The Formula For Freedom, Confidence & Happiness - Tony Robbins (4K)

It feels a little bit like a curse, I think, of driven people to have high expectations. How can people who are always very hard on themselves learn to build up their self-esteem a little bit more?

Uh, I, I don't know if self-esteem is the answer. You know, I think, um, I don't think it's bad to be hard on yourself as long as you also celebrate when the victories happen. But, you know, so many people will tell you, "I have poor self-esteem because when I was a kid, people said this to me and that to me." And it's convenient that we remember those things and not the positive things that also occur, obviously. But I think it's more important is to realize that self-esteem is earned. It's only earned by you with yourself. You're not gonna get self-esteem because everybody praises you. You, someone could tell you your whole life that you're brilliant, you're a genius, you're beautiful, you're handsome, and you not believe it. Someone can tell you you're c- you know, you're a piece of crap and you're never gonna become anything, and there's a part of you that can say, "I'll show you," as many people have, and then they d- they'll develop drive out of it, right? So it, it's really self-esteem comes from doing incredibly difficult things where you know you pushed yourself. It's not virtue signaling. It's not telling people about it. It's what you know inside your soul is true, and the more you do things that are incredibly difficult and especially things that are meaningful, meaning they're not just about yourself, the higher that esteem will be. I think the most important thing for self-esteem is to find something you care about more than yourself 'cause as long as you're in your own head, the nature of the mind is reductionism, right? Good, bad, right, wrong, all those types of things. Of course, life is much more many different hues than that. And so when you find something you care about, whether it's your kids or whether it's something at your job, your career, whether it's a mission you have, uh, that's something you wanna bring to the world, non-profit, it doesn't matter what it is. If you find something you care about more than you, you won't be thinking about yourself all the time and all your bullshit self-esteem shit just goes out the window. I mean, it's just when I hear it, it's just so namby-pamby BS. You can have crappy self-esteem and achieve a hell of a lot. Now, the real question is, what do you want? And I think there's... If you want an extraordinary life, which my definition of that is life on your terms. Like, what's my idea might be different than yours completely. Some people, it's three beautiful children and a white picket fence. Some people, it's building a multi-billion dollar business. Somebody else, it's writing poetry, right? So instead of looking for somebody else, it's like, okay, what do you really want from your life? And aligning yourself with moving forward towards what you really want. And I think th- if you can do that in a way that also you feel serving others simultaneously, there's a, there's a sense of meaning in life that can't be replaced by self-esteem or praise or compliments or being nice to yourself, and I don't think it's bad to be tough on yourself. I'm pretty tough on myself, I'll be honest with you. But I also, I'm much better at celebrating now, and I also realize being overly tough on yourself usually comes by making, you know, comparisons that don't make sense. I remember, um, I remember, I could just... Was walking by and I saw a, as I was walking here, a picture that reminded me of something, which was, uh, years ago I was in Atlanta, Georgia. I was in my early 20s, uh, 23, 24, 25, and I was doing a seminar. In those days, there weren't 15, 20,000 people. It was 125 people. I remember because it was the biggest seminar I'd done. I thought it was so exciting. And I'd give my heart and soul and, you know, going 12, 13 hours a day. On the third day, the rooms were so small, then I'd go by and look in everybody's eyes. I gave everybody a flower. I mean, it was just... I look back now, it seems silly, but it was really just I wanted to make that connection. I wanted to make sure that they had made that shift. I was, like, so obsessive about making a true transformation happen. And earlier in the day, I got a phone call from a friend of mine who said, "The boss, Bruce Springsteen," he was the biggest star in the world in those days, I loved him, "and he's four blocks from you." He said, you know, "The Atlanta stadium there where the Hawks play, you got just finish early and come over and, and you gotta take it in." It was Christmastime. He says, "It's gonna be incredible." I said, "I'd love to come," but I said, "I just can't do that. That's... If, if I, Steve, if I finish somehow on time, it all happens, he's still on stage, you know, I'll call you and see what's going on." So I finished the seminar. I don't know how long it was. It was almost 11:00 at night, but you know, Bruce usually does, especially on Christmas, he's like three encores. And so my buddy calls me and says, "Get your butt over here. He's doing a second encore. I think he might even do three if you get here. Get over here, see the end." So I sprinted the four or five blocks to get in, got in the stadium, couldn't find my buddy, but I got up into, you know, some high seats and I'm looking down and it was back when Clarence was still there and, you know, just the, the drive and the energy was incredible. The crowd was so engaged and he's doing Christmas songs and he ends with, you know, Born to Run, you know? And I'm like, I'm so into it, and about three-quarters of the way through the song, I got depressed. I'm like, "What the hell?" And what it was was I was like, "Shit, what I'm doing doesn't matter. This guy's got 15,000 people here. I got 125 for three days? I mean, I'm not making any difference at all." And I was like, and I, and I literally as we were walking out and people at Born to Run going, I was pissy inside myself, you know? Like, but I was feeling so great before this, but now I'm making this comparison.