In short
Tony Robbins discusses how to find meaning when success feels empty, arguing that fulfillment comes from contribution, growth, and “pull” motivation (serving something beyond yourself), not just money or “push” duty.
Guest backgrounds
Tony Robbins is a life and wealth strategist with 100+ companies reportedly doing about $12B/year. He’s advised high-profile figures including Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, Andre Agassi, Mike Tyson, and leaders such as U.S. presidents and royal families. The host (implied business owner) runs acquisition.com and has fitness-industry roots; he describes building and selling businesses and struggling with finding enjoyment outside work.
Key claims
Economic success has a fulfillment “set point.” Growth and giving create meaning; pleasure alone doesn’t. Words rewire emotions (“transformational vocabulary”). After major achievement, people can lose joy unless they create new “moonshots” tied to emotional connection and purpose.
Notable examples
A janitor who listened to Robbins tapes while mopping floors and later built/sold multiple companies; a Michigan woman who used Robbins materials to lose 100 pounds and build a client roster; Robbins’ “billion meals” and “100 billion meal challenge” efforts, plus anti-trafficking work involving undercover engagement.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOPersonal Stories of Impact
0:45 to 2:52
Tony Robbins' work has transformed lives, including those of the host's acquaintances.
“So the first is there was an Indian guy who came here to the U.S.”
Dichotomy of Duty and Enjoyment
2:52 to 5:06
Exploring the balance between fulfilling obligations and finding joy in business.
“as it relates to the impact that you want to make with the business that you have?”
Language and Motivation
5:06 to 6:58
The power of language in shaping emotions and motivation in life and business.
“I think you're deluded because you'll wake up one day.”
The Role of Growth in Fulfillment
6:58 to 10:06
Understanding how growth creates meaning beyond financial success.
“But some people, maybe because of your background in the fitness industry, no pain, no gain.”
Struggles of Finding Joy
10:06 to 12:39
Navigating the challenges of finding enjoyment outside of work and duty.
“in more private equity, financial engineering, commodities trading, different than maybe what, you know, obviously what you do and to a degree what I do.”
The Pursuit of Meaningful Life
12:39 to 14:00
Discussing how meaningful contributions can lead to fulfillment and happiness.
“Would you accept something that's mediocre?”
The Journey to Fulfillment
14:00 to 18:00
Tony Robbins shares his personal journey and challenges faced in finding deeper fulfillment beyond success.
“So the idea that these people keep telling you, I would tell you is true, and I'll just give my own experience.”
Scaling Impact Through Contribution
18:00 to 22:40
Robbins discusses his mission to feed billions and create lasting change, emphasizing the emotional connection to impact.
“You follow one person and what they go through, you feel it.”
Reevaluating Happiness and Motivation
22:40 to 27:20
Robbins challenges the notion of happiness tied to duty and encourages finding joy in meaningful pursuits.
“and get to, that's the difference between rich and poor.”
The Power of Suffering
27:20 to 28:00
Alex Hormozi and Robbins discuss the relationship between passion and suffering, and how to embrace challenges.
“So one was the emotional connection part.”
Show all 26 chapters
Understanding Suffering and Goals
28:00 to 29:45
Explore the concept of suffering in relation to goals and personal fulfillment.
“I deal with the opposite extreme of not giving a fuck.”
The Multifaceted Self
29:45 to 31:23
Discuss the different parts of oneself and how they influence behavior and identity.
“I'm talking about you like this person over here, right?”
Relationships and Identity
31:23 to 33:09
Examine how identity plays a crucial role in relationships and interactions.
“Most people get in a relationship and they, I always tell people, the secret to relationship, 80 % of having a great lasting relationship or intimate relationship is selection.”
Finding the Right Self in Relationships
33:09 to 34:25
Learn about selecting the right part of oneself in relationships for better connections.
“So it's like, we all have to pick the person we're going to be and be conscious.”
The Power of Identity
34:25 to 36:30
Understand how identity shapes personal and professional success.
“She also loved the same stuff that I loved.”
Transformational Vocabulary
36:30 to 38:09
Discover the concept of transformational vocabulary and its impact on perception.
“But what I could offer you is a conscious choice to find anabolic Alex and put him in charge.”
Emotional Responses and Perception
38:09 to 42:01
Explore how different emotional responses can shape experiences and outcomes.
“But when negotiation for me, I was like, yeah, for negotiation, let's just put our cards on the table.”
The Impact of Language on Emotions
42:01 to 45:02
Learn how the words we use can shape our emotional states and perceptions.
“before we had cell phones, you know, we had these little recorded calls.”
Evaluating Business Opportunities
45:02 to 48:22
Discover the criteria for assessing business opportunities and partnerships.
“And when I stopped doing that, it was like, no, you know, I'm starting fresh.”
Balancing Achievement and Fulfillment
48:22 to 51:21
Understand the difference between achievement and fulfillment in life and work.
“I know there's no toy that I'm looking for and it never drove me anyway.”
The Importance of Ownership in Success
51:21 to 54:09
Explore how ownership and investment can lead to long-term financial success.
“current that you could kind of pass on to me the, basically, what can I change about my behavior to maximize my enjoyment and size of impact.”
Encouraging Financial Literacy Among Youth
54:09 to 56:00
Learn strategies to teach young people about financial independence and ownership.
“So most young people, they are not involved with free enterprises, you know, and so that's why they want communism because they've never been there.”
Understanding Financial Freedom
56:00 to 58:01
Exploring the concept of ownership and financial independence for individuals.
“I'm saying$326 ,000 will change your life, but for somebody who has nothing, it sure is.”
The Power of Private Equity
58:02 to 1:00:07
Discussing private equity's advantages over traditional stock market investments.
“So I'm going to give 50, the book you read, 50 of the smartest individuals on earth who started with nothing.”
Asset Allocation and Investment Strategies
1:00:08 to 1:04:06
Emphasizing the importance of diversifying assets to ensure financial security.
“You put in that same million bucks, instead of$28 million, you have$293 million.”
Identifying Passion and Purpose
1:04:07 to 1:07:48
Discussing personal milestones and the importance of identifying passion for success.
“So if everything happens here, they're taken care of here.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Tony Robbins, strategist to some of the most important people in the world, people that you have seen publicly and probably many more that you haven't seen privately that have impacted your life. And he's both a wealth strategist, but also a life strategist. And so we're talking politicians, royal families, U.S. presidents, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, Andre Agassi, Mike Tyson, just the greats. and he's also published books. He's got 100 plus companies in his portfolio that do north of seven plus billion a year. And as impressive as that is... It's actually 12 billion. 12 billion, there you go.
0:35I was going to say, I was like, I hope this number isn't wrong. I like book the other day. Most importantly, at least for me, me personally, is that you wrote books that changed my life directly. Wow. And in a couple of cool ways. So the first is there was an Indian guy who came here to the U.S. 20-something years ago. And he was working as a janitor. And he had such a thick accent that they said, you're never going to get employed anywhere. You have to learn how to speak. And he tried to get, you know, how to get rid of an Indian accent tapes, and those didn't really exist. And so they were like, well, you can check out these from the public library.
1:06It was Tony Robbins tapes. And so he would just mop the floors, listening to Awake the Giant Within. Yes. Awake the Sleeper's Cheap. Sorry, I'm messing up. Personal power, probably. Yeah, thank you. Yes. And so he's mopping the floors, and he's doing it. And that man then started a software company, scaled that, sold it, started another company, sold that for$3.4 billion, did another company, took that from$200 to$1.2 billion. And I met him right around that time, and he's my partner at acquisition.com. Oh, that's beautiful. And so that's the first impact. What's his name? Sharon Sravansa. Please give him my best.
1:36That's awesome. I will. He's, you would be here if you didn't have to. Oh, he's the man. The second direct impact is that there was a girl in Michigan who was 100 pounds overweight, had just been arrested six times just in the first couple years of college, and then was like, I need to change my life. And started listening to your tapes and reading your books, lost 100 pounds, competed in a fitness competition, and then got into business, built a whole roster of clients for herself. And that's when I met my wife. The one that most significantly impacted my life. That's the most important person.
2:10Of course. And then the third was me, obviously. And my actually entry into your world was Money Master the Game. That was the book that got me. And so for that reason, I want to say thank you for just everything you did. Well, thank you for all the kind words. I really appreciate it. I actually had like five words written down for this whole podcast. Okay. And I tried to compress a bunch of questions into just the most succinct thing that was actually top of mind for me that I know will be top of mind for many of the business owners in my audience. So I have probably 60 % business owner audience.
2:38a third of them are doing over a million a year. We also have people who are just, you know, just getting started, but a lot of people are predominantly business. There's my brothers and sisters out there. Yeah. In the game, in the game. And bet on yourself and grow, right? Find a way to give. Yes. And so the first one was, how do you see the dichotomy between duty and enjoyment as it relates to the impact that you want to make with the business that you have? Well, it's interesting, you know, words are tricky. They can produce emotions and sometimes we pick up words because the people were around.
3:11Sure. I used to play poker with a group of guys when I was in like 19, 20, 21, they were older than I was, and they were all married except one. And I was kind of surprised to see one day, well, one of them guys, I knew he loved his wife so much. But two of the other guys always were talking about their wives, like I had to go back to the old Baldwin chain, you know? And one day, and I couldn't help see it, I was a witness of it, because I was always sensitive to this. And the guy that really loves his wife, out of habit of being one of the guys, yeah, I'm going on my own ball and cheat. Right.
3:44And the language we use produces emotion. Sometimes we can pick up words and actually pick up emotions. Yeah. It's just like, you know, if somebody yawns you yawn too, or somebody starts to laugh, you know, but words are even more powerful. So, duty could be a good word, like if you're seeing yourself like a soldier. Yeah. Right. but I look at that way I look at it as um obligation I say this because I saw this in some of your language and I don't know if this is helpful to you I don't pretend to coach you in our way but for me at least I can tell you I look at it as opportunity I don't feel a sense of duty I feel of joy yeah and being able to contribute to me contribution is what we're made for hard to meet your own needs as a human being right it's not that difficult today on the world we're in today, but have a fulfilling future of something you care about more than yourself.
4:35And so if you get into business just to make money and there's nothing wrong with it, those people usually, you know, even if they succeed, they hit a limit of fulfillment because the economic returns only produce so much. So I don't look at duty and enjoyment. I look at it as more like it's all enjoyment because contribution is the ultimate enjoyment for me. I mean, I get into business for impact and economics are second. If I have enough impact, you'll never have to worry about it. And I found that to be true in my own life. So I don't look at it quite that way. I look at it also though, that if you think you're going to really enjoy your life and not doing it, I think you're deluded because you'll wake up one day.
5:11Because the only thing that makes us feel alive is growth. You know, when you grow, then you have something to give. And when you give, then your life is more meaningful than just, you know, pleasure. You can give yourself pleasure by, you know, money, food, alcohol, sex, whatever it is, you know, but it's never going to be the same when you have something that's larger than you that you're called to. I hate the word motivation because I've never been a motivator, but people use the word. So I'll say, well, there's two types of motivation if you don't think of it that way. There's push motivation, which is, let's say, duty, or I've got to do this, or I have to do it, or obligation, right?
5:44Or just, it just happened. And brother, you have a huge amount of willpower. It's pretty obvious about what you've accomplished. I have tremendous respect for you. But willpower only goes so far. That's push. pull motivation is where there's something out there that you want to serve more than yourself that'll get you up early keep you up late and it it isn't hard it isn't duty it is like what i'm made for yeah when you tap into that your energy level will explode your contribution will explode doesn't mean overnight everything is going to work your way of course it doesn't work that way but it will give you the constant endurance to move forward in a way in which you enjoy your life rather than someday when i get to this number that i'm slowly going to feel good because it's not true.
6:26You get to the number and if it's numbers, you'll never be afraid. You know, you've done incredibly well. All right. So many friends, they got their business, they sold it, they made a billion two, whatever it is. Five months later, they're looking to get back in business again because so many of their needs were met by the demands and the challenges and the growing. I think the biggest problem we have as human beings is that we think we shouldn't have any. Problems make you grow. Problems call to you because, listen, you live, we're both in good shape. You wouldn't be there if you lifted lightweights, did 100 coolings with some lightweight, right?
6:59You're built. You built this body. You built it by challenging. But some people, maybe because of your background in the fitness industry, no pain, no gain. But today we know that's not true. We know today that minimum dose will produce the maximum result. If you overdo it, you tear down too much, right? It's like finding the right dose just like anything else, like a drug. person. I really think if you think you're going to just go off and enjoy your life and not add value, you're going to be deluded. You're going to be frustrated. You're going to, I mean, how many people do you know that were rich and famous and the world loved and they killed themselves?
7:33Yeah. Because they stopped growing. I give this to a half dozen people I've thought of in the last 10 years that have done that process. So I think to me, it's not duty, but I do believe that those much is given, much is expected. It's one of my favorite parts in the whole Bible. I come from that place too, but to me, the expectation is a pleasure. I think the language we use trains our brain. It's like if you said to me, if I said to you during the break here, let's have some nutritious snacks. I said to a mass audience, maybe for you to respond positively because you're fat. But most people are like, let's see, delicious snacks.
8:06They're interesting. Or someone says to me, Tony, you meet so many people. You know, hook me up. Show me, introduce me to a great guy, a great woman. And if I said to them, well, I know this guy or I know this woman, they're really nice. You can't. Versus they're sensual, they're sexy, they're amazing, they're delicious. They're not nutritious people. Nutritious. I mean, the words change your biochemistry. The words you attach to an experience become your experience. If you over and over use certain words, you won't even know it. And you'll train yourself to have certain, what I call an emotional home.
8:41certain emotions you go back to because the language takes you there. And duty and responsibility, if you're trained like a soldier, that might work. If you've trained yourself that no pain, no gain, that might work. But how old do you know me to ask? 36. Okay. At 36 years old, you built such a foundation of business, of contribution, of wealth, of your body, that at this stage, it shouldn't be pain. It shouldn't be suffering. I don't think it has to be any of those things. I think it can be total joy, but you have to kind of rewire your brain because otherwise past training conditions in my opinion the issue does that make any sense yes and i will i will just speak for me yes um the issue that i have is that i got here from pushing anger for sure but i think on in the last however many years i i genuinely believe like that's not as much a part of me there's elements of that that are still there but like it's not the core drive anymore the difficulty that i have is like i work the hours that i'm awake pretty much and the difficulty that i have is finding enjoyment outside of work and the contribution from that perspective like i've spoken to a number of billionaires yourself included where i i'm like the next game right and so the game that we're in right now i i know i obviously there's gonna be risks there's gonna be lots of things that we're gonna do but i feel like i have a direction to what we're doing.
10:03And when I talked to some of the, some of the, you know, billionaires that are in more private equity, financial engineering, commodities trading, different than maybe what, you know, obviously what you do and to a degree what I do. I'm actually in their business too. Yeah. They were like, you should do something that like really helps people. And I was like, I, I feel like I do that. There's, you know, only 0.1 % of the, of the people who see any of the content, the courses, the books, whatever that we put out, I monetize in any way. And to a degree, I also reject the idea that charity must be something that does harm to you in order for to be virtuous, right?
10:33So that is probably a struggle that I have dealt with, which is that I have an apathy issue. I'll tell you a microcosm of this is when I got in the fitness industry, I got into it because fitness was the only thing I was really into. And so I was like, well, I'll do something I love because I was a management consultant. I was like, well, this sucks. I'm gonna do something I love. And then as soon as I got into the business of fitness, I realized that the vast majority of my day had nothing to do with fitness at all. And it was like billing and, you know, membership sales and like all this other stuff.
10:57And when I started getting the testimonials coming in of these people who were going through, you know, our process, losing weight, getting off medications, whatever. Maybe the first couple of months, it felt like something. But then on like the hundredth and the thousandth, I was like, well, yeah, you know, of course you stopped, you moved better and you stopped eating shit and it worked out, you know, like it just, it's not basically the magic was gone for me. And so to the same degree, that's, I would say it has occurred within what I do today, but I don't even feel in some ways that I am driven.
11:26I do this because I don't know what else to do. It's like, this is the only thing I'm good at. Yeah. And so I do what I've been rewarded for doing. The biggest thing, selfishly, that I was really, or I am, you know, looking forward to, is I'm trying to navigate that. I understand. So it's a little, you got a set point on your fulfillment and you're not going beyond it. Yes. When I was 20, I got obsessed with positive psychology. I had a trunk of books at every single one of them. I saw felt things like this early on, before I had a business, any of that stuff. And I got to a point where I realized I read all the books and my life hadn't changed.
11:58And it felt very hopeless for me because my subject well-being was the same. And so I came up with a mantra for myself, which you might laugh at, which was fuck happiness. Because I felt so rejected by the notion because I felt so unattainable for me. And so what I replaced it with was I will be useful. That's great. Meaningful life is a very useful life, right? And that's basically what I've warranted my entire life around was like, that's why duty for me feels meaningful because it's like, well, you know, I might not enjoy this whole ride, but like everyone else can get stuff out of it. And so that's the struggle that I have, because I'm okay with that.
12:30You're okay with it, but you're torn by it, my friend. Yes. No, agreed. Agreed. I will accept that. I'm saying you'll accept it. Yes. Would you accept anything else in your other businesses? Would you accept something that's mediocre? No, of course. Yeah. Okay, so I'll give you my two cents, which is all it's worth. Unless you emotionally, the guys, the astronauts, you know, I got to interview several of them, right? Think of that. They went out and they competed. They wanted to be an astronaut. You had a version of that. I want to be a business owner, whatever it was you had. And they beat everybody, right?
13:03Tens of thousands of people. They got down to 100, down to 25, down to 60, down to the guys that go to the moon, right? And it's built by the cheapest bidder. They're on their back. And they shot them out into the moon with technology that's far less than it's on your phone right now. And they walk on the moon. They look back and see that image you and I have seen. that they took blue-green of the birth, but that was them seeing it. And they make it back and survive. They splash down. They have a ticker-tay parade. They shake the president's hand. Now, what the fuck do you do after you've walked on the moon for adventure?
13:36Yeah, right. I guess like you're 35 and you've walked on the moon. What do you do? And most of them became alcoholics and drug addicted. Yeah. And the reason is they forgot how to find joy or that adventure in a smug. And so you have trained yourself to be pain equals success, and success has a certain amount of value, but fuck happiness. You have literally hypnotized yourself into missing it because you weren't feeling fulfilled. So the idea that these people keep telling you, I would tell you is true, and I'll just give my own experience. We're not the same person, but maybe it'll be instructive.
14:08So, I don't know, maybe 10 years, I found myself in a place where it's like, I couldn't be more fulfilled than this. I have the most incredible wife. I have the most incredible kids. You know, I want to be an athlete or to make it. Right behind you, I have like six special championship rings from different teams I own or that I help to coach and turn around. I'm working with the greatest athletes in the world, the greatest business people in the world. I'm having fun. I'm, you know, I'm... Depends on the weather. What else could make me fulfilled? I mean, I can't be anymore and I'm not complaining.
14:40But there's some part of me like you that was hungry for more still. You wouldn't be asking that question unless there was part of you that... Who wants a hunger for something called happiness? Who wants something besides just duty? Or he wouldn't miss me? So, and I'm not telling you I have the answer, but I'll tell you what it was for me. It's like the same things people told you is me. I've always was contributing the same as you. I've been doing it since very little. But I started saying, you know what I'm going to do? I want to do some moonshots in that area. I'm going to scale businesses.
15:08We're in businesses of nothing up to$12 billion. It's like in those days it was like$4 billion. What would really get me going? And at that point, I've been feeding people since I was a kid. When I was 11 years old, we had no food on Thanksgiving. Somebody came and delivered food, changed my life. It made me believe strangers care, so I cared about strangers. And I started two families, four families, two million, four million. So about this point, I've been feeding people for 37 years. So I called my family. People I fed in my lifetime, and they said 42 million. I was like, wow, that's pretty awesome.
15:41But I had no association to it. I felt good. But I was doing it, you know, all these different ways. There's so much pain out there. I'm going to feed a billion people in the next 10 years. It took 37 years to do 40. I started out by saying, well, what if I do as many people I've done in my lifetime in the next 10 years? What if I do as many people in my lifetime in one year? And then I was like, what if I do 100 million people in a year? What if 100 million people in a year for 10 years have spent a billion meals right in the United States? so igniting. It was more money. It wasn't business. It wasn't, it wasn't, okay, there's a system.
16:20It was like, I have to rip apart. If it took me 37 years to 42 million, to go to a billion is going to require me to think differently, come up with strategy different, be different, and to think of a billion line, numbers somehow, a different level of life. It's kind of like Kennedy saying, we're going to go in this decade and we're going to land on the moon and bring a man back to the earth All the guys at Mass are like, we don't have technology. I don't care. This is what we're going to do. There's something about building a moonshot for contribution outside of what you've done in business.
16:56I said I'd do it in 10 years. I'd do it in eight years. So then I finished that and was like, I'm traveling around the world. You see people starving, trying to do what you're doing. I need something bigger. So I was in the UAE and I had a lunch with MBZ, the head of the country, brilliant man. And he calls the next day and goes, I want to have lunch with you again. I went, it's cool. We can do that. So I come sit down with him and he goes, I brought you lunch today because there's two people feeding the most people on earth and they should know each other. So he introduced me to Governor Beasley, who ran the World Food Program for the U.S.
17:28So I said, well, I think you're doing more than me. And so we talked. He later won the Nobel Prize, but we stayed in relationship. And because of our relationship, he got so frustrated with the bureaucracy of the UN, that one day, he said, tell us to leave the UN. Because during his five years, we had from 80 million people at the verge of starvation to 385 million people. Just think of those numbers. If you think of those numbers, it doesn't. But if you follow like one child starving, it'll change the system to something more. It's like watching a movie. Watch a movie about war. It's too much.
18:01You follow one person and what they go through, you feel it. So I got associated with that and I said to him, what if we create a strike force team? If you're going to leave, how many meals would it take to feed everybody in the world for 10 years that need it, where it would give us time to build a sustainable solution? Because you can't keep doing the same credit, right? And he goes, I don't know, 40, 50, 60 billion meals. I said, let's do a hundred billion meal challenge. I said, I did a billion meals. When I started, I wasn't a billionaire. I've been blessed, obviously, since that time. You do great work.
18:31If you bless others, you'll be blessed, right? I wasn't doing it for that reason. I just gave it back. So I said, there's got to be 90 and more guys like me. Oh, there's 3 ,000 billionaires or owners of companies or, you know, countries that'll do this. So we did this 100 billion meal challenge and we went to Forbes 400 and I thought, we're going to get 50 of these guys, right? The richest people in the world. Four people stood up. Four. If it isn't that work, maybe it's a bit. But I won't worry about all the details. The strategy, the thought process, and what kept me going, though, is it's not just having this unreasonable goal.
19:06It's having strong enough emotional reasons. And I got in these environments where people are starving. I got in Sudan. There were a million people cut off by the rebels there. And they were starving this last year. And the U.N. sent all these food people in, and they killed the drivers and took the food. MBS, not MBZ, MBS from Saudi Arabia, cares deeply. He tried to provide things. They killed everybody. So people stopped giving money. these people are going to starve. So I, no, no, there's something different. I said, I'm just putting a line in the sand. We are going to feed these people. I'm going to provide enough food for a million people in a week who will match me.
19:39I got Ray Dalio to match me. I got 40 million buns, but how do you do it? And this is where it gets so alive. It's like no one else in the world, we're going to do this. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to hire a bunch of, some military contractors. We're going to take C-130s and we're going to take drones and we're going to deliver the food to the people. We delivered 22 ,000 meals that month and saved all these people's stuff for you. So when you do that, your level of fulfillment explodes. What the fuck compared to running a business? Right. It's not even a thing. So I've been a footer on that.
20:10So now we've got 62 billion meals in three years. Anybody ever thought was humanly possible. And so now we're going to do a song with We Are The World, and I got Jimmy Jam, the most successful Grammy guy, and I got everybody you can imagine in the music business all building it together. We just completed our first version. And then, but then, you know, I'm lucky enough, Like you, I'm Larry Bless. I have a private plane. I'm 37. It burns out of car date. Yeah. I want to be conscious. How many trees? 3 ,000 trees a year. I'm like, find 100 million trees. If I'm not just plant the trees, I'm going to plant a billion trees, and I'm going to work with the farmers.
20:43I'm going to show them how to go from making a buck eight to 12 bucks a day by having 12 to work with a group to do that. It's like, you know, a friend of mine's daughter was kidnapped and put into slavery. Just insanity. It happens. In America, it happens overseas. and nobody wants to talk about trafficking. But that got me associated to it. We actually helped somebody. And so I went out undercover. I had markings all over my face. They had a makeup person that had scars on my face that helped them negotiate these deals with these animals that do this. That was the least thing I've ever seen in my life, but also the most beautiful.
21:15But again, I didn't just give money. I didn't just write something. I just didn't put something. I went in the fucking trenches and I'm sitting there watching these girls go through the worst thing on earth, meaning they're chained to a bed to do eight or 10 tricks of money. and then we get them freed. Yeah. Right on big size. They've never been out there. They're out on the ocean. They're down here playing basketball. They're like, they're changing their lives. And so then I'm hooked. So my wife and I have now funded 72 ,000. Started with 30 ,000. I grew up in a town of 30 ,000 people. I want to free that many children, as big as the city I grew up in.
21:44Now we're at 72 ,000. I'm going tonight. We'll probably raise$5 million tonight. I'll do matching funds for everybody at the event to do it. So what I'm trying to say to you is, do you love your ass? Yeah. And I love you and I respect you. I'm not coming from that place. I hope you know where I'm coming from. You've accomplished more than most people will dream of the world. But once they get off your emotional ass, stop this fuck happiness shit. And just actually say to yourself, I deserve happiness. I'm going to create happiness, but I have to do it differently than it before. I can't just get up and just work because I'm trained to work.
22:15I'm not a fucking robot anymore. You're way too smart, and you've got way too big a heart. I know you do. I know everybody knows you well. I've seen you with your wife. You're an extraordinary human. You're not just a guy here does all these wonderful things and they do wonderful things for people. You're absolutely right. But you're not connected to it and you don't have something that you're obsessed about that makes you feel fully alive. You're doing it because you need to. The difference between have to, duty, and get to, that's the difference between rich and poor. And rich and poor is not money, right?
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22:45Rich and poor is feeling fully alive. That's rich, right? Poor is you work your ass off and you have plenty of money and you help all kinds of people, but you don't connect it. And again, I'm not making that judgment. I hope you can feel my heart. It's just, I want more for you. And I knew you wouldn't ask me the damn question when it's true. So it's like, but you need, like, your energy has got to be shifted. You need a kick in it. You need to have an environment where you're on fucking fire. And then at that state, you've had that state before, I guarantee you, when you got here. But then you got so caught up in the push, I think you've missed some of the pull for your life.
23:19And I think this is not just true of you, it's true of most of us. Why are most people stressed? Like, if you talk to people, they're always talking about, I'm so stressed and stressed. I'll take away your stress because you're managing it. You know, like, you're managing all these great businesses. You're managing all this great money. But you know what? When you manage, it puts you back in survival. Are you telling me it's more stressful than even the dark ages? I mean, come on. But what's happened is we have all this we're trying to manage and we're not made to manage. You've been so successful that now you've hit a set point.
23:50And now the only way that set point is people get to a point where they question and they start going, is it working or not? But I have to keep doing it. Sometimes you make a point. You say, I'm going to keep doing it, but I'm going to be connected to it at a different level. Or I'm going to change paths all together. I'm going to add a path that brings another dimension to me. Those are the places that go. So I'm pretty passionate about that. Primarily because you're asking me. Because you ask a question. It's a very sophisticated question. Most people never ask because they never get to where you are.
24:18Right? So you've gotten to a place where you've hit a block. But you're only 37. Yeah. You're God willing, you're going to have 50 or 60 more years of your life. I don't want you going around and doing it. I want you to go around doing it because I have to get up and work. I want you to do it for something else. And so I can't do it for you, but it'd be great for you to get an environment. I'm not telling you, but like, there's nothing like being an environment. I know when Riley came to one of our events and you know, I got 15 ,000, 20 ,000 people and he's like, I don't need this stuff. And after an hour, he goes, this is like the seventh game of the NBA.
24:51media championship only lasts 12 hours. It goes to, right? But without energy enhancement, the blame takes over. All of a sudden, you're not what your mind doing. The reason you're not happy is the mind is leading you. Get in your head, you're dead. Your heart is so big. And I'm not saying that to placate you because I know we have mutual friends and we all rave about what a generous, incredible guy you are, but I don't see you feeling the level that you have. And I can see Part of it is energy. You can execute with your mind so well. You recognize, I'm sure, like I do, pattern systems. You've got to put them in place, get it done.
25:25But then there's not the emotional connection. You need a moonshot or two. And you need to get connected to the people and see and feel the impact in a new variety. Because otherwise, it's the law of familiarity. You get around anything, no matter how good it is, you start taking a little bit for granted. And that's just human nature. That's not you. so you have to wake it up and you got to get associated. The other thing is you don't have a kid, do you? No. I'm trying to give you advice, but look, I have five kids and five grandkids. I adopted three kids. I was 24. I married a woman who was 12 years my senior.
25:59She married her twice before me with kids from each person. I didn't recognize the pattern. But it was one of the best things in my life, even though she wasn't right for me, and I don't think I was right for her, but you can make a choice. I ended up with these kids. So I was 24 and had a 17-year-old son instantly, an 11-year-old, a 5-year-old, and the one on the way. I've been doing my thing, like you're doing, very successful. I want to change the world. I'm not going to figure out all these kids in different stages of life. And so I tell you that because that marriage wasn't the right marriage, but those kids are now, you know, my youngest kid is like 42, right?
26:32I have a 52-year-old daughter. Thanks to COVID, I have a 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter. COVID was good to me. I hadn't birthed a lot. And 65 years old, I have a 4-and-a-day, right? Are you kidding me? I've already done all that. But it's the greatest joy of my life because she makes me see the adventure and the smile. I want to do more for her than I want to do for everything else. Every day is new because everything is new for her. You just need some new elements. So it doesn't have to be a child, but I wouldn't mind recommending the question. But I think at some point in your life, there has to be something more than you that calls you.
27:07I'm trying to give you a sermon. I'm just so passionate. I have a love for you because you've delivered so much value. And I hate when I see something with so much value. And to me, I see there's a little bit of suffering. You wouldn't call it that. There's a conflict inside. I don't want to see you suffer. You're too good a human being. I don't see anybody suffer. I appreciate that. Does any of that make any sense? Yes. What part makes sense to you? I'm curious. So there's two, well, three things. So one was the emotional connection part. The second was the framing of the opportunity. And then the third was around suffering.
27:36And so I want to touch on each of those. Okay, great. So from the suffering perspective, I find it really interesting because passion comes from the Latin passio, which means suffering or to endure. And so that made actually a tremendous amount of sense for me. And so I actually reframed that whole concept as like find a goal worth suffering for. And so I've been very accepting of my suffering. And to your point, I actually don't have a lot of anxiety. That's actually not the issue that I deal with. I deal with the opposite extreme of not giving a fuck. Is it worth it? Who cares? Why bother? You know, whatever.
28:07Yeah. So that was on the suffering piece. But before you go, can I give it to you, if I may? Again, I'm not pretending to have the answer for you. I'm just giving my two cents. I'm just giving my two cents. I'm just giving my two cents. I'm just giving my two cents. I'm just giving my two cents. I'm just giving my two cents. I want to see more of that. I'm trying to... This is the real you right here, by the way. But what happened is you were so in your head. Yeah. So even think of what you did, like a goal was suffering for. I mean, I don't have goals that I'm worth suffering for. Interesting.
28:34No, don't get me wrong. you're not every day is not like pure bliss yeah and there's lots of things that i don't love to do that i need to do to succeed or i got to deal with that's part of life but pain is part of life suffering is an option you've heard that phrase but it's a fact it's not just a phrase it's why you've heard that shit some more but when you make it your call to find a goal we're suffering for you're gonna suffer yeah right it's it's in your way i got my wish you've gotten your wish and what's happened is this part of you is so strong brother this part of yours too but this is the lead right now.
29:05If you change the lead to here by that sense of connection and everything else, you get the hell out of your head because your brain is always going to reduce things. It's like your brain will never make you happy. That's the problem. It won't even lie to enjoy an apple. Is it organic? Your brain is analyzing so much. You've got so stuck up here that you're missing this magnetic beam. I see in front of me here, you're missing the joy of so stop skimming what we're suffering for can I ask a question so with the like get out of your head get into your heart yes I love the language I don't understand what it means I know because right now you're in your head sure wait a minute can you feel the difference like this guy right here is smiling at me right now is that a different guy yes okay so tell us so let's do this okay I have multiple parts of me most of us in life try to pretend we're one thing in society it makes you try to pretend you're one thing I'm sure your wife because multiple person...
30:02We don't want shared names. When I first met, I had a conversation. I'm talking about you like this person over here, right? I have a couple different names. Look at this mind. You know exactly what I'm talking about. That's my heart. Yeah. Well, I started naming the parts of my wife so I knew who I was talking with. There's Bonnie Pearl. There's Sage. There's some names I can't tell. Is this Friday night, Layla? Or is this Tuesday morning, Layla? But the point of the matter is we as humans try to reduce ourselves to simplicity and society does to one thing it's easier to manage. There are many parts of you.
30:30Yeah. So what's the part of this guy that's so intellectual that, you know, he's going to suffer and he's going to, you know, take your den and then he went, this guy right here, this guy's very different. This guy's very different. Yeah. Okay. So you just ship there just like that. Yeah. All right. So who's the guy who's in his head all the time and he's analyzing? Oh, he's brilliant, by the way. He's absolutely up and brilliant. And he can succeed in doing that. Give me a nickname for that guy. Analytical Alex. There you go. Analytical Alex. Analytical what? Analytical Alex. So, okay. Who is this guy who's laughing with me?
31:05Look over his wife. Yeah. Big smile on his face. She smiles and pictures. This is you, right? Yeah. Okay. So, who is this guy? Anabolic Alex. Anabolic Alex. So, Alex has so much in my life. Can you feel it? Yeah. Okay. So, what happens is, think about a relationship. Try it that way. Most people get in a relationship and they, I always tell people, the secret to relationship, 80 % of having a great lasting relationship or intimate relationship is selection. And people will say to me, well, shit, why didn't you tell me that before I was married for 10 years? I said, no, no, no. I don't mean who you select, who you select to be in this relationship.
31:47So when you're in the beginning of a relationship, what do most people do in the very beginning of a relationship? What will they do for the other person? The best behavior, all that kind of stuff. lighting them up lights you up there's no transaction value you're not trying to see what you can get your joy is making joy for them right and you give your all you dress properly or whatever property you give your best foot forward people get married sometimes and after a certain number of years forget and they bring a different person to the table who's always analyzing what did you do versus what I do they're measuring It's transaction.
32:23No one wants to be far from a transaction in the intimate relationship. And when you have to do a transaction, it's not fair anyway because in a relationship, it's like a team sport. You're climbing a mountain. Who's leading? Who's following changes if you're climbing a big mountain? You can't lead the whole damn time. You'd love to, but you can't. You've got to switch to make things work. So which part of you you select to do business with? Which part of you is going to run your business? And so many of your viewers, I see people different than you. they'll be like, oh, you know, I just, I know I need to fire this person.
32:56I need to like, all this, I got to do this, but you know, I just can't hurt them. I was in that stage at one stage of my own life. But if you put that person in charge of business, you're going to fail. Yeah, right. Right? Because you're going to be taking care of this person and hurting your platinum players, right? You're hurting your clients, right? So it's like, we all have to pick the person we're going to be and be conscious. And in your case, my friend, it's not so you can succeed. This will make you succeed. I have a strong one here too. But if I let this thing take over, I would be bored shoots.
33:25I'd be like, okay, I have five sports teams and I got a billion dollars and I got this business and that business. And everybody tells me every day I'm the greatest thing in their life. I changed their life. And I got five kids. And like, where's the medium of their life? That's what the brain does because the brain reduces everything. It compares it. Whereas the heart magnifies everything. It takes the little things that makes them bigger. What made you attracted to your wife when you first met her it was this guy right here anabolic alex um the honest truth was that i um i once i met her i didn't want to not be with her yes why what qualities about her did you not want to be without i think she let me be me yeah she loved you for being yeah she just never tried to change me and i think that was what was so unique that's Quite miraculous.
34:17I'm fortunate at the same thing. I found that Sage loved me not because I was Tony Robbins. She just loved me. I never experienced that before, right? So, and what else about her, besides the fact that she loved you unconditionally? She also loved the same stuff that I loved. Yes. And so when we talked, we just wouldn't stop. And I feel like it has been one very long conversation. We spent two weekends apart since the day we met. Wow, that's beautiful. Like, not in the same, literally the same place. Does she bring out analytical Alex or anabolic Alex? We work together, so she sees both sides.
34:48I'm asking that. Which one can she bring out if she wants? Oh, she can bring out whoever she wants. That's right. But who does she want more? Oh, she for sure wants help. Of course. Because what is... You're a different man right now when we started here, right? Can you feel that? Yeah. I don't do shit. This is you. But if you don't identify, like, think about it. The strongest force in the human personality for any human being, you, me, doesn't matter. The strongest force is that we need to stay consistent with the way we identify ourselves. Identity is the controlling force of human being. If you have identity that says, I always find the way to victory, you will find the victory.
35:27If you're Lance Armstrong and, oh, by the way, you have cancer in your brain, in your lungs, and in your testicles, which is inconvenient since you ride a bike. What does he say? He's going to find a way. What do some people say? Their belief is, I'm at the effect of things. Life controls. What makes people, by the way, miserable is when they feel events control them versus they control events. And all it is is a shift in here and here, right? So Lance had that belief system and he found the way. Live strong. Yeah. But he also said, I'm going to find a way to win using drugs that were elite. It's what it was.
36:02Causing his reputation. All these things, right? So your identity is at least. And so you have to be careful because very often in life, we identify to who we were. Like, why does someone do something? Well, I'm not that kind of person. Well, when did you decide what kind of person you were? Five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years, 30 years ago? Would you use a phone from 10 years ago? You'd be a... Why would you use the same old identity? I'm not saying get rid of it. I'm saying let's expand it. And you, I don't have to teach you shit. You've done everything to do. But what I could offer you is a conscious choice to find anabolic Alex and put him in charge.
36:43Your level of happiness is going. And then stop your hypnosis. You hypnotized yourself a long time. It's time to transcend. Transcend means end the trance. Whatever you say to yourself over and over again, people, you know, you tell a lie big enough, loud enough, long enough. Sooner or later, people believe you. You've told yourself a lie. Fuck happiness. Fuck suffering. Hmm. That's, you gotta be a new one. Fuck's the freak. Like I want to engage in joy. It's not my duty. It's my gift. It's my honor. It's my opportunity. It's, it's grace that has put me at this point in my life. all the other people you've met, you and I both have busted our ass.
37:19We wouldn't be here with that. But we've also had grace in our life. Your woman is grace here. My woman is grace in my life. I always say, listen, I got my wife because of karma. Tens of millions of people worldwide, and that was my reward. You know? Not making me smile like you're smiling right now because I really believe it's true. So it's like those little shifts. I teach something called transformational vocabulary. It's one of the simplest things in the world. That isn't me. When I was probably younger than you, I was probably 32. And I was two other partners who were very wealthy, super successful, one worth a billion dollars, another one very, very close to it, but very different personalities.
37:56And we're three of us were partners in a certain deal. And I won't bore you the details, but I'll give you the core. The core was we went into negotiation, and I'm an open book, as you can probably tell. I won't explain to me, right? I don't think you better much share what I believe, right? Certain areas I know, just like you know, right? Because of my life experience. But when negotiation for me, I was like, yeah, for negotiation, let's just put our cards on the table. I want to be able to do business with somebody who's honest. I want to tell you the whole thing. Let's do something fair. Right.
38:21But you know, if you have certain people, if they don't fight for it, they feel like they don't want to do business. Right. They want to feel like they beat you. Yeah. So I go on this negotiation with my partners. I open the door and I tell them the good, the bad and the ugly. And I said, I think this is a deal that would work. I want a deal that's more than happy for you because I'm the kind of guy that I'll do a deal. Afterwards, I'll give a person a little bit even if they agreed to it. That's how you're doing for 20 or 30 years because I'm generous, right? So I'm trying to be generous. But if you're trying to be generous for the shark, you'll take your arms right.
38:54You're sober, yeah. I'm this 32-year-old kid. I'm not realizing you're much more sophisticated at your age than I was in mine. So I tell the guys all this stuff. Okay, let's come together. You know, I'm perfect. but let's pull it. Long term, who cares? As long as we respect each other, love each other, we're going to crush this opportunity, right? And the other side, without giving me all the glory details, takes it and tries to manipulate us with leverage to make a deal that was far worse than we should be in. Yeah. So I'm effing pissed. Yeah. I am angry as hell. I'm pissed off. I'm frustrated.
39:28One of my partners goes apeshit. He's like, I'm furious. He's like, I'm effing pissed. And he was so intense that even though I was pissed off, I'm like, hey, I'm trying to call him again. I'm trying to call him again. And this my entertainer, he even knew. Like, he doesn't seem any slightly upset. It's almost upsetting. Don't you get it? He's too crazy on my mind. So I said to him, like, aren't you upset? Because you're Archie Fury, as I call. He's pissed. I'm a little annoyed. The first one he said, I'm a little annoyed. I said annoyed. Like the word annoyed, annoyed me. Don't you understand?
40:11What'd they do? He's like calling in. In the middle of it all, I couldn't help. I'm a student of behavior, right? So I couldn't help but notice all three of us have had the same problem delivered to us. And all three of us have radically different emotional responses. Okay. Well, I am listening. He's going, I'm a rage, furious. I'll kill the MFers. And I'm thinking, I'm one. I'm so pissed off. I'm pissed as hell. I'm angry. And then I'm hearing him say, I'm annoyed. Annoyed. I mean, that's what? He said, I'm all tinkled as a tinkle. What are you talking about? Right? So in the middle of all this, I fought for a moment.
40:51I couldn't help. And I said, you know, I don't think I've ever seen you really angry. He's really angry. It's very rare. I said, well, what about? He had this deal with this IRS agent who came to us. He's a very wealthy guy, right? And the guy was the IRS agent. Mike Gassius was, you know, threatened by or upset by the level of wealth he had. And so he did some things that he eventually wanted. It took him five years to get his money back. Fought the IRS of one, which is pretty rare. But during those five years, it was brutal, you know, anybody who worked on the outside. They said, you're going to tell me you were annoyed with that?
41:24I was peeved. I remember it. It was something really interesting. I said, what do you believe about getting angry? And he goes, I believe if you get angry, the other guy wins. You lose, yeah, 100%. Right? And I'm like, I've never talked to him. Yeah. And this other guy believes if you don't get angry, when I get angry, I get powerful. And I thought, when I get angry, I get sharp. But I also thought, when I'm really happy, I get sharp. Yeah. And it changed me. I started saying, okay, I call it transformational vocabulary because the words you attach to your experience, as I said, become your experience.
41:59My mother would call me one time. I'm old enough. I'm probably not old enough. before we had cell phones, you know, we had these little recorded calls. You know, it was like on a reel-to-reel. And you called in and got your calls. Well, I went to England and Europe for about, I don't know, two weeks. And I gave my staff the time off. They were working their tail off. So my mom calls every day and leaves a message she doesn't get a call back. And when I called from England, the little beep thing wouldn't translate. So I didn't know it was all in that. I come home. These were the messages. Every single message she says, I am humiliated.
42:31This is humiliated. She must hit me. It's my life. And it's a lesson that's going, my mom is always humiliated. Yeah. Do you know why? If there's a funnel of experience and it's painful, he's going annoyed, I'm going pissed off. He's going to kill him, right? My mom always uses the word for anything uncomfortable for humiliating, so she's always humiliated. So I'm never depressed. I was so depressed when I got chased out of my house and I had no money in the background. I lived in this place of depression. I remember reading this book by Claude in Bristol. It was called The Magic of Believing.
43:03And I read the book and it talked about how to condition your mind. And one of the things I did, I wrote, I wrote on soap on the mirror, I wrote, you know, only a loser is depressed, which isn't true. You can be depressed and feel that way. But I knew I wasn't a loser. It was my leverage. And I literally took the word depression out of my vocabulary. I've never used it. I felt down. I felt pissed off. I felt frustrated. I felt sad. I felt overwhelmed in moments. But I've never felt depressed. Because when I was depressed, I got to the point where I was questioning whether it's worth it all. You know what I mean?
43:31And so your words shape your psychology. And so a few word changes, as stupid as that sounds, as overly simplistic as that sounds, or people give metaphors. They'll say, oh, man, I'm like, you know, I'm like, give me my rope. And I'll go, well, sit down and come over here. What are you talking about? We hypnotize ourselves. Or someone will say, well, that person stabbed me in the back. And I'll walk up to him and I'll, you know what I mean. Well, they betrayed me. Well, what did they do? And you dig in and they go, they told someone else something they said they wouldn't tell them. But the words escalated the emotion.
44:06And once they're there as a metaphor or as words, they control us. I'd like every business person to notice this. I remember, you know, I decided to get a divorce when I was 40 or, you know, three, nine years old. And I didn't want to have a divorce. I had forefathers. It's going to stay no matter what. Duty. All those things that was legal for me, right? And then I remember going to my friend, Peter Guber, and I was like, you know, I just. I don't know, I can't imagine doing this. And then I'm going to do, I said, I'm going to give her more than half. And then I want to take care of her. But I just, the whole part of starting over again, you know, starting over.
44:40He grabbed me by the arm and he goes, I'm going to teach you what you've taught me for the last 10 years. He goes, you are not starting over. That language is putting you in this place. He said, you couldn't possibly start over. He said, you could take everything from you. No one can take the man you become, the knowledge you have, the skill you have, the relationships you have, all those things. but starting over was my trance for being in pain. And when I stopped doing that, it was like, no, you know, I'm starting fresh. I know that sounds simplistic, but linguistics change how the brain functions.
45:10And so part of yours is some simple linguistics, but the other part is state. Because anabolic Alex, it shows up all, it's all I can do is type of anabolic Alex here. And then a moonshot that's going to wake you up and then get emotionally associated. Like if I just provided all this, When I first fed people, I would go there in a t-shirt and jeans, not so they acknowledged me, but so I could see and feel the impact as opposed to I wrote a check or I did some good work or they did it. The more connected you are, and that once you get in the habit, like people say all the time, doesn't it? Oh, people cooked you 10, 15 times a day.
45:46Oh, you changed my life. No, it's one of the things I enjoy most besides my family. But it's because I've trained myself never to take it for granted. Is that helpful at all? Yes. Okay. from the state you're anabolic galaxy can't ask me okay it's in of course because you're you've got a very smart brain we can zoom to but let's start let's start with anabolic galaxy as you ask so in order to create the emotional connection because that is like the thing that i probably have struggled the most from but i think it's made me disproportionately successful from business perspective because i can make good calls right but you know i remember the first time i wrote a million dollar check and then multiple million dollar checks to charities and i was just like okay i feel a couple million bucks for it that's about it you know like yeah because you're not a most of those dude anyway zero but like you know i did the the tours of the school and i was like i'm glad that this all you know found the thing just contribution for contribution is not what i'm talking about and this is where i wanted to get so like so my my last little word of the ones we covered most of them was opportunity yes and so i think the question that i have is you have unlimited opportunities.
46:51Yeah. More opportunities than you can sink your teeth into. Yeah. How do you go through opportunity selection and balancing your kind of achievement brain outcomes and your philanthropic impact feeding families outcomes? I look at opportunities first from a business perspective. I look at opportunities first to see do I have passion for what it's about? Is it something I would do for free if I felt it was really successful? that it felt fulfilling, it felt alive, it felt it was worth doing. Is there a mission behind it? Is it selling widgets? I have no interest, right? Second thing I look for is who are the people?
47:30I want people I'm going to enjoy being with. I would enjoy being with you in spite of this conversation sounding like I wouldn't because I bring out more anabolic hours. I bring your wife brings out more anabolic hours, right? So I'm trying to make sure, if I was doing business with you, I'd make sure this guy was present, right? But I look at the people and I look at their heart and soul, what's driving them, and I also look at their skill because you need both right so someone's got a track record i mean someone's negotiating me right now on a really large project and if the project made no money i would probably do the project as long as i organize it so i can have the kind of reward for my time and my energy because the project has such reach global reach on a very deep level i'm very connected to it and this person's built the business that went to two billion dollars so they got a great track It's not me caring at all, but together one plus one could equal five, not two.
48:17So a deal like that gets my attention because most of the money I make, I give away. I mean, I have to change my, it's like there's, you know, I don't, I don't hurt for any capital. I know there's no toy that I'm looking for and it never drove me anyway. So for me, it's like, if it's got enough juice in it here, for the people I'm being with, I'm going to enjoy being with and it's going to have juice in terms of the impact and then it has track worker, the person likely to help get there. So it isn't all my back. The two of us are adding some value together. It's about added value. Then I'm in.
48:48And it's like, let's rock this thing. Let's make it happen. Let's have some fun. See, mine is let's have some fun, not let's do the thing. It's like, I'm going to learn. We're going to grow. We're going to expand to the base. We're going to touch lives. We're going to have these things. So those are my core criteria. And I'm not always right. But one thing I will tell you that I've done in business, because I've made some core choices in the early days on business partners. You know, everybody's selling when you're going to business partnership, right? And, um, it's like going on a date, you know?
49:14So it's like, you can get sold. And the question is not going to do the job. Will they do the job in the long term? Is it the way team fit? Like they're deeper questions. But I now, when I have so many business deals, the first thing I do early on, I just had this happen recently, somebody's like, I have a large power plant and 1.3 gigawatt power plant. I'm converting it to hydrogen. It's in West Virginia. The team told me about this. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a great, it's a great project, but I have some people involved that shouldn't have been involved. And so I had some new people to come on board.
49:40And what I do now is I go, they sold me. I was actually liking them. I felt the vision was great. They seemed to have the track record. Everything seemed to line up. And I said, look, you know, what I always do in any new partnership is I have everybody check me out legally. I want you to check out all, everything online, hire a private detective if you want. Know everything about me. And you can ask me any question you want. But I want to do the same with you because that's how I know when I'm starting. Now, by the way, nothing I hear will I take as true because, you know, it's not true. I'll bring it to you and we can discuss it.
50:08And you and I can tell, you know, most people have large, you and I have large bullshit meters, right? We can tell when something's bullshit. It's a perfect example. And this guy, we have a deal worth, you know, 10 figures plus, looked really good, ghosted us, just ghosted us. Because I, and then I uncovered, I uncovered three or four things he'd done that were not great. I was like, I just saved myself three to five years of pain. So I do believe in the practical side, but I first, I'm not even interested in going there. Unless I can first find these pieces and unless I believe already there, but I could get fooled, right?
50:42I'm not perfect. So I have one last question for you, which is the most selfish of all my questions. So you're 36 years old. You have built businesses and the skill set that you are most proud of is that you're good at helping business owners. The only thing I feel emotional connection to is teaching young men how to provide for themselves and their families. That's the only thing that actually like I, because I know that pain. Yes. So you're connected to it. That's the only thing. And to me, I've built a lot of the business and all that stuff basically around that. But I still, still don't feel like that massive emotional drive.
51:21That being said, what would you have played differently from your 36-year-old self to current that you could kind of pass on to me the, basically, what can I change about my behavior to maximize my enjoyment and size of impact. You have to make your enjoyment a priority, which you've not. You've always gotten your priorities, brother. You're good. You're an overachiever. But there's two skills in life. There's the science of achievement, which you're unbelievably great at, and there's the art of fulfillment, which you're not so great at, by your description. Yeah, I agree. And by the way, notice the language difference.
51:56The science of achievement, it's a science. Like you and I both know, if you want to make money, there's a science to it, right? if you want to be fulfilled, that's as unique as every human being you're going to meet. And so you haven't found that piece. Now you gave some, some clues along the way. Like, why am I so interested in feeding people? Because I'm such a good person? No, because I suffered. So I don't want other people to suffer. So I started out of that, but now it's not out of suffering. It's out of joy. You can get started out of the pain, passion does, but you don't have to stay in the pain.
52:26You kind of stayed in the pain, even though you've gone past. But what you just said is, well, a clue for me is that's the one place I can start to get folks associated to because I know what it takes to do that and I know what it feels like to be able to take care of my family. I know the contrast, right? So I would take a look at that and expanding it, but I tried to find a way to do it where I had a moonshot. Something that's like... Yeah. A moonshot of that. What's that? A moonshot of that. That's what I was saying to you earlier. I'm not saying you should go feed people or writing those checks.
52:56The problem is you wrote those checks and you should make a issue. A thousand. I mean, it's true. Let's do it poor. And then you probably tell me about yourself for doing it. I did. I'm supposed to do good stuff. Why? I feel very much about good stuff. Because it's like. I bought a piece of shit. I was like, I was like, I selfishly wrote these checks so that I would feel good. And now I'm just$2 million poorer. But like, but I shouldn't feel bad about doing good. And then it was just the whole thing. Fuck. So quick. And her heart was having that. Sure I had. So analytical. But by the way, as you're laughing about it, I was in charge.
53:26Yeah, anabolic. That little shit for yourself. I was like, that thing will help. If nothing else you heard me say, you'll play with that just a little bit in your life and bring him to the table. But if you come up with a moonshot connected to that, like I'm making this. It's completely blank. I'm going to have 10 million young men who right now think they can't buy a home. They can't do it. Most young people here have been sold this bullshit bill of goods. Inflation is 3%. Yeah. You know, I'm going to have 24 million to have 4 million. And it's like, that's the catastrophizing political side there.
53:56That's assuming that you're not going to have any growth in your assets. Yeah. And also when you're 86, which is when that would be 50 years from now, do you really think you're going to spend the same money? What the hell are you going to be? You already own multiple homes. You already have those. They've all grown in value. So most young people, they are not involved with free enterprises, you know, and so that's why they want communism because they've never been there. I was in USSR when I was 23 years old and I took a train from Moscow to Siberia with a group of scientists I was brought because of my fire walking, things like that, by their government.
54:27And back, I spent two weeks there. It made me a capitalist because every stop we did, there's the same thing in every city. There's a central place where the train stops. And we've been having caviar and all these Russians are like wealthy on this plane. They're all supposed to be equal. And then you see people, quarters of a mile around, multiple times, maybe half a mile around, waiting in the freezing cold for half a loaf of bread and milk. Right? it's bullshit but kids today are thinking oh it means free bus free child care for you they don't understand there's no such thing as no free lunch what life needs you to do is if you live in a free enterprise system and you're not an owner you're going to be in pain you know you've built businesses i like i tell kids sometimes they'll understand if you put 300 bucks aside we're still living at home you're 19 and you only invested in do it all in the s &p 500 you don't know anything about investing and you stop investing when you're 27 and you've only put$28 ,000 in.
55:24At 65, you got 1.8 million. God forbid you keep investing, right? Well, the numbers got bigger. You look at people today, they buy a iPhone and they buy a new one every year. They've been going on since 2007. I looked it up just the other day. I actually made a chart to show a kid and he was telling me about, you know, there's no way you can succeed. And I said, okay, you've had an iPhone since the beginning. It was about 19 years of epiphany, whatever it's been. He'd spend 20, I took up the exact dollar amounts for each one, and what the stock was at the same day. If you would have bought the stock versus the iPhone, well, it just matched.
55:57$22 ,000 you spend over time, which is good, or$326 ,000 you would have. I'm saying$326 ,000 will change your life, but for somebody who has nothing, it sure is. But the other part for it is helping people understand that it's like, if I get to be an owner, the whole game changes. The inflation could be my fight. I don't have to live in this fear. I can't have something. So you could bring that to kids, whatever age. You could bring in the biggest, I'm going to come something out. I'm going to take a million or a million or whatever would float in your mouth. And then when you see these kids and you see them and you see them taking care of their families and you hear stories about that, I don't think it'll be old for you.
56:37What'd you write the checks for? Kids after school care. Okay. And you don't have any kids. so you don't know association of whatsoever okay it's like shit but you know and i'm saying don't make this happen like you've done so much you need to find something there but you you for me you know um i wrote four books on finance i never expected to do it you know i wrote it because i got pissed off in 2008 i've coached paul tudor jones for 24 years one of the greatest financial traders in the history of the world. Every single day, measured what he's doing, coached him to all these pieces. He had the most success in 1987 when the stock market had his biggest percentage drop in history, 20%.
57:20And he made 100%. But then it was like the moon. He went to the moon. And then what do you do? And then he broke his leg and then he dropped. So I had to turn around. And we've been friends. I've worked with him all those years. I learned so much from him. But when we got to 2008, and I don't know if all of your viewers have been around here, but it was much more brutal in some ways in 2020 and COVID because COVID they gave people money. And I remember being so angry because I knew a small number of people basically almost destroyed the entire economic system and then I thought they're going to be punished and we gave them more money.
57:53So that they could have more money they can't use. Exactly. So I was incensed. So I've had anger. I don't have only answers but I have one thing. I have access. So I'm going to give 50, the book you read, 50 of the smartest individuals on earth who started with nothing. Nobody from the Lucky Sperm Club. They all started from scratch. And I'm going to see, even though they're relatively different, what do they have in common? I'm going to write a book that my billion clients are going to love, but an average person could do as well. What a journey you've never stopped. I was like, how do I help people accelerate?
58:22It's like, I look around today and I see so many people that don't feel they have a compelling financial future. And so I started looking around and said, okay. That's my heart, just so you know. Pardon me? That's my heart. Okay, well, me too. Helping those people. So my approach to that, and maybe I'm going to plan to see it with you because it may be something when you're teaching people. You probably already know this, but you may not know this part. So I'm looking around, and you know, like, in the last 39 years, every single stock market in the world, which is where most people put their money besides real estate, right?
58:49And if it's their own home, it just barely beats inflation, right, as you well know. Every stock in the world has been beaten by private equity. I bridge private equity. So I interviewed the top 13 guys in the world, right? Well, the top 13 guys in the world, it's wonderful. Interviewed them, but how are you going to get money in there? Because it's like trying to buy an SP3 Ferrari, right? I want you to go get one, and they're all pre-sold at$3 million, right? Yeah. But if you have one, and if you know the right person... Yeah. So I got into some of those cool funds, you know, like Vista. Yeah.
59:19Robert Smith is... I mean, he's a genius. He's got a$100 billion fund. He's averaged 26 % compounded per year for 25 years. He's a zero-zero. It's right. Nobody... But you can't get in. Or you might get in. I got in, but I got such a little sliver. It's like, we'll take$100 ,000. They're crazy. Okay, so let's look at this. Let's just do this. Try this for the people at home. In the last 39 years, if you put your money in the S &P 500, it's average 9%. Okay. So if you put a million bucks in there, at the end of this time, you'd have$28.6 million. If it's$100 ,000, it'd be$2.86 million, right? Yeah.
59:54But you've put in average private equity. It's been every stock market in the world, average private equity. Not the guys I'm talking about. Yeah. How much private equity has averaged 15.7 % per year. Around the world. 75 % higher per year, compounded year after year. Yeah. You put in that same million bucks, instead of$28 million, you have$293 million. More. 10 cents. Okay. Prediction 3 % worth. That's true. We'd think around$1 ,000. Then you'd have, instead of$2.8 million, you'd have$29 million. Right. Same time. Yeah. Passive investor. Yeah. But then the next thing you got to say to me is Tony, well, yeah, that's great, Tony, but you can't get access.
1:00:32So that's what I believe too. Like I had access, but small access. And then I met a guy who had been through a business master program for 20 years. He started his business. I was telling my frustration about, I'm only getting these little slivers. I don't have to change your life. I don't want to get them bigger. And he goes, Tony, I'm going to tell you where I put the majority of my money. This is a very sophisticated investor. And I said, okay, I'm leaning in on this one. He goes, there's a company in Houston, Texas. I'm thinking Singapore, London. in, you know, New York. He goes, off the beaten path, that has mastered something unbelievable.
1:01:02He said, you know that it was private equity? I said, of course. He goes, what if instead of buying the fund and fighting to get a small piece, you could own the company that owns all the funds and make the two and 20 yourself, side by side with the owners? Yeah. I said, you could do that? He goes, there's only a few companies in the world that do it. These guys are brilliant to get what they call general partnership safe. So you're a limited partner, you know, if you go in and you got to limit them out again. Yeah. How do you do that? So I went and met with this guy. Turned out he was a graduate of my programs 20 years ago, started his business with it.
1:01:33It's called Kaz. It's Christopher Zook. And I talked to Christopher, and so I put some money in with him. And next thing I know, I got ownership in Vista. I got a little slice in Vista, right? I'm getting the two in 20. So I have 95 of those companies now that I have a piece of. It is nothing but a cash machine behind a wireless dream. I get to work with the smartest people in the world. They're working all night. I'm right beside the morning without working on the night on those places, right? And now the same thing with sports teams. I worked forever to get my first sports team, the LAFC, and you've got to go through it.
1:02:04They look at a microscope through every part of your body. It's just ridiculous, right? But the rules have changed recently. And now if you have private equity and the owners don't own other sports teams, there's some technicalities with it. There's a small percentage that you can buy. So a part of, I owned the Dodgers. When I was growing up, I couldn't be in right field. I couldn't afford a ticket, right? The Dodgers, I owned the Golden State Warriors. I owned the Pittsburgh Penguins. I owned Aston Martin's F1. I own pieces of all these businesses all through our business. Then I became part of the business.
1:02:32When I met him, it was$1.8 billion. That was four years ago. Now we're at$11 billion just in AUM in that business. So the opportunity to glow is insane. But here's the problem. You had to be an accredited investor, change your$1 million net worth, or qualified purchaser,$5 million. So your young people are going to go, I can't do that. I wrote this book because I found out. It just passed three weeks ago. The House has passed the new rule. Why should the richest people in the world be the only people who get access to the most effective investments? Don't get me wrong. You've got a diverse, but you've got a significant vote here if you give this kind of 10 times return.
1:03:07And so they were smart because they'd like to say, well, you're not sophisticated. Well, some people have a million dollars, but they inherit it. Yeah, that's fiscated. Or they're a good business person. That's true. So a group of people, I was arguing this. It wasn't me. It finally resolved. Three weeks ago, they passed the law. Now the Senate will pick it up in April. And what it says is, you don't have to be a credit industry access anymore. All you're going to do is take a test. They're working on what the test is. That's interesting. You start for the test. And now you can put your money and get the same kind of returns to the richest people in the world.
1:03:36And in my case, you can own a piece of those businesses. So when you're going to show their own business, the only challenge with their own business is you and I both know if there's any law of finance that everybody knows, but very few people practice, it's asset allocation, right? You don't put all your eggs in one basket. So most people put all the eggs in their business because they feel more controlled. And then there's a COVID that happens, right? So you've got to be, I always tell people you need two businesses, the one you're in, the one you're building, but also that business plus an investment business where it's growing.
1:04:07So if everything happens here, they're taken care of here. And if they both win, you get there faster than you ever dreamed of. But you've got to know where to put your assets. And this is just part of that process. But for you, it's like, I know what my passion is. I don't even feel my passion. I don't want to tell everybody about it. It's like, I don't give a shit about making money. And of course it'll be money too. It's like, it's unbelievable. You've got to find out with this piece. What do you think it would be? If you were to tell me right now, I'm not talking to a local guy, come back.
1:04:33I saw your eyes go. Yeah. The analog guy, what would he say? I'm going to crush something. It's going to feel so good. I'm going to feel so much joy. I'm going to do X for this many young men. And it's going to be part of who I am and my legacy and what I'm going to live, what I'm going to enjoy. Not someday, a long walk. To answer the question, I think back to what was the big moment for me? Like, what was the moment where, like, well felt achievable? So for me, it was$100 ,000 on my bank, you know? Okay, great. That was the moment. I wrote about it in my book. Layla and I were on the kitchen counter and I was like, look, babe, we actually did it.
1:05:05And that's years and years. I remember that moment too. Yeah. And it was to this day the richest I've ever felt. And I think it's because it's the largest relative change in wealth I've ever experienced. Because you go from$1 to$100 ,000, you get$100 ,000 X. And you can't,$100 ,000 X$100 ,000 takes a lot longer than. And that was. And by the way, once you get the$100 ,000, your brain expands, right? Yeah. You see what's possible. It keeps bigger. And so I think it was because the first time that I was able to go out of survival. and i remember i looked at layla and i said we can fuck up for three and a half years that's what i was like we we could we could we could completely screw it over and you know three and a half years and she's like yeah this guy's a winner really all all hundred grand for the both of us for three and a half years gee golly you know this is after she picks me up from from jail for getting a dy you know what i mean just that's why she's my one all right um but that that moment, then like all the other milestones after that, that was the one.
1:06:01And so I think that, I think because that one milestone is this, is huge. It changes your identity. Yes, it does. It changes your whole viewpoint of the world. Your point about the capitalism, the capitalist system is that like, that is a big enough change where you believe in capitalism. That's right. And I think that is a, a quantifiable goal that I am personally connected to that I would love to help deliver. That's great. I love that. If I can help with it, count on me, I'm in. to help you in any way I can in there. I'll give you education, anything that you want to add to it, you're welcome to add to it.
1:06:31I'll give it for free. But that's exciting. I love the way you did that. You went back to a moment where you knew what was for you. So that's where the passion comes from, right? And by the way, that wasn't pain. That passion was an excitement that you felt. So I know the word passion literally comes from pain. I know that too. Sometimes we're caught up on the original definition versus how we can live it, right? But I love this idea. If you did that, how many people, Does it matter how many? One person alone feels amazing when you do that, but is there a number that in your mind would say, like, this would be, like, insanely fun, insanely great?
1:07:04I think I would look at the generation. So it would be, like, how many men are in Gen Z? Perfect. And then I'd be like, that sounds like a good starting point. But what would be, well, that's a lot of kids. What's the first target, though? Because it's just like, it's like I do the billion, then I went to the hundred billion, right, you know? You want a reasonable goal, but you need a timeline. So what would be our 36-month goal or 24-month goal? That would be unreasonable, but would get you up early, keep you up late. Well, 100 ,000 men at 100 ,000 is a billion in actual bank account wealth. And that sounds like a nice round number.
1:07:38Yeah. Go look at my shit number for 100 ,000 men. Get 100 ,000. 100 ,000. Yeah. And feel the way you felt them that day. Yeah. That's nice. And then the second lesson you can teach them along the way is how to keep enjoying it, my friend. Yeah. So Tony, you have an event coming up. Do you want to tell everyone about it? Yeah, it's called the Time to Rise Summit. It started when I first did, when COVID happened, because I got the governor calling me in California saying, you know, that place you're going to put 15 ,000 people, 14 ,000 people, you can put 100 people in because of COVID. And then I tried to move to Vegas.
1:08:08They shut down Vegas and Texas. And so I built a studio. Anyway, long story short, I said, people are trapped at home. They're depressed. They're frustrated. I want to make a big difference. How could I do that? Oh, I'll take away the two things they worry about. No time. They don't have to travel. and no money. And so I did it for free. We've done it now every year for five years. And I didn't do like two hours. I did three days, but I made it chunkable. Three hours a day, like going to a great movie, only it's changing your life. And instead of new year, new life, and setting some goals that by the end of January, they've not come, we help you figure out what you want, increase your energy, like we're talking about here, because without that, it doesn't change.
1:08:44Shift your mindset. Figure out what you want. Figure out what the plan is. Figure out what's getting in the way. And over three days, and you become part of a community of a million plus people from 193 countries that participate. And it's coming up January 29th through the 31st. And it's at 2 p.m. Eastern. The people do it from all time zones around the world. Again, no charge whatsoever. You can do it from your home, you can do it from your office. You might want to do it with someone. If you go to timetarivesummit.com, no charge, get yourself enrolled and I look forward to serving everyone.
1:09:13Thank you so much, Tony. I appreciate it. Thank you, man. Thank you.
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