clc day 7

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Welcome back. Can you believe we're already on session number seven? Today is going to be a great day and a great session. You know what I'm going to ask: Have you done your assignment? Please tell me you did. You know, when I work with my clients, I always tell them, "You get out in direct proportion to what you put in." So, if you're really committed when you practice your assignments, you get a lot out of it. There's a huge difference between the people that really show their commitment when they do their assignments, and they do that fully, and they do it over and over again to really make sure that it sticks, and someone that just says, "Okay, well, let me just go and check the box so then Andy's not going to blame me and ask me to turn the audio off." So I hope you're super committed, you've done your assignments with all your energy, and you're ready to move on. So let's rock!

I am so excited about today because we're going to talk about step number five of the seven master steps: Creating Empowering Alternatives. This is a really fun step, you'll see. Now, a key principle of this program is that you can't just stop doing something; you have to start doing something else. If you're going to change someone's behavior, their thought process, you've got to interrupt the old pattern, and you've got to give them something new that meets the same needs. Creating new alternatives empowers a person to find all the options that are available, thus creating multiple ways to meet their needs. There are unlimited alternatives found within a person's imagination, creativity, and history that can be used to create new physiologies, focuses, questions, language, beliefs, and ultimately meanings.

In today's session, you will learn about vehicle analysis, which simply means: What ways are people meeting their six human needs? Are they meeting their needs in a way that's empowering, disempowering, or neutral? You will learn how to help a person look at their vehicles and find better ways to meet their needs. I find this session one of the most exciting of all because you'll see that it's going to be one of the most interactive sessions of the whole program. So, are you ready to get started? Let's go!

How are you ever going to win a game when you don't know the goal? You can't. You don't know what the purpose of the game is, you don't know the goal of the game. So there's no real way to win. So you kind of like, you try to go where you think the game might be going, you try to figure it out while it's happening, but it's kind of tough. And when people try to figure it out, it doesn't work over and over again. Many times they say, "There is no purpose of the game, it just is." And then they lose a sense of meaning and drive, and they're unfulfilled, and there is no quality of life. So then what they try to do is distract themselves, make themselves feel good in the moment by drugs or alcohol or food or television, something to take them out of the fact that they have no sense of meaning in their life.

You can't have a sense of meaning unless you have a sense of what the purpose of the game is, what the goal is. Very few people have a clear idea of the goal. You're about to know exactly what the goal of the game is, precisely for every one of you. And then over the next few days, you'll be able to refine it with new language that excites you more, that you can kind of say, "This is my specific one." But it will lead to the same set of targets that are built into your nervous system that your creator gave you. Now, how you go about achieving these particular goals is totally unique, just like playing any game. There's so many moves, so many approaches, and that's part of the fabric of your life, the way you approach it, all the different ways you do things. But the goal will be absolute, and you will know what the goal is for the rest of your life. You'll have the holy grail of what does it really take for you to feel a sense of meaning and certainty and variety and excitement and passion, all those things in your life, all at once. From this day forward, you will know. And whether you do it or not will be your choice, but you'll know. You'll never be in a position that 99.99999% of the population is: "I'm not getting a clue what the purpose of the game is." That's very frustrating.

Now we're going to learn, once and for all, what is the purpose of the game. Everyone here will have their own way of meeting that purpose, but there's an ultimate outcome you must meet for you to win the game. It's actually a series of outcomes. There's six ways to score. Once you score in those six ways consistently, you will feel fulfilled. The good news is, you can score in this game a million ways. You can write your own rules, as long as in the long term, the rules you create cause you to grow and contribute, cause you to do things that are not only feeling good, but are good for you, good for others, and serve the greater good. You can win this game. Those are the only real rules. It really, it feels good for you in the long term. Hopefully, it may not feel good in the short term, but most importantly, it's good for you, it's good for others, and it serves the greater good.

There are six human needs. They are human needs. They are not desires. They are not based on cultural conditioning. They are not based on how you were brought up. These are the needs that every human being on the face of the earth needs to fulfill in order to win the game of life, called feel the experience of fulfillment. And to meet a need, we use what we call vehicles. We have many different vehicles we may use to try and meet this need. Some of your vehicles are destructive. Some of your vehicles are kind of neutral. You know, it's not bad, it's not good, it just is. And some are vehicles are totally empowering. The goal of life is not only to meet your needs, but to meet your needs in a way that empowers you and everyone around you. Then you have something of real value. We all figure out models of how to meet our needs, vehicles, okay?

So now, let me tell you, there are four classes of human experience that can get to any one of these needs. Which class of experience you choose, which vehicle type of vehicle you choose, will determine your real fulfillment long term. Let me give them to you.

Class one experience. What's a class one experience? I'll give you a metaphor. Last year, I'm running. I'm in Palm Springs, California. I have a home out there, and we had Date With Destiny there. So right before Date With Destiny, I go on this run. Now, I used to really not enjoy running. In fact, I used to hate running. I felt my back was all messed up, and I just didn't enjoy it at all. And here I'm on this run, and as I'm on the run, I'm listening to this music, I'm looking at these mountains, it's a sunny, beautiful day. I am feeling so good, and I'm running, and I am in ecstasy. My focus is great, the meanings I've been testing is great, right? My physiology is great. I'm in pure, total, absolute ecstasy. And as I'm running, I thought to myself, "Wow, I used to hate this." And it really struck me. I thought, "You know, this is really an amazing experience." I said, "I really am enjoying this. This is really pleasurable. This feels good." And you know what else? It's also good for me. But that's a really great experience. Lots of things feel good, but they're not good for you. I thought, "You know what else? It's also good for others." Because I'm doing this, I'm going to go deliver to others at a whole different level of quality. And I also thought, "You know, this serves the greater good." I said, "What would I call this?" This is a class one experience.

A class one experience has four criteria: It feels good. Number two, it is good for you. Number three, it's good for others, because in this state, you serve others, support others, or impact others in a good way. So it's good for others. And number four, it serves the greater good. If I become stronger, healthier, more vital, not only do I feel good, not only is it good for me, but now I treat other people better because I'm in a better place, I'm more effective, I'm more potent. And most importantly, as I impact them, they'll impact other people. It affects the greater good. When you drop a stone in a pond, does it end when the rock hits the water? Yes or no? No, there's that processional effect, right? So that's a class one experience.

So now, here's what's interesting. There's another way to try and meet your needs called class two. What's a class two experience? A class two has four criteria. They're very similar, with one exception. The first one: A class two experience is something that does not feel good. Does not feel good. But number two, it is good for you. Doesn't feel good, but it is good for you. Thirdly, it does serve others. It's good for others. Even though it doesn't feel good for you in the moment, it's good for you, and it's good for others. And most importantly, fourthly, it also serves the greater good. So, what's class two? Does not feel good, but is good for you, is good for others, serves the greater good.

Now, here's a key question: Running for me used to be a class two experience. It didn't feel good, but it was good for me. It was good for others, to serve the greater good. But I realized in that moment, I had converted to a class one. And that's a transformation in the quality of your life. Part of the secret life, let me tell you the secret to life and fulfillment is turning class two experiences into class one. There's the secret. The secret is not to only do class one things, because with that, there's no growth. You follow me on that? If it already feels good, it's good, there's no real growth in that. I should say, little growth. But when it doesn't feel good, but you get yourself to do it anyway, because it really is good for you, others, and the greater good, that's when you get the ultimate gift in life of growth. That's when you become more. And I'm going to show you how to do this so easily, it's going to blow your mind. We can take a class two and make a class one, like that. Or those of you who are going to these other classes, about to hit on you, you can wipe them out completely. So if you want to really be fulfilled, you must do it with a class two vehicle or class one vehicle. Can I use that abbreviation? Now you know what I mean? Yes.

Okay, so now let's talk about a class three experience. I bet you can guess what it is. What's a class three? It's something that feels good. But number two, it is not good for you. It feels good, but it is not good for you. And it is not good for others. And it does not serve the greater good. That's a class three experience, which is where most people live, and that's why they're unfulfilled. So, class three is something that feels good, it's not good for you, it's not good for others, does not serve the greater good. So why would you do it? Because you want to feel good, and it's an instant way, usually, to feel good. Okay, really critical: Class three experiences destroy the quality of your life. How many of you have some class three vehicles you currently use, and you know it, and they must be taken out of your life for your life to move to the next level? We're going to change them. And the way we're going to change them is, you can't take away something, you must replace it with something that's more fulfilling. We're going to show you the vehicle tonight and how to do that.

Class four. What's a class four experience? You can guess what it is. It's something that does not feel good, and is not good for you, and is not good for others, and does not serve the greater good. So why in the heck would you do it? If it doesn't feel good, and it's not good for you, and it's not good for others, and it doesn't serve the greater good, why in the heck would you do this? Because it's habitual, and you've done it so long that now you do it just for the certainty. Even though it's lousy, at least you know what lousy feeling you're going to have, and you know how to deal with that lousy feeling. It literally meets your needs on a low level, a three, four, five range, to do that. It's another way to meet them. Really bad no-man's-land.

So what we want to look at is not only what our needs are, but what are the classes of experience of doing that. So, developing a negative identity and calling yourself a procrastinator. What class of experience is calling yourself a procrastinator? Just accepting that. What class would that be? One, two, three, or four? It depends on the person. For some people, it's three. It's almost like, "I'm unique, I'm a procrastinator." For somebody, most people's four. It doesn't feel good, but at least it makes them feel comfortable in the moment. Where would you put developing a belief that no matter what happens, you will find a way because you're so committed, or a trust or faith in God? Where would you put that? Then, "No matter what happens, I'm guided in some way, that everything serves you." That belief system as a vehicle of certainty. How often would that work? If it's absolutely, "No matter what happens, I'll find a way," or "I'm guided," or "I benefit from whatever shows up in my life." That kind of belief. How often would you feel certain without belief? As often as you used it as an incantation, and not just a past thought process. As often as you said it to yourself and reignited that belief so you really felt certain all the time. Is that a class one, two, three, or four? Class one: feels good, it's good for you, it's good for others, serves the greater good, and is totally certain to deliver. You see how that would be more effective than creating a lower identity?

How about in relationships? I never forget, the first time I went to the South of France, this woman says to me, and she said, "I have a question for you." "What's that?" She said, "How come men are such bastards?" I said, "Well, what do you mean by that?" She said, "Well, you know, they're just bastards, I tell you." She goes, "The men that are really nice, for example, they're very nice, and you really like them, but then they're so dumb, boring." She goes, "Pretty soon, you have to leave them." Then you find the exciting men. Oh, they're amazing. You never know what they're going to do next. But that's the problem, they're bastards. You really never know what they're doing next. So then you get sick of them. So you go back to those other ones. But then you got bored again. So then you go to the exciting ones. She goes, "I don't know, they make me crazy. Men are just bastards." What's her problem? She is trying to meet one need or the other through a relationship. She's either trying to get that certainty or she's trying to get that uncertainty, variety, surprise. And what happens is, in relationships, like anything, like career, like business, like anything else, you will not be happy with only one of these. And the secret is, most people zero in on the one they don't think they have, and they get that at the expense of the other one, and then they're crazy. So they spend their whole life wondering why they're never fulfilled, right?

So when you don't feel like you win the game, you go for a quick state change. You go for a class three experience, don't you? What's the class three way or class four way of getting variety? By the way, variety means it changes your what? State. So tell me, a class three or four way that would absolutely give you a sense of uncertainty, a sense of variety, would change your physiology, change your state? Drugs. Do drugs absolutely guarantee, virtually most of them, that they're going to change your state? Yes or no? Most of them. Is it instantaneous? Absolutely. It'll give you variety. Here you are, all stressed out, you take a drug, almost when you relax. Take a drug, also you're speeded up, right? You're gonna take a drug, suddenly you love everybody. Before you could love anyone to feel, but now you feel connected to God instantaneously. So guess what happens? Drug, though, is a class what? One, two, three, or four? Four. Now, it's three for some people, depends on the drugs. Some of you said four, that's good, because that's probably why you don't do them. A lot of people's class three: feels good, not good for them, not good for the others, not the greater good. It doesn't feel good long term, but people get addicted to it because it gives them variety, and it also gives them certainty that they can be comfortable. Some of those drugs. So now they have found one vehicle, they need both simultaneously at high levels in their mind, like, "Man, this gets me up there in that seven, eight, nine, ten range." Now they have an addiction. An addiction is nothing but a vehicle that you perceive meets more than one of your needs at a high level of fulfillment. A class three or four can give you level tens in both of these areas, but at the expense of the long-term quality of your life.

Okay, so what happens for people is they get addicted. Well, what happens in a relationship? Let's go to that context for a moment. So somebody's in a relationship, they get somebody they really love them, and they get a relationship, and then after a while, it gets so predictable. They know what they're going to do, how they're going to do it, when they're going to do it. Now they have certainty, but they're what? Bored. They've satiated this need. So now what they do, they go get divorced, or they go cheat and go to somebody else. Let's just cheating in this example, okay? They cheat on somebody else. Why might he be doing this? Why hasn't he left her? Because probably she has a great deal of certainty in his life, certainty about his identity, probably very comfortable with her, potentially, or certain that leaving her would equal pain, right? Certain amount of certainty here. But at the same time, why is he with this woman? Probably many reasons, but one reason is she provides this spark that he doesn't have of uncertainty. It triggers him. But why doesn't he have her? Because he still wants the certainty. So he's got two different vehicles to meet these needs instead of one vehicle to meet both. How many follow now?

Some people will get divorced now, and then they'll go after someone else. So they'll be very excited about. Initially, excitement comes from uncertainty. And then pretty soon, they'll be working to get the certainty. They got the excitement of going, "I want to marry you," or "I want to be with, I want to live with you, I want, I want certainty. I can have these good feelings all the time." And they'll get here, and then very often they'll go back to the same cycle again. That's why people are second, third, fourth marriages or relationships of the week, right? You get the idea. It's all driven by this need. This is happening in people's careers. They do something, boy, they're all juiced about it because it's new, and it's unique, and it's different, it's challenging. And then they allow themselves to get caught up in the day-to-day and not appreciate its uniqueness, just like they don't appreciate their partner's uniqueness. Pretty soon, they get bored. They look for something else. They keep running a cycle, never fulfilled, because now they got this one, and they don't have this one. Is there a way to meet both these simultaneously? Yes or no? Yes. Are there ways of doing it that are class two initially and eventually become class one or class one-wise? Yes or no? Absolutely.

So what are some of the ways you can get surprise, uncertainty, variety in your life in a good way? What are some bad ways? For some neutral legs? Well, some simple ones. Bad ways: simple drugs, alcohol, food. Can food give you variety and certainty? Oh my God, no wonder I like food so much. I can instantly have both those things without any effort. All I can do is stuff my face, and it's available anywhere, and there's ads everywhere going, "Aren't you hungry? Aren't you hungry? Aren't you hungry?" Constant stimulation, constantly in front of you, constantly being teached to allow yourself not to be hungry, to immediately take away that drive inside of yourself, shut it down, and relax so you don't get the higher levels of fulfillment. What's another way we can get this sense of variety? You can pick a fight. Your relationship's going too well, too predictable. Pick a fight. You got some variety now. All of a sudden, there's this drama, there's excitement, there's unpredictability. What's some positive ways? Take on a new challenge. Learn something. Grow. A stimulating conversation. Can that create variety? Yes or no? Absolutely. This environment, many of you came for the variety, stimulation, the ideas, the distinctions. What will stimulate you? Think of a new way. Give you some new variety in your life as well. Some more certainty that you can have control of your life, right? Have more pleasure, less pain. Okay, so that's another way of doing.

What's another way to do it? You can develop variety really in a very simple way of changing how you focus on things. For example, right now, there are millions of things that you can focus on in this room. Millions. Clothing, imagery, sounds, the blood pulsing through your left eardrum that you didn't think of until I mentioned it. There's unlimited variety with you sitting still in this moment. There's unlimited variety if you change your level or chunking of focus. But most people have very limited language and beliefs to tell them, "There's only so many things. I already know this. I've already seen this. I've been to this room." So they don't feel very fulfilled. Okay, remember, anything people do, they do it for a what? Reason. And the reason is to meet one or more of these needs. Now, what are some of the ways? What are some of the vehicles that we can have to meet this need for a feeling of significance? Give me some class three or class four ways of feeling this sense of significance. Getting in a fistfight. Is that a way a person could start to feel significant? Yes or no? Not only would it make them feel significant, what do they need might it meet? You got three needs now. What the need might it meet? Uncertainty/variety. They're frustrated, bored. Pick a fight. Suddenly, man, they're in it. Their whole body changes. They deal with this. The adrenaline pumps. They feel excited, and they're significant. They're gonna prove they're significant. That's what most wars or fights are about. But that's a class three or four way because it may feel good in the moment, but it doesn't feel good, it's not good for you, and a good brother is not good long term, or it may not even feel good in the moment, right?

Being a member of a gang. You become a Blood or a Crip. You put on that jacket, and you were instantly what? Significant. Plus, you've got some weather in your life now, some certainty, because you got these other people that are on your side. So we start to put these needs together. But why would somebody be in a gang? Well, certainty is pretty high. They also have some variety. You lived in the hood of L.A., and you're bored out of your mind, and now you got an adventure on your hands. Somebody drops off just because you're wearing that, kicks your butt. Other people give you things because you're wearing that. So you're going to feel significant. But also, any moments, "I'm going to drive by and shoot at you." You got some uncertainty, excitement. Your life has got some adrenaline going. Pretty downside, but it's got adrenaline. So you got all three of these being met. So you say, "Well, don't join a gang." Someone who associates these are three ways to meet it. Why wouldn't they join a gang? And there's another need. It needs to do in a moment. You'll see what else.

What are some kind of neutral ways? Right? Neutral ways that people try and get significant. The way they dress. Clothing gives them a sense of uniqueness. Very often. What are some other kind of neutral ways? Eating disorders. How does an eating disorder? Can that make you feel significant? Yes, because you're bulimic, you're somebody, you've arrived. You don't just have a normal life, you've got tons of variety, tons of drama, and it's a significant problem. You know, your life is where it is because you got real problems, not some little piddly thing, right? You're a manic depressive. Now you know why you're so screwed up. What does that do? Now you're certain it's not your fault. That really helps, right? It's not you. Secondly, you understand why you have this unlimited level of variety that sometimes makes you crazy. But also, it's a real significant problem. People absolutely get a certain level, not a level 10, but a three to five range by having a problem that they have a name for that is significant. It's a downside. That's a class three, class four.

What are some other ways? Being a groupie by attaching yourself to someone else who is seen as significant. Now you're significant too. Living in the right part of town. So people use money, people use degrees as a way of feeling unique and significant. That one could even be positive, right? Because in order to get the degree, what do they have to do? They have to grow. They have to challenge themselves. They have to become more. Now they have skills that maybe they help other people with. So you might say, "Well, that's kind of shallow." Maybe it's shallow, but the process of doing it probably is a class two or class one experience, because really, it'll probably serve the greater good, serve a lot of people, probably serve them too, to go through that process. Or building a business, or for example, earning money. Someone's gonna earn money, they have to add value to society in some way. So the pursuit of that. Now, some people look at that as the primary way, so they miss better ways and richer ways to meet other needs. So they're imbalanced.

What are some other ways we can do it? We can do it by being givers. If you're always being a giver situation, you're being unique, you're being significant. Or if you're extraordinary in your level of compassion, that gives you a sense of uniqueness. Or you can develop a specific skill set that is very rare, and that makes you unique, right? Gives you a sense of influence and power too. That may also give you a sense of certainty. Those skills may give you variety. So all of a sudden, you may discover ways to meet many of these needs simultaneously. You can tear other people down. How about violence? Someone doesn't know you, bam, you stick a gun in their face. You are instantly significant. True or false? And it requires no effort, no intelligence, and it gives you immediate reward. Class what? Class four. For society, might feel like a class three for that person, because that gives them a sense of power, certainty, gives them a sense of significance. Say, "Why would someone be violent?" Because it meets their needs. It's a terrible vehicle, but it meets their needs. Remember I said everything people do, they do to meet their needs. And once you know that, you can show them how to meet their needs in a better way. And when they find a better way that's even more fulfilling, they'll drop the old one. You can't get someone to stop doing something that meets their needs, you must get them to do something else that meets their needs better. And you've got to link pains to the old behavior.

What else? Negative identity. Having a disease or disorder. Material possessions. Academic degrees. Accomplishments. The style in which you deal with things. Your intellect. Your language patterns. Having children. Is that a way to feel significant? Very, very importantly. Class ones? Well, for some people, I guess. Class two way. Having kids, all of a sudden, is one of the most significant things in your life. What else? Growing levels of caring.

Now, here's the challenge: If you are going to be totally significant, to be significant, you have to be unique. To be unique, you have to be different. This creates another paradox, another conflict, because to be different, you have to be separate. And to be separate, violate your fourth human need: the need for a feeling of connection, connection and love. We all, all need, not just desire, not just want, need feeling of connection and love. Now, again, we can get low levels of fulfillment on connection and love, and we can do that by doing some things that are actually destructive. For example, can people get sick as a vehicle for getting a sense of connection, love from the people around them? Yes or no? Now, what would that be? Class what? Class four. Clearly, that doesn't feel good, even. But out of the desire for love, they'll even do that, right? Will people join a gang to get connection and love? Also, yes or no? So now, what does a gang do? Got connection and love. Got a sense of significance from that gang. Got tremendous variety, and I got more certainty. And you say, "Just say no." Is that going to have any impact on somebody who associates that? No way. It means for their most fundamental needs, but it will not fulfill them long term. And I'll show you why in a moment.

Okay, so I was talking to this woman the other day, as a friend of mine, a couple. And man, I've known for many years, one of the most brilliant people in the business world that I know, genius level. And I've always seen him. We spend usually the July 4th weekend together, and we'll usually spend Christmas time together for a week. And there's a group of us. This man looks like the greatest father. And I was complimenting her, saying, "God, he's such a great dad." And she said, "Tony, honestly, that's my biggest problem with it." I said, "What?" Because he's a terrible dad. He never spends any time with the kids. I said, "You're kidding me." She said, "No." I said, "Wow, I didn't have that impression at all." So she said, "I don't understand how to get him to actually follow through and spend time with these kids." So I sat down with him. I went through these six needs. I explained to him. I said, "How much certainty do you have that being with your boys will give you comfort, pleasure?" He said, "Right now." I said, "Yeah, right now." He said, "Well, you know, they're young." I said, "Yeah, I know. Who are they?" He was, "Well, you know, because one was like at one years old, almost three." He said, "Well, certainly, I can be comfortable at pleasure." He said, "A five." You know, "Sometimes it's a seven or eight. But you know, they like to go watch the same cartoon 15 times. They laugh at the same thing." By the way, how come kids can watch the same thing over and over again like that and enjoy it? Because they don't chunk like adults do. They see uniqueness every time. Adults have become weak-willed and habitual. They no longer use their nervous system. We do the same thing overnight. "Got the same thing. Oh, it's the same." We give ourselves the incantation, "It's the same. I already know this." And we shut off our brain. So we're unhappy. Kids go, "Wow, here it comes, something I know, and it'll be totally different because I'm different, and I'm gonna find some, I'll see something different, I'll ask some people, I'll think something different." That's why kids can be totally entertained until they learn how to be like adults. So adults teach them how to be bored, right?

So the bottom line is, he says, "Yeah, probably five." So I said, "What about variety?" He said, "Well, honestly, there's not much I can do with them. I can't really talk to them. They don't really understand me yet." He said, "They want to watch cartoons." He said, "You know, probably a three." How about significance? "Oh, that, that's a seven or eight. Sometimes a ten. Overall, seven or eight. I'm your father, so that's great." How about connection, love? He goes, "Well, you know, seven or eight. Sometimes ten. But you know, a lot of times they don't. You know, they're into other things." How about the next two? And I went through the next two, they were all low level. He was basically in that five to six, seven range. So he really enjoyed them, spend time with him. But then I said, "Tell me about your work." "What's your certainty that your work, or he's the best in the world at that, you want to scale them?" Zero to ten. "I'll be certain you'll have pleasure, to be comfortable." He said, "Are you kidding me? Twenty." On a zero to ten scale. I said, "What about variety?" "Variety, every situation is different. Everything I deal with, every deal is different. Every person's different. Every sitch, I got to come up with different ideas." He said, "Ten to twenty." I said, "Significance." He goes, "Honestly, it sounds egotistical. I know there's no one better. I show up, I have an impact." He said, "Twenty." I said, "Okay, well, what about connection?" "Connection, I love all the people I work with." Said, "Fifteen, twenty." I said, "What about the other two?" "Ten, twenty." I said, "Well, it's not too hard to figure out why this man puts all his time and energy at work and doesn't do it with his children." Because under his current perception and his current strategy of doing things, his procedure, he does not feel as fulfilled as he could. Could he have all level tens with those children? Yes or no? But he'd have to notice something different. He would have to change his perceptual strategy. And the way to change your perception is to change one of three things. We call it NAB: What you Notice, A what you Appreciate, or B what you Believe.

So you can go the same situation that you didn't enjoy before, and just by changing your perception, for example, could you feel something as really insignificant and then make it significant? Just by changing what you notice about it, what you appreciate, or you decide to believe about it. Yes or no? How fast could you change that? In a heartbeat. How many of you have things you used to hate to do that you began to appreciate something else about and started really enjoying it? So anything, anything you do, any vehicle can meet all six of these needs. Anyone, if you adopt an effective perception or procedure. And I'll explain what that means in a moment. Perception or procedure strategy. Basically, there's a strategy where you would truly be fulfilled doing anything. So the question you have to ask yourself is: Does this vehicle serve me long term to meet my final two needs? It's about to give you. Okay, does it really serve me? Will it really make me a better person? Is it a class one or two, as opposed to three or four? Would being with his kids be a class one, two, three, or four? Which one would you say it would probably be for his life right now? Probably a class two for him. But would that be really good for his life? Good for his kids? Yes, it absolutely would be. Because he learned to take what feels a little uncomfortable because it's different, because he's not as good with kids as he is with adults. It'd be great for his life. He may not feel good in the moment, but it really will be fulfilling long-term for him.

Okay, are there some things though that you could become positively addicted to because they're totally fulfilling, that would be totally good for you and others and the greater good? Yes or no? It's not, "Can you be fulfilled?" If you've got to pick the way to be fulfilled, so it gives you a high level of fulfillment and serves you long term, that's the game. Our game here is not how to make you happy. That's the easiest thing on earth. Change your physiology, develop a new pattern. And my goal is for you to leave here for the rest of your life with the richest quality of life you ever dreamed of, because you consciously have designed your life instead of just falling into whatever pattern is offered.

Now, by the way, my friend there is a pattern of language, physiology, and beliefs that causes you to seek out some of these particular vehicles. Okay? So the situation that occurs for us is that we can meet all of these needs, but we've got to make sure we do it in a way that really supports us long term. In order to do that, we're going to have to develop a set of emotions that will consistently cause us to pick vehicles that really make us happy long term. And to do that, we're going to need to change our patterns of life, physiology, what else? Language and belief. Everything you experience, consume, view, listen, consider, or do is all driven by your unconscious belief about how it's going to affect your six human needs. This is the driving force of every thought, feeling, and emotion you have. The distinction is, you have a set of beliefs, a set of physiologies, and a set of language patterns that determine whether or not you think someone is going to meet your needs or something is going to meet your needs. If you change that pattern, you can meet all six of these needs with literally anything, and that's how you're fulfilled all the time.

And becoming more. Then the secret is to pick those things to meet your needs that meet all of your needs. And that's why I will finally clarify: these first four needs are called the fundamental needs. Right? These are the fundamental needs. These fundamental needs need to be met. But the final two are called the primary or essential needs. Whether or not you meet the final two determines whether you're really fulfilled. And how you approach the first four will determine whether you meet these final two. And final two are: Number five is growth, and number six is contribution. What does that mean? We said a little bit earlier, every human being, everything alive, is not a desire, this is a force of nature. Everything that lives to live must what? Grow. For you to be fulfilled, you must grow. Period. It's not a should, it's not "I'd like to grow," or "be really neat if I grew." You must be fulfilled. You can have a lot of certainty in your life, a lot of variety, less significance, a lot of connection. If you don't feel like you're growing, you will not be totally fulfilled. And how many have found, for example, you achieved a goal that gave you all these things, right? Everybody saw you was significant, they were really loved what you did, who you were, you got lots of variety of life, lots of certainty. But there's still something missing. How many of you ever experienced that? What was missing is growth and or contribution. That's what it is.

Why does somebody like Kurt Cobain take his life? He had total certainty. He could do whatever he wanted. Less his life, his writings made that very clear. He had unbelievable variety, and he did it. Lots of negative ways, the drugs, that was the way to do it. Used some negative vehicles. Across him, he was totally significant to a hundred thousands, by millions of people. His level of connection, love was immense with millions of people. But he didn't feel like he was growing. And inside, it ate away at him. And when he didn't feel like he was growing, all of a sudden that eroded his sense of connection, even, and his sense of certainty about the value of his life, and his sense of significance. So he took his life. You must meet these final ones to be fulfilled, or you will pay a price. When you use drugs to be certain that you can have variety, and you go around other people who you're significant with because you're buying the drugs, and it connects you, even if it keeps it at tens up here, which it rarely does, you don't feel like you're growing. You don't really feel like you're contributing. And so it erodes inside of you. So you feel better than most people do, and you feel better than you did when you had this other belief that said you had to help everybody and change the world. You don't feel alone and worthless. You just feel like there's something missing. That's the most important thing in the world to you. For example, join a gang. What do you got? Connection, love, significance, variety, certainty. Growth? A little. That's part of the problem. It meets that need too, but maybe not tons. Contribution? A little. Pretty hard to break that, isn't it? To meet most of your needs. But most class three and fours have to do a little on these last two. The point of the matter is, you must grow to be fulfilled. You must grow as a being. Everything life grows or dies. And everything must contribute beyond yourself. You have to do something that you aren't doing for your own benefit. You're doing it because it's good or right. That's the ultimate fulfillment. You're not just doing it to get some certainty or to get people feel like they're significant or for you to feel significant about yourself. You're doing it because it's good.

How many of you have ever done something that you didn't tell anybody you did it? No one knew about it, and it may even have been difficult, but you did it just because you knew it was right, and it felt so good inside? See, you are driven. It's built into your nervous system to do the right thing, and you know what that is. So you've got to grow. You've got to go beyond yourself. You've got to give. When these two are met, along with the other four, you have a life that everybody else dreams about. What I would call a legendary life. But again, most people never get to a legendary life because they find ways to meet these at low levels of fulfillment, and they lose their hunger. And as a result, they have to settle for a no-man's-land life. Not really happy, not really unhappy, enough living with class three, class four experiences, and maybe a few class one and twos, never quite sure why they just don't have what they want. Searching for another answer, or maybe not searching anymore, just numbing themselves away from the pain of the lack of fulfillment through just knocking the physiology in a state with a drug or alcohol or food or smoking or distraction, something to numb them from the fact that they don't know how to win the game of life.

So if these are the targets to win the game, what prevents us from doing this? And the answer I've said 15 times because I want to make sure it's drilled in your brain: the answer is a pattern of physiology, a pattern of language, and a pattern of beliefs. Could a person attack that same situation and be more fulfilled? Yes. Let me give you a quick example. Think of something you love to do. Love to do. I mean something that you could do ten hours a day, eight hours a day, whatever number of hours, but you can like do it a lot and still love it. I mean, really, really love this activity. Juices you. Breathe the way you breathe when you're doing that. Put the look on your face like you do when you're taking in that particular activity. Okay. And by the way, is this different than where you were a moment ago in your physiology? Yes or no? Yes. What do you say out loud to yourself when you're in this state? So now you're changing more of the physiology and some are using language. And what do you believe when you're doing this? What do you believe that makes you feel like? What's your belief? What are you certain it's going to make you feel like?

Now, let me ask you a question: This is probably pretty effortless for you, right? Think about this for a moment. Do other people find this situation that you selected difficult? Some things? No. Some things you'd say, "No, everybody likes it." Is X, but how many have something you love to do that other people don't like to do, and they even say, "How could you do that? How could you be so disciplined? Or how could you get yourself to do that?" And you go, "I just love it." How do we have something like that in your life? Great. I'm about to show you something that's so simple, you can use this to rest your life. Let me point this out. Think of this thing you love to do, and tell me on a scale from zero to...

10. What's your level of certainty? That'll make you feel comfortable, make you feel good versus pain. All right. So, as Tony just said, think of an activity that you love to do. And what I want you to do in a second is pause the audio, write down this activity, and then go through each of the six human needs and rate the level at which this activity meets each of those needs on a scale of one to ten. If you're in the car, I want you to think about this and write it down later. So, think of an activity you really deeply love and rate the level at which it meets each of your needs. Let's go. Pause the audio now.

How many of you rated all six of these in this category in a range of eight or above? Raise your hand. Keep your hands up. Look around the room. That's why you love it. Now, some of you did not rate all of an eight or above, but how many would say that four of the six you rated eight or above? That'll get the balance of you. Now, anything that meets three or four of these needs, you're gonna have a major drive for. Anything that needs all of them at high levels, like seven or above, especially those are eight, nine, or ten or above, you're gonna find effortless.

Now, think of something you need to get yourself to do, but you just don't do it. You know you should, right? You know how important it should be, but it doesn't. You know, somehow you don't make it important. You want to do it, sort of, but you just don't follow through. Better, I think it's something you hate to do. You'd much rather hire somebody else to do it. You put it off whenever you can, and you absolutely detest it. Or something you just prefer not to do. The more intense the better. Let's rate it.

Okay, so just like we did for the activity you love, this time think of an activity that you hate to do and rate the level at which it meets each of your needs on a scale of one to ten. You know what to do. So, pause the audio.

What have we learned? If there's something that you love to do, it's because you associate it meeting most of your needs. And if it's something you avoid, it's because you currently associate that it violates most your needs. You look at anybody who's a peak performer in anything, and only between them and other people is they work harder because they love it because they have developed a set of beliefs. They notice, appreciate, or believe something about that you're not noticing, appreciating, or believing. Or they have a strategy for doing it that's different.

Let me give you an example. Man, I know I talked to him, and he was massively overweight. He's a good friend of me. I like him a lot. I never push what I do on anybody, but I finally decided for his health, as a friend, I had to intervene. So, I went to him and I said, "Listen," I said, "uh, let me talk to you soon. I said, I want to teach you something." I taught this little technique. And I said, "Tell me something. What he loved you most in the face of the earth?" Guess what he said? "Eat."

I said, "No kidding." I said, "Okay. Skeleton, zero to ten. What's your level of certainty that eating will give you pleasure?" He said, "Level 15." He said, "Oh, give me pleasure? Me? Total comfort. If I'm stressed and I eat lamb, I feel great. It's so wonderful. Such a gift in my life."

"That's okay. What's your sense of variety from eating?" I like, "You don't, you don't really get variety from eating, do you?" And I really didn't think he would. He said, "Are you kidding? He said, 20. There's so many different foods and so many different places you can eat them. They've been repaired so many different ways." And his eyes lit up, and he got so excited. It was like amazing. I said, "You got to be kidding." He said, "No. If I ain't like you, there'd be no variety. That's why I don't eat like you."

Now, with every behavior, the person has as they try to meet their needs, they tend to have one or two that are really, they're getting the biggest bang for their buck from. Of the two I've said so far, which one you get the bigger hit from, based upon his physiology, would you say? Variety. I said, "What about significance?" Because now, I didn't get significance from eating. And so I thought, "Okay, is he right about that?" I said, "Wait a second, though. You won't even go with me to a salad bar because you're too snooty about it, right? You say it's a pig's trough." He said, "Well, that's because I'm a connoisseur." "A connoisseur? Is that an identity that gives you a sense of what significance?" You go, "Oh, you got me. Okay, a 10." He said, "This. I eat significant food, significantly prepared, in significant places, significant people."

I said, "What about connection, love?" He said, "Oh, 15. Connection and love from food." He said, "No, I just never eat alone. He said, I'm always with people who I really care about. And that's like a time that I'm busy working, I'm all stressed out, but I go, and when I eat, I'm with people I care about, people I work with, people are my friends. It's just a wonderful time breaking bread together, you know." He said, "I love that. 15."

I said, "What about growth?" I said, "That seems to be working." He said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He laughed. He said, "But it is true. But I also," he said, "I grow emotionally and spiritually. He said, "Because when I'm eating, I'm with my friends, and we talk about ideas that really matter, significant ideas, and we grow together." He said, "I give that probably a 10."

I said, "Contribution?" He said, "10. Because when I'm eating, I'm sharing ideas, you know." You know, I probably could have 10 too. So, why does he eat massive amounts on a regular basis? Is he, what I would call, primary vehicle for meeting his needs? Why is it primary? Because it means everything, all six, at a huge level of fulfillment. So, is he going to be driven to that? He would only change if, for some reason, even though it meets many of his needs, it simultaneously was meeting them was costing some. And a person in his life started talking about somebody intimate, and they weren't as attractive to him anymore. And what that provided was a little opening, a little, what we would call, leverage. Because the only way we change is when we link enough what to our current behavior pain, and that changing will equal even more. What? We'll deal with the pain we know because at least we have certainty about it, rather than the unknown, which could be worse. Why would he not stop, though? Well, he might lose a little love, but jeez, it meets everything else. Certainly, there must be some other way than stopping eating to do this, you know? I mean, I can't give up all these things. And so then he goes through a battle. Then he rationalizes. She really doesn't love me. She's not that important to me because if she loved me, she'd accept me the way I am. In order for him to maintain a vehicle that meets all of his needs, because when we go to the list of how she meets his needs, she is not as certain and predictable to feel good all the time as the food is. How many follow? And he wonders why, for some reason, his relationships don't last because he's found a vehicle that he thinks is more fulfilling based on his current belief structure. How many follow?

So, I said, "Well, tell me something you hate to do." "That's easy. Exercise." What a wonderful combination, right? So, eating, math numbers of food, by the way, excess food, class one, two, three, or four. Three feels good in the moment, right? Is it good for him? Good for others? The greater good? No. Just class three. So, where he is, is not going to change because he's got a class three that fulfills him, but it really doesn't make him grow long-term and contribute long-term. He won't feel fulfilled long-term. He'll feel bad, and inevitably, it'll affect his relationships. Inevitably, it'll cost him connection, won't it? It'll cost some significance because inside, when he's honest with himself, he doesn't feel significant when he can't even control his own body and his own eating. So, it's only for the moment it meets those needs, not long-term. See, class one experiences and class two will meet these needs long-term, not just for the moment. That's the power of those particular classes of experience.

Okay, so I said, "Well, tell me about exercise." "Zero to ten. What's your certainty that'll be comfortable or pleasurable?" So, "Are you kidding me? Minus twenty." He said, "It's painful. That's why I don't do it." "It's okay. What about variety?" "Variety?" He said, "Variety? Why are you insane? He said, "Getting on that treadmill like some sweaty rat going nowhere like an idiot for an hour." Now, do those language patterns maybe affect his belief and his ability to maybe feel fulfilled in variety level? And he's got a lot of emotional intensity about it and physiology about it. He said, "There's no variety." "Minus 30." "Minus 30." "It's a 30." "We're only zero to 10 scale because, trust me, it's minus 30."

Now, think about it. What was the greatest reward of the six needs that he got out of the food? Which was the biggest one? What's the one that cost him the most on the exercise scale so far? Variety. And tell you long-term variety. I said, "What about the sense of significance?" Is that going to be significant when you're a sweaty rat going on this treadmill? He's using a language pattern called a metaphor that makes it much worse than it is. In fact, takes something that's really good, makes it bad. Where's that? "-10." Connection, love? "Zero." Growth? "If I were to do it, a two." Contribution? "I guess I'd be contributing one."

Now, is it too hard to figure out how to predict his behavior? So, you come along and say, "Let's have you go on a diet." What are you really saying to him? "Let's have you find, take away the only way you know how to be totally fulfilled instantaneously on all levels at the ultimate level, and let's replace it with pain." Is he going to do it? And saying, "By the way, while you're in the diet, let's exercise you. Let's move your minus 20."

So, you say, "Tony, so what do we do?" The first step to creating a change is getting an awareness. What I've spent this afternoon with you doing is starting your awareness so you can start to say, "I know why I'm doing this. I can figure it out. There's only six reasons I'm doing it. What's the level of fulfillment of getting each of these, zero to 10?" And you're going to know why you're doing anything. Listen, think about it. When you have one vehicle for fulfillment, you live in fear because what happens if that relationship disappears? Then your life disappears. What happens if your identity is, "You're the CEO of this company," and by that you get significance, and that gives you certainty, and by that you have connection and love with everybody, and by that you have variety, by that you grow and contribute, and then the company goes under, downsizes, right-sizes, or someone else buys the company? You lost your identity. It's over.

Let me tell you something. The only way to be fulfilled long-term is to have multiple vehicles for fulfillment. You have to have multiple identities. Today, in the world we live in, if you want to have certainty, you can't just be a mom only because there'll be a day when your definition of mom will not be met by the rules you have now because your kids grow up and they leave the house and go, "What happened to my connection? My primary tool for connections, my kids? My primary tool for significance was my kids. My kids being with them provided all this variety. I was certain. I feel good. Before my kids, they're gone." You call them on the phone, it's not the same. Anybody here relate to this? Okay. And so that process, you got to have more than one identity. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up. And that's why people live in fear. And so then they turn to something, drugs, alcohol, food, TV, something else to try and distract them because they're not fulfilling, fulfill long-term. Here, does that make sense?

So, what do you do with this person? You first get some awareness. If you're going to help them, you've got to get the awareness. You can help them. They have to have the awareness. The awareness of the consequences of a particular vehicle, activity, thought. Awareness of consequence is the most important thing, though. Can't just be aware, "I have this belief." You have to get that awareness so it becomes emotional. You start going, "Oh my God, this belief is destroying my life. This pattern of saying this is destroying my life. This body movement I do, I go into on a regular basis, or get this disgusting look at my face. It is destroying the joy of my life." When you then begin to associate massive what to it? Pain. You now have the motivation to change, as long as you also have come up with an alternative one that you feel equally certain will give you the pleasure you desire. Somebody follow that? So, alternatives must be equally fulfilling or more fulfilling than the past ones. And then they must be conditioned.

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So, as Tony said, vehicles are methods a person uses to try to meet their needs, and they can do it in a way that's empowering, disempowering, or neutral. As a leader, you can help someone identify ways they are meeting their needs that are not good for them and find vehicles that can meet the same needs in a more fulfilling way. Tony shared with you that one example of the man who worked long hours at the office as the vehicle to meet all six of his needs, and he was not spending as much time with the kids because his needs weren't getting met at the same level. However, it's possible to create new ways to meet those needs by determining what other things he could do to add to his fulfillment. Tony mentioned one key way is to change your triad: your physiology, language, or beliefs about how a vehicle could meet your needs. With this man, if he changed his perception of how his kids could give him variety, his needs would be met at a higher level. Remember, he said that he got little variety because his children were too young to talk. What if he focused on all the variety they added to his life by noticing the funny things they said or did? Would that most likely add more variety? You can also combine vehicles to make an experience even more fulfilling or pleasurable. Let me give you another example. Let's say you hate cleaning your house, but you love listening to music. One way to enhance your experience of cleaning would be to blast music and just dance around a little bit. Wouldn't that make it more fulfilling? Now that you are aware of how vehicles meet the six human needs, is this something you can help others with to make a difference in their lives and give them new empowering alternatives? We're getting ready to move into our last skill of the day, which is on a separate audio. So, either start the next audio now, or if you want, take a quick stretch and come back to join Tony as he goes to transformational vocabulary.

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This session continues on the next CD.

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Welcome back to the second skill of creating empowering alternatives by using transformational vocabulary. So, let's get started. What I want to do now is get you to focus a little bit, and we're going to focus on a couple of subjects that are very, very simple but very powerful. So, sit up in your chair and put yourself in a focused state. These principles that we're going to talk about here will help you to make changes at such a rapid pace. And the way to make change is so simple that for those of you who have not been exposed to my sharing with you before, without a chance to use it yet, you're gonna have a hard time believing it could really work that easily. But I'm telling you, when I first came up with the distinctions, I didn't believe it either, but it works. Specifically, we're gonna talk about is what I call transformational vocabulary. A lot of research shows that when two people interact, words play the smallest impact on what actually influences how a person feels. What usually influences more of it than words? That's right. Your tonality. And what influences even more? Physiology. There's no doubt that that is true. However, words have unbelievable power. Words by themselves have unbelievable power to move people if you choose the right words. And the words that you're using moment to moment as you live are shaping your destiny. And the reason is, think about it. Throughout history, different people have selected words that have moved us because the right words don't just get us to listen, but the right words will move us to action. See, our country here in the US was formed by a few people who put the right words together, and actions were moved by a few people. And Patrick Henry got up way back when, right? So, I don't know what course others will take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. And he did it with every ounce of congruency in his soul. He moved mass number of people to take action. It wasn't just words. You know, when they got together and put this thing called the Declaration of Independence together, it wasn't just words. Those words represented actions. They were very specific words, words that would move men and women for decades, for centuries. Martin Luther King used words, "I have a dream." John F. Kennedy used words. Words can make us laugh, they can make us cry, they can wound us, and they can heal us. Words can change the way you think, and they can change the way you feel in an instant. And most of us know this, but we don't use it ourselves. We just think about other great leaders and how they use words to move us. We've got to start thinking about ourselves. One word can change your state. Think of a word like chivalry. Does that feel different than being gentlemanly? You better believe it. Or you think of a word like nobility, or integrity, or impeccability. These bring up all kinds of other images and sounds and feelings. Words create a biochemical effect on our body. And so, what we've got to do is become sensitized to the words that we use. Not we're freaked out about them, but where we are very clear that words do have an impact. And what really impacts us are the consistent words that we use. The habitual words that we use are shaping who we are. And here's how and why. First of all, think about it. Every one of us in this room have experiences, but our experiences have to be taken into this funnel called our brain. And as we start to get certain sounds and tonalities, and we hear certain consonants or vowels, and there's certain movements in a person gesturing in their face, all this stuff is coming into your brain right now. And your brain very quickly has to determine, "What is this? What? And what should I do?" So, your brain is constantly creating shortcuts to be able to make that decision more quickly. Because you can decide more quickly, it's likely you can avoid pain more often and you get pleasure more often. So, we as human beings have created a series of ways to make shortcuts to know what things mean, what to do. If every time something happened, you had to search your brain for every other time you saw this imagery, you heard these exact sounds in this exact same way, and you had to search all your references, it would take a long time to decide. So, instead, your brain has developed belief systems. Belief systems are nothing but generalizations. See, when you go out, you come to a door like we have around this room, you don't actually know how to open that door. You generalize. You know how to open that door. You believe you know how to open that door. If every time you went through those doors, you had to search your memory, you see, in a door that was exactly like this, in the exact same way, it would take you forever. But your brain has generalized and says, "If a door looks like that, usually push, pull, turn it sideways, turn it this way," and invariably, it'll open. You've generalized, and that saves you time. So, generalizations sometimes empower, don't they? Sometimes generalizations disempower us, like "love is destructive." See, maybe once you saw something misinterpreted what it meant, and now that becomes your shortcut. And sometimes our shortcuts shortchange us. All beliefs are made up of words. An important distinction: your beliefs are made up of words. If we change one word within the belief system that you have, we will change the belief. One word, because words create a different shade of meaning and emotion and sensation. So, we want to listen to the words that people are using as part of the diagnostic process. When I told you my antenna going, "I'll tell you one thing I'm noticing." I'm always noticing somebody's physiology. And my antenna notices, "What's their body like?" Because I know everything's being filtered through the way they're using their body. I'm always listening for limiting beliefs. But the first thing is physiology. The second thing for me is what I call transformational vocabulary. I'm listening for words that I know are creating limits within that person as they speak, or even as they think out loud. Those words are the basis of your ability to represent to yourself what is happening in the world. Let me clarify even more by giving you a little bit of frame of reference. All these sensations are coming in, and they're being brought into this funnel called your brain. Your brain's got to figure out, "What does this mean?" So, what it does is it gets these sensations, it starts to generalize so I can make a decision more quickly. And what it has to do is put a label on this to speed the process up. So, imagine this funnel of liquid sensation. By the way, when you say, "I feel angry," is anger always the exact same sensations? Yes or no? It may feel like it because once you call it anger, you have an anchor to what anger is, and you trigger all those sensations you call anger into the experience. But right before you called it anger, it may have had varying levels of liquid sensation within you. Are you following the metaphor? Like, sometimes something happens, you're really getting angry. Sometimes you're between angry. Sometimes it's all over there. But some of you have habitual ways of describing any level of pain that you categorize as anger, and you call it all anger. And the minute you do, you may take something that was a little bit upsetting and make it anger immediately, and you intensify the emotion. How are you following the process now? This distinction. Think of it again like a funnel, and imagine that the words that you and I habitually use, habitually, are like little patterns down here, like cookie cutters, if you would. If these little forms down here come along, and some are square, and some are triangle, and it fits down in here, and you've only got three forms to fit it in, you've got about three emotions you're going to feel. Because the minute you take your experience of life and put a word to it, it becomes what you call it. Your brain instantly fires off the biochemistry attached to that word, and that is your experience. And if you got three words, you got three experiences of life. And that's why most of you have 12 emotions because you've got 12 words. You just habitually describe your pain and pleasure. It's not that you don't have the sensations, it's that you don't experience them because you label them ineffectively. Now, what's the truth? The truth of the matter is, in the English language, we have 500,000 words in our language. We have the largest language in the world. Nothing even close. Closest thing is Germany, and it is a distant second. So, we have all these words. So, out of those words, we have over 3,000 words that describe emotion. 3,000 words. And out of the 3,000 words that describe emotion, you selected 12. And that's why you experienced them. Because you could be calling it something else that probably would be even more precise. But you only got these one or two or three little designs here, and they come in, and you stick it in there. Sure enough, you go, "There I go again. Always happens to me. Can't figure out why." Just because I call it this, maybe that's why. But if you became more precise in your distinction about what word to use, you might be able to change your entire life just by changing habitual vocabulary. Because the minute you put the label, you begin to have the experience. Before that, it's only sensation. When you put the label, it becomes what? Perception. And we respond more to our perceptions than our sensations. We don't know what our sensations mean yet. When you organize them into a perception, that's when you begin to feel and respond. Have you ever been in a place you're not quite sure how to feel about something? How many ever been in that place? That's when you're experiencing sensations, and you're still just sensing things. You haven't perceived them yet. When you perceive it, as you organize it into imagery, organize it into meaning, organize it into a label, if you will. And words is one of the number one ways we've learned as a shortcut to tell ourselves what something means so we can deal with it. It's also one of the number one ways we've learned to communicate to other people, right? How else do you tell somebody what you're feeling? So, you pull in there and pull out a word. But these shortcuts shortchange us emotionally unless we expand our references. And to give you an idea, what triggered me to go through this whole experience was I was in a meeting one day with my CEO at the time for one of my major companies, and a good friend of both of ours, a mutual good friend who's a very, very successful entrepreneur, very successful. And we were all in this meeting, and somebody came in the meeting and gave us feedback about a certain individual we were negotiating with. And the feedback they gave us made us all believe this guy totally had leverage that was inappropriate and unfair, and he took advantage of it, and he was trying to rip us off. And in all our perceptions, there really wasn't much we could do in that short-term moment. So, we were in one of those positions where it'd be really easy to feel what? Helpless. All right. Not much we could do. I mean, we're going to get pain no matter what happens because he'd wired the game that way, and we'd fallen in the trap because we trusted him, and he was a liar. So, when you get those kinds of things happening, somebody violates your trust, what kind of sensations do most of us feel? Upset of some sort, right? But what do you call those? Somebody say, "Depends on how angry I get." That's true. You know what happened in the meeting? All three of us responded completely different to the exact same information. I got really angry. I was like, "I can't believe he did this. Oh, man. I was really angry about it." What's interesting is my CEO next to me went absolutely bonkers. Rage. I mean, even by my anger level, I was upset. I thought, "This guy lost it." So, I can't even believe it. I can't believe it. I mean, I'm so much rage. I'm so living on good. I can't believe it. And I was like, "Mellow out. What's the deal?" You know? I mean, it's really upsetting, but jeez. Meanwhile, my buddy over here next to me, he's just sitting here going, "Hello?" I'm like, looking around going, "What is the deal here?" I couldn't help but notice the radical differences between the three of us, and we were all impacted equally in terms of consequences. So, what do you think went through my head? My brain's always asking questions. I said, "What are you saying? What is this? What's going on here? Why are we responding differently?" Okay, based on the organizing principle of all human behavior, what's going on here? If he's willing to go into rage, he must link lots of what to going to rage? The opportunity to get out of what and get into what? And sure enough, I asked him, I said, "What does it mean for you when you get a rage like that? What does it mean to go into rage?" He said, "If I'm in rage like this, I can handle anything. Nothing stops me." So, what is he linked clearly? Power. A sense of being. "I'll take control of his life." Which takes him out of pain and puts him into pleasure. Then I went to my other buddy and I said, "Doesn't this make you angry?" He said, "No, it kind of annoys me." "Annoys you?" He said, "Yeah, that kind of peeves me a little bit." "As it peeves you? Peeves you?" So, what a stupid word. "I can't believe this." I said, "What does it mean to you to get upset?" He said, "Well, if you get upset, you lose control." "I said, "Yeah, and what happens then?" He said, "Then the other guy wins." He links lots of what to being upset? Pain. And what does he link to not getting upset? Power and pleasure. Because now he's in control, right? If he doesn't get upset, the other guy's not going to win. And he was a very competitive guy. All of a sudden, I understood why he behaved the way he did. And I thought, "What about me? What do I believe?" I believe you get me upset, I'm like razor sharp. You get me upset, I'm razor sharp. I can do it either way. So, I don't avoid being upset. If I get upset, I use it. If I'm not upset, I don't use it. I can do it either way. So, I'm not gonna go to the extreme on my own buddy, but at the same time, I didn't have this linkage that, you know, being like this is the way to be either. Saying like, "Weird and wimpy. Why would you paint and paint? It's like that annoys me." And I was like, "I just realized I've never seen you really upset." He said, "No, not really upset. It's not something I really get." "Don't you ever get angry?" "The CEO and don't you ever go into rage?" "I'm like, relax." And he said, "No. He said, "I get a little peeved, a little annoyed every once in a while. I get a little tinkled." "Tingle?" They started to laugh like crazy. And I was like, "This is the weirdest stuff." You know? So, I said, "What about that time when the IRS came and they took his money? That took a quarter million dollars of his right of his bank accounts, and they were wrong, and it took him two and a half years to get his money back." One agent just got like this little hair in the wrong place and got upset about him, and as a result, he went after my buddy, and he took total advantage. I said, "Didn't that make you angry?" "The other guy?" "Well, I'd kill him. I'd kill him. You know, he really beat me." "I said, "Come on." He said, "No, I just peed. I was tinkled. I was annoyed, but that was about it." I said, "I don't understand." And then I start realizing, if I kept thinking to myself, "This really peeves me," I would never get upset because it would break my path. I feel like such an idiot saying the word. You know? And so, it kind of stuck in my head, you know? And so, I kept thinking about this and thinking about how we all reacted so differently. One guy's words were "rage," "I'm livid." The other guy's, "I'm angry." Theirs, "I'm peeved and tinkled." And a little annoyed. And when the same sensations came in, we just put them in our form. That's what we felt. And I realized I used to feel that way a lot because he's the label a lot. So, I wanted to see Bob Baez one day, a friend of mine. We were chatting, and I started telling him all about this. And I said, "You know what? This is so simplistic. I have a hard time believing you can do it this quickly. But if we just change the habitual language we use, we would totally change our emotional states consistently for the rest of our lives." And just by changing the words. And he said, "This is amazing." And Bob started sharing with me about an experience he had only a few days before. He'd been on the road like me. He had been burnt to the core, really exhausted. He came home. Bob's got a really neat place in Malibu, right down the beach, but it's not huge, and it's not really great to have a lot of guests there because there's really no place for him to be. While Bob was on the road, Brandon had come along, his wife, and invited a few friends to stay over, plus their daughter had come to stay for a couple days and decided to stay for a month in his tiny little bungalow on the beach. There's no room to even turn around and move without many people in there. So, can you imagine the kind of state that Robert was in at this point? He was near what's the key emotional state where people lose it? Threshold. He was definitely at an emotional threshold, and he lost it. And what pushed him over the edge was the one thing he wanted. All he asked for was he set up his VCR, he wanted to have some game and baseball, football game taped. And when he got home and somebody messed with that, he lost it. And he found out it was his daughter, and he totally unleashed and he started yelling and screaming at her with absolute rage, using four little words which Bob never does and had never done in her entire life up until that point in her 20s of actually raging at her in that language. And she freaked out and burst into tears. The way he describes it is she whined all over the place. That's also transformational vocabulary, right? Is whining transformational vocabulary? Sure is. It's describing transforming the experience through words. That's what transformational vocabulary is. When you take sensation and you transform it through language. Transformation vocabulary transforms your experience. And by the way, you can transform your experience into something more pleasurable or more painful. So, Bob loses it. But the most funny part of the whole thing is Brandon is there, and she assumes this is a pattern interrupt and starts cracking up hysterically. Bob was wishing it was a pattern interrupt. He wished she thought of that. She's cracking up. She thinks for sure it's that, and then she realizes not. And Brandon was so perceptive. She went about after she said, "Bob, she said, you've never done this before. I've never seen you act this way ever with her. She said, you know, you've never done that. You know, Kelly, their daughter, you're doing something that Kelly does. She has these emotional explosions every now and then. And I noticed something. You're behaving like she behaves, and you're using a word she always uses, a word you never use. You always talk about being overloaded, but I noticed you've been saying for the last week, you keep saying you're overwhelmed, and that's the thing she always says right before she loses it." I thought, "Wow, is it possible that by adopting someone's language patterns, you would adopt their emotional patterns as well?" And as I began to test that, I found it's absolutely accurate, especially if you model their physiology when you say the words and their gestures. And by the way, how many of you have words that are part of your vocabulary, maybe even phrases that you picked up from your parents that you even to this day use the same way they use them? Meaning the same kind of tonality element. Somebody's got some of those? You're aware of? I'm curious. I have a view of my father. My fourth father, one I had the closest relationship with. He used to walk home at days, and he used to walk in the door right after work, and he would yell, "Monkey gurus!" for like no reason. It made no sense. We all want to do a deep trance, right? We had such a good time. We all started doing the same thing. We had no clue what we were doing. He used to call people "dudes" before it was like the popular thing to do, and we all did that. And to this day, I still call my kids "dudes" and "dusters" and tease them the same way. The same tonality comes out of me, and I feel the same emotions as I felt then. I also discovered angry language came from my family as well. That's exactly what my dad would do when he lost it, and I was using his same language pattern, feeling his same emotions, his same intensity. How many can relate to this? I'm curious. So, I began to think, "Wow, you know what? This works." Not only on the negative side, though, it works on the positive. See, do you think that if you have an experience of pleasure coming through here, does the amount of pleasure, is that based upon your actual experience or based upon the label you put upon it? What do you think? Here's what I want you to put in your notes: The label you put on your experience becomes your experience. The label you put on your experience becomes your experience. The minute you say, "This is humiliating," you're right. But maybe what it is is a little bit uncomfortable. Would that make a difference in how you feel? Yes or no? You better believe it. You know what? Some people have these intense words like "humiliation." They attach it to any sensation they don't like. Anything that's disappointing, they don't call it disappointing, "humiliating." And you know what? They feel humiliated. My mom called me on the phone, and this was right after I started making these distinctions, and I was out of town, and my answering service wasn't working, so I just had a machine on there. And she called, I guess, two or three times, and she got the machine. And she reached my secretary one time. She absolutely lost it. I finally got a message from her on the machine by the time I got home, and she's going on and on about how my son is not president of the United States, and who do you think he is, though? I gotta leave a message on a machine. I want to talk to him personally. I am totally and completely humiliated. And she went absolutely crazy. So, I called her up and told her that she should look up the word "humiliation" in the dictionary. And that did not build much rapport. What I began to do is tease her and harass her, so I broke her what? And then I explained to her transformational vocabulary and explained her everything I'd done to support her, and that she was already making herself feel horrible by selecting words that weren't appropriate. She jumped the gun, number one, in her beliefs. Number two, even if she believes something is wrong, she's the word that intensified the emotion. True or false? How many of us do this? How many of us select words that intensify our negative experience? Hmm. Do you know what's good about knowing about this? One is you can break this pattern the minute you know about it. And two is, can you take pleasurable experiences and make them even more pleasurable by putting the right label on them? See, people get around me, pick up my language patterns. One of my language patterns, most, you know, is like, for example, "passion." Does it feel different to be passionate about something than it is to feel pretty good about it? Instantaneously, it's going to magnify your positive emotion. If you talk about something being "exceptional," "being outrageous," "I feel passionate about this." Those feelings are going to intensify the pleasure through the roof. But most people don't consciously select their language. So, you know what they do? Most people have really intense words on the negative side and very wimpy words on the positive side, and wonder why they have a lot more pain than pleasure in their life. It's the words you're habitually using that are shaping you. They're shaping everything: your beliefs, the way you think, and what you do. They're the building blocks of human experience. If John F. Kennedy can use words in a way that moves you, or Martin Luther King, or Winston Churchill, you can certainly use words to move yourself. And you can move yourself to tears and pain, or you can move yourself to joy and nobility. You'll determine what habits of language are you going to use. The average person's vocabulary. I started thinking, "Okay, I want to know more about this stuff." And that's when I found out we have 3,000 words for emotion. The average human being, or English person's vocabulary, out of the 500,000 words, how many words do you think the average person is using, including "it's" and those? What'd you guess? I've gotten about 2,000 as the consistent feedback I've gotten from linguists. 2,000. That includes "does" and "uh," all that stuff. 2,000 words total out of 500.

thousand, you wanna enrich your experience of life? Remember this: your experience of life is governed by the way you use your, what? Your what? First, physiology, and by the way you represent things to yourself. Remember the way you focus, the way you represent things. If you represent things in your head with only a few words, you only got a few life experiences. Expand your vocabulary, expand your life. Enrich your vocabulary, enrich your life.

See, if you want to get an idea and perspective, the Bible has twelve thousand different words in it. Twelve thousand. Milton's writing had, if I remember correctly, twenty-five thousand. Shakespeare, Shakespeare carried, if I remember correctly, thirty-five thousand different words in his works. In fact, he created lots of different words in our language, lots of them. By the way, that's why his words have lasted through the ages. He figured how to use words in such a rich way to shape human emotion and experience. He had a large palette to paint from. We need to expand our palette.

The number one place we need to expand it, as a very minimum, is when we're describing how we feel. We've got to be more articulate about how we feel and not so general in how we feel. That will expand our experience of life. So remember, whatever label you put on experience becomes the experience. So how do you change it? Sometimes we raise the hand and go, "I'm feeling humiliated." And I'll say, "Well, are you feeling humiliated, or are you feeling hurt?" "I'm angry." "Are you angry, or are you a little frustrated?" You know what that does? It interrupts the what? Because for them to answer my question, they go inside their head and they have to picture what I'm talking about. At the very minimum, you know, they say, "No, I'm angry still." It broke their pattern for a moment. And just by offering that one word selection, you see somebody go, "Well, I'm a little bit upset." And you can see the whole physiology change the minute they select the new word. How many have seen this happen around you? Great.

Then let's do this. Sit up your chair with some energy. And here's what I want to do. Write down three words that you use habitually to describe negative emotions you feel. Okay? And come up with three alternatives. Three words you use on a regular basis to describe how you feel, and come up with three alternative words that will either lessen the intensity or totally break the pattern. Let me give you a clue: if you come up with a word that's fun to say, you'll use it instead of the old one because you like pleasure. If you come up with something that will break your pattern, that's fun, that's great. But at the very minimum, make sure it'll lessen the intensity. Write down three words you use habitually to create negative emotions. Write down three alternatives. Go for it.

All right. So think of three words you have actually used to describe your negative emotions and come up with three more empowering alternatives. Pause the audio. Let me give you a quick example on something you might find useful. The same day I was talking to Bob about the experience he had with his daughter. We were having lunch and we were both cranking real intensely on a lot of different things. By the way, just cranking intensely, does that take the experience you're having and probably intensify? Yeah. But for me, those are very positive words. Would that be different if I said we were working on some notes? We were cranking intensely on a whole series of subjects. And there we were at lunch, still cranking along. And Bob turns to me and says, he says, "Tony, you know what? I can't even believe that people could ever be bored." So can you believe he'll ever get bored? He said, "You know, boredom's not even in my vocabulary." And I went, "What did you just say? You just said boredom was not in your vocabulary." Remember we talked about earlier? If boredom's not in your vocabulary and you never experience it, I wonder if there's a relationship. I start wondering what happened if you took a word out of your vocabulary. If, in fact, that emotion would disappear from your life. I wasn't certain. So I started to explore. I thought, "What's an emotion I never feel? Never." And the answer is depression. I never feel depressed. I get frustrated or upset or tired or hurt. If I'm looking for a negative emotion, it might be those, but never depressed. You know why? Years ago, in Venice, California, I was depressed. And I linked up depression equals death because that was the closest to death that I've ever been. And so my brain said, "I will never experience that again." But what I didn't realize, and why I like that much pain to it, my brain took it out of my habitual vocabulary. I never used it again to describe how I was. And I've never felt it a day since. I thought, "Wow."

I started thinking about and I started doing research after that on cultures. There are cultures where they have no word for the word war. And in their tribe, they've never had one. Interesting. So you think about it, if you have no way to represent something, you have no way to experience it. Now, words are not the only way to represent things because you can represent them by pictures, right? Or by sounds. But words are a primary form of representation within the human culture. If you don't have a word for it, you make it much more difficult to experience, if not impossible. You might get something similar, but if you don't label it, you can't feel it. The label is what creates the feeling. I started thinking, "This is amazing." Shortly after that, a friend of mine came to see me. He was a very successful man who was in some really tough times, going through a divorce and quite a bit of a few challenges in his business. And I've never seen him depressed up until that point. But you know what? In a period of 20 minutes, he must have used the word depressed to describe himself 15, 20 times. I mean, like constant. Like one sentence, I use it three times. And you know my antenna now, transformational vocabulary, that's intensifying his negative sensations. So I stopped him and I said, "Look, would you do me a favor? For the next seven days, do not use the word depressed, even one time. Describe how you feel for the next seven days. I want you to describe it in a different way." Because I said, "You know, are you really depressed, or are you a little bit down?" Because the truth is, I know you were depressed, but you're doing things now to make it better. I mean, are you really depressed, or are you a little bit down? Are you a little frustrated, or a little angry?" He said, "Well, I guess I'm a little bit down." And you can see when he said that, he went from "depressed" to "well, I guess I'm a little bit down." If you had him on camera, you could see his whole body change right there in front of me. And I explained to him this idea that I was calling transformational vocabulary. I said, "You got to watch your TV, not the one at home, the one inside. What are you doing inside your head? What are you saying to people? What are you saying to yourself?" I said, "Just try it for a week." You know something? That was two years ago. He's not felt depressed since because he won't use that word anymore. And he said, "Well, isn't that just denial? Aren't you just like pushing the feelings down inside and suppressing them?" No, you're transforming the experience. See, it's one thing to have you say, "I feel this way." I go, "No, I don't. No, I don't. No, I don't." It's another to literally transform what you're sensing by transforming what creates the triggers in your brain to feel in the first place, which is words, and a large extent of your life. So what you're offering yourself a chance to do here is to take negative sensations and lower their intensity.

Are there times when you want to use angry? Yes or no? Absolutely. Because every emotion is a resource in the right context. But you don't want those to be the tools of first resort, do you? No. Then you'll be animated in a negative way all the time. So the object is not to take away certain emotions. Certain emotions you want there. But to me, depression is not one that I see as a resource, ever. So I took it out. And I didn't even realize I took it out, just because I liked enough pain. And I bet you've done the same thing. I bet if you looked in your life, there's some things that are just too painful for you that one day you decided you'd never feel that way again. And you don't use that word anymore to describe yourself. And you don't feel the feeling. Dig through your own personal history and see if it's there.

Let me tell you something even more exciting. You can also take your entire emotional life and intensify it on the positive by developing a new set of habitual words to describe how you're feeling. So instead of saying, "I feel okay. Pretty good. I'm not dead." You know, people have interesting ways of responding, don't they? Say, "How's it going?" Right? Or just the way they describe things day to day. What I want you to do now in your notes is write down three positive words you use on a habitual basis. But I want you to come up with three new words that would intensify those positive emotions through the roof. Push those emotions through the roof. Go for it right now. Sit in your chair with energy as you do it. Take three positive words you use a lot and come up with three alternative words that would enhance it immediately.

So you know what to do. If you're driving, think of these words in your head and write them down later. Or if you can, grab your manual and jot them down now. Again, choose three positive words you use and come up with three words that can intensify it even more. Now, pause the audio and go. How many think that if you use these words, that would really change your state? Let me see your hand. Say aye.

So what's going to determine whether you do it or not? Well, decision. But can't you make a decision though and then not follow through? Only follow through for a short period of time. Yeah. What do we have to do? We have to what? Condition the what? Condition the pattern. How do you do that? Well, one way to make sure you do it is just practice doing it again and again and linking what to it. Imagine some situations. Take a nice deep breath in, exhale slowly. Close your eyes and think of that negative word list of three. Pick the one that was the most negative word for you, made you feel the worst. How the negative list you made? And when you remember what it was, there. Yes. Right now, as you think about that for a second, just for a second, remember how it makes you feel. Think of a place where that emotion would normally come up. When you think of a situation where it would normally come up. Say yes. Great. Now I want you to imagine yourself going into that situation by simple rehearsal. I want you to go in and I want you to see yourself going into that state. Right? You're about to, you turn that person or situation. You say this, whatever your funny thing is, "Excuse me, you know what? You're tinkling me right now." Whatever it is. And make yourself smile as you think about it. And then think of another one. And now make it happen rapidly. Think about several situations where you normally would get upset and see yourself using this and feel yourself feeling good inside. Smile while you're doing it. Make it like a cartoon. Everything looks animated. Do it a few times, again and again. See yourself using it in all kinds of situations, work situations, home situations. And each time you do it, see it working out where it makes things better for you. And where they actually respond to you better. Well, you're more resourceful because of it. Or you're witty. Or you come up with something unique because of it. Or it lowers your intensity and immediately feel better. Run at least five or six scenarios in mind. The key is speed and emotion. Increase the emotional intensity of it. Make it more outrageous or more fun in some way. So your brain begins to link some nice sensations to using it. In this future, where would it be the best place to use this? Think about what would be useful. Bumper to bumper traffic. Somebody says something to you. Think about how good it would feel. What have you added to it? Saying this word and then laughing hysterically afterwards. And you really fried your brain then. How about somebody trying to get you upset? And all of a sudden you say, "You're tinkling me." And you, that would fry them pretty good, wouldn't it? And when you think you've got several places you could use this that your brain would be willing to try, normally try, but do and utilize. Say yes. And before you open your eyes, ask that part of your brain, you have to trust this. The part of your brain you normally trust to make your heart beat every day. That's that part of your brain. If I'd be willing to guide you into making this choice at least for the next 10 days and see if it works. But to do it consistently for 10 days to get a fair shake. And then notice if you get an image that says yes, or if you just have a feeling, "Yeah, I'll do that." Or if you have a voice that says yes. Or if you just want to trust that it's there. Say yes. And open your eyes.

And then to ensure that the pattern is conditioned, you want to create an environment that supports you the best and most simple way is use some leverage. You know what I did? I told all my friends. I said, "You know, I used to always say, 'I'm angry about this.' Well, for the next week, I want to say instead, 'I'm either annoyed or I'm peeved.'" So if I start saying, "This really makes me angry," I'm giving you permission to nicely, in a loving way, say, "Tony, are you angry or are you peeved?" At which point I'll have a choice. I may say, "I want to be angry. I'm angry." And you give me permission to do that as long as I know I don't have to give it up. I won't use it. And so, sure enough, that's what I did. I only needed a few people, once or twice, to mention it to me. And I became anchored. Does that make sense? So that's what you're going to do now.

When I'm listening to people talk, my brain is constantly listening for these things. Because the minute you hear a word that doesn't make sense, would it make sense to interrupt the pattern at the point when the words are even being used? Would that affect what emotion somebody gets into? What beliefs they develop? Yes or no? That's the basis where everything starts. It structures. If you can wipe it out before it ever gets built, you got some real power in yourself and with other people. So today's session has been a little longer than usual, but I hope you've gotten a lot of fabulous, extraordinary, unique, fantastic, and believable value out of it. You've already done your assignment today with the vehicle analysis and transformation, transformational vocabulary exercises we did earlier. So you're off the hook for tonight. Start looking for new vehicles to meet your needs and start using those new words you came up with and see how it makes you feel. Okay, I know you're sad because I haven't given you an assignment. I guess you're the person that always wanted the bonus points in primary school, right? Okay, if you want bonus points, find someone and practice a skill that you aren't as sure of yet. Maybe it's one of the skills from today's session. Maybe it's even a skill you learned earlier in the program. Either way, remember, practice is how you're gonna get better. See you tomorrow.