Transcription
Well, welcome back, Tony Robbins, once again. And welcome to Personal Power, Day One. You're in the Ultimate Edge program, and as you know, this is where it all started. Personal Power originally was a 30-day program. I refined it down to seven for you here to condense it and get you the best results possible. And remember, we are that first pillar of sustainable success. We're gonna get you focused and clear, and we're gonna find out what stops you, and we're gonna eliminate it. We're gonna change the conditioning of it. In these seven days, we're gonna get you clear about what you want, why you want it, how are you going to make it happen. And then you'll go on to the next section, which will be "Get the Edge."
So, I was thinking to myself, you know, how do I introduce this? You know, my voice has obviously changed over the years. I'm sure you'll know that a little bit after 30 years of delivering like this. But I thought it might be interesting for you to realize that what you're doing right now is what I took to change my life. And I used to go down, when I was 17 years old, to a place called Knight Education, K-N-I-G-H-T, you know, like a knight out there with a sword, down in Los Angeles. When I had no money, no direction, you know, no role models. And it was a little store that was filled with nothing but audio programs on how to improve every aspect of your life. And for me, it was like walking into the ultimate toy store, if you will. So, I'd leverage every dime I had, and I used to do what you're doing right now. I'd figure out how to load my mind up, get my focus, train myself by using audio as the tool.
And so, I thought it might be interesting for you to hear from the man who owned that shop, who can tell you these aren't just stories. That little Tony was doing that at 17 years old. And also, maybe give you some insight into what I was like when I wasn't doing quite so well. So, I'd like to introduce you to a conversation with my dear friend, Mario. Mario, you're 81 now, is that right? 81. And do you still listen to this stuff? I do. Mario has just been an incredible pleasure in my life and somebody who's given so much. But maybe you can share with people, when did you first meet me? And what was I doing?
You came in the center, and we had a self-improvement center, self-improvement tapes, motivational tapes, and educational tapes. And you came in this one day and said, "I'm Tony Robbins. I want some of your tapes." And, uh, I showed you the tapes. We had thousands of them. And you, you seemed like you wanted them all. Yeah, I was like a little kid in the candy store. Yes, it was. You wanted everything, and you wanted it now. You couldn't afford it now, so you had to buy two tapes at a time. That's right. But so you came in often? Yeah. And you were always in there. And you know what people don't know that I tell people, I was fat. And they go, "Ah, never you." I mean, you know what I was really like then.
Tell them what happened though. You know, when I started losing weight and I started making progress, remember that time I came in and I bought all those tapes at one time? Tell them what happened. Yeah, you bought a hundred dollars for the tapes at one time. There was a lot of tapes in there. That was a lot of tapes. And, uh, the check went bad. Went back. And, uh, you called me before I called you. Yeah. And you said, "The check went bad." And, uh, you've got the tapes back. And you put them on the counter. And he says, "You hold the tapes until I can bring in the money. When I bring in the $300, I'll pick up the tapes." That's right. About a week and a half later, you were in. Yeah. And you picked up the tapes. And, uh, I trusted you. I did. I believed in you. You did, my friend. I'm so grateful for that. And by the way, how long after that was I buying thousands of dollars of tapes? It just seemed like months. Yeah. Because because I changed everything in my life. You were, there was something about you that you wanted to get so you could cheer. And that's why you got on it so fast. It was alive in you. And you didn't have an education. You didn't have the, the academic background. You didn't have the schooling. Yeah. But there was something alive in you. And you, uh, you found that there was a sleeping giant in you. And you know how to wake them up. And, uh, you see the sleeping giant in everybody now. And, uh, you know how to call it forward. There's a higher self in everybody. Yeah. And they don't see it. They don't believe they have it. You see it. When you talk to them, you talk to that self. That's true. They listen to you because you found it in yourself. And they know that you've, you're real. They feel it in you. And you, you're lit up with it. And it's, uh, it spills over. And they, uh, they come alive. Yeah. You talk to their highest self, and their highest self hears it. And that's not funny, that's the truth.
What happens to people when, when they do these types of things? You've seen them because you've been to some of the seminars. What changes in people when they go through these processes that we put together for them? When you talk to somebody, it's, you catch the spark in them. That they see it is working. They see it's for real. My wife and I felt, we fell in love with you because we felt you were alive. You were real. You weren't phony. You didn't have any money, but you weren't phony. You were, you used to buy a couple tapes from me, and you'd put one back because you couldn't afford it. And you, you'd come back in a short time later and pick it up. I saw it. I loved that quality in here. I saw you were real. And whenever you talk to somebody, they feel it. I know they feel it because I feel it. The reason you're believable is because you've been through it. You didn't always have money. You weren't always famous. You weren't always on the, riding in the best cars. You didn't have money to buy the tapes. I saw you with that, and that you couldn't afford the tapes, and you wanted it so bad. Yeah. And I saw it on you. I remember you standing in front of the counter and say, "I want to model you." Yeah. You asked me questions. You picked my brains. You wanted to know why I was doing what I was doing. That's right. You wanted to know why I was helping people. There was not a lot of money in it, and yet I worked hard at it. Yeah. And, and when you caught it, you did the same thing. You, you worked hard. You shared. You shared with people. And they get the chance to see that they have a block. It comes to them that they have something inside of them that can overcome it. You make it clear. You bring it forth. You don't romance them. You don't talk down to them. No. You talk to their deeper self. And when they take the course and take these programs, it becomes alive. And they start to see it. Then they see it in you. Then they can't tell enough people about you. And you keep growing because you're sharing. You're generous. Thank you, my friend.
I, uh, I tell people that I'm telling them now, don't pass up the opportunity. I, I closed my eyes this morning and I said, "I hope I say something to help Tony." I really want to help him. I don't know how to help him. I don't know what to say. I can't plan it. I can't write a script on it. I have to say the way I feel. You're real, Tony. You're genuine. If I can make one person feel that, and if they can make one person come alive and, and see it in you, and if they see it in you, they know it's in them. They can do it. You give them confidence. Maybe they should have to hear you, my friend. You've given a life education in this conversation. Thank you, Tony.
[Music]
Hi, I'm Tony Robbins, and I want to welcome you here to Personal Power. I'm here to tell you that today, you're beginning something that can truly change the quality of your life forever. I'm speaking from experience. I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of thousands of people and studying what is the cutting edge that makes the difference on the quality of life. And I want you to know that I'm absolutely committed to making sure you get measurable results from this program. All that's required is two things: Number one, the desire on your part. And number two, the commitment to follow through and do this program each day, and then to follow through on the exercises you're given. As simple or as complicated as it may seem in the moment, if you'll do that, the things that you used to call dreams will become part of your daily reality. And again, I'm speaking from experience. The experience I'm speaking from is not only helping other people to change, but making changes in my own life.
How come you can have two different people who seem to be so radically different in their abilities? One seems to have superior ability, superior talent, superior skill, superior education. And yet, at the same time, they don't produce the quality of life they want. Well, someone else who seems to have every disadvantage, they don't have the support emotionally, they don't have the family support, they don't have the education, they don't have the background. And yet, they go out and they produce results way beyond what anyone could expect. The difference in the quality of our lives does not come down to our capability. What human beings are capable of is absolutely incredible. What people will do is rather different than what they can do. And what I'm going to challenge you to do in this program is start exercising your will, to start using what I call your personal power. Personal power, to me, means the ability to act, the ability to take action and produce results. And it's a power you already have. It's not something I'm gonna give you. It's something hopefully will awaken within you. Two ways: One, by igniting your desire. And two, by showing you some simple, systematic strategies on how to get greater results out of yourself on a daily basis.
Hey, listen. When most people think of success or failure, they think of these big, giant things. But failure is not an overnight experience, and neither is success. Failure is the result of failure to make the calls, failure to follow through, failure to say "I love you," failure to give 100%. That creates ultimate failure in life. The feelings we want to avoid almost all costs. And yet, success is also one step at a time. It's successfully making the call. It's successfully getting yourself up and following through. It's successfully making sure you make that unique contact. It's successfully breaking through the limits that used to stop you. It's the culmination of all those little successes that eventually creates a life that we have total pride and joy knowing is our own. The purpose of this program is to show you how to absolutely tap that power within you on an ongoing basis, and to make it effortless, and make it a lifestyle for you.
Before I go any further, I want to tell you that I have incredible respect for you, and I care about you. Even though I don't know you personally and I haven't met you, I hope my caring will come through in my sincerity. The reason I say that is I feel like you and I are kindred spirits. The reason I say that is you've picked up a program, you've made an investment, and you're now listening to it. You're 10 times further than 99% of people that you and I are going to meet on the street, people who want their life to change, but they have no clue what it is they want. And worse, they're not willing to do anything to change it. You're at least searching. And for you to be listening to this program, it says to me that you're willing to do what it takes to live successfully.
On one primary question: What makes people do what they do? What drives human behavior? What makes that difference in human performance? And I believe that in life, power comes from concentrating your focus and taking daily action to improve something. If all you do is work on something every day and improve 1% a day, what's the difference within a year? Well, it's not 365% difference because 1% a day starts stacking on top of it. We're talking about differences way beyond anything you can imagine. What I'm trying to say is this: By making simple, small changes daily, making little bits of progress, you can absolutely transform the quality of your life. Now, what I want to share with you in this program are the skills on how to do that more quickly than you ever dreamed before, how to make it happen now, not 10 years from now.
And my expertise in this area comes from the fact that I wanted to make changes in my own life. You know, I have concentrated the power of my focus on a regular basis to figure out how to make my life work. And then, once I started to get my life to work the way I wanted it, meaning I started to achieve what I really want in my life and live the life I desired, immediately I wanted to share it with other people out of my enthusiasm. And I'm here to tell you that anything you focus on on a consistent basis, you put 100% of yourself into, and you try and improve daily on, you will improve. You will get better. The problem is, most of us in life do not control the power of our mental focus. In fact, most of us focus on things like, "Well, gosh, how come my life isn't working? How come this always happens to me?" And if you focus on that enough, that's exactly what you'll experience in life. Whatever we focus on consistently, we tend to manifest in our lives. Don't you already believe that?
The key is getting ourselves to live by these factors. You know, most people in life major in minor things. That is, they're focused on how to make a living instead of how to design their life. They get caught up in the day-to-day experiences that they make real important, when actually, in the long term, they're not important at all. The majors are how to take care of yourself mentally, emotionally, physically, financially. And that's what the focus is about. And since my focus has been in those areas, I've got some expertise.
Remember Dr. J, the great basketball player? Dr. J used to have a philosophy that really affected my life. He said, "You know, a lot of people look at me and they say, 'Gosh, isn't he lucky? He was born with that talent.' But they didn't see all the years of practice that went into it." He said, "My success comes down to one thing: I live by a philosophy. I demand more for myself than anyone else could ever expect." That's how you become a super success.
You may be wondering what drove me to want to really study success in this level of depth. In fact, a lot of people say to me, "Tony, how did you become so successful?" Well, I'm complimented by the statement, but my response usually is the same thing that drives all of us to succeed: one of two experiences, either inspiration or desperation. For me, it was more desperation. I grew up in an environment I did not like. And it started back as far as high school for me. I remember looking around and being dissatisfied. And by the way, if you're dissatisfied with some area of your life right now, instead of being frustrated, get excited. Because I got to tell you something, until you get dissatisfied, you won't do anything to really make your life at another level. Dissatisfaction is a gem. If you're totally satisfied, you're going to get comfortable, and then your life begins to deteriorate.
But I found myself dissatisfied with my environment. I didn't like what I saw growing up. I saw my father working extremely hard as a salesman, 40 or 50 hours a week, and yet most the time we were broke. And I didn't understand why. I can remember a specific Thanksgiving where there was no money for food, and where some service organization came by and delivered food to our house. My dad didn't want to accept it, but he felt like he had to. I remember what that did to him emotionally. And that drove enough pain inside of me that I thought to myself at that time, "I don't want to ever have my family have to go through this, and I don't want to go through it myself ever again." I thought, "Someday, I'm going to master financial success so I can not only help myself, but the people around me." And that was a driving force for my success in that area.
I remember going to high school, and I was not a real popular kid, but I really loved people and I loved being around them. And I wanted everybody to like me. A lot of people did, but I wasn't the most popular kid in school. But, you know, I thought, "Someday, I'm going to meet the most popular kid in school, and I'm going to find out what makes him so popular." He's probably one of the nicest, most warm, and genuine people you could ever meet. I remember the day I met this kid. He treated me like I was dirt, like, "How dare I enter his space?" And I thought, "How could somebody who's this rude be this successful and having people like him?" And it made me want to study what makes people like other people.
I remember looking around at people in relationships. People have been married 10, 15 years who weren't just hanging out together. They still had that passion, that drive for each other. They really loved each other 100%. It's like they were newlyweds. I remember one day going to my mother and saying, "How come this is my fourth father?" I'm just curious. And she told me an explanation I didn't quite understand at the time. But I can tell you one thing: it motivated me to want to make relationships work.
So, out of all of these things, what happened for me in my mind is I said, "Look, I don't like the way my life is. I want to make it better." And so somewhere in my mind, I linked up that what I should do is study success. That if you want anything in life, you've got to make it a study. If you want to be successful, you've got to study it, not leave it to chance. If you want to be happy, you've got to study happiness. If you want to be wealthy, you've got to study wealth. If you want to be healthy, you've got to study health. You can't just hope that things will turn out okay. You can see what hoping does for most people. Most people don't have what they want, and they just keep hoping it'll change.
The bottom line for me is I went out and started studying success like a madman. I believe that if you will immerse yourself and focus on anything, you're going to get good at it. And so I decided to get good at understanding how to make my life work. And I went out and read almost 700 books in the area of human development, everything from your basic positive thinking to your more esoteric forms of change. When I thought I was so sophisticated. The point is this: As I read all this material and I listened to tapes constantly in my car, anytime I could, I tried to dump some good stuff into my mind. I went to seminar after seminar after seminar. Many of them were lousy, but my attitude was, "Hey, if I go to a seminar and all I get is one idea, it's worth my attending. Or if I go to a seminar and all it does is tell me what I already know, but I hear it another time, and now maybe by hearing it again, I actually now use it with a concept, then maybe I can make my life work." And so I went for that strategy. Repetition is the mother of skill. And I heard enough, and I read enough, and I watched enough, and I listened to enough, and I poured so much good stuff in that you can guess, eventually, good stuff started coming back out.
In fact, within a short period of time, I became totally successful. Now, we all have our own definition of success, but you can guess what mine was back then. Growing up pretty poor financially, I mean, the answer was money. I figured, "Hey, if you make enough money to solve all of life's problems." Is that true? Of course not. But if you make enough money, at least you can arrive at your problems in style. You drive up in your limousine to handle your problem. It's a whole other world. Seriously, my point is this: I had really made it. I thought by the time I was 19 years old. I went out and just used massive action. I read all these books, I listened to all this material, and I went out and just applied everything I could. In a short period of time, I had this big company. I was written up in newspapers and magazines as this young entrepreneur. They called me "Wonder Boy." My ego was exploding. And I had what I thought success was at that time in my life. I had a lot of money. I was making about $10,000 a month in income, which for a 19-year-old kid, for anyone, seems like a lot of money, seems like a lot of success.
But something interesting happened. And the interesting thing that happened was, I'd never had that level of success before. I'd never had that many people liking me and acknowledging me. I'd never had that much money. I'd never had that kind of experience. It was beyond my comfort zone. Now, I'm not talking about consciously. Now, see, consciously, I thought I wanted more and better and all these other kinds of things. But subconsciously, I believe that most of us have a subconscious idea of what we think we deserve. I mean, imagine it as if it's a thermostat attached to your brain. If we have a thermostat in this room and we set it at 68 degrees, and it's not hot enough in here, things aren't moving, it's not warm enough, and the temperature drops down to 62 degrees, what's going to happen? The heaters kick on. All of a sudden, what happens? Anxiety. Your brain says, "Hey, we got to make it better than this. This isn't good enough for me." And sure enough, all of a sudden, you get this push, this drive to change things. That's what happens in life when it's not good enough, when your life does not represent right now what you think it should be like.
What's interesting, though, that most people don't realize is it happens on the other side too. What do I mean? I mean, if you set it at 68 degrees, and all of a sudden things start going really well, hey, it starts heating up in here, we start cranking. If it gets up around 72, 73 degrees, what happens in this room? The air conditioners kick on. And you begin to sabotage your own success, and you drop right back down to where you subconsciously think you deserve to be in your relationships, and your economics, and your level of acknowledgement. Does this make sense to you? It doesn't make sense intellectually, but it does make sense when you start studying how human beings behave. And that's what I did.
I began to sabotage my own success. How? I started not showing up for key meetings. I started to treat people harshly who didn't deserve to be treated harshly at all. I started eating like I was going out of style. I was never into drugs or alcohol, but I used food like it was a drug. If I didn't like how I felt, well, I just eat something that was going to change how I felt. But then I looked in the mirror, and I was getting fatter, and I felt worse. So I ate some more, and it just didn't work. I got caught up in this vicious circle. So much so that within two and a half months, I gained 38 pounds. That is not easy to do. You have to eat tons of food and not move very much to pull that off, which I managed to do.
The bottom line is this, though: As I began to sabotage, it didn't stop with me. It started to affect everyone around me. I fired almost everyone in my company. I only had about three employees left, and I fired them too. But every time I'd go there, "You're fired!" They'd go, "I know," and they just keep on working, thinking sooner or later things would work out and I'd become sane. I went totally broke financially, and I moved into a little 400-square-foot bachelor apartment in Venice, California. No kitchen, washing my dishes in the bathtub, waking up each morning with major goals. Things like, "What am I going to eat today?" and "What's going to happen to Luke and Laura on General Hospital?" my favorite program at the time.
So, how do I get to be here with you? How did my life turn around? Well, the answer is, it wasn't just by more information. It wasn't just by more technology, although that made a difference. What made the big difference for me is a friend came by. Someone I hadn't seen in about two years. And the reason he came by to visit me and had to track me down is he couldn't call me on the phone because my phone was disconnected at this point. My nickname had gone from "Wonder Boy" in the newspapers to "Just Boy." I was hiding from my creditors, trying to survive. He came to my house, and basically, he put it on me. He couldn't believe how much I'd deteriorated. He was a true friend. He wasn't mean, he wasn't vicious, but he was strong. And he said, "Look, you're worth more than the way you're living. I mean, what happened to you? You know all the stuff, all the books and the tapes you've read, it all your life is still not working." And I said, "That's right." And that's because none of that stuff works.
Long story short, to say the least, I was jaded. I felt like I tried everything. Well, I learned something within the coming months that really changed my life. I learned that no matter what's happened in your past, or how many times you've tried and failed, none of that matters because this moment is a fresh new opportunity. The past does not equal the future. If you've tried lots of programs in the past and nothing's quite kicked you over the edge, all that's done has gotten you ready for this program, in my opinion. And I think you're gonna find it's gonna be true because you're gonna find the technology we're gonna share with you in this program is different than anything else you've heard before. It won't just be affirmations. You're going to understand how your brain really works and how to use it to get real results.
Hey, listen. I believe your brain is the most powerful computer on the planet. Use it properly, and you can create virtually any result you want, and give you almost any answer you want. But the problem is, here we've got this great computer, but no one gave us an owner's manual on how to use it. And it's not user-friendly. In this program, I'm going to show you how to operate and direct your own mind with more precision and power than ever before. What changes your life is not learning more. What changes your life is making decisions and using your personal power and taking action. That's what the definition of power is. Look it up in the dictionary: Power, the ability to act. Hey, that's what sets people's lives apart.
This man got me to take action by challenging me, and I'm returning the favor now to you. No matter how successful you are compared to your friends, compared to what you think other people are like, it's now time to take yourself to a new level, to begin to enjoy more of the juice of life by demanding more from yourself than anybody else could ever expect, and by using tools that are the cutting edge, the newest technology on how to create change. The science that my friend introduced me to was a science of literally how to reprogram the mind. And again, I tell you, it was different than all the stuff I'd heard. I've done all the positive thinking and all the affirmations and all the mantras and all that stuff, but my life still wasn't working. What he really introduced me to was a technology for literally reconditioning the way my mind worked, a technology for changing the way I felt and the way I behaved forever.
Literally, what you're going to learn through this program is just as there have been a series of technological breakthroughs in many of the sciences, computer sciences, where we can now process information much more rapidly than we ever thought possible before, agriculture, medicine, there have also been equally great breakthroughs in the area of human technology, meaning technology on how to get ourselves to change our emotions and our behaviors with lightning-like speed. And very few people know much about these sciences. In this program, I'm going to expose you to a series of those. I changed virtually everything in my life, from my emotions to my finances, from my confidence to my physical health. How did I do it? Well, I use what I call the ultimate success formula. And here's what it is. It has four steps. If you want to create the success in your life, it always comes back to this. You can use whatever technology you want to reprogram yourself, but these are the four steps for success.
Step number one: You've got to know your outcome. In any situation in life, you've got to decide right now, "What do I want out of this situation in my life?" The more clear you are on what you want, the more you empower your brain to come up with answers. There's an old phrase that may have been overused, but I think it's pretty accurate: "Clarity is power." You must get focused on what you want. We have a goal-setting workshop that's going to help you to get precisely clear on what you want in your life, mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually, intellectually, so that you have something that's the driving force behind your behavior.
How can you use this first formula to make a difference in your life right now? How could just getting clear and knowing your outcome help you? Well, I believe when you know your outcome, you've empowered yourself. I mean, let's say, for example, you're in the middle of an argument. And have you ever gotten caught up in an argument where you're so caught up in it that you forgot what you're even arguing for, but you knew you had to win? I know I've been there. See, if in the middle of that argument, you would ask the question, "Hey, what's my outcome in this situation?" You're going to probably find out your outcome is not to argue. The outcome you want is to resolve something. When you get focused on what you really want out of a situation, you empower your brain to use its resources to produce results. Right now, so get into that habit, the habit of asking yourself, "What's my outcome?" And constantly ask yourself, "How can you use this? What I just said, what's useful about that for your life? What is your outcome in applying this in your own life?" It's critical to continually focus on your target. Even if you're just going to buy a visit with a friend, on the way over to see a friend, ask yourself, "What's my outcome?" Maybe the answer is, "Well, just have fun," or "To make my friend feel really appreciated and loved." Now, if you know that's your outcome, your chances of having more fun or making your friend feel loved go up a thousand percent versus if you just go over and hang out and wonder why you're bored. Now, I'm not saying you have to be so goal-oriented that every minute you're trying to achieve something. I'm just saying it's useful to let your brain know the direction that you're heading. And everyone I know who succeeded had to start with getting clear on exactly what they wanted.
Here's step two of the ultimate success formula. By the way, step one: I did. I decided what I wanted physically, financially, emotionally, in my business. I looked at everything, spiritually. And once I knew, I had the first stage of my personal power. Step two: To tapping your power is you gotta use it. That is, you gotta get yourself to take action and move towards the achievement of your goals. Now, what most people tell me is, "But I don't know what to do. I don't know, I never, what if I try and it doesn't work?" All I can say to you is this: If you try and it doesn't work, you got an education. You're better off than where you were before, because you now know what doesn't work, and you'll probably make a distinction or two that'll help you succeed even more.
Most people in life have no idea what they want. But worse, a few people know what they want, but they don't do anything about it. They just sit around and hope or say, "Someday, honey, we'll do this." Some day is now. Some day is here. I remember hearing a phrase years ago that said, "The road to someday leads to a town of nowhere." It's a place you don't want to end up in. So you got to get yourself to take action. How do you do that? You decide. I hear people all the time saying, "Well, gosh, how do I change my life?" And my answer is, decide to make a decision right now. You're not willing to settle for anything less than you can be. That you're not willing to live the way you're living right now, no matter how good it may seem. That you're going to push yourself to the next level, demanding more from yourself than anybody else could possibly expect. Is true power. And all it takes is deciding. Remember the word "decision"? In its original Latin root, it means "to cut off from." When you decide, you cut off from any other possibility.
The biggest trap that keeps people from taking action is their fear. Their fear of failure, their fear of success, their fear of rejection, their fear of pain, and fear of the unknown. The only way to deal with fear is face it, look it eye to eye, and take action in spite of it. I'm sure you've probably heard of some of the seminars I do, in which we teach people how to break through their fears and take action. And at the end of the seminar, they get a chance to use what they've learned to overcome a major fear and literally walk through fire between 800 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, a lot of people think it's crazy. But why would you do a thing like that? Well, it's not to teach people new picnic skills, and it's not mind over matter. Right now, you could walk through fire. I'm not encouraging you to, make sure you hear me, but you could. It's absolutely possible. You don't need me to do it. You could also be up at six o'clock. I am with total passion for living. You could also have the person of your dreams be in your life right now. You could also be earning what you're worth. You could also have more influence on your children than virtually anyone else. But few people do it. It's not what we can do in life that makes the difference. It's what we will do. And we don't follow through because we don't know what we want, often times. And when we know, we're afraid to take action.
Listen, fear can serve us. Fear isn't all bad. So it'll make us pay attention. As long as fear is a counselor and not a jailer, make sure that you listen to your fear, make some more distinctions, and get yourself to take action in spite of it. And I gotta tell you, breaking through fear is like anything else. It's like a muscle. In the beginning, if you try and lift a heavy weight, boy, you might say, "Gosh, I can't do this." But if you start small, and you build every single day, then what's going to happen is every day you get a little stronger, and pretty soon it becomes effortless to do what used to feel like it was impossible. It's time for you to develop the muscle of making decisions quickly and easily and following through on them.
Here's the third key element to the ultimate success formula. Once you know what you want and you get yourself to take action, do your actions always work? Of course not. Most people in life fail much more often than they succeed. In fact, the most successful people are the most successful people because they failed more than anybody else. I mean, think about it. Think about in baseball. In baseball, a Hall of Famer, someone who is the best in the world at what they do in the area of baseball, they fail seven times out of ten. How'd you like to have a life like that? The bottom line is, to get in the Hall of Fame, they only succeed about 30% of the time. They failed more than 70% of the time. And you know what? That's how life is too.
Hey, listen. I may not sound elegant all the time because I don't care. What I want to do is get across to you. I want you to get the message in your gut. That's what matters to me. If I say something, it doesn't work, I'll just move on to something else. And I ask you to try the same thing. In life, most people have their fear of failure, don't try anything at all. That's ultimate failure. You got to get yourself to take action. You got to get yourself to follow through. And you got to be willing to notice whether it's working or not. That's step three: Notice what you're getting from your actions. In other words, you know what you want, you got yourself to take action. Now, notice, is it working? Am I getting closer to my goal or further away? Don't kid yourself or just keep taking action because, after all, you worked so hard to do it. This way, I might as well keep on doing it. So you don't want to get locked into tunnel vision. Remember, flexibility is power.
What you've got to do, though, is know what you're getting. I mean, a standard example is, have you ever had somebody come up and talk to you, and they're going on and on and on, and you're trying to be very polite, and they mistake your being polite for the fact that you were interested? Now, you know, bottom line. Or maybe you've been in the other side, you thought somebody was interested, but they were just being polite with you. What that says to me is you're not noticing. You're not paying attention closely enough to the results you're getting. You've got to pay close attention so that you're empowered. So if things aren't working, you can just change them. Which is step four. Which is, if you see that what you're doing is not working, you're not getting closer to your goal, you're getting further away, instead of feeling like a failure, just change your approach. Try something else.
Now, you may say, "Tony, well, what if that something else doesn't work?" Well, guess what? Try something else. What if that doesn't work? Try something else. What if that doesn't work? Try something else. How often would you keep trying? Keep changing? The answer is, until you succeed. I'm going to ask you a question: How long would you give your average baby to learn how to walk? How long would you give your average baby before you shut them off and didn't let them try anymore? You say, "What are you crazy? My kid's going to keep trying until he or she walks." Ah, magic formula. No wonder almost everybody in the whole world walks. But see, adults don't operate this way. Adults have learned to fear this thing called failure. So if they try something, it doesn't work, they might change once or twice, but after that, they try and slowly leave and not do that anymore, not play that sport anymore, not try that anymore because they don't want to not look good, because that would be painful. Break out of that. Grab your personal power. Be flexible. Grab the power of flexibility.
So, a review, real simple. Number one: Get clear what you want. We're gonna put you through a whole workshop on that. Two: Get yourself to take action. How do you do it? Decide. That's really that simple. Now, I'm going to show you some ways to make it easier to get yourself to follow through. You're going to discover what makes us really do what we do, and how we can change the inner controls that direct our behavior. But you can, with all any of this other information, you can just decide and make a change right now in your life. Exercise your power to act. That's called your personal power. Thirdly, know what you're getting. Again, remember, you want to develop what I call sensory acuity. Sensory acuity means you want to have acute sensitivity for the impact that your present behavior is having. Pay attention.
Hey, when an aircraft takes off in the mainland to fly to Hawaii, it doesn't go straight from here to there. It's off course 95% of the time. How do they do it? Well, the people on board, first of all, know their outcome. They know where they're going. Once they know what it is, they fire up the engines and they take action. They get going. Three, they notice whether it's working. They have a computer on board that tells them, "Are we on course or off course?" And they're off course most of the time. The winds and so forth make adjustments. So what do they do? They don't go, "Oh my God, we're going to fail. We're not going to make it to Hawaii." No, they just simply notice what's working, notice what's not working. They change their approach, and they keep changing back and forth to land in Hawaii on a dime.
There's a way to speed up this formula. And that way is this: Instead of just knowing what you want and taking random actions, you can use what I call role modeling to accelerate the pace of your success. What I did is I said, "Okay, what do I want?" I'm 38 pounds overweight. I want to lose this weight. I want to be 38 pounds lighter, and I want to have more energy. I want to feel more vibrant in my life. You can tell by my energy level that I'm a real low-energy person now compared to how I was then. Seriously. I decided what I wanted. And then what I did is I said, "Okay, I got to take action." But what action should I take? I didn't know. I tried dieting a zillion times, and you know what? It would work. I would lose weight, and I'd gain it right back again. And I'd lose weight and gain it back again. So what I decided to do is, instead of just taking some actions and sooner or later figuring it out, I decided to use a role model. I said, "Let me find someone who's already getting the results that I want. Let me find out what that person is doing, and do the same things." That is, I believe that success leaves clues. That if people succeed, it's because they're doing certain things over and over and over again. And if we do the same kinds of things, if we plant the same kinds of seeds, we're going to reap the same kinds of rewards, regardless of our age, or our background, or religion, or our color, or our gender. None of that matters. What matters is the law works for everyone. And if you apply it, it'll work. But you got to know what to do.
And so this program is the result of me going out and modeling people that are successful. That is, instead of reinventing the wheel and having you and I keep doing trial and error and everything, I said, "Hey, let me find somebody's already in the results. Find out what they do. Do the same things. Get the same results. Speed up time." You gotta remember, knowledge is not power. Knowledge is potential power. I mean, don't you know someone who knows what they should do with their life, knows they should change their life, knows how they can change their life, and they still don't do it? Do you know somebody like that? Maybe intimately, like maybe you, for example, at times? Then the bottom line is, knowledge is not enough. We got to get ourselves to follow through.
So what did I do? I found somebody who had been overweight like me, had become thin, and stayed thin for years. I found out what this person did, and I did the.
Same things I'm going to teach you in this program. What to do to do that. It wasn't just dieting. That's not enough. As a result of following through and taking the same actions, I lost 30 pounds in 30 days. I lost all 38 pounds in about seven weeks, and I haven't gone back.
And the reason is, I didn't just change my diet. I learned to mentally condition myself to feel differently about certain foods I was addicted to, so I no longer had a desire for them. The things that used to push me over the edge.
I did the same thing in the area of relationships. I found a man who had the woman of my dreams, and I talked to him and said, "Hey, how did you attract this woman?" And I talked to her and said, "Why do you like this guy? You know, why are you in a relationship with him?" And I began to find out certain things he did that made that relationship work, and I started applying some of the same things.
And I did the same thing financially. I went from a place where I had no confidence in myself, emotionally feeling depressed, to a place of total strength. And financially, I mean a measurable change, to say the least. I was broke, living in my 400 square foot bachelor apartment. What happened? In less than 12 months, I moved to my 1200 square foot apartment. Major progress. At the time, three times bigger. To about four months later, I moved to a 10,000 square foot castle. Literally a castle built in 1925 with a big three-story turret overlooking the crashing waves of Del Mar, California.
I don't tell you this to impress you. I tell it to impress upon you how quickly you can make changes in your life if you learn to master this incredible computer between your ears called your brain. That's what we're going to study. We're going to study neurosciences, the sciences of success conditioning. That's what this whole program is about. And we're going to do it a little piece at a time, so it's simple. If you'll do that, the culmination of the 30 days, you will find that you've gone on a mental diet that'll change your life forever.
If success is really this simple, if you could go from being where I was years ago, broke in every sense of the word, emotionally broke, physically broke, socially broke, and financially broke, to wealthy in all those areas, meeting my dreams, becoming a millionaire in less than 12 months. If that's really possible, if it's really as simple as using your personal power and being flexible in your approach and modeling those successful people. If it's really that simple, how come everybody doesn't do this?
That's a good question. A lot of things in life are really simple, but people don't apply them because they get caught up in day-to-day stuff like, "Well, you know, I gotta pay my bills." They get caught up in making that living instead of designing the life. And they come to the end of their life and find out they lived only one-tenth of it. Not because they weren't intelligent, simply because they didn't get clear about what they wanted. They didn't get themselves to consistently take action and develop that decision-making, massive action muscle in their emotional body. They didn't vary their behaviors, and now they're stuck. It's not a place I think you want to be. Otherwise, you wouldn't invest in this program, and you wouldn't be taking the time to listen now.
So, what I'm asking you to do is break through those fears that stop you. And you know, the biggest one that comes up again and again, we've already mentioned it, is failure. I want you to know that failure can be your best friend. I mean, think about it. The greatest successes in the world are people who often had so much pain from a failure that drove them to much greater success.
Did you know those little 3M stickers, for example? Those ones that you see that you can put there, I think they're called Post-it notes? You can write on them and put them on something and take it right off instantly. Do you know that was a result of a massive failure by the chemist? He was working at the time to create an adhesive that would last forever, something that you could never pry things apart with. And as a result, he came up with the stuff that didn't work at all. But he was smart enough to say, "Hey, what could I use this for? How could I use this supposed failure?" And he turned it into a multi-million dollar business.
Liaison, most people would agree, is one of the most successful role models in our country. Now, I got a question for you. How can be so successful? Because he's a wonder kid? Well, yeah, you could say that. He worked for a company called Ford Motor Company, and he worked his way through the ranks, right up to the top. Worked his tail off, was driven. What really marked him? His ability to get people to take action. His personal power. He developed skill because he was willing to try almost anything. He wouldn't accept no for an answer. But you know what? He had a little run-in with a guy by the name of Ford, and he fired him. And it burned him pretty good.
Now, I got a question for you. Do you think when this company named Chrysler came by, and they looked like for sure there was no way they could be turned around, do you think if he hadn't been fired by Ford that he would have taken it? You might say, "Oh, of course he would. That's the way Lee is." Well, I don't know. According to his wife, she said at the time, he said, "Honey, I don't think anybody could turn this thing around." She said, "Boy, I bet Mr. Ford will be real happy to hear that." That's all it took. He was so angry from the pain and failure of his past, quote-unquote failure, that he was going to show him that it wasn't his failure, that Mr. Ford made the mistake.
Another company is mentioned, IBM. It all started because a guy by the name of Tom Watson, who worked for a competing company called NCR, got fired by the CEO there. Also, he got so mad, he said, "I'm going to develop a company that will dwarf yours someday." See, welcome frustration. I got to tell you something. When I get frustrated, I've learned to get excited. I've learned to literally condition myself so that frustration creates excitement. You know why? Because I'm frustrated, I know I'm about to have a breakthrough. It means my brain is searching. If I get confused about something, instead of going, "I'll never learn this," my response to that is, "Hey, I'm about to learn something," because my brain is searching for a new answer. And if it keeps searching, it's going to come up with one.
I believe the emotions that many of us consider negative, like frustration and rejection and pain, can be our greatest friends because they can drive us to success. You know what I think one of the things that happens for a lot of people when they get successful is they get superstitious. It's like they work so hard for the success, and they now finally have it. So all of a sudden, they don't change. They don't vary their behavior. They kind of like want to stay the way things are. They get incredibly conservative, and they miss out on the juice of life. Stay out of the trap.
Listen, when people succeed, they tend to party. When they fail, they tend to ponder. Now, the pondering, many times, we create our greatest successes in life. Just remember, it's impossible to fail if you try something and it doesn't work. Just try something else and learn something from what you just did. As long as you learn something, you've succeeded.
Something else I want to remind you of as well, and that is sometimes people say, "Well, gosh, I'm going to do these exercises. I know I'm going to be better physically and emotionally and psychologically. I don't feel more confident, but I want to work on my career. I want to take my business to the next level. I want a business program." I want to tell you what personal power is one of the most powerful business programs because it deals with the source of all your business, which is you. When you're in better shape, suddenly you negotiate more effectively. When you're in better shape, your creativity flows. When you're in better shape, you're a better manager of people.
So, I want you to know that these people endorse it because it works. So, if you're a little bit skeptical, I understand that. But understand, changing yourself is the first place to changing your career and changing your business. It's the first place to make you a better leader. And those are the tools that are here. And you also find included in here some of the tools that I've modeled from General Schwarzkopf, for example. I've had the privilege now being with Mr. Gorbachev, and as I've pulled tools from them, I've included some of those tools in this program as well. Some are very simple.
So, what's my message here? My message is, let's you and I begin a journey now, a journey into personal power, where you're able to think of what you want, take action immediately, model the most successful people, notice whether it's working, keep changing your approach until you succeed. With that kind of persistence, with that kind of commitment, nothing can stop you. I'm here to tell you from experience, my life now, so far beyond what my wildest dreams used to be, it's a joke. And the difference is not intelligence. It's not so much skill. It's a few distinctions and massive action and the ability to manage my emotions so I don't fear the failure anymore.
I offer you the same opportunity. And by doing this consecutively, one day after another after another, you'll get the power of momentum working for you, and you'll begin to stack your successes one on top of another until they become habits. That's the whole purpose of this program. It's why I designed it this way, is so that you develop habits that in the future take you in the direction you want to go effortlessly. So, if you'll do that each day and feed your brain and your emotions and your mind and allow yourself to be challenged, you'll have a sense of power and pride that's beyond what you expect right now. And I imagine that you have high expectations. So, let's get to it.
I'm going to give you an exercise so you actually use your personal power. You use something you've learned. And some of the exercises will be really simple, but remember, most people fail in life because they major in minor things. Most people don't realize that the things they're making a real big are unimportant. The success is simple, but it does require certain consistent things each day. And I want you to take this assignment and please do it.
For most of my adult life, I've been keeping journals. That is, each day, and sometimes every other day, at various times, writing down the things I've learned from books, from tapes, from going to seminars, so I could capture those things. Because I found out long ago that if all you do is hear something, within three days, you'll forget 80% of it. That's why listening to something again and again is so useful. In addition, I found though, that if you listen to something and you write down certain key elements of it, your memory retention will go up as much as 75 to 90%. Plus, I believe that if your life is worth living, it's worth recording.
So, I challenge you to really keep a journal. And we're going to have you do assignments in the journal, but you also might write your thoughts about how you're doing each day, and what you've learned, what you're excited about, what breakthroughs you're having. This is a way to record it. Otherwise, it's like your children. I know that many times people come by and say, "Gosh, your son has really grown." And I'm around him so much that I don't see it as much as other people do. But I take a look, I go, "I guess you're right." By having journals, I can see how much I've grown, and you will be able to see how much you've grown. I can go back years ago and see what my goals were, and the kinds of things I was remembering. I also have just gems of material from people who shared with me what made the difference for their success, and I can read it again and begin to apply it.
So, please keep this journal for yourself. Utilize it in any way you want. But here's how I want you to start with it. I want you to do your first assignment, really simple. Remember, I told you the way to build a muscle so that you're really strong is start small and build. So, we're going to start with something really simple. I want you to think of two actions you've been putting off. Two things that you should do. Two things that you need to do, but you keep putting it off. Maybe it's a phone call or two. Maybe it's somebody you've had some poor communication with and you need to clean it up, but you're not doing it. Maybe it's just going in the house and cleaning it up right now. Maybe it's some kind of report you need to do. I don't know what it is.
But right now, I want you to think of what are two actions you've been putting off that if you were to take them now, it would increase the quality of your life. Either simply would just increase the quality of your self-esteem because you feel good because you actually follow through. Or maybe even more powerfully, what are two decisions or two actions you could take right now that would immediately change the quality of your life? Maybe it's to stop smoking. Maybe it's to eliminate certain kinds of food. But if you were going to do something right now that was going to change your life, what are those two actions?
And what I want you to do is decide. Remember, to decide means to cut off any other possibility, to resolve once and for all. This is it. There's tremendous power in that. Start with something small, if you want, and then build. But right now, write down two decisions you've made and then take action on them immediately. I mean, right now. I mean, even before I finish talking here, pick up the phone and make that call you've been waiting for. Do not put it off another minute. I don't care what it takes. There's power and momentum.
I'm a big believer that once you set a goal, once you make a decision, you should immediately in that moment do something to start making progress towards it. That way, you can't cop out later on or get caught up or lose your momentum. So, please do it now. And I know not all things can be done right now. So maybe it's something you have to do tomorrow morning. But whatever you're going to do, make the decision and then commit to follow through. And then check in tomorrow, because this is the first step to grabbing your personal power.
And remember, there's no way to fail. You might say, "Well, gosh, what if I do this and it doesn't work? What if I try this and it doesn't happen? Hey, what if I screw up?" Then screw up big. Go for it. Do a big screw up, because then you'll learn something. Hey, remember, success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually a result of experience. Experience is usually a result of bad judgment. So, if you got some bad judgment, it doesn't work out, you'll learn something. It'll make you more successful in the future. Just go for it. Don't be afraid. Make it happen.
You may say, "Well, that's such a little thing to do. I'll do it later." If it's little, then do it now. Don't put it off. Okay? I'm on your side. Hey, what I'm trying to be here for you is a good coach. You know, I don't care how successful you are. We all need a coach. I have lots of coaches around me. Left by ourselves, we kind of drift sometimes, not always, but sometimes. Hey, think about it. Gravity is automatic. You don't have to work on gravity. But if you want to succeed, you got to exert your will and take action against gravity. In the absence of light, there is darkness. So, what I'm trying to be is a good coach who comes by and hands you the match that's already in your hand and says, "Strike this thing. Take action now." That's the power of this.
So, follow through on your exercise. Open right now your journal. Write down two decisions you're gonna make, two new actions you're gonna take to change your life. And then tomorrow, I'm going to show you what is the controlling force in your whole life, how to absolutely understand what makes you do what you do, and how to change it. Till then, follow through. Live today with passion. I'll see you tomorrow.