Tony Robbins Returns (Full Episode) | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)

1. 0:00 – 3:42

   Cold open: “bad day” setup and a personal question

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat-out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

   2. TRTony Robbins0:08

      Now would seem an appropriate time.

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:10

      What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by Audible, which I've used for years. I love audiobooks, and I have two to recommend right off the bat. Number one is perhaps my favorite audiobook of all time, and that is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the only audiobook I've wanted to immediately listen to a second time as soon as I finished. It's amazing. You will thank me. The Graveyard Book. The second is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which had a huge impact on my life and formed the basis for a lot of what became The 4-Hour Workweek. So all you need to do to get your free 30-day trial is go to audible.com/tim, T-I-M, and you can choose one of those two books, or you can choose from more great options than you can possibly imagine. So that could be a book, that could be a magazine, that could be a newspaper, could be a class. It's that easy. Go to audible.com/tim. That's audible.com/tim, and grab a book. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley, have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is, why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, et cetera. And I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim. Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it, and here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint, and little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, et cetera, can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything they charge, .25% per year on assets above the first 15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on this show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials, so I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, uh, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client.

2. 3:42 – 6:37

   Show framing: what this Tony Robbins return episode will cover

   1. TFTim Ferriss3:42

      Now back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account, but just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast. It's free. There's no downside that I can think of. Hello, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, whether they are from the worlds of sports, investing, acting, military, anything and everything, to help to tease out the routines, habits, favorite books, et cetera, that you can use. This particular episode is a repeat guest, Tony Robbins, and Tony and I have gotten to know each other over the last few years since I first had him on the podcast, an epic two-parter, which was very long and very, very good, one of the most popular episodes I've had of the podcast to date. Tony Robbins is the world's most famous performance coach, for those of you who don't know the name. He's advised everyone from Bill Clinton to Serena Williams, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Oprah, who calls him superhuman, world leaders like Gorbachev. It just goes on and on. And in this particular episode, we talk about a number of topics we didn't cover in the previous interview, and we also drill into some new rapid-fire questions. So for instance, h- his best investment he's ever made, quotes that he lives by, worst advice that he hears or sees being given out regularly, why he's changed his diet for the first time since he was about 17, I believe. And we also go into some very specific exercises. There's a portion in the middle where Tony is effectively on his own. I just let him go for a good, I'd say, 30 to 40 minutes. And if you want a very specific exercise that you can apply in real time, because he walks me through it, and I dug in because I could use it today specifically, I was having a very rough day, called the 90 Second Rule, and it's a process. And he brings up a personal challenging experience that he had not long ago in Dallas, and then walks through exactly how he contended with it. And it's from roughly one hour and five minutes after this introduction ends to 1:15. So 1:05 to 1:15, roughly. We get into a very nice flow. And I also have to recommend that you check out the brand-new documentary out about Tony Robbins, which digs into one of his events, called I Am Not Your Guru. You can find it on Netflix. I saw it before it came out, and Found it extremely powerful. Uh, there's a good chance you will find yourself laughing and crying at different points, and I'm not much of a crier, so that should tell you something. So check it out, I'm Not Your Guru, on Netflix. And without further ado, please enjoy this follow-up conversation with Tony Robbins. [dynamic tone] Tony, welcome back to the show.

3. 6:37 – 9:54

   Rebooting momentum on rough days: change physiology first

   1. TRTony Robbins6:37

      Thanks for having me on, Tim. Good to hear your voice.

   2. TFTim Ferriss6:39

      Good to hear your voice too, and I've been thinking about you a lot, and I've gathered questions as follow-ups, and I've taken some from fans. And part of the reason I've been asking myself about you is because I've been wondering, what would Tony Robbins do in certain circumstances I'm finding myself in? And I'll give you a perfect example. Today, I'm on book deadline right now, and it rolls around to around 3:00 PM, and it's just one of those days where I haven't felt like my brain has been connected to the rest of my body, and I haven't really done anything. [laughs]

   3. TRTony Robbins7:13

      [laughs]

   4. TFTim Ferriss7:14

      And so I start... And I'm on book deadline, a very crunch book deadline.

   5. TRTony Robbins7:17

      [laughs] Yes.

   6. TFTim Ferriss7:18

      And for whatever reason, words just are not, uh, really very intelligible on the page, and that led me to want to ask you, I guess, A, a, a lot of my fans have asked this, you know, does Tony have bad days? Uh, and i- if you do find yourself-

   7. TRTony Robbins7:34

      [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss7:34

      ... in a situation like this, right, where, where you've tried-

   9. TRTony Robbins7:37

      Yes

   10. TFTim Ferriss7:37

       ... the priming. For whatever reason, it's like the m-

   11. TRTony Robbins7:39

       [laughs]

   12. TFTim Ferriss7:39

       ... the mid-afternoon, and you're like, "Wow," like-

   13. TRTony Robbins7:42

       Right

   14. TFTim Ferriss7:42

       ... "I really don't think I've actually gotten much done today." If that happens, what, what, what do you do? What is the internal, uh, monologue or, or the, the self-talk?

   15. TRTony Robbins7:52

       I, I know that trying to think my way through it's not gonna do squat. [laughs]

   16. TFTim Ferriss7:56

       Yeah.

   17. TRTony Robbins7:56

       You know, of course, I have those days or those times. I don't have days like that. I, pretty rare have a day like that, but if I feel that happening and I catch myself within a few hours, then I, I do something radical with my body, 'cause the body will change the mind the fastest, and you're never... You have to find that sense of energy and passion and intensity back inside yourself that, you know, [laughs] what makes you go.

   18. TFTim Ferriss8:15

       Mm-hmm.

   19. TRTony Robbins8:16

       And what I would do if it was my situation, I'd immediately go... I'd either do something really hot or really cold, those two extremes, or go for a run or go lift, you know, anything that's gonna pump the blood through me. But my first run would be jump in that freezing-ass water that I always have nearby-

   20. TFTim Ferriss8:31

       Mm-hmm

   21. TRTony Robbins8:31

       ... uh, or jump in a cryotherapy 'cause I gotta tell you, you know, you drop your temperature down to minus 220 [laughs] Fahrenheit, and y- you will, you will have a whole new mental state-

   22. TFTim Ferriss8:40

       [laughs]

   23. TRTony Robbins8:41

       ... for sure. And so, but, but really truly it's getting physical in some intense, dramatic way that shifts the physiology, and that's what's gonna shift your mind, and then the creativity comes. And once I've made that shift, then I'd focus on, you know, coming back to not the deadline, but to my, my reasons, the why, right? And then ch- I know you do as well. Just what, what am I doing this for? What... Get reassociated. What am I most passionate about? And I won't read, write, speak, or do anything, maybe read, but I won't write or speak about something I'm not totally passionate about. So if I'm not feeling it 'cause my body is just thrashed, you know, I've been burning the candle at both ends, which is common, um, that's when I've got to do something physical to shift it to make that happen. But when I do those two things, it usually flows, and I'm, I bet it would be for you, too.

   24. TFTim Ferriss9:24

       Mm-hmm.

   25. TRTony Robbins9:24

       I remember years ago I worked with, um, John Denver, it popped in my head just now, um, and he was stuck in every way, couldn't write a damn thing, and he was very, very frustrated. And I just took him through three of his greatest songs that he'd ever done, and as he walked through the songs, I, I said, "I want you to describe to me the moments that were coming through you." In all three of his examples, he was either skiing or he'd gone on a run or done something, and then boom, you know, he was in this state where he was in the flow state again. And I remember I did that for him, and then I started doing it [laughs] for myself ever since that time.

4. 9:54 – 10:47

   Trampoline and lymph: Tony’s morning energy protocol

   1. TFTim Ferriss9:54

      Mm. And do you trav- do you still travel with a small trampoline?

   2. TRTony Robbins10:01

      Yes. I, I don't travel with it, but I have, you know, I have a-

   3. TFTim Ferriss10:03

      You have it at things

   4. TRTony Robbins10:03

      ... army of goodies that go, that go from place to place, yes.

   5. TFTim Ferriss10:06

      [laughs] And h- how do you use that? How do you typically use the trampoline?

   6. TRTony Robbins10:10

      Oh, I just use it f- I, I, I do it because if... You know, most people know you have more... You know, you don't... Your lymph in your body, there's four times more lymph than there is blood. The lymph is the detoxification system of your body. When you're feeling tired or exhausted or lethargic, you know, outside of sleep and hydration and then food, you know, it's really making sure that lymph system is moving. So I jump on that thing for 10, 12 minutes first thing in the morning and get my lymph moving, right? Especially if I don't have the cold nearby, if I can't... You know, if I don't have a cold plunge or something, I'm in a hotel-

   7. TFTim Ferriss10:38

      Mm

   8. TRTony Robbins10:38

      ... then the, my next piece is to lymphacize for 12 minutes, and it's just amazing. You know, you get all that lactic acid out of your body moving, and you feel like a different person.

5. 10:47 – 18:17

   A high-stakes intervention: an extreme disruption during Date with Destiny

   1. TFTim Ferriss10:47

      See, you mentioned John Denver, and, uh, of course I've, uh, seen your documentary, which is quite the buzz at the moment, and w- we're gonna talk a lot more about that. I wanted to ask, and a few fans also asked about this, if you, if you think back, is there a particular intervention or, um, that, that is particularly or was particularly difficult, and what made it difficult and how did you handle it?

   2. TRTony Robbins11:16

      Oh my gosh, there's been so many [laughs] particularly difficult ones.

   3. TFTim Ferriss11:20

      Yeah.

   4. TRTony Robbins11:20

      I mean, you know-

   5. TFTim Ferriss11:20

      Or are there characteristics that make-

   6. TRTony Robbins11:21

      [laughs]

   7. TFTim Ferriss11:22

      ... particular interventions difficult?

   8. TRTony Robbins11:24

      I, I remember one in particular. I don't know why this one flashes in my mind, but, um, I don't know if I've ever shared this with you. We've talked a few times, but, uh, I had a... I was... It was a really big deal. It was my Date with Destiny. It was the first time I brought any reporters in to see this. This is, gosh, 20 years ago maybe. And, um, you know, I always read, I think you know I read, people do 10 to 20 pages of homework. I read it all. And now it takes, you know, a couple weeks to read it all. Uh, and I don't remember Rudy's name, but that information's in me, so I'm ready. And I'd done this, and, um, Diane Sawyer was coming with her crew to kind of just do a brief filming and show all these incredible CEO types that were changing their lives and redesigning their destiny [laughs] in the middle of this experience. Um, and it was on day one, this woman kept trying to get my attention, I felt, and I, you know, I don't reward that, right? Now, I'm happy to do it if it's not for attention, if it's for help. But this woman, it was clear. And so I ignored, ignored, and all of a sudden she just exploded, ignited, and started saying, "I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you." And she started... She had her hand like she was stabbing at people, and people were, like, running from her, going totally berserk. And then I saw who she was, I saw the dynamic of what was going on, and instantly I realized who she was. She was a woman who had 50... She was one of the first, um, people with multiple personality disorders, MPDs as they called them, one of the first diagnosed ones when they first came up with the title of this, and she had been institutionalized. And her story was so brutal because sh- she actually, her father had been sexually abusing her for a good portion of her life, and she finally told somebody, and he had her institutionalized, people that I guess were his friends. And they there, the doctor there actually sexually abused her. He would drug her and sexually abuse her. So if you can only imagine going inside your head where there's pain no matter what, you're out of control, we all have to find a way to survive. We have to find a way to meet our fundamental needs for certainty, for variety, for God's sakes, when you're being trapped, for feeling like you have some significant control over your life, for the feeling of connection or love or growth or contribution. These are human needs that have to be found in our life for us to feel like we can function. So if we can't find them in good ways, we'll find them in bad ways, and her way was to just change personalities. That's one way to get out of pain. If you're being viciously attacked and you're out of control, try to become someone else, and she kept doing it and doing it. Long story shortened, um, she's screaming, doing this. People are, people are freaking out, and all of a sudden she starts talking like a little girl and like an old man, and I mean, it looked like something out of Exorcist. [laughs] And in the middle of all this, I let her just go and go and go, and I finally just said to her, I said, "You know, I understand you're in a lot of pain, and I just want you to know that I know who you are, and I know what you've been through." And then I told the room the story of what she'd been through while she stood there with her mouth opening and just gapped open. And I said, "So I want you to know that I, I know you believe you're all these personalities," but I said, "There's probably a reason you're here." And I said, "I think the reason you're here is because, you know, changing personalities was a brilliant solution for you to survive in those situations, and you had to keep more and more personalities, but you kept doing it so much. Now you're out of the institution, but you're still living in pain." And I said, "The problem is," I said, "you must be here because at some level you know this isn't working because no one can love someone when they don't know who they're gonna be next."

   9. TFTim Ferriss14:43

      Hm.

   10. TRTony Robbins14:43

       And it just grabbed her. I found her internal need. And then as I started working with her, she would jump back 'cause she wanted control. She would try to do something, and she said, "I'm gonna pee on this chair." And I said, "You pee on that chair," I said, "I'll slap you across this room." And, you know, she wasn't ready for that piece.

   11. TFTim Ferriss14:56

       [laughs]

   12. TRTony Robbins14:56

       Obviously I'm not gonna do it. I'm just using the shock factor. I said, "I'm not some stupid psychiatrist that you can play these games with." I said, "I know who the fuck you are, and you know who you are deep inside." And I said, "All this stuff was brilliant, brilliant adaptation that helped you survive, but now it's separating you from everyone. It's causing you to feel the deepest pain." And I said, "I think it's brilliant you have so many personalities. Children have lots of personalities. You say, you know, 'I'm Superman.' 'No, I'm Batman.' 'I'm Superman and Batman.' You can do all that stuff when you're a kid." And I said, "When you're an adult and you say that shit, people wanna lock you up."

   13. TFTim Ferriss15:25

       [laughs]

   14. TRTony Robbins15:26

       I said, "So you're probably great with..." I said, "You're probably great with children." And she looked at me and she goes, "I am great with children," [laughs] you know? And you just watch her going in and out. So anyway, you know, this is an hour-and-a-half process I'm trying to tell you in two minutes, but the bottom line in the end is the way I finally kicked her over the edge was she goes, "Yeah, but I..." You know, she says, "I was one of the first MPDs." And I said, "I know, and they're so goddamn common now, aren't they?"

   15. TFTim Ferriss15:48

       [laughs]

   16. TRTony Robbins15:48

       Because I knew, I knew her biggest need was to be significant. She was defeating all the psychiatrists. She wanted to be... The significant drive needed to be met more than any other drive for her on the surface. What she needed more of was love. So I said to her, I used the significance drive, I said, "Yeah, it's so common. I mean, MPDs are a dime a dozen. There's nothing unique about them at all." You could just see her face just drop [laughs] .

   17. TFTim Ferriss16:10

       [laughs]

   18. TRTony Robbins16:10

       It just took it all away. And then I turned around and I said, "But you know," and the cameras are rolling, by the way. So what I'm not telling you is inside my gut when this first starts, I'm like, are you kidding me? This woman is splitting personalities [laughs] and being a freak in the middle of them filming here. They're gonna, like, "This is who comes to Tony Robbins," you know, or something like that. [laughs]

   19. TFTim Ferriss16:27

       [laughs]

   20. TRTony Robbins16:27

       You know? I got the room full of, like, CEOs, you know, Marc Benioff, you know, from Salesforce, and, you know, billionaires, and this woman is, like, taking away my entire ability to reach people is what ran through my head. But I let go of that and just worked on her. But at the end, the cameras are still rolling, and I said, "Look, they're a dime a dozen," but I said, "You know, I don't think there's ever been anyone in history that's ever had 52 personalities or even two, and who integrated in a matter of two minutes or less on national television." But I said, "I don't think you're capable of that." [laughs]

   21. TFTim Ferriss16:55

       [laughs]

   22. TRTony Robbins16:55

       And it was just the perfect double bind. And she went through all these conversions in her face. And anyway, long story short, she transformed, and then all I did for the next four days was catch her and show her. And I said, "Listen, you know, anyone can forget things. You certainly... We've all had the skill of forgetting our keys, where you go from place to place to place, and then you find it in the place you've been looking for the fifth time through." I said, "Forgetting can also be a skill." And then I just helped her along the way to just let go of all those personalities. And the beauty of it, and the reason I think it was powerful was, you know, they didn't do that story for a year 'cause they wanted to see what happened with her. And a year later, she was still clear, and when Diane Sawyer interviewed her, her psychiatrist said, "It's just a miracle. I can't explain it. It's just a miracle," 'cause she never split again. So it was, it was a fairly dramatic example. But, you know, I've gotten a call, as you know, and you know, President Clinton in the middle of the night saying, "They're gonna impeach me in the morning. What should I do?" [laughs] You know? I've got a chance to work with Princess Diana to help her clarify what she w- really wanna do to make one of the biggest decisions in her life and, and British history. I've been... You know, I've had a ticket to history. I've had the chance to be with Mr. Gorbachev and, and really hear what ended the Cold War directly, and then sit down with him and President Bush Sr. at that time, and meet Iran and Margaret Thatcher and, and sit in like a fly on the wall in those conversations. There's just been some amazing times in this life that I've been privileged to witness and be a part of and sometimes influence.

6. 18:17 – 25:44

   Why Tony asks so many questions: uncovering the drive beneath performance

   1. TFTim Ferriss18:17

      I, I view you as an, an expert question asker, uh, a crafter of questions, uh, as a way of, uh, not manipulating, it's not the right word, but changing thought, right? Changing thought patterns. And, uh-

   2. TRTony Robbins18:30

      Sure

   3. TFTim Ferriss18:30

      ... if, if you could ask, say, all of the past podcast guests that I've had one question What would that, what would that question be if... I know it's an odd-

   4. TRTony Robbins18:39

      First, I would never ask one question [laughs]

   5. TFTim Ferriss18:42

      [laughs]

   6. TRTony Robbins18:42

      I think you know me well enough to know that. Somebody counted one time, I was at an event, and there's this woman who was suicidal, and someone counted, I asked 167 questions before I ever said anything.

   7. TFTim Ferriss18:52

      Of that one person?

   8. TRTony Robbins18:53

      And it's... Of that one person, right?

   9. TFTim Ferriss18:55

      Wow.

   10. TRTony Robbins18:55

       And, um, and she was a person that was completely shut down, suicidal, non-responsive. So I would never ask one question, but the, the line of questioning would depend on the person, but I'm always fascinated by is, what is the drive that makes someone the best of who they are? What is the uncovering? What is the piece that triggers that? And I usually ask people, um, a question like, you know, "Whose love did you crave the most growing up, your mother or your father? I'm sure you love them both the most, but whose love did you crave the most?" Who wa- whose love did you crave the most?

   11. TFTim Ferriss19:23

       Oh, you're asking me?

   12. TRTony Robbins19:25

       Yeah.

   13. TFTim Ferriss19:25

       Uh, probably my dad, I would say. I mean, my... Yeah, I would say so. I had a very deep-

   14. TRTony Robbins19:31

       Yeah

   15. TFTim Ferriss19:31

       ... relationship with my mom. Uh, and I was, I was... I felt close to my dad in a lot of ways, but, uh, i- it was a different relationship.

   16. TRTony Robbins19:39

       Yeah. Who did you have to be for your father? If you had a first gut reaction without even thinking, just no filters, "I had to be..."

   17. TFTim Ferriss19:47

       I had to be... [sighs] That's a good question. Uh... Man. [sighs] It's pretty rare that I get stumped on my own podcast, but [laughs]

   18. TRTony Robbins20:03

       [laughs] That's good, 'cause this is deep in your unconscious. 'Cause the reason I'm asking this question, and I'll give you a moment or two to think, is what controls our life is our model of the world. So our model of the world is we all has to have a set of beliefs, a set of values, a set of rules, how you should be, how I should be, how life should be. And of course, life doesn't always match that, which is where people get stressed out [laughs] in thinking that all their preferences should be met. But if they understand the driving force of your whole life comes because when you're first born, you're wide open. You can be anything. A child can do anything. You can [laughs] you can laugh, you can cry, you can scream, you can throw stuff, you can go to the bathroom in your pants. Try that when you're 40, see if it works, right? [laughs]

   19. TFTim Ferriss20:39

       [laughs]

   20. TRTony Robbins20:39

       So the whole thing changes 'cause you learn from the source of love you crave the most, from both sources of love, you learn how you need to be.

   21. TFTim Ferriss20:46

       Mm-hmm.

   22. TRTony Robbins20:46

       And you learn it by what they tell you or what they don't tell you, what you inherently make up in your mind based upon what you witness. So just tell me the first gut response. First gut response is, "For my father, I needed to be-"

   23. TFTim Ferriss20:59

       Uh

   24. TRTony Robbins20:59

       ... "to have his respect-"

   25. TFTim Ferriss20:59

       Yeah

   26. TRTony Robbins21:00

       ... "to have his love." I-

   27. TFTim Ferriss21:01

       I think, uh, to have his love and his respect. I mean, I, the f- the first thing that comes to mind is maybe, um, n- obedient is not the right adjective, but, uh, the accepting of whatever his, uh, instructions were, effectively.

   28. TRTony Robbins21:17

       Interesting.

   29. TFTim Ferriss21:17

       And, um-

   30. TRTony Robbins21:18

       Mm-hmm
7. 25:44 – 27:41

   Reclaiming disowned parts: past-focused work (without living in the past)

   1. TFTim Ferriss25:44

      Well, just as a side note also, uh, I completely agree, and I think that... And, and this is more of just a, an, an observation that, you know, you can feel free to respond to, but you don't have to, which is, uh, I do have those memories of sort of deep bonding with my dad at a very young age that didn't-

   2. TRTony Robbins26:00

      Mm-hmm

   3. TFTim Ferriss26:00

      ... that, that weren't sort of predicated on any type of, uh, any of the things that we just discussed. And I've tried very hard in the last few years also with, uh, a lot of the, the work that I've done in the world of sort of entheogens and psychedelics and so on as, as a way of facilitating some of this very early, uh, sort of reintegration and just self-examination, and it's actually... I've, I've never been closer to my dad now. Um-

   4. TRTony Robbins26:26

      Oh, that's beautiful

   5. TFTim Ferriss26:27

      ... and, uh, just came back from, uh, you know, a trip to Paris with both my parents and, um, it's... So there's been a lot of growth as a result-

   6. TRTony Robbins26:39

      That's beautiful

   7. TFTim Ferriss26:39

      ... of looking at, you know, trying to ask myself variants of some of these questions that you're posing. Um, what-

   8. TRTony Robbins26:46

      And you know, just so people are clear, I'm not a big focuser on your past, but this specific element of who did you need to be and who did you not need to be? Like, when you look at people that you really like a lot, you have tremendous, uh, passion or appreciation for, respect for, invariably it's because you see in them something that's actually in you, but you've disidentified with it because the source of love in your life that you were trying to please or prove to did not necessarily reinforce that form of yourself. So you disidentify. "This is not me. I'm the person I need to be for my mother or my father," or whoever the case may be. So it's really useful from that standpoint so that you can begin to enrich and expand your life, and it sounds like you've used psychedelics as a way to kind of go back there. It can be done obviously that way. It can also be done in very simple, direct ways through closed-eye kind of hypnotic patterns that can be done over a course of an hour or two. I, I do those in, in many different events, including David Gessling.

8. 27:41 – 31:28

   Best investments: self-education and the $35 Jim Rohn seminar

   1. TFTim Ferriss27:41

      Uh, so, so let- let's talk about investments for a second, but in a very broad, in a very broad sense. So i- if you had to think of the best or most worthwhile investment you've made, and what I mean by that is, uh, an investment of money, time, energy. And I'll give you an example just because it might clarify the question. So Amelia Boone, who's the world's most successful female obstacle course racer, four-time world champion, uh, for her it was her first s- $450, which of, uh, which was a huge financial stretch at the time for her first World's Toughest Mudder competition, which she ended up winning and it took her on this completely different life trajectory, right? Um-

   2. TRTony Robbins28:22

      Yes

   3. TFTim Ferriss28:23

      ... does anything come to mind for you?

   4. TRTony Robbins28:26

      Well, probably the first one was, uh, [laughs] going to a Jim Rohn seminar. I think I've shared with you. I had to... I was working for this man, helping him move. I was 17. I was in high school. And, um, I was just trying to earn extra money, and my family had talked about, my father had talked about this guy who'd been such a loser before, and then now he'd been so successful. [laughs] And so, you know, when you're 17, I told the guy, I said, "You know, my dad said you used to be such a loser. Now you're so successful. How come? What'd you do?" [laughs]

   5. TFTim Ferriss28:52

      [laughs]

   6. TRTony Robbins28:52

      And, you know, he didn't like, he didn't like that response at first, but he told me he'd gone to this seminar by this man named Jim Rohn. And I said like, "What's a seminar?" And he said, "This man gets up and shares with you the best of what he's learned over, you know, 20, 30 years of his life in an evening and saves you all those years." And I said, "Wow." And he... I said, "You know, is this happening soon?" He said, "Yeah." He told me when. I said, "Can you get me in?" And he said, "Yeah," and he just didn't say anything after. I said, "Well, will you?" And he said, "No." [laughs]

   7. TFTim Ferriss29:17

      [laughs]

   8. TRTony Robbins29:17

      I said, "Why not?" He said, "Because you won't value it if you don't invest in it." I said, "Well, how much is it?" And he said, "$35 for three hours." I said, "$35 for three hours? I make $40 a week as a janitor while I'm going to high school." I said, "That's a week's pay." He said, "Well, then just go learn on your own experience and waste 10 or 20 or 30 years of your life."

   9. TFTim Ferriss29:34

      [laughs]

   10. TRTony Robbins29:34

       Right? He said, "It's up to you," but he said, "I'm not paying for it and I'm not... Even though I could get you in, I'm not going to. You decide." And I wrestled for a week with that decision because it seemed like such a giant decision. But, you know, I look back on it now, one of the most important decisions of my life because that night stimulated me. Jim Rohn became a, a model of what was possible to me, of what, how I could help people out long term. I mean, I had no direction or vision. I didn't even know if such a thing as a seminar or an event like that occurred. It all came out of that initial conversation, so it was a damn good $35, even though it seemed like a- all the money I'd ever see in the world.

   11. TFTim Ferriss30:06

       [laughs] It... What's been a-

   12. TRTony Robbins30:08

       And, you know, and when I was interviewing these people, by the way, for the-

   13. TFTim Ferriss30:10

       Mm-hmm

   14. TRTony Robbins30:10

       ... for The Money Master the Game, you know, I interviewed 50 of the smartest financial people on the face of the earth, right? All these guys are self-made. None of them are from the lucky sperm club. And every single one of them, as you dug in with them, had different things. I asked them about their best investment and so forth. You know, guys like Warren Buffett said his best investment was going to Dale Carnegie, he told me. He said, "You know, it's what you do. It's, it's investing in yourself is the most important investment you'll ever make in your life. There's no financial investment that'll ever match it, because if you develop more skill, more ability, more insight, more capacity," he said, "that's what's gonna really provide economic freedom for you," because it's those skill sets that really make that happen. So I found that most people, there's different types of investments. Where it's got to start with is your own development, which you've done your whole life.

   15. TFTim Ferriss30:54

       I'm working on it. I'm working on it, and I'm still a collector of quotes. I, I capture them in Evernote, and what surprised me is how many of them are misattributed to people that actually originate with Jim Rohn. [laughs]

   16. TRTony Robbins31:08

       [laughs]

   17. TFTim Ferriss31:08

       It's b- it's been amazing. I remember I was, I was at a, a gym not long ago, a few weeks ago, and there was a T-shirt that this gym had made which said, "Don't, don't wish it were easier. Make yourself better." And I think [chuckles] that actually goes back, a number of people pointed out, to Jim Rohn [laughs] in some form.

   18. TRTony Robbins31:24

       Yeah, wish you were better.

   19. TFTim Ferriss31:25

       Wish you were better.

   20. TRTony Robbins31:26

       Yeah.

   21. TFTim Ferriss31:26

       Exactly.

   22. TRTony Robbins31:27

       I wish you were better. Yeah.

9. 31:28 – 34:29

   Quotes, decisions, and beliefs: converting knowledge into action

   1. TFTim Ferriss31:28

      Uh, do you have any quotes that you live your life by or any-

   2. TRTony Robbins31:32

      Oh, I've got so-

   3. TFTim Ferriss31:33

      ... any particular maxims?

   4. TRTony Robbins31:35

      God, my gosh, there's so many, but I mean, I think the core construct of my life is the decisions ... It's your decisions, not your conditions, that shape your life, and so it's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped, so you [chuckles] wanna choose really well. Or, you know, you make a different decision, you have a... You know, I tell people, I say, "Think of the last 10, 20 years of your life. Think has there been a decision that if you made a different decision, your life would be completely different today?" Better or worse, I don't know, but completely different. Everybody can relate to it. So I think most of us forget the power of decision that, you know, you don't like your job? Change it. You don't like your relationship? Change it. You know, start by changing yourself, 'cause if you just change people, you're gonna ... [claps hands] You got the same problems you're carrying with you, right? Um, you know, if you don't like your income, change it. And all of us have that capacity, but it really comes down to making decisions, and most people, they don't make enough decisions. Decision-making is like a muscle; the more you make them, the stronger you get. And if all you make are the easy decisions, you know, any idiot can do that. And the most successful leaders are the ones that have to make decisions where they're likely [chuckles] maybe gonna be wrong, but they figure out, "You know, I gotta make the decision quicker, so if I'm wrong, I can find it out quicker [chuckles] and make a better decision, change to the next thing, and make it go."

   5. TFTim Ferriss32:41

      Mm-hmm.

   6. TRTony Robbins32:41

      So if there... My life is about really how can I help people to change the structure of what creates decisions? And what filters that is our beliefs, our values, our rules, and our emotions obviously, 'cause that shapes it all. So I'm constantly looking for where's the tipping point that can change the quality of this person's life? Often we've made decisions 5, 10, 20 years ago that still affect us today. Sometimes those decisions were made as a child about life, about yourself, about what you believe about men or women or people or relationship or finance or anything, and if... Beliefs create and beliefs destroy. Either, you know... There's no such thing as a belief that doesn't have a consequence. The only question is, is it an uplifting consequence or a degrading consequence? And so I'm huge on finding what those are, eliminating the ones that are keeping people from making the decisions that will move them forward, and making that happen. So I love quotes, but it's really more the hunt for excellence. It's the hunt for what's outstanding. It's the hunt... Just like you. It's one of the reasons I love you so much and respect you so much, is I feel like we're different creatures, but we're, we got some of the same core stuff in us, which is we wanna understand the truth and we wanna bring the truth to people, and we wanna find that truth in all its beautiful forms and different forms so people have a variety of ways of creating the quality of life they desire and they deserve, and we're both kind of experimenters in that area. So-

   7. TFTim Ferriss34:00

      Mm-hmm

   8. TRTony Robbins34:00

      ... to me, that's, that's what it's about more than the quotes themselves. Love quotes, love anything that's inspiring. I'm touched by them all. But in the end, information has gotta be converted, knowledge has gotta be converted to action or it's worthless. You know?

   9. TFTim Ferriss34:12

      Yep.

   10. TRTony Robbins34:12

       It's what Jim Rohn used to say. He was my teacher. He used to say, you know, "Let your ... You know, if you let your learning lead to knowledge, you become a fool. If you let your learning lead to action, you become wealthy." And his idea of wealthy was not just money. It was really rich mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and financially, of course, and I, I really have lived by that.

10. 34:29 – 47:19

    “Worst advice” turns into a long thesis: achievement vs. fulfillment

    1. TFTim Ferriss34:29

       What is some of the ... Looking at the flip side, what is some of the, the worst advice that you see or hear being dispensed often in, say, the self-improvement world or self-development world? It could be, could be in any sphere, but I'm just wondering if, if any particularly common yet bad advice comes to mind that you think is-

    2. TRTony Robbins34:51

       Oh, my gosh. [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss34:52

       [laughs]

    4. TRTony Robbins34:53

       There's so much. Such a full floor to pick from. I mean, depends on the start. I'd tell you, I'd say, you know, financially, just 'cause I finished, you know, four years of obsession on, on that subject, you know, I'm doing Money: Master the Game and getting that out to people and I'm still so obsessed by it, is, you know, we live in a culture that, you know, most people allow financial quote professionals, you know, 95% of which in the marketplace they call them a wealth managers. There's 300 names, but 95% of the people you're talking about is a broker, and they might be a really nice person, but the advice they're gonna give you is based on what the house has taught them to sell, and the house always wins. These corporations are not bad, they just, they're trying to make profit for their, you know, shareholders. That's who they're focused on first. They're not focused on you. So finding a fiduciary, as you know, is one of the most important elements, somebody who's legally required to put your needs ahead of their own.

    5. TFTim Ferriss35:44

       Mm-hmm.

    6. TRTony Robbins35:44

       So many people put their money in mutual funds and, you know, 96% of all mutual funds don't even match the market over a 10-year period of time. Only 4% will match it or beat it, and that 4%'s always changing. So y- you wanna get someone who can give you advice who is extraordinary. I, I'm actually, um, uh, really excited that, you know, I wrote that book and then I donated all the money and I fed 100 million people, and I'm, I'm feeding another 100 million this year. I'm gonna feed a billion people over the next nine years, which I'm really excited about my partnership with Feeding America. But in doing that, in writing the book, I wanted people to not be screwed over, so I spent half a million dollars, quite frankly, of my own money, and then I donated that, just like the book, to create this online site where people could go and they could put their numbers in and they could find out what they actually were spending. 'Cause I think you know 1% in fees is, makes up 10 years of income you lose. In other words, if you paid 2% when you could've paid 1, or 3%, you know, 3% instead of 1, you'd be paying 20 years' worth of future income out just in fees for the same stocks, the same bonds, the same investments you could've owned for less, and people just don't understand this. So I created this site and, uh, and I had people go there and I, I donated the pieces, and it instantly pulled all your accounts in and showed you what you're really being charged so people could make better decisions. And then if you wanted a fiduciary, I recommended six of the best and largest firms out there. And then when I went to do my paperback, Tim, something happened that just blew my mind, which was one of the guys on the site, uh, his name is Peter Mallouk from Creative Planning, it's the number-one rated wealth manager for the last three years to give you an idea, um, and number d- number one for CNBC for the last two years. And Barron's was the first one for three years. No one's ever done it for three years. So he's brilliant, brilliant guy, managing, you know, at the time, about $17 billion. And he said, "Listen, Tony, I wanna sit down with you and have a conversation with you, 'cause you care so much about people, but there's a little gray area in the law that some of the people you do business with are taking advantage of." And he said, "I think you're gonna go berserk when you find it out." So when you and I s- you came to LA for the UPW, and I met him right afterwards- Mm-hmm ... same day, and, uh, at my hotel there, and we sat down and talked, and he showed me how these people that say they're a fiduciary, saying, "I'm here, legally required to take care of you," now have this little component called dual registration, where they're a broker and they're a fiduciary. Uh-oh. So you're going to somebody thinking that they are legally required, and they're gonna tell you, "I'm legally required to take care of you," and in the middle of the conversation, they can switch hats and be a broker and sell you something that is inferior product that gives them just a higher commission, that has no value for you, and they can do it, and so I looked on [laughs] found out every person on the site but one was doing it. Wow. I couldn't believe it. And it's this gray area they're getting by with. So I've knocked them off the site, and then, um, you know, I was talking to Peter, and I said, "Peter," I said, "This is a great way to get rid of your competition." And he laughed. He goes, "No, I'm, I'm just... It's the facts." I said, "No, I get it." I said, "You know what? Why don't... If you're number one for three years in a row, no one's ever done that," and he has this approach, you know, you know our billionaire friends- Mm-hmm ... all have family offices where, you know- Right ... you have seven or eight people who full-time are looking at your mortgages, and they're looking at your accounting and your investment. They look at every aspect of your life, and they make it work. But, you know, you gotta be a billionaire to have it. He created a billionaire family office-type format for millionaires, and I said, "Listen, if you'd be willing, do this with people as little as 100,000 or even 50,000. You won't make money on it. I know you won't make money on it. But I wanna help everybody. If you'll do that, I'd be interested in joining forces with you." So we spent several months together. So now, so you know, I'm, I'm pretty excited about it. I'm partners with Peter at Creative Planning. I'm, I'm a member of the board of directors, and I'm also their head director of, of psychology for their investment group. And I'm, I've now, that's my focus is getting people to the right kind of person. And so I'm responsible for basically helping educate the public, and of course, since I'm a partner in the firm, and if I grow the firm, if I get more clients, it helps my business, his business together, because we're together now. But I, I could've been with anybody. I picked this guy because he's just second to none. So you gotta find the right person. The other side of decision-making would be, I think [laughs] you look at health. Oh my God, there are so many things in the health area that are so conflicted. Um, I think you know. I've just- Mm ... you asked me last time about my diet, and I told you I got a really boring diet for... I was, I was for, what, 16 years, uh, I was, you know, a vegetarian, a vegan. And then I began eating fish, and that was the only thing I needed. I felt stronger. I needed that. And about, gosh, three months ago, I started, I had several challenges in a row. I had the challenge of first, um, um, you know, for years of pounding my arms together with such intensity, you know, 50 hours in a week out on stage, and the nerves in my arms, I couldn't sleep on my side. So I slept on my back. Not a big deal. But then my wife kept saying, "Honey, you stop breathing. I'm really worried." And I went to a sleep study and found out I stop breathing 17 times in 16 minutes on my back. So [laughs] Jeez ... extreme sleep apnea. So they give you this, this sleep ap, which is this, like, vacuum cleaner to put on your face, and it's extremely sexy. You'll get girls with it for sure. Oh. [laughs] And, um, and I'm just like, "Are you kidding me? This is how I'm supposed to live my life?" And then in the middle of this, I go snowboarding, and I get a snowboarding accident, and I rip, you know, three of my rotator cuffs. I'm good at handling pain, so it wasn't that big a deal, but then the pain starts going down my arm, and I find this incredible, this level of pain that's nine nine. I mean, I can handle pain, but it's, it was as severe as anything I can imagine. Couldn't sleep, couldn't anything. Went into the hospital for the MRI and found out that I had spinal stenosis, where the nerves are being pinched and, and the spine is j- is tightening up. And, you know, they tell me I can't snowboard again. I can't play squash. I can't, you know, I can't jump around on stage and be crazy. And so I wasn't willing to accept that. So long story short, I'm telling you this because I have a core belief. The core belief is, you asked me about quotes, it's a belief. Life is always happening for us, not to us, and it's our job to find out where the benefit is. If we do, life is magnificent. So I'm trying to find some benefit in not sleeping, not having pain, having a vacuum cleaner on my face [laughs] you know? And just... And I, and I won't give up, and all these guys are telling me my life is over, right? And in the midst of all this, I'm also experiencing something insane that I didn't even tell my wife because I don't want to worry her, but I'm only 56 years old, and I've never... I'm on stage 50 hours, you know me. I, I don't forget a thing. I mean, it's like my brain is just, it, it's a strength. And I'm on stage, and I'm trying to figure out all of a sudden, what did I just say, and why did I say it? It was like dementia. And I'm, so that's freaking me out. All this is happening at once while I've just maybe six months before made this decision that said, "I am going to become a master of joy and happiness like I never have before. As great as I think my life is, I'm gonna end suffering as it arrives. I'm gonna realize that there's only two places you can live, beautiful states of being, joy, happiness, love, passion, you know, decisiveness, creativity, awe. All those states that when you're in those emotional states, life is magnificent. You treat yourself and others at the highest level. And then there are suffering states. And none of us who are achievers would probably call it suffering, just like achievers are never fearful, they're just stressed. [laughs] Stressed is the achiever word for fear. But if I follow your stress, it'll take me to your fear. Same thing. So I'd never call it suffering. If you had said, "Do you have a, you know, are you suffering?" I woulda said, "Suffer? Are you kidding me? I don't suffer. I have the most magnificent life. I have this incredible mission. I have millions of people that I've meet and love. I got four incredible kids. I got the greatest wife in the world. I'm physically fit. You know, I got financial freedom." But I did suffer, because suffering really is any emotion that takes you out of those beautiful states. So it would be I'd get frustrated, I'd get stressed, I'd get concerned, I'd get overwhelmed. I'd get all kinds of feelings. They didn't last very long, but I'd feel them. And I'd say, "Well, that's part of life." But really what happened for me is, you talk about better advice- The advice I gave myself, the advice I got, I went to India, spent some time with a friend of mine, and came out of it and said, "The next level for me is realizing how to experience life at the highest level every day, every moment, finding ecstasy and joy in this moment with you, in the moment with my wife, in the moment when I'm gonna go talk with someone." I mean, th- billionaires are common. Uh, someone who is truly happy every moment of life is not. And so my, you know, you talk about advice or direction, my whole obsession became to say, look, my whole life is about helping people create an extraordinary quality of life, not a good one, not even a great one, just life on their terms, whatever that is. Some people, that's three beautiful children. Some people, that's a garden. Some people, that's poetry. Some people, that's building a billion-dollar business. It- there's no right or wrong, but whatever you really want, to get it, you've got to master two skills, and the one everybody knows is the science of achievement. Like, we've got to figure out how to take our visions and make them real, and the people that do that are the people that everybody knows the name of and respect and who have their life the way they want it seemingly. And it is a science in that achievement. There are rules. If you want to know finance, there are rules to finance. I just spent four or five years doing it. You follow those rules, you're gonna have an abundance of money. You may not be a billionaire, but you're gonna have an abundance of money. You break those rules, I don't care who you are, you're gonna have financial stress. Same thing with the body. You and I both know we're all biochemically unique, but there are certain fundamentals. If you violate them, you're gonna have low energy and disease. If you align with them, you're gonna have high energy. So that's science of achievement. You and I could dig into that forever. But the one I'm passionate about, the one I really want to jump on this, this call with you on, because I really want to spread the word, is two things. It's this idea that the other skill you need that is so boring and our culture does not reinforce it, does not show its true importance, is the art of fulfillment, and it's an art, Tim. It's not a science. 'Cause what's gonna light you up, you and I are good friends, and what lights me up, there's gonna be a lot of things in common. There'll be some things that are different.

    7. TFTim Ferriss45:22

       Mm-hmm.

    8. TRTony Robbins45:22

       There's a woman in your life. She's gonna love certain things, and you're gonna have a little in common in certain things. She's gonna be excited by that don't excite you. That's just part of life. I, I was with Steve Wynn, and I think you know Steve. He's a dear friend of mine from-

    9. TFTim Ferriss45:33

       Mm-hmm

    10. TRTony Robbins45:33

        ... built most of Las Vegas and Macau. And I, he calls me up one day. It's a perfect example of this, and he says to me [laughs] , he says, "Where are you in the world?" And I said, "I'm in Sun Valley," and we both have some, uh, some escape homes in Sun Valley, vacation homes there. He goes, "I'm in Sun Valley." He goes, "Do you know it's my birthday?" I said, "I do know it's your birthday, Steve." I said, "I was gonna call you." He goes, "Well, you don't need to call me. I'm here. Come see me." So [laughs] I said, "I'd love to come see you." And he says, "When you come, I gotta tell you something." He said, "I have been coveting a painting for 17 years," and he said, "I just outbid everybody at Sotheby's for it." And he said, "Tony, you've gotta see it. It's incredible. I paid $82 million for this picture."

    11. TFTim Ferriss46:12

        [laughs]

    12. TRTony Robbins46:12

        And I'm like, oh, my God, I've seen some of his paintings. Picassos are amazing. His... You know, he's got, he's got everything you can imagine, Rembrandts. And so I said, "Okay, I can't wait to see it." So I'm driving to his house. I'll never forget. I'm picturing in my mind it's, like, the Mona Lisa. This is, like, a Rembrandt. [laughs] You know, what is this? This is gonna be incredible. And I walk in his house. He goes, "Look," and I look up, and it's a big red square. I mean-

    13. TFTim Ferriss46:34

        [laughs]

    14. TRTony Robbins46:34

        ... if you know art, it's called a Rothko.

    15. TFTim Ferriss46:36

        Rothko, yeah. Rothko.

    16. TRTony Robbins46:37

        But it's a big red square with a little bit of orange in it, right? And I look at him and said, "Steve, you know..." I, I first admired it, and then I started teasing him. I said, "You know, give me 100 bucks and 15 minutes, I could do this shit. I'm telling you." [laughs]

    17. TFTim Ferriss46:49

        [laughs]

    18. TRTony Robbins46:49

        He didn't like that. He goes, "You know, you don't understand. The guy committed suicide." Well, if he committed suicide, that better be his blood on there for $82 million for Christ sakes, right? [laughs]

    19. TFTim Ferriss46:58

        [laughs]

    20. TRTony Robbins46:58

        So I teased him about it, but the reason I bring it up is he finds $82 million of value in that paint, and I respect him because I don't. Like, he knows each brush stroke and what it means and what went into it and what the talent is. I don't have that level of sophistication around that kind of art. So I look at that, and I go, "Red square." He looks at it and goes, "$82 million of the value."

    21. TFTim Ferriss47:19

        Mm-hmm.

11. 47:19 – 1:04:39

    Ending suffering: expectations vs. appreciation and the 90-second rule challenge

    1. TRTony Robbins47:19

       That's how humans function. So you and I have to figure out what it is that really lights us up because success without fulfilled, to me, is the ultimate failure in life. The worst advice you can get is, "Go achieve all your goals." Most people do that, and they go, "Is this all there is?" What you have to find out is what's gonna fulfill you, and there are no... It's not like a science because it's different for everybody. You want to know what's... You know, I'm up here in BC right now. I'm looking out at the forest, and you look at this forest, if you want to know what God loves, the universe loves, it's pretty obvious. Nothing's the same. It's all diverse. It's pure diversity, right? So that's what's real. But the principle that makes you feel, like, fulfilled is you've got to grow. Anybody, I don't care how much money they have, how many Academy Awards they have, how many people they like or like them, I don't care how much m- It doesn't matter what they have. It's never enough if you don't keep growing, because if you don't grow, you die. If your business is not growing, don't bullshit yourself. It's shrinking. If your relationship is not growing, it is shrinking. It is dying. There is no in between in real life of how things really live. And if you grow, the reason I believe growth is the imperative in the universe, it's not my rule, it's everything in the universe grows or it dies, is because it gives us something to give, and I really believe that's what we're made for. We're most alive when we don't just do something for ourselves, but we really feel like our life matters because it extends beyond ourselves into contribution. So I'll give you a perfect example, and I've been sharing this example all over the world because it's just so relevant, and I also wanted to test how people responded. So during these premieres of, um, of I'm Not Your Guru around the country-

    2. TFTim Ferriss48:50

       Mm-hmm

    3. TRTony Robbins48:50

       ... I've gone up afterwards for Q&A, and then I ask people, as well as in my seminars around the world, I'd say, "How many of you..." I said, "We've lost a, a national treasure in the United States two years ago," and I asked this in China, Beijing, in Tokyo, in Sydney, down in Brazil, up in Toronto, in America. I said, "And his name is Robin Williams." I said, "How many of you in this room... Don't raise your hand if you liked Robin Williams. Raise your hand if you loved Robin Williams." And 98% of the room in Beijing, in [laughs] Tokyo, in Sydney, I'm talking about all over the world, 98% of the people, 99% raised their hand, and then I give shit to the 1% that are assholes that didn't like him. You know what I mean? [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss49:28

       [laughs]

    5. TRTony Robbins49:28

       But, but I said, "You asshole. How could you not like Robin Williams, right?" But the truth is these people say they love him. They didn't even know him. Now, was he a master of achievement, science of achievement? You bet. I mean, everybody comes to Hollywood, big dreams. Everybody tells you you're full of shit. This guy did it. He wanted his own TV show, he did it. He wanted the number one show. They all said, "There's no way." And some people are ancient enough to remember Mork & Mindy, and he did it. Then he wanted to have the most beautiful family, and he did it. Then he said he wanted to make more money than he could spend, and he achieved it. Then he said, "This is not enough. I wanna make movies, not just TV," and he did that. Then he said, "I wanna win an Academy Award for not being funny," his number one skill, and he did it. He said he wanted to make the whole world laugh, and he did it. He wanted to get the whole world to love him, and he did it. And he hung himself, hung himself in his own home, leaving hundreds of millions of people around the world literally that loved this man. And screw us, he left his children and his wife scarred for life, and he was a good man. How do you explain that? I'll tell you how you explain it. The worst advice a person ever got, somewhere got stuck in his psychology, that achievement was more important than fulfillment. It's the biggest fucking lie on the planet, and if you get it, if you wake up to it, you can actually have a life that is so rich and so beautiful. But the only way you can do it is you gotta understand that this brain inside our heads is a two-million-year-old brain, and this two-million-year-old brain was not designed to make you happy. It was designed to make you survive, and it's ancient, old survival software that is running you a good deal of the time. Whenever you're suffering, that survival software is there, and the reason you're suffering is you're focused on yourself. You're obsessing on yourself. People tell me, "I'm not suffering that way. It's, I'm worried about my kids. My kids are not where they need to be." No, the reason they're upset is they feel they failed their kids. It's about them still. In fact, I began to uncover where all suffering comes from, and I found the most simple little tools. I dug in. Suffering comes from three thought patterns: loss, less, never. If you are in a situation where you believe that someone did something, the government, your friend, your coworker, your kid, whoever, and because they did that, you lost love, or you lost an opportunity, or you lost respect, or you lost anything, the illusion of loss is the place we suffer. And it is unconsciously, even when it's not conscious, because we're obsessing about ourselves. We're having this illusion that something happened and now life as we expect it to be is not there, and our expectations are what are keeping us from feeling that happiness. On the other hand, the other one is less. If you did something, I did something, you failed to do something as my friend, I failed to do something for you, and as a result, either of us starts thinking we have less respect, less love, less joy, less opportunity, less something, you're gonna suffer. You're gonna come up with those emotions that make you crazy. And the worst one is when you start thinking because you did this, or I did this, or you didn't do that, or I didn't this, or the government or somebody did something, because of that, we will never have something again. Then people get crazy inside. And the antidote to that suffering is appreciation. It's getting outside of yourself and finding something to appreciate, 'cause we get so upset about stuff today that's nothing. I mean, I'll give you a perfect example. [smacks lips] And you know, I'm privileged enough now to have a intercontinental [laughs] jet where I can go straight to China non-stop. It's, it's unbelievable privilege at this stage of my life. But my whole life I've flown commercial. And I get on Qantas Airlines to go to Australia, 14 hours, you know the drill, and y- what I'd be is, like, I got 18 companies now, 12 of them that I actively manage. We got 1,200 employees on three continents in seven industries. We do 5 billion in sales plus this year combined with all these people. Uh, uh, with all that going on, I get on that plane and my brain would be like, "Oh my God, I'm gonna be disconnected for 14 hours," and I'd go, I'd create all this stress. What's stressful about sitting, [laughs] you know, or lying down if you're privileged enough to be in a first class seat? I mean, the stories we tell ourselves that stress us out. But on this flight, it's like, you know, you're used to, you know, domestically you got access to internet, and you got, you can ... Thank God you got connection to Facebook and Instagram, God forbid that you be apart from that for a few minutes, and your emails. And I get on the plane and it's like they announce for the first time, "We have internet." And Tim, I swear to God, it was like God entered the, [laughs] the plane. People were cheering. People stood up, actually stood up and clapped. And I have to admit, I didn't stand up and clap, but I was doing that inside, like, "Oh, yeah, this is so cool." And then what do you think happens 15 minutes later?

    6. TFTim Ferriss54:02

       [laughs] Yeah, the internet, the internet is, is announced to not be working.

    7. TRTony Robbins54:06

       For how long?

    8. TFTim Ferriss54:07

       I have no idea. [laughs]

    9. TRTony Robbins54:09

       14 hours. [laughs] It never worked again. And people are like, "This is bullshit. I'm not putting up with this. What the hell is wrong with these people?" My point is, 15 minutes earlier it was a miracle. Now it's already an expectation. You wanna change your life, you wanna end suffering? Stop just focusing on achievement. It's easy to achieve when you're fulfilled anyway. You feel better. Actually trade your expectations for appreciation, and your whole life changes in a moment. It's the whole game. So what I decided to do is to realize if I was gonna take a different level of life, life is too short to suffer. And you know what it took me to suffer, Tim? I wouldn't call it suffering. I'd say a little stressed or frustrated. I just had to have my phone nearby. That's all it took. What do you think the chances are if you're a listener right now, or you, Tim, what do you think the chances are with 1,200 employees across all these industries, multiple continents, what are the chances that someone is effing up something right now? [laughs]

    10. TFTim Ferriss55:02

        I'd say 100%.

    11. TRTony Robbins55:02

        What do you think the chances are?

    12. TFTim Ferriss55:03

        Yeah.

    13. TRTony Robbins55:03

        It's 100%. [laughs] And if I have my phone nearby, there's gonna be a text or an email or a Slack or something to let me know that, and I'm gonna go from this beautiful state I'm in to, [laughs] "What the... Are you kidding me?" And that would be my life. And I realized that my happiness was so cheap. I would give my happiness over somebody not doing what I thought they should do. And the more people that you're then responsible to and for, the more likelihood, just the law of averages says it's not gonna work out the way you expect. And so I finally decided I got a number one, and this is my invitation, everyone. It's why I came on, 'cause I, I'm so passionate about this. You can tell. This, I hope... It probably feels like a soliloquy right now. I apologize, my friend, but I just wanna plant the seed with everybody, 'cause it is, it's a beautiful life and it's blessed the life that I've had, and I've worked my ass off for it, and I've been blessed both. But out of all of that, nothing compares to the last year and a half when my wife and I both made this distinction and said, "There's only two states you live in, beautiful states or suffering states, and life is too short to suffer." So when we start to suffer, we have a 90-second rule. Feel it for 90 seconds, figure it out, let it go. Because all these things we're so upset at, my preference is that everybody would do things a certain way. My preference is I'd have the internet on the plane. We all have these preferences that we make life and death. It's like this survival s- mechanism in our brain is always looking for what's wrong. That's what it does. That's the survival mechanism. It's looking for what's wrong so you can f- fight it or flight it. But there's no longer a saber-toothed tiger to avoid, so now it worries about what are people thinking of me, or do I have enough money, in a country where if you live in poverty in the United States, you're actually in the 1% of the world. Mm-hmm. People say they're in the 99% are lying. Half the world lives on $2.50 a day, 900 bucks a year. So I don't want anybody to be in poverty anywhere, but we live in a world where most of us are looking for what's wrong. What's wrong is always available. So is what's right. And if you don't take control of your focus, everything in your life will disappear. So we have this 90-second rule, and if you want later on in the show here, we can, uh, we- I can do a little process with everybody for two minutes and show them how to end some suffering as it occurs. Yeah. Would love to do that. Now, suffering will show up again 'cause the mind is always looking for what's wrong, and so it shows up. It's not like it won't show up. It's just you kill it. I always tell people, "Kill the monster while it's a baby. Don't wait till it's Godzilla eating the city," [laughs] you know what I mean? [laughs] Whatever little challenge you got, you wanna kill it right away. So in the beginning, it should've probably been a four-hour rule, quite honestly, but, uh, you know, in, years ago, it would've been a four-month rule with upset and so forth. But we really got it down like a muscle to 90 seconds, and I cannot tell you the level of magnificence and joy and happiness you have when you don't stress out about all the stuff that you can't control that's just a preference, and you find the beauty in everything and you use what life is offering you. I mean, I've always done this. It's just, it's like anything else. You can't manage something you don't measure, right? And I wasn't measuring this 'cause I just called these other emotions. They weren't dominant. They weren't d- destroying my life. They were just showing up at times. I called that life. No, that's not life. That's survival software. That's an old brain. And I teach my brain what to do. I don't let my brain... I don't have an argument. I don't have negotiations in m- my mind. I've trained my brain through conditioning to do this, and now this year I've trained it to just let go and find what is beautiful in each moment. And I'm telling you, there is nothing on earth I've experienced that's brought more joy to me, to my wife. 'Cause also when you're doing that, you're in a different place. You're not... You can't be present with someone when you're stressed out inside. And if there's really a problem, it's so much easier to solve when you're in a beautiful state of being with all your ability and strength than when you're in a stressed out state. And a lot of people think getting stressed out makes me better. It's bullshit. I can tell you, you might look like you're getting better, but you haven't really tried being in the ultimate beautiful states and solving something and seeing how much faster it'll be. So I am on a journey to invite people to make the most important decision of their life, which is deciding to end suffering, deciding to live in a beautiful state. That's my spiritual vision now. My friend, his name's Christian Gian in India, said, "You know, what's your spiritual vision?" That's how this conversation started, and he said, "To live in a beautiful state all day long every day." That's my entire piece, 'cause if I do that, everything else comes from it. And I thought, someone asked me the other day, "What would cause someone to kill men, women, and children?" And, you know, like you've seen happen in Paris and what happened in Nice recently, what's happened obviously in, in Orlando, in San Bernardino. And I said, "I can't tell you the kind of person that did it, but I can tell you who didn't do it. A happy person didn't go kill all those people." A fulfilled human being, a person in a beautiful state does not plot or try to harm anybody, much less kill anybody. A person in a beautiful state is not out there trying to, you know, steal from somebody else. And so you know when you get on an airplane and, and the first thing they say is, "If we have a problem and we lose oxygen, the mask'll drop down, and put it on your child first," right? No. They say, "Put it on yourself first," which seems selfish with your child. We all wanna take care of our kid first. But the reason is if you don't take care of yourself, you're gonna have nothing for that child. That child's gonna die too. Putting yourself in a beautiful state is putting that l- living oxygen inside of you, and then you have things to give other people. As long as you're suffering, suffering begets more suffering. So I always tell people, figure out what your favorite flavor of suffering is. Do you, are you the person who gets stressed out all the time? Is it anxiety? Is it worry? Is it anger? Is it pissed off? Is it, you know, trying to please every- What is your favorite style of suffering? And end it. 'Cause when you end that, there's a level of freedom that no amount of money will give you, no amount of love will give it you, no amount of accolades, no amount of Academy Awards, none of that shit. I get the call from all those multi-billionaire clients and from all those people in the entertainment business who've got everything and they're miserable, and they bring me in to help them with their business or whatever it is, and I'm the Trojan horse. I give them what they want, but then I know what I'm really there for is to also give them what they need and to help them to find that joy and happiness. So I've been doing that, you know, like managing, coaching Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 financial traders in the history of the world. You know, a guy who in 1987, when the stock market took its biggest percentage drop ever percentage-wise, still the most, and he made 200% for his clients, and then he lost money. But I've been coaching him now for 22 years. He hasn't lost money in 22 years. So I'm doing my job, but I'm also making sure that man is fulfilled, and that to me is my real mission with him. Even though I'm helping him on the business side in a way that he's very pleased with, making sure that his life is fulfilled is my ultimate, ultimate drive. So I finish with a, a little piece. I just think, a lot of people say to me, "Well, you know, God's not really in my life. I don't know there's a God or an infinite energy," or whatever you wanna call what you think has created you. And I always say to people, "Can you imagine if you were, if you were the creator and you come here to one of your creations and you say to this person, 'Joe, how do you like what I created for you?' And he says, 'Geez, God, I mean, it's hot as shit here. Couldn't you just kept it at 78 degrees? Why'd you have to change all these temperatures and make it so tough? And man, you got these stupid people I gotta deal with all the time. They're always getting in my way. And, you know, [sighs] and why do I have to work for a living? And plus you got these little red ants. They're tiny little ants and they bite my ass and they hurt like hell. Why would you create these annoying ants?'" Now, if you're God, do you wanna hang out with this person? And if you're a human, do you wanna hang out with him?

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:02:16

        [laughs]

    15. TRTony Robbins1:02:16

        And then you, you're God, you go to somebody else and you say, "How's it going, you know, the creation I created for you?" The guy says, "Hey, man. God, this is so incredible. This is the most beautiful place I could ever imagine, the sky, the air, the water. Oh my God, there's so many different people that challenge me and help me to grow and learn, and people I can love. And oh my God, you even created these red ants. I mean, these red ants are so tiny and I'm a thousand times their size, and they're so courageous they come and even bite me. It's cool what you've created here," [laughs] you know? Who do you wanna hang with? So a lot of people say, "I don't God in my life." It's probably 'cause you whine and bitch too much to feel God's presence, right? We have got to stop the s- suffering. I don't know many people that don't suffer regularly. They don't call it suffering, but that's what they do, and it's something you can end. Not like one time. It's like drawing the line in the sand and saying, "If I wanna take the island, I'm gonna burn the boats. I'm not going back," and then committing yourself to it and not beating yourself up. Like, you know, I don't say to my wife, "Oh, you're suffering and you need to change." We have a 90 second rule. It doesn't work that way. I'm just like, "Honey, I don't know if you're suffering or not. I feel energy in you right now, and I just want you to know I'm here for you and anything I can do to help." And we do our own internal work. But if she suffered for whatever period of time internally, I'm there for her, but I'm not gonna make her wrong for it. 'Cause what happens is your brain starts to see how life can really be, and it is more beautiful than most humans will ever dream of. And so most people try to drink or smoke or do something to alter their state to get in a beautiful state, and I'm telling you can wire yourself to be that way. So this is my little soliloquy. Thank you for [laughs] letting me thump it out.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:03:46

        [laughs]

    17. TRTony Robbins1:03:47

        'Cause you're such a gem, Tim, to let me do it, but it's just like if I could get every human being to truly make the decision, keep the word, and keep practicing, 'cause it's a daily practice, 'cause I still feel it. Something shows up and you see it, you let it go. But as you do it more and more, it's like, like I said, it's like a muscle. There is a level of joy as much as you've ever dreamed you have, I'm telling you there's a hundredfold out there and I'm inviting your listeners to consider trying a real simple 10-day challenge to say, for 10 days, I'm just not gonna suffer. I'm gonna end it. I'm gonna let it go. I'm gonna realize don't sweat the small stuff. It's all [laughs] small stuff. I'm gonna stop obsessing about myself and I'm gonna focus on what I can appreciate and what's beautiful, and just try it and see what happens. The end of 10 days, you really believe it's the most important thing in life like I do, then you commit to that decision long-term and maybe surround some of your friends and family, sharing why you've done it so you've got some leverage on yourself, and you keep moving forward and keep expanding.

12. 1:04:39 – 1:16:38

    Guided 2-minute heart coherence exercise: solve unfinished business from a “beautiful state”

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:04:39

       And for people who, I'm gonna take you up on what you said a little bit earlier just in terms of describing how the 90 second rule works in practice. I think, uh, a lot of people listening would want to take you up on the challenge and to have the sort of 90 second rule process in their toolkit as part of that. What, what does it, what does it look like? Could you give us an example of what that might look like?

    2. TRTony Robbins1:05:01

       [laughs] I'll give you an example where I had to use it recently. Um, I was in Dallas, I don't know, three or four weeks ago, and I was doing an Unleashed Power Within event, and we had about 7,500 people there, 8,000 people there. And we went to the fire walk. Was no different than any fire walk I've ever done in 35 years. We always have, you know, a quarter of a perc- of 1%, or half of 1%, under 1% of people that have hotspots or blisters. They know they could get it in advance. And, you know, it's like going, if you're gonna go do a marathon, you know you could get blisters, and if you do, you don't quit. You push through it, and it's a badge of courage and you're proud of yourself, right? And you know the fire walk, that's what it is, is an experience of someone overcoming their fear. It's something real, it's visceral, and you gotta get yourself to take action in spite of it. And, you know, there is some, you know, exposure or some danger if you wanna call it that. Everybody knows it. And we have medical professionals on site and they take care of people. It's aloe vera. It's some blisters. They go away, right? I'm not making like it's no big deal, but it's not a big deal. And [laughs] this happened to me five years ago in San Jose where somebody was driving by, saw some people coming out, called 911, said there's all these people burning here, and it became this story overnight that all these people had burned at this fire walk. It went around the world in the news cycle, the 24/7 news cycle where people don't have, they don't send reporters out to interview. They just copy the same story [laughs] and do the same thing over and over again. They said people are hospitalized. Not a single person was hospitalized. None of it was true. Fox News, it took four weeks, but, um, uh, Arianna Huffington has been to our events, and so she put a reporter on this who actually went out and investigated, went to the hospital, found out no one was hospitalized, found out it was all bullshit. So they wrote a story, and my lawyers actually worked and got Fox News, believe it or not, to do a reversal where they apologized and said it was incorrect. Then few weeks ago, I'm in Dallas, same exact thing. Somebody doesn't know what's going on, calls 911, says, "You gotta send ambulances. There's hundreds of people burning." Nobody was hospitalized. Five people wanted additional attention. They looked at it, saw they were fine, and released them. They're all in the seminar the next day. But everyone, my, my email box, my texting, everything, still people all over the world saying, "I'm so sorry about this. What happened to you? What happened at the event?" Nothing happened at the event. [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:07:08

       [laughs]

    4. TRTony Robbins1:07:08

       So you can only imagine. Now this was not truly 90 seconds worth, so I'm telling you this one. This one was like a 30, 40 minutes 'cause every time I thought it was done, another thing came in. But here's what I did eventually. I got myself back is of this process. There's a scientific stat, set of scientific studies that show that when your mind and your heart, your heart actually has hormones that affect the way your brain functions. It's not just your brain affecting your heart. They interact. When they're in alignment, human beings are able to resolve internal conflicts. Often the conflicts we have are between our conscious and unconscious mind, between our mind and our heart per, per often as an example. And if I were to put electrodes on your brain and on your heart, as you well know, an EEG and an EKG, we could see that they're both in your normal state, pretty jagged up and down, and they don't look anything like each other But if all you do is brea- put your hands on your heart physically, and anyone listening, let's go ahead and do this right now in a second, but I'll first tell you what we're gonna do. You put both of your hands on your heart physically, and you feel your heart. You put all your focus in your heart. You breathe into your heart, and you feel gratitude for two minutes where you think of three events in your life you feel grateful for, and you step in and feel it. At the end of two minutes, you are in what I call a beautiful state because I can look at your EEG and EKG, and it's dramatic. First, they aren't jagged, they're rounded, but what's mind-boggling, and I'm sure you probably know this, Tim, they literally sync up. They become identical. They, they look like they're tracing each other, and when that happens, it's not just your mind. I always tell people, get in your head, you're dead. Your mind's great for strategy, but it'll never make you enjoy your life. It'll never let you enjoy the taste of an apple 'cause it'll go, "Is it organic? Where did it come from?" [laughs] You know what I mean?

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:08:50

       [laughs]

    6. TRTony Robbins1:08:51

       Versus your heart, which can bring the juice of anything back to you. So what, what really I'm trying to do with everyone in this situation is I'm trying to show them how to line these up, and it's really easy. So if you wanna do it right now, and you wanna test that it works, let's do this, and Tim, you can do this with me if you'd like to.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:09:07

       Sure.

    8. TRTony Robbins1:09:08

       Think of a situation... You might not have any in your life, Tim. You're so crazy in this area and so on top of it, but most of us have situations where there are, for all of you listening, a place where you have some unfinished business.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:09:18

       [laughs]

    10. TRTony Robbins1:09:19

        Maybe-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:09:20

        That's the story of my life, Tony. [laughs]

    12. TRTony Robbins1:09:22

        [laughs] Okay. Well, I think a story of all our lives, right?

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:09:24

        [laughs]

    14. TRTony Robbins1:09:24

        That's just being human, right? But it's y- it's a place where there's something that you should have handled and you haven't handled it with a person or situation. It stresses you out, and so what we tend to do is focus on other stuff 'cause we don't wanna have to deal with that 'cause it's stressful, 'cause it's, you know, it's painful. And so think of something that on a zero to 10 scale, where 10 is totally stressed out and zero is not at all, pick something that's unfinished business in your business or personal life with something or someone, and it's at least a seven, eight, nine, or a 10, just so you can see that this really works. Now, by the way, there are hundreds of ways to do this. I'm just gonna give you this one 'cause we can do it in two minutes, right? So I'm hoping... Uh, Tim, do you have one by chance?

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:10:01

        I do. Yeah.

    16. TRTony Robbins1:10:02

        You don't have to tell me the content. You... Okay, perfect. You don't need to tell me the content. No one has to tell us the content. All right. Everyone, if you would, just for a moment... And I don't have any music in the background, which I'd need to enhance this normally, but let's just do it. Put both your hands on your heart and physically breathe deep into your heart. And as you're breathing deep in your heart, feel the strength of your heart. Feel the power of your heart. Feel the beauty of your heart. What are you proud or grateful that your heart has guided you to do, or to give, or to feel, or to enjoy? And feel the strength of your heart. Breathe into it. Feel the blood flow, the oxygen. And feel grateful for your heart first 'cause think about it. You didn't have to earn this heart. It was given to you. You didn't have to prove your value or your worth. You didn't have to accomplish anything. Something loved you enough to give you the gift of life. As long as this heart is beating, you have that gift and you live. It beats 100,000 times a day. It pumps blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels. We put them end to end, they go around the earth twice at the equator. That's what's inside every one of us, and you don't have to think about it. What a gift. So as you breathe in your heart, feeling your powerful heart, I want you just for a moment... We're gonna think of three, but just think first of one event in your life, one experience, one moment that you could feel so grateful for if you wanted to, a magic moment, a sacred moment, a sexy moment, a beautiful moment, a loving moment, any moment that really you could feel grateful for if you wanted to right now. And then step into that memory for a minute. Like, step in your body as if you were there. See what you would have saw then as if you're there or hear what you'd hear back then or breathe the way you were breathing back then. And if you filled up with that sense of gratitude for that moment, how do you smile when you feel so grateful or so thankful? What's the look in your eyes? How do you breathe? What's the look in your face when you feel really, really grateful? And just fill it up. Fill up with gratitude. The reason we use gratitude, by the way, is the two emotions that mess us up most is anger and fear, and, you know, you can't be grateful and angry simultaneously. It's the antidote. You can't be fearful and angry simultaneously. So fill up with the gratitude. Now think of a second moment you could feel truly grateful for, and again, breathe deep in your heart. Feel that power. And just think of any other moment. It could be from your childhood or adulthood. It could be last week. It could be today. It could be 10 years ago. Any moment that you could just truly feel like that was grace, that was magical. That was beautiful. That, that's magnificent, something that gives you the feeling of tremendous gratitude if you really focused on it. Breathe it. Feel it. Enjoy it. Fill up with gratitude. Then finally, think of a third moment you could feel truly grateful for. Step in it. See it. Feel it. Be there. Feel the gratitude. What were you so grateful for? What are you grateful for? And then maybe throw one extra one in. Think of a coincidence. You know, we all love when life happens for us, not to us. We love coincidences 'cause we didn't do anything. Something happened for us. You were going to do one thing, and you met somebody that you developed a partnership with or became a friend or a lover or the love of your life, or maybe a business opportunity came from a coincidence, or an insight came from a coincidence that's been so valuable in your life, something you're grateful for. What's the coincidence that led to something you're so grateful for? And feel the gratitude for that. And was it a coincidence or were you guided? Hmm. Now, as you breathe in your heart, you've been doing this for about two minutes, keep breathing, keep feeling it, feeling grateful, let's use this state to solve the problem state. So the easy way to do that is, is keep breathing your heart, stay out of your head, in your heart, and think of that situation that's unfinished business that stressed you out in the past, but keep breathing this beautiful state and ask yourself this question. Ask yourself, all I need to focus on in that situation, all I need to focus on, all I need to remember is what? Your heart knows. All I need to focus on, all I need to remember, all I need to do in that situation is what? Your heart knows the answer. All I need to focus on, all I need to remember, all I need to do is... And then your heart probably knows the answer. I've done this a million times. Not every one of you, but in a normal room, I'd have people say, "Raise your hand if you've got that answer," and 98, 99% of the people usually do, even with this simple technique. And you know what to do. What's next? What happened for you, Tim?

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:15:20

        Uh, yeah, no, I th- I did get, uh, a lot of clarity, and quite frankly, even if I didn't get the clarity on the problem, just the state shift, and this is something, of course, I've been to Unleash the Power Within, just the, and we don't have time to necessarily dig into it right now, but just the, the state story strategy as opposed to the other way around. I mean, it's, it's so-

    18. TRTony Robbins1:15:41

        Yes

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:15:42

        ... and it's, it's very easy for me to forget just because I'm so hyper-rational and I like to depend on the brain, on the mind for strategy.

    20. TRTony Robbins1:15:49

        Yes.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:15:50

        But if, if, as, as I remember, and I'm just paraphrasing here, you put it, if, if you're in a negative state or a frazzled state, you only see the problem. You only see the problems. You don't see sort of the space-

    22. TRTony Robbins1:16:01

        That's correct

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:16:01

        ... in between. And, um, so yeah, that's a tremendous exercise. That's great.

    24. TRTony Robbins1:16:06

        Well, you, you know what it is? It's, it's taking the power of your incredible cognitive capacity, but bringing in the infinite capacity of the heart, which changes, it changes the state, as you said, and it, you know, in a different state, you get totally different answers. And beautiful states of being, we wanna cultivate them. So two minutes, put your hands on your heart, breathe, think of three things you're really grateful for, fully associate, and then think of what was bothering you, you need to resolve, and just go, "Well, all I need to focus on, all I need to remember, all I need to do is what?" And you'll get your answer. That's just one technique, but it works so easily and works for most things.

13. 1:16:38 – 1:25:14

    Date with Destiny explained + how “I Am Not Your Guru” was made

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:16:38

       So, so this, since it reminds me so much of, uh, my sort of in-person experience with you at the event, and, uh, we've, of course, we've met outside of the event, but, uh, wanted to ask you a question that's gonna segue into a conversation about the doc because I, uh, I actually watched, you know, I, I was very honored to get to see the doc before it came out publicly, and, uh, man, talk about, and I feel like good films, whether they're fiction or documentaries tend to do this, but there, there are a lot of moments when you don't know whether to laugh or cry. [laughs] It's an emotionally-

    2. TRTony Robbins1:17:12

       [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:17:13

       ... very emotionally-

    4. TRTony Robbins1:17:14

       Yeah

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:17:14

       ... powerful film. Uh-

    6. TRTony Robbins1:17:16

       Yes

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:17:16

       ... how, how has Date with, uh, Destiny evolved over the last, say-

    8. TRTony Robbins1:17:21

       Well, that's interesting. That's a good-

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:17:22

       ... decade or so? And for those people-

    10. TRTony Robbins1:17:25

        I think, uh, it's-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:17:25

        ... who don't know, what is Date with Destiny?

    12. TRTony Robbins1:17:27

        [laughs] That's good. Well, you, you mentioned earlier Unleash the Power Within, which is my, you know, four-day, uh, weekend seminar that we do for, you know, 8 to 10,000 people, and I'd love it if you make any comments 'cause I hope that some of your listeners will come join us. I know you've had a great time. Maybe you can share that. But Date with Destiny, I see about 200,000 people a year in 12 to 15 countries. Some of the countries I go two to three times, like Australia, London, and so forth. But, um, I only see 2,500 people in Date with Destiny. I only do one event in the United States once a year there. I do it in December, usually in Florida. It's six days long. I do one in, in Australia also, but in the US only one time. Six days long, 2,500 people. People do 10, 20 pages of homework. I read it all, and it's an experience designed to help you to uncover the f- every, what controls every thought, feeling, and emotion of your life. Every thought, feeling, emotion. What you do, what you don't do is controlled by your beliefs, your values, and your rules, and most of us did not consciously pick most of those. We adapted them to our environments and to the people we were trying to please. And so our life is a reflection of us and a lot of conditioning. This allows you to open it up and say, "I am now the conditioner. What is it that I truly want most for my life at this stage, where I am today, not 10 years ago, and what's in the way? How do I remove it, and what do I need to replace it with in my, deep in my nervous system, not just in some thought pattern, but literally in the way my nervous system functions?" And we do this six days and nights. It goes, you know, 12, 13 hours a day. And Joe Berlinger, who's, you know, an amazing two-time Academy Award nominated and two-time Emmy-winning, two-time Peabody-winning documentarian, he's done some amazing films. I saw Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which was a brilliant film about these guys and going through a new stage of life and hating each other and how they're gonna break through and, and, and intervene. He also did one called Paradise Lost, which was three films done over two decades, where he got three men that were innocent off death row. He's, that's the kind of guy he is, but he's a, he's seen the worst side of life, and I met him. Uh, we have a mutual friend that created the show Billions, and which is an aside if people have seen that show, the woman in that show is the coach to the, you know, the billionaire hedge fund guys. I trained her, and a lot of those things are actually things I really do. Her sex scenes I did not train her in, but the other stuff, you know [laughs]

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:19:40

        [laughs] You don't do the domination and the, the stilettos?

    14. TRTony Robbins1:19:42

        No, the domination, the, that wasn't my stilettos.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:19:44

        [laughs]

    16. TRTony Robbins1:19:44

        Those weren't my stilettos, but, but the rest of it's there. They were-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:19:46

        Yeah, Brian, Brian Koppelman, right?

    18. TRTony Robbins1:19:48

        Yeah, you know Brian. That's right. So Brian Koppelman introduces us, and this is 2012, and I just sense here's this beautiful man I had so much respect for, and he wasn't fulfilled. Perfect example. He's, like, got all these Academy Awards. He's... I mean, if you've got three people who are dying off of death row, I mean, what else do you need to do in your life to have value, to, to feel like your life was worthwhile? But I could feel he was turning 50, he wasn't there. So long story short, I invite him to Date with Destiny. He's told me since that he couldn't understand why he went. He said, "I'm not a seminar guy. I'm not into any of this stuff. I'm skeptical and pessimistic. I see the worst side of life." But something inside of our conversation intrigued him, and I got him there, and within two hours he wanted to run. [laughs] He was trying to get out of the building [laughs]

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:20:29

        [laughs]

    20. TRTony Robbins1:20:29

        'Cause he just said, "I can't take this energy, and this jumping, and this music, and people wanna talk to me, and they wanna ask me personal questions." [laughs] He goes, "I'm just not made for this." He called his wife and said, you know, "Tony's such a nice guy and he invited me here. What's my exit strategy? I can't do six hours more."

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:20:44

        [laughs]

    22. TRTony Robbins1:20:44

        "I can't do six minutes more of this shit," you know?

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:20:46

        [laughs]

    24. TRTony Robbins1:20:46

        And she said to him, "Honey, you know, there's a reason you were pulled to do this. You never would in a million years. You won't even take a six-day vacation. You're... Why don't you stay at least one more day before you bail?" And the next day we did this process where I had him, everyone, reclaim... You know, I ask people what their earliest memory is, and then I have them reclaim the memory before that that you don't realize is there. And when you do, it, it releases what was holding him back. And he woke up, you know, opened his eyes flooded with tears. He said he hadn't cried in 20 years like that, and felt this incredible relief, and he said, "Okay, I'm in. I'm gonna play full out." And then at the end of it, he saw how cinematic this was. These interventions are just pretty dramatic, you know, suicidal ones, people that are so successful and miserable, all these things. And so he came and pitched me [laughs] on it thinking I was gonna say yes, and I said no for two years 'cause I just didn't want to disrupt the environment. I didn't wanna disrupt the people there. Because I have cameras, but they're long distance lenses only so you can see the person's face on a giant screen with 2,500 people, so you get to be fully associated. But, you know, somebody doing a documentary with a camera in your face is a different game. So after two years, he said, "Look, what if I came in, and if you think it interferes with their experience, you end it, it's my loss." I said, "If you're willing to take that risk, then I'm willing to do it," 'cause I just can't let it disrupt the people. And I was also skeptical. How are you gonna take six 13, 12, 14-hour [laughs] days and put it in less than two hours? But that's why he's got the Academy Awards, and he did a phenomenal job and it's... We had a half a million people join us just on Facebook Live on the n- day it came out after they watched the film for a Q&A. It's just, like, the response to it has been greater than anything we could have imagined.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:22:21

        And, uh, I- I've had a number of friends reach out to me [laughs] to recommend that I see the doc, which of course I appreciate. And, uh, I will say also for those people listening who aren't, don't have a lot of exposure to Tony or maybe have misconceptions, the most common thing I've heard from friends who've seen the doc is, "I thought Tony was X, and now I think about Tony totally differently." And I, I think it's very hard to appreciate some of your unique abilities and tools without seeing some of the interventions, for instance. I think, I think it's, it's a, it's a very different visceral, uh, and powerful experience. Um, so I, I certainly recommend it. I mean, I've, I've already recommended it and, um, watched it, uh, very early on and just, uh, just loved it. So where, where can people find the doc, I'm Not Your Guru? Where's the best place for people to check it out?

    26. TRTony Robbins1:23:16

        Um, it's on Netflix now. It's in 190 countries, already translated, so we're pretty thrilled about the exposure that we've had around the world. But I just want you to know, I didn't make the film, uh, like so people would understand me more. [laughs] I want people to have a transformational experience, and what Joe did so brilliantly is it's like a concert film. He, like, drops you... He's the fly on the wall, and you actually get to enter that event and experience what it's really like. And just like a great movie, when you watch the characters, you feel what they feel. Well, you feel these characters as they're transforming, and it has a transformative effect. I was, you know, I was just, uh, in New York the other day and there was a woman who stood up after the premiere, and she's just crying, and she just said, "I just have to tell you I've been laughing and crying this entire two hours." And she said, "You know, I have stage three cancer," and she said, "You know, I just had given up." And she said, "I was coming here and I thought, who the hell is Tony Robbins? What the hell is this bullshit?" But a dear friend [laughs] dragged her there and she said, "I'm gonna heal." She goes, "I'm in one million percent." She goes, "I, I can't even tell you the transformation." I've had guys, like I just got back from Traverse City, Michigan. Michael Moore calls me up [laughs] and he saw the film, and he used to think, you know, what I did was BS. Well, he didn't know me personally, he just thought personal development, anything of that s- nature is just all a lie, it's all BS. And he called up and said, "This film F'd me up." He goes, "This changed me."

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:24:29

        [laughs]

    28. TRTony Robbins1:24:29

        "This made me a better person, it made me a better filmmaker." He's put this in writing, a better filmmaker, a better person. He said, "I think this film will save lives." And so he asked us if we'd fly out to Traverse City for his film festival, which we just did the other day. And I mean, I probably laughed harder than I ever have in my life hearing his tell the story of what this film did to him.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:24:44

        [laughs]

    30. TRTony Robbins1:24:45

        So we're real- we're really pleased. So it's free. Go on Netflix, it's free, and if you don't, uh, and, and if you're in 190 countries anywhere in the world, and I know your, my followers are all over the world, so are yours, uh, you can go on Netflix, and if you don't have Netflix, you can join for I think free the first month or eight bucks, but you get everything for it. So we're excited to have this available for everyone.
14. 1:25:14 – 1:37:59

    Closing loop: finance resources, mercury poisoning discovery, and diet change

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:25:14

       ... completely knocked me on my ass. Um, that, there's some really, really powerful moments, uh, and transformational moments in the doc, so I recommend everybody check it out. Uh, Tony, I wanna, uh, let you get back to, uh, your day. Is there anything else that you would like to share with people? Any parting thoughts or anything else that, uh, you might wanna add? Oh, actually there are two maybe quick things we could, we could touch on. You mentioned your breakfast, but never came back to it.

    2. TRTony Robbins1:25:41

       Oh, yeah, thank you for that.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:25:42

       Uh, and-

    4. TRTony Robbins1:25:42

       You were reading my mind. I wanna close that loop

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:25:44

       ... and then also if with your financial partner, if there is a particular website or service available that people should check out or that is going to be launching, if you want to mention that.

    6. TRTony Robbins1:25:56

       Sure. If you w- if you, uh, would like to have a second opinion, like someone to look at your finances for you, they'll do it for free at creativeplanning.net. It's creativeplanning.net. And as I said, they do, like, a home office for someone, uh, [laughs] who's not a multi-billionaire. I mean, they literally look at every aspect of it. And full disclosure so you understand, I'm a member of that team, so if you join, I benefit in some way from an SEC perspective, but those are the, I just want you to be clear about that. But I, you know, I could have teamed up with anybody. As I say, he's, he's been rated number one three years in a row by Barron's. No one's done that in history, number one wealth manager, so he's phenomenal guy. As far as the other piece, what I, reason I was telling you the story was twofold, is so I don't give up, right? So I left off with, you know, now I got spinal stenosis and they're telling me I can't do anything. I'm going to doctor after doctor. I find a guy in Australia Who says with 100 hours of, of hyperbaric oxygen at two levels deep, 65 feet below, you will see changes in the spine that people say are impossible because the new science shows that you get 800% more stem cells released in the body when you do this, and it goes to the parts of the body need to be healed or that are inflamed and starts to heal them. And he sent me some MRIs for me to look at before and afters, and it was... it looked like magic. So I said, "Okay, I'm doing this. I'll fly to Australia. I'll see this guy. I gotta work on this. I got so much going on in my nervous system." And he says to me, "Tony, before you come, I want you to do these inflammation tests so I can see if you have any cytokines," and he's, you know, kind of describing there. So I go get a blood test, and while I'm there, a man says to me, "You wanna do a metals test while you're here?" And I said, "Well, you know, what metals? Is it, like, mercury, lead?" I said, "You know, I had my amalgams out 25 years ago, so I don't think it's a problem. But yeah, why not? Let's do it." That metals test came back. Uh, the doctor called. He said, "I must speak to you. It's an emergency." He wouldn't leave a message, so I finally call him, and he says, "Mr. Robbins," he said, "We measure, you know, mercury on a zero to five scale. If you're three, four, or five, you're in danger. You've got to get it out of your nervous system." He said, "The most I've ever measured in a human is 75. You're 123."

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:27:52

       Wow.

    8. TRTony Robbins1:27:54

       And I was, like, dumbfounded, and he said, "Are you losing your memory at times?" And I was like, I hadn't even told my wife this yet, right? This is... I thought, "I gotta figure this out." And I said, "Yes, it's been happening to me on stage." He said, "Look it up. This is... you know, a lot of people are misdiagnosed with dementia, um, when really what it is, is mercury poisoning, and it's just your short-term memory." And he said, "It'll come back once you get it out, as long as there's not long-term damage." And I said, "I, I can't tell you. It just made me breathe at a level I can't even tell you." And he said, in addition, he said, "How exhausted are you?" I said, "I don't think I've ever felt so more exhausted in my life. I couldn't figure it out. I know I'm working my tail off, but I've always worked my tail off, you know?" He says, "Tony, it literally disrupts the, the, i- inside the, the," uh, what do you call it? The-

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:28:35

       Mitochondria

    10. TRTony Robbins1:28:35

        ... inside the cell. Mito-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:28:37

        Yeah

    12. TRTony Robbins1:28:37

        ... yeah, the mitochondria. And so that's the factory of energy in the body, right? So you're, you literally are having your energy depleted out of your nervous system. And he said, "You, you can have a cardiac, you know, arrest from this experience, especially at this level, even if your vein, even if your arteries are clean." He said, "We have to get this out." So I've been on this massive detox, and the reason I'm sharing it, though, is all this shit I went through, not being able to breathe and sleep, uh, torn rotator cuffs, spinal stenosis, that all seemed like, you know, the worst things that could happen in your life, I was practicing beautiful state. And because I was practicing that, had been practicing beforehand, this would've devastated me. If, like, everything in my life seems to be gone and I'm doing seven hours a day, six to seven hours a day of oxygen therapy, of detoxification, of Myers, you know, into my veins, all the stuff that you gotta do to do this, and still running my companies [laughs] and being on stage and doing all the crazy things I'm doing. But because I was practicing it, I was able to separate the 99 pain from suffering. So I want people to get this. You can have pain without suffering. The pain was off the charts. Hard, hard to sleep, hard to move, hard to do anything initially. But what was beautiful was I started realizing the suffering was the story I had, the story of why this happened to me. Will I ever get this out of me? Will I ever be able to be able, you know, play squash again, get on stage again, snowboard again? Like, all that stuff that the mind wants to do because it's so fearful and it's trying to fight or flight, and I was just end it, end it, end it, end it, and just go, "It's just pain. It's just pain, and I'm gonna find the solution to this." And I kept putting myself back in that. If I had not been practicing this before, it never happened. Also, if I had not had all these pain and problems, I wouldn't have found out I had all these metals in my body, and I'd be dead within a year or two. So the good news is I'm down to 32 on a, out of... from 123, and I think in the next 90 days, I'll have the rest of that out of me. I'm doing the oxygen therapy, and I'm gonna do stem cell therapy, and I'm gonna get myself back where it belongs. But I've been telling the story and sharing with everybody I know, s- all my friends to start with. And I've had three different friends with incredibly high mercury, lead. One guy had, uh, rat poison in him. Um, he had stuff. He used to work in the dental field, and you probably know dentists have the highest suicide rate in the world, and part of that has to do with all the metals that are... We live in an environment that's toxic. And you say, "Where'd you get all that metal in your body?" I told you before, all I eat was fish, and the two fishes I used to eat always was swordfish and tuna, my favorite.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:30:55

        Yeah.

    14. TRTony Robbins1:30:55

        I'd have salad, swordfish, and tuna, like s- like clockwork.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:30:58

        Yep.

    16. TRTony Robbins1:30:58

        And they live 75 years. They consume all the smaller fish, and they have 1,000 times more mercury in them, and no one's gonna talk about this 'cause the fishing industry would be killed by it. Um, so I've moved to land-based proteins for the most part with clean sources, something radically different than I've ever been in my life. I mean, I haven't had anything of that nature since I was 17. But, um, I wanna be healthy and be alive, and the world has changed, and so you have to adapt with it. So I, I really recommend anyone listening, get a metals test. Takes nothing. It's a little bit of blood. And know where you are because so many people are misdiagnosed with a variety of elements, and it's, it's these metals that are now so much a part of our environment and getting into our blood and pushed into our cells, but you can get it out. Um, and there's a man named Dr. Shade, by the way, you can look him up on the web, who's, I think, is one of the most advanced in this area. He has a PhD in metal detoxification. He had a mercury problem himself, and he's come up with some ways that are less intense than traditional chelation. So I just, it's my mission to have-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:31:54

        Shade spelled like, uh, S-H-A-D-E?

    18. TRTony Robbins1:31:57

        Yes.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:31:57

        Got it.

    20. TRTony Robbins1:31:57

        Dr. Shade, S-H-A-D-E. And he's a expert in this area.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:32:01

        Got it. I'll check it out. Well, Tony, I want to, uh, let you get back to, uh, beating the various drums and, and the mission that you have-

    22. TRTony Robbins1:32:09

        [laughs]

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:32:10

        ... and the many missions that you have set before you. Uh-

    24. TRTony Robbins1:32:13

        Thanks, Tim

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:32:13

        ... it, it's, it's always fun to talk, and I really appreciate the time, as I'm sure everybody listening does. I certainly wish you a speedy recovery with the mercury.

    26. TRTony Robbins1:32:21

        Thank you.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:32:22

        Uh, and I do encourage everybody to check out I'm Not Your Guru. It's, it's time very well spent. And, uh, any final words, Tony, before we, uh, before we-

    28. TRTony Robbins1:32:33

        No, just, uh-

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:32:33

        ... jump off?

    30. TRTony Robbins1:32:34

        Love, love what you do, brother. I, I feel like you're, you know, we're aligned. We're on the same path here, and I, I'm such a big fan of your work. And I'm so thrilled so many people get to hear you, and I hope you continue to take care of yourself, and you're here a very, very long time, brother.

Episode duration: 1:37:59