would love to see, see how you get into it right before you're going on stage or whatever it might be.

Tony Robbins 42:03 I, I don't go to state to thumb wrestle.

Lewis Howes 42:05 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 42:05 That's for sure.

Lewis Howes 42:06 Arm wrestle?

Tony Robbins 42:07 Yeah. That'd be good.

Lewis Howes 42:08 Um, but before we do that, if you're open to it, I just want to, uh, I want to acknowledge you, Tony.

Tony Robbins 42:12 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 42:12 I think it's, uh, you know, you've had a huge impact on my life and so many people.

Tony Robbins 42:15 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 42:15 I, you know, I posted last night, you know, "I'm gonna be interviewing Tony. Is there any questions you guys might have?"

Tony Robbins 42:20 Good.

Lewis Howes 42:20 And hundreds of comments and questions-

Tony Robbins 42:22 Wow

Lewis Howes 42:22 ... of people saying how you've impacted their lives.

Tony Robbins 42:25 Wow.

Lewis Howes 42:25 So I just wanna say thank you for creating the spark for so many people, including myself when I was 16 and watched you-

Tony Robbins 42:30 Wow

Lewis Howes 42:31 ... for the first time.

Tony Robbins 42:31 Where did you come to a seminar?

Lewis Howes 42:32 It was in St. Louis, Missouri.

Tony Robbins 42:34 Wow.

Lewis Howes 42:34 At the Javits Center back in the day.

Tony Robbins 42:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 42:36 It was, uh, I don't think it was UPW, it was like-

Tony Robbins 42:39 It was a one-day event, wasn't it?

Lewis Howes 42:40 It was a one, it might've been a one or two-day then. I, I remember it was like, um-

Tony Robbins 42:43 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 42:43 Donald Trump was there-

Tony Robbins 42:44 Yeah, yeah. I remember

Lewis Howes 42:44 ... Dick Comino, like a lot of people were there.

Tony Robbins 42:46 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 42:47 And I remember my dad bought us floor seats, like probably halfway back on the floor.

Tony Robbins 42:51 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 42:52 And there was a moment where you walked out, and you came out and you walked right next to me. And I remember thinking, first off, "Wow, you're really big."

Tony Robbins 42:59 [laughs] Well, you're pretty big yourself. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 43:00 [laughs] I was smaller then, but I remember thinking, "How..." You know, this is so inspiring that someone can take an idea of what they want, their vision, and create it and manifest it into speaking in front of thousands of people-

Tony Robbins 43:13 Yeah

Lewis Howes 43:13 ... and really adding so much value to the world and so many people's lives.

Tony Robbins 43:16 Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 43:16 And I remember then thinking, "That's something I would love to do one day, is be able to-

Tony Robbins 43:20 Oh, wow

Lewis Howes 43:20 ... turn a vision into reality."

Tony Robbins 43:23 Wow.

Lewis Howes 43:23 And, uh, you know, so I wanna acknowledge you for creating the spark in so many people. Every workshop you provide, so many people are moved and changed.

Tony Robbins 43:31 Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 43:32 And so I think it's so powerful what you've created, and I wanna-

Tony Robbins 43:34 Thank you. I appreciate that

Lewis Howes 43:35 ... acknowledge you for that. Yeah.

Tony Robbins 43:35 I really appreciate it.

Lewis Howes 43:36 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 43:36 That's one ... I'm glad to know that was one of your triggers.

Lewis Howes 43:38 Yeah, yeah.

Tony Robbins 43:39 That's very cool.

Lewis Howes 43:39 So thank you.

Tony Robbins 43:40 Very cool.

Lewis Howes 43:40 Um, I'd love to do this move if you could do it-

Tony Robbins 43:42 Oh, this for you

Lewis Howes 43:43 ... if you're open to get up.

Tony Robbins 43:43 [laughs] So what do you wanna do? You wanna thumb wrestle?

Lewis Howes 43:45 I, I wanna see you do your move, if you could show.

Tony Robbins 43:47 [laughs] Oh, no, no.

Lewis Howes 43:48 You open to it? No?

Tony Robbins 43:48 You want to do the thumb war?

Lewis Howes 43:49 Okay, okay, let's thumb wrestle.

Tony Robbins 43:49 I do, but it's just totally artificial.

Lewis Howes 43:50 Let's thumb wrestle.

Tony Robbins 43:51 It's like me talking about passion, right?

Lewis Howes 43:52 [laughs]

Tony Robbins 43:52 I said, "Don't do it if you're not passionate."

Lewis Howes 43:54 Okay.

Tony Robbins 43:54 I'm not a passionate thumb wrestler, but how do we do this?

Lewis Howes 43:56 Okay. Uh, so we're gonna go one, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war. Okay. Have you ever done this before?

Tony Robbins 44:01 No, go for it.

Lewis Howes 44:02 Okay. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 44:03 Oh, we just do it?

Lewis Howes 44:03 You gotta get my thumb down. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 44:05 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 44:05 You gotta hold it for three seconds.

Tony Robbins 44:07 Okay. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 44:08 You got big hands. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 44:10 [laughs] Okay.

Lewis Howes 44:12 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 44:12 Is this gonna go on for 20 minutes? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 44:13 [laughs] Oh, you got me.

Tony Robbins 44:15 Oh, I think you gave it to me.

Lewis Howes 44:16 You got me. [laughs]

Tony Robbins 44:16 You gave it to me too easily.

Lewis Howes 44:17 Tony Robbins, thank you so much.

Tony Robbins 44:18 Yeah, I appreciate you.

Lewis Howes 44:19 Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Tony Robbins 44:19 Thank you so much. Continue your great works.

Lewis Howes 44:22 Thank you. Awesome. I gotta give you a hug.

Tony Robbins 44:25 Oh, you got it.

Lewis Howes 44:25 I gotta give you a hug.