Tony Robbins || Get The Edge (Day 3)

[Music] thank you. [Music] Yes, I'm back. Welcome to day three. This is your buddy, Tony Robbins, here to coach you to the next level. Listen, congratulations on continuing the program. I'm really impressed. Today, I want to talk to you about what I think may be one of the most important, if not the most important, areas of your life. An area of life that, when it's handled, can give you the greatest amount of joy and love and ecstasy that you've ever imagined. And probably, as most of the peaks of your life have some aspect of this in your life. And then, of course, if it's handled ineffectively, oh, this is the place of pain. This is the place where people really feel themselves devastated. This is the place where life seems to lose its meaning.

So the area we're going to talk about, of course, is that vehicle of life, that thing we focus on called relationship. And if you handle it well, my God, I mean, when you're in love, when you feel that connection, when you feel that bond, when you feel that sense of oneness with somebody, what's that like? I mean, what can really compete with it? Now, making money might be nice. Achieving something's wonderful, but if you do it alone, it's worthless. If you don't have someone to share that joy with, what's it like? At the same time, being upset with yourself is one thing, but when you've got someone else to be upset with, boy, you can really do a number. You can really get yourself upset. You can really get yourself wired. You can make yourself feel massively inferior or massively superior, angry, upset, frustrated, hurt, devastated, right? You can do just about anything to yourself you want with this vehicle called relationship.

And I call it a vehicle because we forget that relationship is a way of relating. That it's, it's a process. It's not a fixed thing in time. That it's always changing. It's always moving. In fact, one of the challenges we have as human beings is we all want to get things done. You know, we want to have the whole thing done. We want to get all that financial stuff handled so we never have to work again. Of course, if you ever worked again, you'd be totally unfulfilled. And I can tell you that because I had the privilege at a very young age to achieve that. I don't have to work anymore. But everyone I know never has to work again, usually works harder. They're just doing what they love. Now, their focus is on doing things because they want to, not because they have to. But most of us think we want to reach this level where we can just stop. When you stop, you begin to die.

I mean, they're two laws of life, and they're so fundamental, and they're true of everything. And they're certainly true of relationship. And that is, everything in life must grow, because if it doesn't grow, it dies. And that's true of a relationship, that's true of your body, that's true of your mind, that's true of a plant, that's true of anything in the universe. You grow or you die. When you're green, you grow. When you're ripe, you rot. When you start thinking it's over, here is over. So you can't look for a fixed time when all of a sudden your finances, your body, your relationships are done. It's never done. Your body is a constant challenge to constantly improve and strengthen and make powerful and passionate so you can live life at the highest level and have that edge we're talking about, have that extraordinary quality of life.

And the same thing is true of a relationship. You know, most of us have got so many things going on in our relationship to just be handled. But if it was just handled, you wouldn't have to grow. You wouldn't have to expand. You wouldn't have what you deserve in your life. You wouldn't have that little bit of resistance when you need it. You wouldn't have that comfort when you needed the reinforcement. And most importantly, when they have love, you wouldn't have the deepest level of love, the level that you're able to share, whether it be with your creator, or with your children, or with your lover, or your best friend. I mean, that's what relationship's all about.

The second law of the universe is you must contribute. Because if you don't find a way to contribute in meaningful ways, you're eliminated. That's a law of life. That's the law of the universe. Anything that doesn't contribute eventually is eliminated by evolution, if not by something else. So in our lives, are you and I to feel fulfilled? We've got to grow. We've got to contribute. And we've got to contribute whether we feel it's some kind of meaning. If we don't do that, it doesn't matter how much someone else loves us, we won't be happy with ourselves. So a relationship is a place that we go to sculpt our souls, to sculpt our spirit, to sculpt our emotion, and to enjoy life to the fullest. And when it's handled properly, it is the most incredible joy, plant your excitement possible. And when it's handled poorly, oh boy, is it pain, isn't it? I know you've been both places. I sure have.

So the secret is, we need to look at three things. First, let's talk about how do you create an extraordinary relationship? An extraordinary relationship, not a good one, not an excellent one, one that's really outstanding. Now, I don't care whether you're starting from scratch, or you have one you're already in and you want to create it, or recreate it, rejuvenate it into an extraordinary relationship. The principles are basically the same.

The second thing we want to talk about is how do you deal with the inevitable challenges that show up in any relationship? They're gonna be there because when you've got people who have different values, different ways of looking at life, different rules, you're going to have conflicts. It's a matter of time. And no matter how much you love somebody, it's going to show up at times. Some conflicts are small, some are huge. That has more to do with the personalities and the rules and the values of the people involved.

And then thirdly, how do you nurture and expand this relationship geometrically? How do you make sure that that growth factor is absolutely there? You're not just creating a relationship, but you keep expanding it, so that that fulfillment is a spiral that moves up, as opposed to entropy showing up, which shows up in most things, doesn't it? Things begin to just naturally break down. If you aren't moving forward, you're moving backwards. That's just gravity. It's the way life works.

So now, if we're going to do this, you might start by saying, well, where are you now? Because we've talked each day about this concept of having the ability to close the gap. I mean, how do you create an extraordinary life? You close the gap between where you are and where you want to be. The secret to closing the gap is first, be honest with yourself that there is one. And almost any area of life, there's a gap. If you're healthy, because a healthy person is always looking to make it better. They may love where they are, but they want more. More love, more connection, more intimacy, more spirit, more playtime. Someone is going to listen more, feel more, want to give more. We all want more if we're healthy and growing and spanning. It's the nature of a quality life.

So where's the gap in your relationship? It's going to be the first question we're going to really look at here. So maybe we should start by saying, where are you now? I mean, there's really only two positions people are in, right? You're either in a relationship right now, or you're not in one. Now, if we're talking about intimate relationship, as an example. So if you're not in a relationship, there's really two perspectives. Either A, you want one, but you don't have one. And the question is, if that's true, why? And the answer I can tell you right now, if you really want a relationship and you don't have one, it's simply because you have mixed emotions about what a relationship will mean. You want a relationship because you know what I mean, love and connection and intimacy. But on the other hand, you don't want a relationship at some level because you know, oh my God, and all the time the energy I've had fights and frustration. I want to feel like a failure. I don't want to have a thing that worked out. I don't want to have somebody disappoint me again.

So the truth is, if you're not in a relationship, there's one reason. It's not a must to be in a relationship. As I said on the first date, it's probably a must for you not to get hurt. And if you're going to be in a relationship, let me tell you the good news up front, you're going to get hurt. But at the same time, you're probably heard the people without meaning to. That's part of the nature of life. You can't have joy without having pain sometimes. Everything in life has its reciprocal. You can't only have one dimension of life. It's like saying, you know, I want the rainbow but no storm. I mean, it's part of life. And what you learn to do, those that have an extraordinary life are people that learn to enjoy the storm as much as the rainbow, have learned to find the value in the storm, the beauty in the storm. I mean, that's when when all that rain comes down that some people are upset about, the plants are gobbling up and loving it. You know, sometimes you got to be a plant, sometimes you got to be a seagull, you got to change perspectives.

So if you're not in a relationship, either A, you want one, and we described what there, or B, you don't want one, and you're clear about that. In which case, it's obvious what the problem is. You've associated so much pain to relationship that even your natural drive for connection is being shunted. And the sad part about this is, eventually this creates even more pain than if you're in a relationship, for sure. Because we all have a deep emotional, spiritual, psychological need to connect at the deepest level. We have a need for this intimacy. It's not something we want, it's something we have to have. So we'll have to deal with those negative associations. And not we, you will have to deal with it. Actually, I would just like to help. Right? And you know, you got to do it sooner or later. And you probably wouldn't be listening to this tape unless you really were ready.

The second position you could be in is you're in a relationship. And then there's three perspectives. Either A, you want more from it, which, by the way, would be natural, no matter how great the relationship is. B, you want out of it, not the other side, the other extreme, but you're not quite sure how to navigate it, or you can't. Or why aren't you out of it? If you want more, that's natural. If you want out of it, it's because you associate a lot of pain to it. If you're not out of it, though, it's because you associate pain believing. You see, relationship is all about emotional association. It's not about the real thing. We don't really respond to life anymore. We respond to what we associate to life. Somebody said something, and then we decide what that means. That means they don't care. They don't love me. They don't. We go off on a tangent because most of us are not responding to what's happening in the moment. We're responding to our past. And when someone does something that resembles pain from our past, well, we run. Quick. Not only do we run, but we often tend to fire off the old feeling and pretend that's what's happening now.

One of the secrets to a great relationship is learning that this is not that. The person you're with right now, in this moment, deserves to have a fresh slate. And you deserve to have a fresh slate with them. Because what really messes up a relationship is walking in with all these wounds. It's like, if I took your arm right now and I rub my hand across your forearm back and forth like this and just rubbed it, for most people, that wouldn't hurt at all. But if you've got a big scab there that's really, really wounded and it's not even fully covered, and I come back with a little cat hair and touch it, you're going to jump out of your skin. And you're going to go, you know what, this relationship is horrible. You know, no, it's not the relationship. It's the condition you're bringing to the relationship. And the condition is, you're bringing the past.

So one of the things that you want to look at is, if you are in a position like this, where you are pushing away a relationship, or your relationship that you want to get out of, one of the things to look at is, are you making this person into someone else? Are you responding to them as if they're your mother, or your father, or your brother, or that horrible person that you have done anything you could have a relationship with, but you stayed there too long? Are you out of your fear magnifying the situation? Are you adding a meaning that really isn't accurate? If you master the meanings of your life, and you don't make things more than they are, relationship becomes much more delightful. You know, because what happens for most of us is we make things bigger than they are. In fact, almost all stress comes from making things more important than they really are. You know, oh, this means no. It doesn't mean this. It's kind of like the story about Sigmund Freud. You know, one of the big conventions that he held to teach all these other psychoanalysts the process that he was teaching through Freudian psychology. He's sitting in the back, and while another speaker is speaking, he's smoking a big stogie, a big cigar. And many of these therapists are looking back and staring, and they just, they get fixated, and you can see some of them become visibly upset because they're thinking, listen, this is the guy that teaches about oral fixation. He's sitting here sucking on a cigar. And so most people would never dare say anything. And when Freud got up, I mean, he's a very powerful man, and he begins to speak. And when they finally get the questions and answers, this one man could not hold himself back. He raised his hand. Young man stood up and he said, Dr. Freud, he said, would you mind explaining to us how you, sir, the man is describing the problems of oral fixation, could be sitting back in the back of this very room smoking a big cigar, sucking on a cigar, sir? Freud is very calm. He looked at the young man. He pulled out a new cigar. He lit it up. Put it in his mouth. Took a big puff. Blew it out. And said, sir, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

You know, sometimes we make up stuff. You did that, therefore I mean that. No, sometimes these things have no relationship whatsoever. And learning how to ask yourself a new question can change your life. So I'll go right into a principle before I do anything else, because as long as we're talking about, let's hit it. You want to change your life, you need to ask yourself a new question whenever you're about to get upset with any person in any relationship. And the question is this: What else could this mean? What else could this mean? It'll change your life if you ask it. Because what happens is, when you're upset, you're upset because not because of what someone did, not because of what they said, but because of the meaning you've attached to it. You say, well, they said this, therefore it means that. So you've got to ask yourself, what else could this mean? And you've got to make yourself come up with as many positive meanings as you come up with negative.

Let's say, for example, someone promised to do something and then they don't show up. And you go berserk. I can't believe this. They don't care. Look at this. They left me stranded once again. You know, every time I go to calendar, they're not there. Now, you've come up with three or four negative meanings. They're not there because they don't care. Because they always do this. Because they're irresponsible. Now, when you start stacking negative meanings, you're going to go into a state that will make being in relationship with you an adventure, right? Something that will be quite difficult. In fact, in this state, how will you treat this person you're in a relationship with? You'll probably treat them in a way that will make them not want to be in relationship with you. If not reading the relationship permanently, in the moment, they're not going to want to relate to you. And so you'll lose the juice. Does this make sense?

So instead, what you've got to be able to do is come to that relationship with an open new set of possibilities. Because the truth is, most people, when they screw up, would beat themselves up more than you beat them up anyway. So why beat them up and push them away? You're supposed to be their lover, their friend, their manager, their associate, their partner, their mentor, their father, their mother, their son, their daughter, whatever relationship you have. Why not cultivate them? That doesn't mean you have to accept bad behavior. But the way you do it is, you don't assume ever that the person has done something deliberately to harm you. When people do things, it's rarely, if ever, about you. Usually, you're not that significant. They're trying to meet their own needs. They're trying to deal with their own fears, their own frustrations. You just happen to get in the way. And that's true for you and I as much as anybody else.

So you gotta remember, it's not about you, most the time. You know, someone's upset, they're usually upset about something from their past, or upset about something they feel frustrated about internally. And if they're frustrated with you, it's only because they have the illusion that you're preventing them from being able to experience something they need, some certainty, or some significance, or some love, or something they think they need. So get real and know that it's not about you. And then ask yourself, what else could this mean? Well, maybe they're not here. And you've got to come up with empowering meanings, not more negatives like, well, it could mean that they're really a jerk. No, that's not the way you do it. You say, what else could this mean? Well, maybe they've been in a car accident. Maybe there's something else that's happening that's critical to the quality of their life. Maybe they're actually doing something for me. Maybe I didn't make it absolutely clear that I need to be here at this minute. Maybe I overloaded them with too many requests. If you come up with enough other meanings that are empowering, you'll finally get yourself into balance. And when you do communicate, two things will happen. One, you'll be elegant. You won't assume the worst, which really hurts people. When you assume the worst, even if you're right, you injure people in relationship. And when you injure a person in a relationship with you, you injure yourself, could you injure the relationship? And that's something you share together. It's like, so many people in a relationship, things aren't going well, and the first thing you do, what do they do? They attack. Now, the problem is, you're attacking your teammate. You're attacking your shipmate. We're on this spaceship called Earth together, and half the people trying to blow up half of their own ship. It doesn't work. Relationship is about unity. It's about how do we help each other and move next level, not how do we punish each other. The biggest challenge you'll find in relationships is people would rather be right than be in love. And you're going to ask yourself, what else could this mean? You know, do I want to be right? Do I want to be in love? Do I want to learn? Do I care about this person? Let me focus. So I'm cutting off on this tangent, but I'll tell you why, because if you want great relationships, you've got to become a master of meaning. And you've got to find empowering meanings. In fact, even if you're wrong, and you assume the best from people, they're going to appreciate that. And pretty soon, that expectation becomes something they want to meet. Rarely do people respond from negative reinforcement, but consistently people respond to pleasurable reinforcement.

For example, if you wanted your spouse to call you every night at 6 PM when they're on the road, and one night they don't call, and then when they finally call, you tear into them, what have you taught them? You taught them calling you equals pain. So are not calling me equals pain? No, they wanted to call you. They called you on their own. Now's the time to give them reinforcement. I saw this happen with my daughter or their boyfriend. It's like, she wanted to call, and he got busy and he didn't call. And when he finally called, she would just tear into him. After about six weeks of this, he wouldn't call at all. And the next thing you know, the relationship's over. Negative reinforcement is not your goal.

So how I got up on this tangent is, if you're in a relationship and you want out of it, don't respond from the past. Don't assume the worst. Find an empowering meaning. And then, if you still see that this is not meeting your needs, and we'll describe how to decipher that in this tape, then obviously you need to take action.

The third perspective is, you may be in a relationship and you may just be immobilized. Maybe you should have given up. You may be in repression. You don't want out, you don't want more, you just kind of accept the fact that this relationship just is. And that's probably the worst place to be. Because you know what? Pain and pleasure, at least, will move you. You know, if you're, you know, in a rut, you're in trouble. I hope a wagon is coming down your rut because it'll get you moving. Because they have a wife, you've got to have some movement.

So if we're talking about relationship, the first thing I want you to think about is, let's say intimate relationship. Where are you? Are you in a relationship or not? And what's your perspective? Right? You want a relationship? You not want a relationship? Do you want more from the one you're in? Do you want out of it? Are you immobilized? Because we need to know where you start.

Now, the next question I have for you is, okay, where do you really, really want to be? What would your ideal relationship look like? I'm going to guide you through a process in this tape to have you actually describe that in detail. But I want you to begin to think about that even now for a moment. I mean, if you can have it any way you want it, what would your intimate relationship be like? What would you guys talk about? What would you laugh about? What would you share? What would you learn together? What would you grow? What would you contribute to each other? How would you make love? What would be the magic times that you'd share? How would you surprise each other? You know, most of us are so busy with all the demands of our lives that we don't take time on the things that are most important. Most people's lives are not working because they're more focused on, you know, the to-do's on their list than the relationships that matter. See, at the end of the day, when I'm teaching someone how to manage their life, I don't try to look at their to-do's. I said, what did I achieve today? But the next question I ask them is, who were you today? You know, in terms of your relationships. Like, I'll say, you know, today I didn't get all these other things done, but I was an extraordinary father today because I spent such great time with my daughter, Jolie. We did these cool things, and they weren't what I intended to do initially, but it's the most important thing to me. And you know, all of a sudden, the day is a victory. Life is relationship. And the quality of your life is directly related to the kinds of relationships that you create, and you expand, and nurture throughout your life. But it's easy to get off track and get caught up in the doing, isn't it?

So let's take a moment now. Let's answer a really important question. What's the purpose of a relationship? Any relationship? Is there a universal purpose? Is there a universal reason? I mean, so often in life, we want things, but we forget we want them for. I mean, if you ever said, I want a relationship, and then you got one, and you thought to yourself, I don't want a relationship, right? Because you thought what you wanted was a relationship, but what you really wanted was something else. Maybe it was intimacy, it was love, it was sensuality. Maybe it was a connection of spirit. Maybe it's someone that would tease you, provide variety. Maybe it was a challenge. But what happens for most of us is we don't know what we're after. And so then we get disappointed when we don't achieve what we don't even know we want. See, you got to get clear. What's the real purpose of a relationship? Of all relationships? Some people say, well, to communicate. Other people say, well, to learn, to share, to know, you know, to understand, you know, to experience things. All those answers are accurate. But the real purpose of relationship, the purpose that feeds out of all the things we just described, is one simple thing. The purpose of a relationship is to magnify the human experience.

Now, what do we mean by this? Well, think about it. How does it feel when you experience something on your own? Can be phenomenal. But why do you want to share that? Because in the sharing, not only do you get to experience it again, but there's a magnification, isn't there? I mean, whenever a person gets excited, it gets you even more excited. Or when they get sad, you get even more sad. When there's that emotion that's shared, there's that synergy, there's that power where one plus one doesn't just equal two. There's a third power. There's something visceral. There's something ethereal that occurs when this connection at between people, and they share their emotion, their feelings, not just their ideas. See, it magnifies our experience of life. That's why we search for. I mean, would you like to go to the ballpark for a sporting event with four people there, or a hundred thousand? You might say, four, I get a better seat. But I'm talking about from the feeling. When that person hits the ball, and three people go, yay, yay, not quite the same as when you're in the middle of the Super Bowl, or you're in the middle of the final game of the World Series, or the NBA championship, and Jordan steals the ball, and everybody jumps to their feet, and you hear the room screaming and shaking, and every part of your body is vibrating, and he scores, and you go nuts, and the city goes nuts. Why don't we all just go off and say, uh, see you guys later, and then go, yeah, buy yourself later on? Because there's not as much power in that. The power is in the sharing. That's the power.

Relationship is about sharing. And the quality of your relationships is in direct relationship to the amount. What that sounds interesting. Your power of your relation drug relationship, but that's true. So I'm going to continue. The quality of your relationships is in direct proportion to the amount of yourself to be able to share with someone. That's how you're able to relate. It's sharing. And the amount of that person's emotion and feeling and spirit that you're able to share with them. In other words, you got to listen. You got to hear them. You got to feel them. You got to experience them. It can't just be you doing a data dump to somebody else. That might feel good for a while, but it won't last. Community comes from a relationship. I mean, if you look at the web, and people go on the web, and if the place you can go and just get stuff, that's nice. But it becomes a community when you know it's a place you can go give things. When both are happening, the give and take, when you can pitch and catch, now you've got something. Because now there's a growth, there's an expansion, there's a magnification, there is life. That's what relationship's about.

So if you're in a relationship and you're not able to share, you're not really in a relationship. If you're not able to care about someone else's sharing, you're not in a relationship, right? Or you're in a low-level relationship. You know, obviously different levels of quality, but not an extraordinary one. Not the kind of one that a person who gets a program called Get the Edge wants to be in. And when we talk about Get the Edge here, we're talking about get the edge over someone in a relationship. If you have something over somebody, you're no longer in a sharing mode. You're in a controlling mode. That isn't a related state. That's not a relationship, right? When we're relating together and we're moving in a direction, like that ship, we're related, moving the ship forward, right? We're experiencing that joy, and we're experiencing having someone experiencing the pain, no, experiencing the learning, we're experiencing all of those human elements, all those elements of the spirit.

So we've got to do this. And I'll tell you, this is true just about anywhere. I was working the other day with Lou Pearlman. It's an amazing guy. I don't know if you know who he is, but he created all these boy bands like *NSYNC, if you're familiar with them, and the Backstreet Boys. You know, they sold more records in one week than any album in history. And he manufactured these groups, literally. He saw what people in our society relate to most, what's the music, the moves, and that connects them. And what kind of people do they connect to most? And he put together a formula. But more importantly, he brought these kids together and put them in a house and lived with them and trained them not only to sing and dance, but how to relate together, how to create harmony. He says the secret to these groups is five-part harmony. There's a level of emotion, intensity that comes when you put these five voices together, different distinct voices, and they unify and they relate. That's able to move the spirit of people around the world. Even people think, oh, it's manufactured, that music's predictable, still moves people more than anybody else. He's brilliant.

So he asked me to come down because they formed a new group, it's an all-male band called O-Town. So he asked me if I'd come down to work with these kids and help them to integrate all their best abilities. And when I went down there, I had this conversation with this young man. And I said, listen, every one of you as an individual has achieved an immense amount just to get here. But you're never going to get where you want to go unless you learn to relate as one. The power is in the unity. The power is in your relatedness. We gave them so many examples, they really got it. And then what I did is I did a bunch of exercises, and I had them produce some emotion. I said, I want you to create some energy, create some excitement in your body. And they looked at me like, what do I do? And then they began to do things physically with their body. And I said, double the intensity, triple the intensity. I said, take it to the next level. Come on, whatever it takes. You know what they all did? They all got up and started high-fiving each other. They all started looking into the point, interacting with each other, and doing it in unison. I didn't say do anything together. In order to get that higher level, we have to share. That's why when people talk about things like, oh, you know, the internet's going to isolate the world, keep us separate. Most people using the internet to connect. Or people say, no, people never go to movies or concerts. And it's totally absurd. Because even if we connect online, we want the visceral experience of being together. There's a certain amount of relatedness that comes from physical proximity with people.

So what I'm trying to say to you is, if you want the most out of your life, if you want an extraordinary life, the edge comes in extraordinary emotion, extraordinary psychology. And that comes in your capacity to share with quality people at a deep level of relatedness on an ongoing basis. That expands your ability to enjoy your life. Some of that relatedness will cause you to find a way to grow like you've never grown before, because someone can find a way to move your spirit and challenge you, and you can do the same for them. Some of it's going to create pain that makes you have to look at your life, which will make you grow. Some of it will give you the sense of contribution you've always been looking for. Some will stimulate you and give you a variety. Some will add certainty to your life. All the human needs can be met in this way. Now, you can meet these needs by yourself, but never at the same level of intensity. You have the potential to, but you won't.

So if relationship's so important, why don't we always magnify our emotions? Well, we do. The only question is, which emotions? If you get in relationship with somebody whose primary psychology, their primary emotions they experience on a regular basis are fear and rage and worry and frustration and jealousy and envy, and you get the relationship with that person, and you have a lot of dominant negative emotions, let me tell you what's going to happen. Two people's negative emotions are going to magnify their negative emotions. Now, if your predominant emotions are positive, if they're love and excitement and passion and compassion and honor, right? If it's peace, if it's centeredness, and you're with somebody else, you will augment each other. You'll magnify those good feelings. And most people are not so extreme that they're just one or the other, are they? So for most people, their relationship is the place of their greatest pleasures and their deepest pains.

The secret, the real secret to relationship is this: You've got to understand a relationship is a place you go to give, not a place you go to get. See, as long as you're going to relationship trying to figure out what you can get out of it, then what you really have is a transaction, not a relationship. You're trying to figure out, what I gave, I gave this percentage, I gave 50%, they got to get 50%. When you start measuring how much you're given in a relationship, the relationship's over. You don't have a transaction, right? Because a relationship is about unlimited sharing. A relationship is about unlimited giving. And when you share at that level, you magnify all that's good. But when it becomes about who's done what, when a relationship is driven by rules and not by love, a relationship begins to die. Everybody needs certain rules in order to feel comfortable, to meet their values. But the more rules you have, the more pain you have in a relationship.

I remember seeing years ago on CNN, they did this little story about the Gerber food people, and they were shooting a commercial. And the commercial had, I remember right, like five families that had quintuplets. And it was really interesting because they were different ages. Most of them were babies, but there was this one guy whose kids were, I don't know, the quintuplets, I think at this stage, were probably four or five years old. And he was maybe 30 years old, but he looked like he was 50. And he was already balding, and he looked really beat up. And I remember the interviewer going up to him and saying, what do you have? What can you tell us about what you've learned by having five kids simultaneously? He looked in the camera and he said, don't have too many rules. And the interviewer said, well, what do you mean? He goes, with five kids, if you have too many rules, they're always breaking something. You're always in reaction. You should have the least amount of rules possible in order to raise these kids. And I thought, that's so true in life. And most upsets are because people have so many ways that people can be upset, so many things that can make things go off-kilter. If we know the purpose of relationship is to magnify, we got to decide to magnify only the good. And we will still screw up. But if we make a conscious decision that our relationships are really about magnifying the good and the person we love, and it's a place we're going to give, then we're going to receive tenfold. It's the law of life that we all know.

So the question then is, why doesn't that happen? And the answer is because we get hooked. We get triggered by things that have happened in our past, as we've already described. And part of that has to do with the nature of human beings. I mentioned earlier on one of our tapes that everybody has the same needs. Everybody. I don't care where you come from in the world. I've had the privilege now of traveling literally and working with people from more than 75 nations. I've worked with two and a half million people over the last 23 years. I've seen every kind of relationship you can imagine. You know, worked with just about every kind of person you can imagine. And during that time, I've been able to see that people have the same needs. They have different goals, different values, different rules, with the same needs. We all need certainty. Remember, we need that feeling that we can be comfortable, that we can avoid pain, gain pleasure. We all have a need for variety, for uncertainty, for surprise, right? For challenge. It's what makes our lives exciting and juicy. We all have a need to feel significant, to feel important, to feel unique, to feel special, to feel like we're needed. Everybody has that need. The only question you have is how you go about meeting it. Do you demand it, or do you give it, or you just notice it's there and appreciate it within yourself? Everybody has a need to connect and to feel love. Everybody has that. Everybody else needed growth. We've already said, and to contribute. Those six needs must be met by all human beings.

But here's what's interesting. We don't all pursue these needs the same way. Some people try to meet all their needs by doing it just through their job. And so they have no real intimate relationships because all their focus is about how to be significant by achieving. And connection is kind of a secondary thing that eventually they'll get to. And these people usually end up unbelievably unhappy later in life, if not already. Some people think everything is about relationship, just my one single love relationship. But then if that relationship gets in trouble, they have no life. So if you spend any time with me and coaching, in any of their tape programs, I'll walk you through these needs in more detail. For now, just know that relationships are about meeting each other's needs. If you can help your partner in life to feel certain that by being in relationship with you, they're going to feel comfort, they're going to feel joy, they're going to feel love. If you can help them experience more variety by being in relationship with you, cool surprises, learning, growing, challenge, stimulation. If you can help that partner to feel totally special and unique, and you mean it, where you really value them, and you see the unique qualities they have, everybody's got unique challenges, but they're unique qualities, and you appreciate them and you acknowledge them, so the person feels it. If you can really connect on a regular basis, if you can relate, if you can share, if you can get them to share, if you can cause by your association, by your relatedness, both of you to grow and contribute, then you will be in a relationship that is legendary.

But if your relationship is one that you want out of, it's because many of these are missing. You don't feel important to that person. You don't feel significant. You don't feel special. You don't feel unique. You don't feel like you matter. That's the first thing that starts to break it down. You don't feel connection because they won't share something you want them to share, but they won't share. Or there's dishonesty, which shuts down any kind of connection. Or you feel bored. There's no variety. We keep doing the same things. There's no growth. There's no contribution, right? Or you're in a position where you're not certain. At any moment, they could leave you. These things create stress in a relationship.

But here's what really creates the stress. All human beings share the same fears. The primary fears of all human beings are the following: Number one, that we're not enough. And number two, that we won't be loved. And let me explain to you why. I've kind of started into this on one of the earlier tapes. I don't know if you recall, but let me give you a little reminder. Every human being who's ever been to therapy knows that something happened at some stage of their life that made them feel like they're not significant, or they may not be loved. And they live without fear forever. You don't need to go to a therapist. Let me just tell you, you've got lots of those experiences. And the reason is because human beings have something rather unique in their makeup. It has to do with the way in which we're raised. In the animal kingdom, most animals are not dependent upon another animal, whether it be a mother, father, brother, or sister. They're not totally dependent upon another animal for a long period of time. If you're a bird, you're kicked out of the nest a few days or a few weeks. If you're a snake, you know, you're a turtle, you're dropped off and you fend for yourself in the first moment. There's nobody around, you got to step up, right? But if you're a human being, you're one of the few creatures on earth, like primates, that's one of the other creatures like this, that have a long period of time in which your survival revolves around a total dependency upon another human being, putting your needs ahead of their own.

See, as human beings, we weren't born with some special venom, or a special incisor teeth, or claws. Our evolutionary advantages are our ability to relate to each other, to share, and through that, to share ideas, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and produce an extraordinary advantage in life. That's why we as a species have flourished. But you know what? Leave us alone. How do we do? If a baby is left alone, it dies. A human baby. Why? They get something called failure to thrive syndrome. If a baby is not stroked, isn't physically loved, isn't given, as the doctors say, tactile stimulation, also known as love, then the baby has failure to thrive syndrome. They can't explain it. A baby dies. Love is a need that is so deep within us, it is a survival instinct. And without it, we die. That's how important it is.

But here's what's unique about human beings that makes your mother, and hopefully your father, but not always fathers, always mothers have to love you if they're biochemically healthy. The reason is, all women when they're pregnant have something called oxytocin that flows in their body. And what this hormone does is it makes this mom have to love the child, even when the child is butt ugly, right? Immediately, this child looks like a lizard, is the most attractive thing on the face of the earth. Now, it's interesting, he's got all this fat around him. It's the last time someone will say you're cute when you got fat around you. He burps, and it's wonderful. He throws up, it's okay. Baby, we love you. But it doesn't matter what you do, you are loved. And guess what? It's a good thing, because all you got to do is make a little noise, and everybody jumps to meet your needs. I mean, anything you needed, it was going to show up. When's the last time you felt that way about your life, right? So what happened was your survival depended upon. Now, some fathers do leave. And various cultures of the world, because they don't have oxytocin, most fathers, the connection, the sense that their life is more significant to themselves, that there's this being that's been brought into the world through them, causing them to be connected. But that's an emotional, spiritual thing. It's not necessarily biochemical. So that's why women, if they're healthy, just don't leave.

There's what's interesting. There's a point when this oxytocin leaves, when that stuff wears off. Ooh, the stuff hits the fan, doesn't it? Suddenly, the same stuff you used to do, you get a swat for, or a harsh word, or ignored. You know, suddenly there's all these rules that have to happen before you get love, which is your substance of survival. Think about it. You have to do something significant now before you can do anything. Not just, you have to act a certain way. Good or bad. If you don't get attention for doing good things as a child, you'll do bad things. And by the way, adults are just big children.

So you have the same patterns at some level. And so what happens is you learn. By the way, how long is this dependency? For most people, it's not like other animals. It's not a few weeks. It's not a few months. It's 5, 10, 15, 20. These days, 35 years until a little bit. It's even before somebody finally gets it.

So we live in a world where we become connection freaks because we know if someone doesn't care for us, if we're not significant enough, if we can't generate enough love, we're not going to survive. So while you may remember having gone to your therapist this one time when your father and mother said something, or another child said something, or somebody dumped you, or they, they didn't give you the love you deserve, and that's why today you have this inferiority thing, that's why today you have this fear of not being enough, that's why you don't feel loved, that's why you can't be intimate. Bull! It's because you're human. All of us have it. Some of us indulge in it. Some of us live there. Other people discipline it and say, "When that comes up, hey, hey, here's the truth. I can love myself. Here's the truth. I love my Creator. My Creator loves me. Here's the truth. This problem is not a problem. I just need to reconnect with this person."

But you've got to understand that this creates a situation in most intimate relationships of pain. Because the minute someone looks like they aren't loving you, or they're not treating you as significant enough, the fear of the loss of love, the fear that you're going to die emotionally, comes up. And what most people do when that fear shows up is they try to get out first. They either try to hurt the other person because they figure if they can hurt them, they'll be in a position where they won't feel so bad. They take their fear and they push it out. Or they hurt themselves. They go inside and get depressed, feeling like there's nothing they can do, and their world is going to end. Or they distract themselves with drugs or alcohol or television or overworking, something else that'll make them feel good in the moment so they don't have to worry about the fact that maybe they feel insignificant. Or they find a big problem and they say, "You know, I really would be significant. I really would be worthy of love." That's what they're saying unconsciously. Except this thing happened. "If it wasn't for this thing, I'd be okay. So you still love me? I have a significant problem. I'll love you." Some people get that love by just giving love to other people, even when the person physically abuses them, because they're so afraid of losing the feeling of their significant or loved. "At least if I'm being beat, at least as I'm getting attention, maybe there's still a chance for love." Or the achiever's approach: "If I make enough money, if I accomplish enough, if I achieve enough, then people notice I'm important and eventually I'll feel loved. Maybe I'll get the love." It is the basis of the psyche of human beings.

So now, since most of us have no clue what's driving us, we have no clue what beliefs and rules are controlling us, and we've modeled most of this as a mismatch of experience that we never really fought through consciously. We've never been through a "Date with Destiny" type of program, right? We help people to find what they want, how they want it, what the rules need to be to achieve what they want, and rewire themselves. Most people have no training whatsoever. I know what's driving them as human beings. They don't know why they do what they do. They just got these, you know, things that they do, and they don't understand it. They're in reaction. They're just trying to get the job done. And you put two of these people together. Oh, and you wonder why we have a situation where there's so much pain out there.

Take into account also, you have people, two types of people, males and females, who biochemically are different and therefore think differently. Some males are more feminine in their energy. Some males are more male in their energy. Same thing with women. But those energies have a different focus. Masculine energy is about achieving, completing, breaking through, experiencing freedom. And feminine energy is about connection and love. And we both have both energies in our body. The question is, which one do you develop the most? And they're so different that they, by themselves, create conflicts.

You say, "Okay, Tony, will you help me understand where conflict might come from? But what's the solution?" Good question. The solution first is an awareness and appreciation of what this is all about. When things start to happen in a relationship, you got to first take a look and say, "Okay, right now, if I'm starting to react, what's really triggering this? Is fear." When people say, "I'm stressed about this," stress is a code word for fear. And the fear that's the deepest is, "If you don't achieve this, if they don't do this, if they don't respond that way, if they don't like this, if they don't respect us, if this doesn't happen, then you're not enough, and you won't be loved, and therefore you will die." This is the basis.

So the way you make your relationships work is you first create a great relationship with yourself. You first gotta learn to love yourself. Because if you're going to relationship to get that instead of give that love, then you're going to be with two people that are starving, trying to take each other's food. And you know that's the definition of hell, right? All that you're looking for is inside you.

So the way you create relatedness is you start with you. And the way you start with you is you got to say to yourself, "What do I love about myself? What is worth loving within myself?" And you got to create an action plan, as I said earlier, that can allow you to start to feel that. And the way to do that is ask a simple question: "If I want someone to feel totally loved by me, what would I do? What would I do?" Because actions speak louder than words, right? Well, you might say, "I tell them I love them." And I'd say, "In a certain tone of voice." When's the last time you looked in your own eyes in the mirror and said, "I love you"? I mean, really looked and said it and meant it. "I'm done with these tapes. You're getting a little over the edge, boy." Nope. When's the last time you really did that? No, for that matter, when's the last time you looked into someone else's eyes who you're around all the time and stopped and just focused and said, "I love you" through your eyes and face, not just with the words?

We all know we can't give to other people what we haven't given to ourselves. There's nothing to give. You can't go in empty and expect to fill somebody else up. And you sure as heck can't go to relationship always empty and expect that that person is going to feel good about being related to you. They're going to feel like you're a taker, not a giver. So fill yourself up.

What else would you do if you wanted someone to know you love them? You might do things for them. You might take some special time for them. What are you going to do for yourself? What special time could you take for yourself? What else would you do if you really, really adored somebody? What else would you do? You might tell other people how great they are. You go, "Well, can I tell other people how great I am?" Yeah, you can. If you do it elegantly. You absolutely can. As long as you do it with a little smile on your face and going, "Am I pretty good? Can I tell you what I did? Because I want to hear what you did. I'm just learning to acknowledge myself." You know what? If you do it and you're not full of yourself, you're just acknowledging the truth. It inspires other people. But if you do it and you try to pretend like you're not doing, "Well, let me tell you what else I've accomplished." That's not connecting with yourself. And so you can't connect with anybody else. And you're just seen as a blowhard. Are there other words to use? But they're a little more graphic, and I think I'll avoid them at this time. You know what I mean, right? You gotta connect with yourself.

So before we do anything else, I've talked about so many things here. Maybe you want to take some notes and jot down a couple of these principles. And maybe you say, "Okay, all right. One things he's talked about so far is when I get upset, I need to ask myself, 'What's really happening here? Am I responding my past to the present?' I need to ask myself, 'What else could this mean?'" I'm just gonna do that for the next three days, for the next week. I'm gonna do that all day long in any upset I have. That might be a nice thing to do. Because if I was doing this as a tape program, honestly, I'd do a whole library, and we break it down. So maybe you want to start with that.

But right now, and there's a bunch of things we've done here. Why am I in this relationship? To magnify my emotion. Now, are these the emotions I want to magnify? As the question. No. Very good. For me to feel this way, I have to give it a meaning. What's the meaning I'm giving this? Well, what else could it mean? You know, Tony, say the principle: "It's not about me." If they're doing the stuff, they're coming at me, it's because they need significance. They're scheming for significance, or they just need some love. It's not about me. They're not trying to hurt me. They're trying to meet their own needs.

So we've talked about a lot already, haven't we? If I'm really in a position where I'm really, really upset with somebody, you know, is it something I'm upset with myself about? Asking quality questions gets you quality answers, will get you a quality life. But let's do one thing right now. Because in a few moments, we're going to talk about the most important principle in creating a relationship. Before we even do that, I want you to turn off this program in a second. Just turn it off for a moment. And when you do, I want you to write down a game plan of what you're going to do so that you really love yourself. And I know what you hear the story of, "I can't love myself. I never loved myself." Forget all the stories. The only thing keeping you from getting what you deserve and what you want is your story about why you can't do it. So put the story aside. Give yourself this gift. If you are going to really cherish yourself, if you were going to really let yourself know you really love yourself, what would your action plan be? And by the way, how important is it for you to feel that you love yourself? I mean, if you don't, can you really love anybody else? Really? 100%? Do you really think you have the ability to give if you don't have that love for yourself? And let me tell you the good news: you do have that love for yourself. Otherwise, you wouldn't be alive. You would have taken your life to be gone. So don't say, "I don't love myself." That's just something you may have said over and over again. Let's just be more demonstrative.

So I want to create an action plan. What are you going to do? You say, "I'm going to take two minutes in the morning for the next seven days. I'm gonna do this stupid thing Robin said. No one will know. I'm gonna look in the mirror and I'm gonna say a little incantation over. I'm gonna look at myself. I love you. I love you." And you say your name. Look right in your eyes. "I love you. Let me tell you what I love about you. I love your commitment to people. I love your caring heart." And say your name. So then I'd say, "Tony, I love your caring heart. I love your commitment to people. Tony, I love your playfulness. I love that you're off the wall. I love that you're willing to do whatever it takes to help people. I love that you're so committed to be strong physically and healthy. I love your love for God. I love, I love, I love." And look in your own eyes. Because then it's not just saying, "I love you, I love you, I love you." It's giving real reasons. It's like when you give someone a compliment in a relationship. Little tip: Don't just say, "You're great. You're awesome." That wears off real quick because people think, "Ah, you're just blowing smoke." But if you say, "You know what's really great about you? You know what I love about you? I have to tell you, I noticed this and this and this." I create a relationship.

You know, when I first went to work with the San Antonio Spurs, I had a bit of a challenge because at the time I first went to work for them, they had a guy on the team named Dennis Rodman. So getting in relationship with Dennis Rodman, when you're a white guy and you're taking his free time and making him sit for three hours in a seminar, is sometimes a bit challenging. But the way I got it with him was with sincere compliments. I had brought a group of kids down the night before as part of my payment to train these guys at the Spurs was to take kids on mentoring and for the Spurs to meet them and maybe give monographs. Dennis was the only one after the game that stood around and signed autographs from everyone else. And I noticed it. And so when I got up, I said, "Dennis, I know you're outrageous. I know you're crazy. I know you're the best player in the league. I know a lot of people get upset with you. And I know there are things that they probably have a right to be upset." But I got to tell you something. I really respect about you. You are such a class act. You're the only person last night, and I'm not telling other people they're wrong, but you're the only person that made sure every one of those kids got attention. That was the coolest thing. I just want to thank you." And I didn't wait for him to notice. I just went on. And a couple of times of this, and you should have seen him. Even Dennis Rodman sprout up, who'd been like, you know, putting his glasses on, he tore the notebook up, had threw it on the piece of paper on the ground, stood there with his arms folded. But saw the arms unfold. Because we all want to be loved. We all want to be significant. Now, we don't want bull. We don't want somebody to lie to us. We don't want fake things. But a sincere compliment gets us.

So how about starting with yourself? Because you know what? If I'm giving yourself, you'll be able to give to other people. So that's one thing. That's one assignment. In fact, if you did nothing else on this tape, I'm going to ask you to do that for the next seven days. That you take two minutes and you sincerely compliment yourself each morning and look directly in the mirror. You go, "Yeah, but what if my spouse or somebody else around and they see this stuff?" Inspire them. Make it playful. Have fun with it. But I'd like you to do right now is turn up the tape. And I want you to write what else besides that will you do that'll get you to feel that love? Because if you have that love already, you're not going to have a fear of losing it. And when you don't have the fear of losing, your primary fear, when that primary fear is gone because you know you can't ever be not enough, because you're enough for yourself, you can't ever lose the love because you're giving it to yourself, or you've connected with God and you know that's everlasting love, whatever works. Then you don't have to react in relationship when someone says something that makes you feel like, "Well, maybe they don't think I'm significant," or they act like they may not be there for you, may not love you. You don't have to overreact. And when you're no longer overreacting, the quality of your relationships transforms. Does this make sense to you? Then turn this tape off now and write a list of at least 10 things you're going to do to teach yourself to learn to appreciate, to acknowledge what a great human being you are and how much you love yourself. Please take the time to do that right now. Turn off the tape.

Okay, welcome back. I hope you took the time to really do this. If you didn't, please stop the tape and go back and do this. Because you can't love anybody else, really give love to them, if you haven't loved yourself first. And we all know that intellectually. But when you begin to do things for yourself that demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that you love yourself, all of a sudden you're not in a place of scarcity. And see, when you're in scarcity, it's really hard to track somebody who's full. Because you know, like attracts like. When you feel full of love, you can't believe all of a sudden there's this abundance. It's like in life, you know, when you're barely surviving financially, no one will help you. And when suddenly you're rich, everybody gives you stuff for free. And you know, "No, no, we don't want to pay for it, man. When I was starving, they wouldn't give me a meal. Now everybody wants to pay for my meal, take me someplace, give me something, tickets, fly here, do there." It's bizarre, but it's a law of life. Water seeks its own level. Like attracts like. So you must become, in your soul, in your feeling, in your emotions, that what you want. And if you do that, it's easy. It flows. It's natural.

Now, what were the things you put down? And what were the patterns? Did you notice any of them? Or some of the patterns, things you would do for yourself as a demonstration that you loved yourself? Were they auditory things? Things you said to yourself? Were they things you did that caused you to be around other people that would love you? These are the primary patterns people have. For example, the people here in the studio, by the way, if you're ever in one of these studios when I'm doing one of these tapes, you become one of my laboratory subjects, you know, like a guinea pig. But seriously, the people here had a couple of interesting things. One young lady said that she used to, years ago, have this great pattern which she kept journals, usually about four or five times a week. But at the end of her journal, she would always write, "Who I love and who I want to send loving blessings to." And then she would always end it by saying, "I love you, [Her Name]." "I love you, Pamela." XOXO. Every single time. And she said the act of writing that down every single time, blessing herself and making sure she loved herself, anchored it in her body so real. And she hadn't done it for a long time, and she misses that feeling.

Another example she gave is she just recently created a collage where she cut out a phrase and said, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." And then she's been adding to that list. And she said the great thing is, every time I write down nothing I love about myself, she's that page in my planner. I read all the other ones again. And so it stacks the emotion of all the reasons I love myself. Which, by the way, is really great. Because this isn't just, "I love you" or "You're great." Remember, when you give someone a great compliment, you want to be as specific as possible. Well, that's true of yourself as well.

Another thing that she does that we do in our seminars is we have people at the end of some of our intensive programs. Like if you go to our Life Mastery Program, it's nine days of total immersion that we do in Hawaii. And we do once a year. And then people come back six months later to do a program, usually in Palm Springs or Florida. And then they do another program after that, six months later, on Wealth Mastery. And then do that anywhere in the world. So we get to see people through time. And what we do is at the peak of their emotional, when they made these great changes in their life, and they're in the best physical shape they've ever been in, the best emotional state, and they know they're on target financially. In those moments, we didn't have to stop and say, "Now give yourself a real wealth. Write yourself this love letter." As if it was God was coming to your hand. As if you had no filters about being appropriate. You know, as if, "I can brag about my son or daughter and I mean it. I can talk about how great they are and how much I love them, how special and unique they are." There's no hesitancy. So write about yourself the way your parents could write about you, or God would write about you. And so you have people write this. But the best part is, we seal it and then we send it to them six months later. When you're in another state, another thought, another place, it's very emotional. I personally wrote a letter like this to myself almost 10 years ago. And I picked up an old book from my library, and there was the letter, and they're unopened. And I opened the thing up and I read, and I cried. It was just so emotional. It anchored me back to that place.

So these are all great demonstrative ways. Another thing she said she's going to do is she said, "You know, every morning she spent so much time working on her hair in front of the mirror. She goes, 'That's a great time to like look in your own eyes and send love to yourself or kind of flirt with yourself.'" You know what I'm saying? "You're pretty hot." That kind of thing. Well, it sounds silly, it creates a playful state with yourself. And lastly, she said, "You know, working out. Whenever she works out consistently, she feels so good about herself and she feels like she's really giving to herself." And it's ironic that most of us don't work out because they think, "Oh, I don't know the time," or, "You know, it'll make me stressed out." The truth is, not working out creates 10 times more stress. That's why that Hour of Power is so important.

Another person here said that what they really do is they kind of pull the covers up around their friends. When they want to feel loved, and that metaphor is for this man means that if he's feeling kind of down or lonely or sad, instead of just sitting there by himself, he calls two or three friends and just, he doesn't even tell them, "I'm sad." He just talks to them about their lives and what's going on. And the warmth that they feel for him, the love and the friendship they share, just instantaneously transforms him. And he feels that love, even if they don't have an explicit conversation about that. So great strategy because so many people say they feel alone, but they don't reach out.

I was in a prison recently, and I was there with a man who's been locked up since 1951. And we have programs in prison systems all across the country. In fact, recently, you talk about impact of relationships, we had a study that was done, a follow-up study, that showed the recidivism rate has decreased massively in a variety of prisons. And it's being published by the Journal of Prisons. But the point is, I went back to see a group of these men. And one of them, if you can imagine being in jail since 1951, I mean, he was just a boy, you know. We hadn't been to the moon, no color TVs, computers, you know, didn't exist unless they were the biggest, you know, buildings. I mean, it's a very different world. He's been locked up all this time. And he hadn't had one communication from anyone in more than 17 years. And after I worked with him, I said, "This is ridiculous. You're isolating yourself." And so a month later, wrote me a letter. He said, "I've already had 17 letters from people who've reached out and communicated with." And he's so happy. He felt so excited. And it inspired him. One relationship led to another. And pretty soon, he said, "You know what? I'm changing my identity. I'm not a con." Even though I've got 12 more years in here. He said, "I feel more free today than I ever felt my entire life." And he said, "I decided somebody on the outside that even seen them in a con is that they own real estate." So he decided to use his relationships to negotiate an incredible deal on a small piece of raw land that was dirt cheap. Literally dirt cheap. And now he's a real estate owner. He's not a convict. He feels so different about his life. But all this came from putting himself in a new circle, a new place in which he felt valued, he felt loved, he felt appreciated. But you got to go first. We all want people to come to us. You got to initiate first. So this is a great strategy.

Another person here used their Hour of Power. They said they take an hour in the morning just to meditate and be, to walk around. Another man here said that he'd love to get up in the morning and just take a little time for anybody else wakes up, have his coffee and send some emails to friends who he never really finds time to talk to. But he feels like he can connect with them. Then he can wake up the next morning and see their responses and have that sense of connection, even though the time zones are on are so different.

Another simple thing to do is just to go places you love. You know, one of the men here said that if he were just in the middle of the day, instead of sitting at his desk and having lunch there, he'd be so much more productive if he really just took that hour and went away. Okay? And went to a nice place. He loves going to the Gaslamp district. He loves the idea of going to the ocean, you know, going to the pier, because those are places that nurture him. And you come back, and there's so much more of you to give to your work and to your environment. We live in an age where most of us are trying to be so efficient that we lost the emotion that makes us effective. And that emotion comes from having a great relationship with ourselves. We feel nurtured by ourselves. And you know, sometimes you got to do things like just hug yourself. As silly and stupid as that may sound, you know, really touching yourself. I mean, you got to think about what would you do for someone else? Though, you give them a hug. You pat them on the back. One things I'll do sometimes is, you know, do something on stage, or I'll do something, often I do something I just know it's extraordinary. And I'll reach back and pat myself on the back and smile. You know, to kind of make fun of it, but I'm like, "Yeah, that was awesome." I don't give a darn if anybody else notices. I noticed that was kick-butt. Because part of the challenge in life is that most of us are not busy looking around to acknowledge other people. So if you don't acknowledge yourself sincerely for doing things that are unique or special or just being loving, you're not going to feel that feeling that you deserve. And the more you give these feelings of love to yourself, the more whole you'll be, the more centered you'll be, the better person you'll be in a relationship. You'll have something to give instead of going there to get. And you know what? You'll be more selective.

So now let's talk. We've talked about so many different ideas about relationship. Let me wrap up with two principles that we really need to focus on. And that is, number one principle is, what is the most important factor in creating an extraordinary relationship? Well, the very most important factor is, have an extraordinary relationship with yourself. And that's one in which you relate to yourself, you express to yourself, you share these things, you demonstrate on a consistent basis, not just when you're done with this tape today and you do it for one day, but I mean, you really make it a habit. You schedule time with yourself. That's why the first tape, "Get the Edge," is the most important one. Because if you take that Hour of Power, or again, your 30 minutes to thrive, or as a minimum, your 15 minutes of fulfillment, the best time is first thing in the morning. Get up earlier, go to bed a little earlier, do whatever it takes. If you can't, then you got to do it at lunch, or you got to do it in the evening, at an hour that can't move. It's like a meeting that can't be moved. Because in that hour, all the things we're talking about here have a chance to coalesce. You have time for yourself. We're so busy. We've got to have time for ourselves.

But assuming that that principle isn't allowing that, is you already have a relationship with yourself. What is the most important factor in having a quality relationship with someone else? And the answer is selection. Selection. What do you mean, selection? "I'm already in a relationship." Oh, this whole portion that Dave is not going to relate to me. "I've already made my mistake." No, no, no. You can't think that way, or you're in big trouble. No, selection means selecting the qualities you need in a relationship. So if you're already in a relationship, then this is going to be something you're going to look at brand new. Let me give you an idea. Relationships go through many phases. They go through that initial, "Oh my God, I'm so attracted. Can't believe it. I want to be connected to this person" phase. Hopefully, it goes through phases of this deep love. And it goes through phases of questioning, like, "What the heck am I doing here?" This happens in all relationships. It's the nature of relationships. But what will make a relationship last is if both people share similar natures, or natures that complement each other.

Now, what do I mean by nature? I don't mean they're attractive and you're not, so it works out. I don't mean they're busy and you're not, so there's a balance. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about knowing whether or not your relationship, your relatedness, is based on the moment, or whether it will have a lasting impact. And that's based upon beliefs, values, and goals. In fact, let me give it to you this way. If you want to hire someone for your job. Now, you and I both know, again, you talk to somebody who's really good. An example I can give you is Dick Vermeil. Here's one of the winningest coaches in history, and he's the only coach to win both a Rose Bowl and a Super Bowl. He's an amazing man. And I was asking him after he won the Super Bowl, I said, "What was the most important thing in you winning?" He said, "It was clearly inspiring these men to give their all." All right, so that's interesting. He said, "You know, motivation. You know, people make fun of it, but it's the most important thing. You have all the same players. They're basically at the same level of skills as any other team. It's the capacity to get more out of them, to be able to relate to them in a way where they bond with you, and as a result, you're able to move them to a different level of action." He said, "But frankly, Tony, as powerful as motivation is, selection is even more important." He said, "I gotta tell you honestly, I would have been fired if I had not won this year." He said, "The reason is because today in NFL football," he said, "you know, the coach is a marketing tool. If you haven't won for three years, you're out of here. Because the team needs to go to the public and say, 'We have a new coach. We have a new possible future.'" Now, he was the problem. Buy some box seats. He said, "So the bottom line is, you have no time to build a team." So in order to build that team, I had to select the right people. You had to select people whose nature would be to work together. I had to select people who would normally probably give more of themselves than anyone else would expect of them. He said, "That was the most important task that I went through." He said, "By making that selection, we built a Super Bowl team in no time." He said, "Because we didn't look for individual players with just skills. We looked for players that could relate to each other and work as a team."

Now, if it's true in NFL football to get a winning team, that's certainly true of creating a winning relationship. And I'll give you another example from business. When you're going to hire someone in business, there are three factors you really have to be able to answer to know whether or not this person is going to succeed long term. Because everybody succeeds in the beginning. It's like all relationships in the beginning, virtually have enthusiasm and energy and excitement. It's sustainability that we're looking for. So in a business relationship, there are three questions you got to answer. Number one, can they do the job? Can they? Well, the truth of the matter is, if you're interviewing them, chances are they can do the job. Because you've probably screened them, right? I mean, you've probably gone through their bio, maybe checked some references, or you've had someone else look at things before they even brought in to take a look at you and have an interview with you. So the truth is, when you're in a relationship with someone, you're considering a relationship with them, can they be your partner? The chances are that if you're at the level of consideration of that possibility, sure, they can, more than likely.

But the second question is more important. Will they do the job? I don't mean today. I don't mean tomorrow. I mean this weekend. I mean this month. I don't even mean for the next six months. Will they do the job 10 years from now? Will they do the job three years from now? Now, will this relationship last? Will they do the job in business or not is based on two things. Number one, does the job meet their personal goals? See, if someone really wants to make a billion dollars, and the job they're in will never allow that, then you know darn well that however long they're here, it's not going to be long. Because eventually their goals are going to take them somewhere else. If the job is really about mastering business skills, and they want to be a singer, then eventually they're probably not going to be here. Or even if they stay, they won't do the job to the highest level of quality. If necessary, because some people do stay in a relationship forever. They've been together for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and they're friends. They don't have intimacy. They don't have a relationship called intimate relationship. They just have this good friendship. And so the same thing happens in businesses, doesn't it? You have somebody there that just kind of hangs on. They don't really grow. They don't really expand. They kind of do the job, but they do it to the maximum capacity? Absolutely not.

The second criteria for whether somebody will do the job is, does the job reinforce their nature? Now, think about this in business, then we'll relate it to your personal relationships. See, if a person is very much a people person, and you stick them back in accounting, they may be able to do the job. Yes, they can. But will they do the job long term at the highest level quality? The answer is no. Because they want to be with people. Their nature is to connect. And being isolated in accounting is not what's going to make them feel fulfilled. So sooner or later, they're either going to quit, find another job, I.E., another relationship, or they're just going to hang out there and do the minimum that they absolutely have to and find joy outside the relationship called work. Well, this is also true in your personal relationships. Listen, if you have somebody whose goals are radically different than your own, you know, they want to have kids and you don't. This is a pretty important element. If you can't resolve those goals, or both parties are really happy, then you're going to find there's going to be continuous conflict in this relationship, resistance, resentment, and eventually, if you stay together, repression. If you don't end the relationship.

Secondly, if you're in a position where you're the kind of person that never acknowledges someone, that's just not your nature. You're not much into acknowledgment. You expect, "Well, people know. I know. You don't have to tell me. Why should I have to tell you?" And the person you're partnered with craves acknowledgment. They need to be told how much they're loved all the time, and maybe shown all the time. And you're not that kind of person. You never have been. You can try and get yourself to do that for a while, but your nature says, as soon as the person looks satisfied, as soon as the pressure's off, you're gonna go back to your old style. And so that person will not be reinforced in this relationship. And someone else is going to come by and stroke them and tell them how great they are and how amazing they are. And guess what? They're going to find a great attraction, a great love, a great appreciation for that person, which you will eventually notice or feel or just sense that there's a loss for you. So what's happening is, you're two great people, but you have radically different natures. Does this make sense?

Now, this is not to say you can't make any relationship work. Because of course you can. But when your nature is different than the person you're with, that doesn't mean you're not attracted. People who are totally opposite natures can be totally attracted. But they don't usually have sustainability. That's one of those hot love Americans. Yeah, oh, bam, bam, yum. And then what happened? How come I'm not there anymore? Oh, what happened? What, what? You know, you're not the same person I met, you know, six months ago, or six weeks ago, six hours ago, right? Everything's changed because the natures are different. Does this make sense?

I hope it does. Well, the third question you got to ask when you're hiring someone, you go, "Boy, Tony, thanks a lot. I'm hiring a lover." Is that what you're saying here? That's what this whole thing's about. How to do a job interview? Well, sort of. I mean, because selection's the most important part. You make the right selection where you find someone who can do the job of loving you and love that job and will do it because you got the same goals and similar natures or complementary natures. You don't have to be identical, obviously, but natures that support one another. Then the third question is, is this the right team fit? And team fit comes down to things like values. Now, again, nothing has to be identical because everything's identical, you'd be bored. But it has to be complementary. I mean, if your goal is to make a difference in the world and change lives and contribute to society, and your partner, who is the sexiest thing on the planet, who is a total hunk or hunk-ette, who is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, who you worship the ground they walk on, but their major set of values in life are to arrive at the top and step on as many bodies as necessary to get there. And I got news for you, I don't care how beautiful they are. I don't care how many other things you share in common. Your values are so radically different that you're going to be in conflicts on a regular basis. And when you're in conflicts on a regular basis, then a relationship is hard to sustain. Because it's hard to relate to someone. That's what a relationship is. It's hard to form a ship of relations, right? If such a word were to be true. And others be on this ship called life. Go through life with this person on the ship of your relationship. If you don't really relate to what you both value most, if you don't really relate to what they value most, they don't relate to what you value most, you're gonna have conflicts. Now, don't get me wrong, some diversity is necessary. But the things you value at the highest level, if these things aren't in common, you're going to only have conflicts. You're going to have drama and pain. A kind of pain that doesn't go away. Because when people's nature, when they value things so differently, they're going to always have challenges, or they're gonna have to repress what they really feel. And neither one is going to make your relationship better, or make you healthy or happy.

Besides values, another part of team fit is sensuality or sexuality. Because what you value in your sensuality is also extremely important in an intimate relationship. Unless you address that, you got some real challenges. And you know what's interesting is that very often in a relationship, we try to make our partner be a certain way, don't we? You know, you try to like, "Well, I'll fix my partner." Well, then I want to be fixed because this is their nature. There's nothing wrong with them. They're not broken. They just don't meet your values. And so you got to be careful about that. Because if you're successful, you'll take the spirit out of your partner. And if you fail, you'll be frustrated with your partner. Because after all, they haven't changed. Neither one works. You've got to get a partner who is already aligned at a nature level with you. That's not to say everything is perfectly in alignment, but the most important things have to start there if you're going to have a winning team. Does that make sense?

And I'll tell you, on the sensuality side, we all have male and female energy. There are some women that are very male in their energy. Some very feminine in their energy. There are men that are very feminine in their energy, and some that are very. Now, we all have both energies in our body. But one of the things that happens in intimate relationships is very often people start to become more like their partner. Like they both become very feminine, or both become very masculine. You know, a man wants the woman to be responsible, and he works so hard to make her responsible, not so emotional, and so she doesn't want to get beat up, so she does that. And then she loses all her femininity and her flow and her creativity and all the stuff that attracted him in the first place. And all of a sudden, they lose the physical passion. They're now good friends. They're good business partners, but they don't have the passion. Or vice versa. A woman's saying, "You know, God, he's such a pain in the rear. You know, when can I get him to just loosen up and and be free and be a sensitive male?" And he's so sensitive, man, I can't get him to do anything. He just hangs around and wants hug and kisses me. I love that for a while. But when's he gonna go out and make something of himself? You know, I gotta pump it back up again. And this also happens the opposite. Sometimes there are women that are very masculine, they attract a feminine man, and they have this tremendous sexual energy. Because you got to remember that that sensuality, that sexuality comes from polarity. Just like the Earth, you got different poles, and those different poles create that intense energy of attraction. If you become the same, then there's no spark. There's no electricity. And so when you're looking at team fit here, you got to say, "Okay, does this person, does their nature in terms of their sensuality create sparks with me? Or do I have somebody that's going to quickly become a best friend?"

But one reason I mentioned to you, there's a particular gentleman who's really written some outstanding books, and we get them to a course that's on intimacy, sensuality, and it helps you to take a little test to find out where are you and where is your partner, and how do you bridge that. And his name is David Deida. D-E-I-D-A. And I highly recommend him. So you might want to check that out.

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This session continues on the next CD.

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