If You Do THIS, You’ll Be Successful | Tony Robbins EP 775

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes, and welcome to The Daily Motivation Show.

0:11I don't think it was ever I just didn't love myself. There are times, obviously, you'd be angry with yourself or frustrated with yourself or thinking, you know, I'm not doing enough. I mean, I can remember my birthdays, to be honest with you, probably up to my 40th birthday. And I remember turning 40, and I was really, really unhappy. I was like, Jesus, I've not done enough. I've not helped enough people. I know tens of millions of people at that point already had done all over the earth in 100 plus countries at that point, but it was still kind of stuck in my head. So I would earn the love by over-delivering, change somebody's life.

0:41Like, I don't get it because somebody says, oh, I love you, Tony. I mean, I appreciate that. Or, oh, you're the greatest. It's got to be my standard. My standard's higher than their standard for me, right? So when I get up and someone's going to kill themselves and they're suicidal and boom, turn around, they're no longer not going to kill themselves, but they're transformed, their life is there. You know, that's when I go, okay, you know, now we've hit the center of what I'm made for. Now, you know, I deserve to feel this euphoric feeling within myself and appreciation. And even then, I still know it's God coming through me.

1:09I don't have the delusion. It's just me. I think sometime after 40, I finally saw the stupidity of it. I accumulated enough that I looked at life with fresh eyes. And I can say by the time I turned 60 a year ago, I noticed it was interesting because my birthday, I didn't have an ounce of it. I was just like, you know, how could I at this stage of my life when I've had the privilege of serving so many humans in so many contexts? you know from turning around you know guys gonna kill themselves with ptsd to helping kids turn around to getting kids off cocaine or adults to you know help people build multi-billion dollar businesses from nothing and when i've lived this long i can't go by without hearing half a dozen stories a day or a dozen stories a day from people telling me how something i did changed their life so it's not that i'm so smart now it's just i've stacked it by the way though stacking is the way you can do things.

1:57Most of us stack the negative. If you are really angry, it's not usually because it's just the moment. It's that it happened again. You know, it's like if you've ever lost it or overreacted to your kid or to a friend or business or even within yourself, it's because it happened again. We hit this one, two, three, many point and then our nervous system overreacts. But what I've learned is you can stack the good. But for example, if you're, if you go into a state of really strong anger for more than five minutes, your immune system is suppressed between an hour and a half to two hours. That's a physiological fact.

2:30When no one had done any study, I started stacking good. Like, okay, let me stack a dozen great memories, feel them, see them, experience them. And I felt this biochemical change that didn't just last a half hour, an hour or 10 minutes. It went on for a day or two. And so I think I've learned to stack the good. So just having the experience is not enough. You got to stack the good to be able to appreciate it. But I think, Just come back to the main point here. I think the more you find unconditional love for others, the easier it is to find in yourself. And I think the focus is serving and loving.

3:03And that's what will get you to the point where you start doing it. But if you want to speed it up, stack all the good you've done, you'll feel great about yourself. Early in my life, I developed this belief that life is calling not to give me something. Life is calling for me to deliver things, for me to bring something to life. and I felt the joy that came from not getting but giving and I got hooked on that core pattern and then the pattern of learning so I'd have something to give which I know one of the things I respect about you, Lewis, is that you have that same pattern in you. You're always trying to learn more because underneath it all, you also want to give it.

3:37You want it for you but you want to share it, right? And so those patterns help me not be in what they're not giving. And all this language. Language, today, people don't understand the power of their language. Like, toxic. You've been reading too much social media and thinking about yourself or somebody raised you to constantly judge everybody else. We live in a culture now where people, you know, you're evil or you're like me. That's basically how it is, right? The whole world, everybody else is immoral unless they do what you do, think what you think, experience what you think. I mean, being a liberal, I was a liberal, right?

4:09Being a liberal growing up meant I would fight for your ability to say and believe whatever you want different than me. Today, now, everybody wants everybody to think the same thing. otherwise they're evil or otherwise they could hurt me whatever happens sticks and stones will break your bones the words will never hurt me we have this whole thing that words are evil words are action word and all it does is make you incredibly weak as a human being and you're more than that we all are more than that but you know what like a kid that's never broken their bones definitely afraid of breaking the bone but if you're a kid and you're rough and tumble you broke multiple bones they heal you don't have any fear of it there's so many kids that have been raised to be safe and secure every moment.

4:48Anything that's insecure, unsafe, they don't want to be a part of, including language. And what it does is make you incredibly weak and fearful. And that's why there's so many people that are abundant that are angry all the time. Because they're angry because they're not growing. I know some people are not a good influence. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying you're more than somebody's influence, unless you obsess about it every moment and make them wrong. So you can make yourself feel superior morally, psychologically, or spiritually. Stop the pattern. We've all done it. Catch yourself. Because if you want joy, happiness, and freedom and an extraordinary life, it will not come from blame.

5:22Never. There's no pride that comes from blame. Pride is something you earn. Like people tell me, oh, I have no self-esteem because my parents used to say this or they'd say that. And self-esteem does not come from what people say about you. Self-esteem comes from what you experience about yourself. See, someone can tell you your whole life you're a piece of crap and a part of you can go, you're full of it, I'm going to show you. Lots of people have done that. They never bought it. Or someone tell you you're beautiful your whole life. You go, I'm not really beautiful. So what people tell you doesn't matter at all.

5:51It's what you stack. It's what you assemble. It's what you create. It's the habit of what you put in your head. And today I don't blame you because we got a whole culture that's always blaming somebody else for something in their life. But blame is not a strategy for pride. That's why you listen to these blaming people. They're all angry all the time. Listen, if I wanted to blame, I grew up in an environment I didn't even share to my mom past then. Even then I didn't share. I grew up in a pretty rough environment. My mom was a beautiful soul, but when she drank alcohol and she mixed it with prescription drugs, it was a different creature and it was a violent creature.

6:26And I have a younger brother, five years younger and a younger sister, seven years younger. And my mom would get nuts. Now, I never shared this and I'm not denigrating her in any way. I only shared it because I was talking to a group of kids in New York City, all without fathers, 80 % African American, about 20 % Hispanic out of their group, roughly. No white kids. And I'm talking about your biography is not your destiny. And it doesn't matter what you've been through. What you decide now is what's going to control your life. What you decide each day going forward is going to decide your life.

6:57And I look at them seeing me. I can read their minds. This big, tall, white, rich guy is going to tell me biography doesn't matter. So I said, let me tell you my story. and I told them the whole story way more than I'm telling you. And every one of them was crying their eyes out when they were done. I said, look where I am right now. Because I wouldn't assemble the story that my past equals my future. The past only equals your future if you live there. If you're using a rearview mirror to guide yourself, you're going to crash. So what you've been through is horrific. What you've been through is unjust.

7:26I'm on your side. But if you hang on to it, you have no future. And you have no one to blame but yourself. So I could have been messed up for life. But I didn't. Because something inside me says, I'm responsible for this life. And part of that is because I started reading when I was 13, 14 biographies of people, the greatest people in history, and reading their lives and finding out, guess what? Their lives were far from perfect. Some of them had worse lives than I had. Free yourself from the chains of your past.

8:08I am so excited for you to finish the rest of your day strong. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description and it'll take you to the full episode of my other show, The School of Greatness. Make sure to come back tomorrow for another episode of The Daily Motivation Show.