Transcription
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Well, today is the last session of the program. Congratulations on making it all the way through to the end. My sincerest hope is that today is just the start to being a leader and making a real difference in the world. You know, there's so many people out there that need our help, and there's nothing better than feeling that tremendous joy of being able to contribute to someone else. So, as we wrap up the program, Tony's gonna walk you through an interesting process to help you identify where you are as a leader, what's your breadth of leadership, and what's your depth of leadership, and what's next. So, let's jump right into it.
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Is there a master syntax, a sequence that you can utilize so you can funnel all of your life experience to be a more effective leader? And what I mean by that is, how do you move from a place where you are not getting the results you want to getting the results you want in the shortest period of time? And in doing that, you know, as I say, most of my life, I've understood early on that syntax equals meaning. That if you change the sequence of the same items, you obviously get a completely different result. The metaphor I often use is, I'll talk about either "the dog bit Johnny" or "Johnny bit the dog." You know, you're using the same ingredients, but you have a radically different outcome. If your name is Johnny, depending upon the sequence in which you put those things in.
So, all of us have leadership abilities, leadership skills that can help us to have an impact. That all of us have succeeded, whether it's as a parent, or as a friend, or as a teacher, or as a businessman or woman, whatever the context of leadership that you use your skills in. But I'd like to propose to you that there may be a very useful syntax for you to think of when you're thinking about what leadership is, in the process of truly influencing someone for lasting change. So, that's part of what I want to talk with you about today. And secondly, I want to talk to you today about how to measure yourself as a leader, and then once you measure yourself, how to use that feedback from yourself and from other people to create a greater depth and a greater scale of how you're going to impact people. And I believe depth is more important.
So, let's get started. Here's my outcomes today: Get you clear on where you are as a leader. You know, what is your depth? What is the scale of your leadership? Because if you want to get from here to somewhere else, you need a map. And a map is only valuable if you know where you're starting out at and you know where you want to go. So, that's one of our outcomes today. And the second major outcome today is to get you to be associated, even if you've heard before, seven master steps. How you use these in leadership and therapeutic intervention with your kids, in a negotiation, so you can kind of funnel your focus and tap into these resources to maximize.
So, let's look at what we talked about just for a moment, because it's going to relate to this session very powerfully. If you're going to become a leader, you can influence somebody for the moment, or you can learn to influence somebody over the course of their life, impact their entire life. To influence someone, you have to know what already is influencing them. In other words, instead of trying to push your model of the world on someone, you need to know what theirs is. So, I laid out for you what I call the path of meaning. That is, how each individual organizes the way they look at the world, the way they interpret information to decide what does this mean? Is this the end or the beginning? Am I being punished or rewarded? Should I give up or should I keep going? The way we answer those questions is through this filtering system. And we talked about three levels of how people evaluate things, and I call them the three levels of impact. Because if you impact anyone in any one of these three levels, you can have a change in their life. And that's what a leader does. You're influencing people for the greater good, if you're a great leader.
So, we talked about the target. The target is really the driving force of somebody's life. What are their top two needs? In other words, that's the motive behind everything they do. Is it significance? Is that their center of gravity? Is it love? Is it certainty? Is it contribution? Is it variety? The top two really shape most of our life. Whatever we've learned the value most of those six human needs is very important to know if you're going to lead somebody, because you have to know what's already influencing them. If you're trying to talk about contribution to someone and you want to lead them to make contribution, but they're really driven by certainty, you're going to first have to address the certainty of what they're going to experience, or they don't even hear anything about contribution. They're driven by significance, then you can't just talk about how great this is going to be for other people. You've got to talk about what this means to them and their capacity, and the leader, their power, their influence, whatever it is, that's going to relate to them.
The second force is the guiding force, which is the map of meaning of action. And we talked about seven categories of belief, like your global beliefs, like "life is," "I am" identity beliefs, value beliefs, fears, etc. All these give meaning to things. How do we know whether we're significant or not? How do we know if we hit the target? It all depends first on your map of meaning, your rule book. But if you don't understand this and you're trying to influence someone, you don't understand their map, you're not going to get through. And we all think our rules are the right rules. Great leaders find out what the rules are for the people that they're working with, so they can influence them with integrity.
And then the third force within that first level of impact, which is your model of the world, is the fuel of choice. What are the habitual emotions? I call them the commanding emotions of your life. Because if you're trying to, you know, get from here to the target, and even if your map is accurate, if you don't have enough emotional fuel, you're not going to get there. If the fuel you're using is interest, as opposed to drive, or passion, or desire, when you bump up against difficult things, you'll have a hard time filtering it. Likewise, if you're living in a place of anger, you're going to interpret things on your map very differently than if the primary emotion of your life is love.
But if you want to influence somebody for the long term, you want to have an impact on their model of the world. If you want to know where the tipping point is, what can shift this, or if you want to change somebody in the moment, you go to the second level of impact, which is the little triangle or pyramid that that whole bottle, that whole box rather, the whole model of the world is balancing on. And that is basically the triad that you're living in in this moment. Whatever's happening in your body, if you're physically stressed out, you got tension, your focus is on what's wrong, and the language pattern you're in is asking yourself a question like, "Why does this always happen to me?" It's going to change the emotional states that you tap into. It's going to change how you look at the map. It's going to change how you target your life. It's going to change everything. Most of you know how to shift this triad. You've done it your whole life. And since you've been with me, maybe you've done it more consciously, or maybe you've just given new names to what you've always been doing.
And then the third level of impact, we talked about is where people put their focus. Is it primarily in relationships? Is it primarily into themselves, or their work, or mission? And you can have an impact on someone's environment, and you can influence their whole life. So, in that session, it was a long session, we really were trying to say, here's a way for you to begin to discover what's already influencing someone. And say, there's three places you can have an impact. You can try and affect the environment. If you change the environment, you change the way people respond. I'll give you a simple example. If I wanted to change your behavior, and I was a leader, and I was the leader of the, of, let's say I was the person running the airport, and the problem I run into is that on a regular basis, we have not enough seats for people because people lie across the chairs. I could come along and try to change everybody in that group's model of the world. And those passengers are changing constantly, and probably a futile attempt. I could put up signs with incentives that say, "If you lie across the chairs, there's a fine," or "Please don't lie across the chairs." And that might work for some people based on their model of the world, which says, "Follow the rules." Or other people that want to avoid pain. Some people would lie across the chairs deliberately because you told them they shouldn't, because their model of the world is about breaking the rules. Are you following me on this?
So, if I want to change an environment of many people, I might structure something in the environment that changes it. So, the easiest way to get people not to lie across the chairs would be to create an environment where there are chairs that all have arms on them. Therefore, you couldn't lie across the chairs. I don't have to put up a sign. I don't have to put myself in a position where I beg you. I don't have to punish you. I don't have to do that. I just created an environment that supports it. And that's one level of impact that you can use. Now, sometimes this is not a level that you can access because you can't affect the person's environment. But you better understand it. Or I can go to that level two of impact, where the triangle is, and I can impact you right now, in this moment, simply by changing your physiology, radically changing what you're focusing on, changing the language or meaning you're using. And that'll change what things mean to you, how you feel, and what you're going to do, the actions you're going to take, and therefore the results you're going to get in life.
Or I could go to the deepest level of impact, and I could influence the way you perceive the world by either shifting what you value most, significance or connection, for example, shifting some of your beliefs about life, the rules of the game, the identity beliefs, vehicles that you're using, or shift the pattern of emotions that you've built into your body. So, I was trying to show you here, everything that I target, but chunk it for you. Even if this feels overwhelming at first, it's good to know that there's three levels I can influence somebody at: environmentally, in the moment through their triad, or in the depth of the way they come up with meaning through the model of their world. And I want to remind you, this general principle, I know it seems like a lot to absorb right now. You don't have to absorb it. I'm going to come back to it, but I want to give you this context before we begin.
Now, let's talk for a second about what's the primary job of a leader. What's the difference between a leader and a manager? There is a significant difference between the two. First of all, think about the job of a leader. The job of a leader ultimately is to create breakthroughs. If you're a leader, you're the kind of person that can take the obstacles. You know, you're not needed if there's no breakthroughs needed. You're not needed. Things are running fine. But if there's a breakthrough and productivity needed, if there's a breakthrough where people can't accomplish something, you've got to take them to the next level. If there's a breakthrough needed because two people are in conflict, that's where a leader's value comes in.
Now, some people are low-level leaders. I call those managers. They can create breakthroughs, they can get people to maximize their abilities, but they only if the job gets done while they're standing there supervising. When the manager leaves, people no longer maximize their resources. Ultimately, what a leader is getting people to do is maximize their own personal resources for the greater good, the communal good of the family, of the community, of the business, of the country, of humanity. Our job is to help people tap into their power to produce a greater result. To do that, you've got to maximize more of what's already available in you. It's a business. There are money resources, there's time resources, there's technology resources. But the most powerful resource in any business or in life are human resources. Because ultimately, if you don't have the money, but you're creative enough, you'll find a way. Creativity is a human resource. If everyone tells you it's impossible, has never been done, but you're focused or determined enough, then you know you can create the electric light bulb. You can figure out how to produce a connection on the web. You can get the job done that's never been done before. If you tap into those human resources and you maximize them.
So, I believe human resources are what we want to maximize. So, you can maximize them by managing people, lead them by just supervising, directing them, and giving them constant pain, pleasure, association, or leverage. Or you can learn to lead. And a leader's job is not only to get the job done, but what a leader really does, their master skill is they have the ability to influence the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviors about human beings. If you're a leader, whether you're mom, dad, mentor, best friend, teacher, businessman, entrepreneur, politician, lawyer, judge, whoever you are, you're a person of influence. And what makes you an effective leader is your ability to influence the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions of other human beings. And what great leaders do is they're able to lead people not only for the moment, not only when they're there, but when they're not there. They do it by helping people to expand their identity, to create new value systems, to expand their model of the world. And if they're running a business or an environment, the greatest leaders actually create a culture that many people live by that help them maximize who they are.
So, you know, Jack Welch at General Electric created a culture, a model of the world of looking at business and serving customers, a set of targets, a set of beliefs, a map, a set of emotional environments that the majority of people that moved up in that organization lived by, and made it one of the most successful companies in the history of the world. Great leaders, as politicians, shift the value systems. John F. Kennedy, you know, would talk about, "Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." That was a shift from saying, "Stop focusing on your own certainty, your own significance," to the focus of contribution. No, great leaders shift the way we think and feel. They shift our models of the world. They shift it all.
So, let's take a look, if we can, at what are the master organizing principles around leadership. What are you really doing? The core or principle of going about this process of leadership is moving somebody from an undesired state to a desired state. From a place where it's impossible to a place where they're driven to get it done, and they know it can get done, and they will get it done. From a place where they're depressed and overwhelmed to a place where they have a compelling future and they're excited, and their life is shifted. It depends on the context, but always, what gets done is based on the state somebody's in. Think about it in your own life. I'm sure you've had those times where, you know, you couldn't find the result with both hands. You know what I mean? You couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag. It had nothing to do with your resources, your abilities as a person. You were just in a screwed-up state of mind. You were angry, frustrated, tired, exhausted, overwhelmed. But when you're determined, clear, focused, when your commitment is to serve, everything shifts because motive doesn't matter, and motive changes your state.
So, our core principles of leadership are: If I'm going to help somebody, whether it's the President of the States, or it's a child I'm working with, somebody in a prison, or a professional athlete, my focus in leading this person is I've got to change them. I've got to define where they are and where they need to go. What's the current undesired state? What's the desired state? And then I've got a set of tools on how to get them there by understanding their world, by finding how to create a base of relationship with them so there's trust and respect, and finding the leverage that makes that change a must, by interrupting the pattern that's stopping them, by coming up with a way of labeling the pattern that makes it solvable, because many times people have a language that prevents this, by bringing them in contact with new resources, new creativity, ideas, strategies, tools that can move them immediately and solve their problem, move them from the undesired state to the desired state, from the undesired result to the desired result, and then finally, condition it so it sticks, and then check it so it produces the results long-term. So, that's our ultimate goal.
So, then, here's my question for all of you: How do you know what level of leader you really are? How do you know if you're a good leader, a great leader, a mediocre leader, a terrible leader? What a leader's job is, is to maximize resources in any context. And the way that you do that is to grow other leaders. Now, when we talk about leadership, though, sometimes people's review of that or thought process about that, if they think of it only in terms of business. But, you know, as I said, a parent's a leader, a friend's a leader. Hopefully, any time you're in a position where you're here to try to influence someone for a greater good, you're doing it. But I would ask myself the question, saying, "Okay, it's great to see that other people are leaders." But that's a pretty broad answer, and it's a good answer. But I'd love to have you get really precise in your leadership skill. Because, you know, sometimes you develop great leaders around you because they're already great leaders. Sometimes great leaders are found, they're not made. It really has nothing to do with you, and we take credit for it. So, you know, sometimes as people start flying, while they were ready to fly, you just happen to bump into them.
So, if you and I are going to maximize our capacity to contribute in meaningful ways, let's look at two questions around leadership. And that is, let's look at the depth of your leadership, and let's create a scale for this. And then let's look at the breadth of your leadership, or the scale in which it reaches. The leadership mastery can be defined in two ways: both by the depth of your mastery, and by the breadth, which we also call the scale of leadership. And let's look at what I mean by the depth of leadership. What is the depth of your leadership? And here's how I'd like you to consider evaluating it.
At a level one of depth, you have the ability to change any person in a moment from an undesired state to a desired state. Think about that. They're depressed, they're frustrated, they're overwhelmed, and you know you can step in right now and you can move them completely out of that state into a state where they're resourceful, where they've got a compelling future, where they're able to move forward. They'll break through that fear, that problem, that limitation. And my guess is, the majority of you knew it before you met me. And maybe you refined your ability to do this by understanding, for example, just the whole concept of state, understanding the ability to change somebody's physiology, change their focus, change the question they're asking, the language they're using, change the meaning. And, you know, in a moment, you can shift it. And the question is, you know, can you shift yourself? Or can you shift yourself and another person, or groups of people? But when it comes to depth, the only thing we're measuring is, are you able to make the shift at level one, which means in the moment change? Now, absolutely consistently, you've got to ask yourself, have I achieved that yet? Do I know in my soul that whatever's happening and the people I lead, no matter what the limitation or challenge is, I can move them immediately, not after five hours, right now, from the limitation, the undesired place to the desired place, from the inability to take action to taking action?
Level two of depth is where you don't just create a change from that undesired state to the desired state in the moment, but you transfer that into a context through time. What does that mean? Well, let's take an example of working with your son or daughter. And let's say they have an enormous amount of fear in dealing with, let's say, a bully at school. You can help them get over the feeling in the moment, but a week from now, they bump back from that kid again, and they're totally unresourceful. They're back in that undesired state. Or you could find the resources in them through the seven master steps, and you could find a confidence that they had in one area of their life where they have total certainty. I'll give you an example. My son, Josh, when he was five years old, was in this experience of sharing this with some friends recently, where he came to live with me, became my boy, I adopted him in my life. And at five years old, he couldn't walk down the driveway to get to the bus stop because he was too fearful. And, you know, I was like 23, 24 years old at the time, and, you know, Mr. Storm Through Fire. It's like, here's all you got to do, and boom, I change him and I get him to go down there and do it. But guess what? If I wasn't there, the next morning, he wasn't walking down there without somebody walking down the driveway and putting them on the bus.
So, I found out, okay, he's got some fears around doing it. And I transferred it to the context. I anchored him, in essence, in our shorthand language, where another area of his life he had confidence. And I'd walk down and go, "There." Now, the next level of problem shows up. As soon as you help somebody with something, the next level problem shows up because you haven't gone deep enough. And the real reason he wasn't walking down there, I got him where he could walk down the driveway whether I was there or not. It wasn't just in the moment. I was there. He had changed into a context, and he could always walk down the driveway and go to the bus on his own. Not a big deal, not a giant accomplishment, but it felt like it to him at the time, and it certainly was for our family, because otherwise, you know, somebody had to constantly walk him down there at five years old.
So, the third component, though, was when he got on the bus, there was a bully there. And the bully would push Josh around, to make fun of Josh. The real reason Josh didn't even want to walk down the driveway, it was just a symptom of trying to avoid an environment where he felt uncertain, insignificant, right, humiliated, to be a better word for it, by this kid in school. So, it was tremendous pain associated to it. So, he told his mom that this bully was beating up on him. And she said to him, "Look, you know, you should just go to the principal, go to the teachers." She's trying to make a change at the level of the environment, right? The context. If you guys are following me, think about that box that has your model of the world, the target, the map, and the fuel of choice, the commanding emotions of your life. Think about the moment where you're affecting the triad. And then think about the sphere. She was going straight to the spheres. And I said to her, I said, "Listen, if you do that, these kids when they get harassed like that, for every action, there's an equal opposite reaction. He'll just find Josh somewhere else. He'll threaten Josh." Or do something. Plus, this doesn't transform Josh in his own leadership of himself. I said, "We've got to go to a deeper level. We've got to make a shift in his whole life, this whole perspective, not just this context. We can teach him how to deal with the bully, or we can get Josh to develop a different way of looking at himself and at life and how to deal with conflict that will transcend not just this bully or anything else."
So, what I did with Josh is, I was studying for my black belt at the time, and I had this, uh, great master's name, Grandmaster June Reed, the gentleman who trained Bruce Lee. And so, I'm obviously learning quite a bit. So, I'm going to teach you one thing. And so, I took Josh's physiology as the leverage for changing his model of the world. So, if you can picture this in your mind, think of it. He has a certain set of beliefs. He wanted love and connection and to feel significant, like everybody. There's a certain set of beliefs about his ability, his identity, his ability to be able to conflict. And he had certain set of emotions that were habitual, like feeling scared and overwhelmed. So, I found the tipping point in his physiology, and I went for a level three level of influence. How do I influence his whole model of the world? So, I did it first by changing his physiology. And I said, "I'm going to teach you one single move that will give you more power than someone ten times your size." And I basically showed him how to break wood. That was the first time that I ever did that with anybody, was even before I did it with other people. So, I got him to do this experience. And then I had him taking phone books and exploding through them. But I had him do this one move in a split second. And I had to do it so many times that his focus became, "I can rip through anything." And as he experienced that, it began to shift his beliefs about someone's ability to beat up on him, threaten him, etc.
And then I set up an experience for him. And I said, "Now, here's what you're going to do. I said, your mother's going to say I'm insane to do this. But when you go on that bus, the minute that kid comes up to you and just begins what he says and he threatens him, say, 'I don't want to hurt you, but if you don't stop, I'm going to put you down.'" I said, "He will immediately intensify. And without any hesitancy, I want you to take this right straight into his gut." Now, some of you who are very peace-oriented models of the world are probably horrified by this story right now. But the outcome of it was, he dropped this kid. It was about twice his size and a total bully. Everybody laughed. The kid couldn't believe it. The kid went to the teacher to complain that Josh, he heard him, half his size, and the teacher, of course, laughed looking at Josh. And Josh's life was changed forever. He didn't have to ever punch anybody again because Josh made a shift in his model of the world about who he was. Is his identity shifts? In his rules of what he had to accept or not accept. He had modified his rules not to say violence was the answer. It's the last answer. But sometimes you have to set a standard that creates an identity so people treat you differently.
The point is, I didn't just change it in the context. That was a level three change. It shifted his whole life by shifting not only felt in a context, but in multiple contexts across time. It shifted not just how he dealt with his bully, but the way he dealt with challenges in his life. He became someone who would attack the challenge rather than living as a victim. And that's a completely different model of the world and changes a perspective, a person's life. And the way we anchor that kind of experience, very often, that kind of learning is with a life experience, so it's real for us.
A level four level of depth of leadership is when you can influence someone so much where you shift their whole world where they do it for someone else. Where Josh takes one of his friends, for example, uh, it was another guy that used to get picked on because, you know, he was a little guy. They were buddies, they were victims together. And he didn't just say, "I'm big man on campus, I'm a leader now." He taught his friend the same exact model of the world. The same thing. It says, "We're not going to put up with this. You know, you and I, we are, we don't need to live in fear." And so Josh transferred this experience down so that the two of them now developed a brand new identity for themselves. In a Daniel identity, identity within the community. Somebody who does this at the highest level is a Jesus, a Gandhi, a Muhammad, a Mandela, somebody who influences not just people for the moment, not just in a context, but influences their entire philosophy of life, the way they interact, that their change is so profound in themselves that affects others as well.
So, the first question is, how deep can you dive when you're leading someone? You know, some managers come in, and the job's not getting done, and they come in and say, "Come on, John, you can do this." And they either encourage them, incentivize them, produce fear in them, and get them to change. They change their focus, they change the meaning of the moment by inspiring them, or threatening them, or encouraging them, or doing it for them, or demonstrating, or training. And it works for the moment. Some parents, you know, you got your kid at the table, and you're trying to teach them how to lead a different life. And some parents, you know, are trying to teach them, let's say, fundamental basic things about manners at the table. And so you say, "Take your, you know, arms off that table." Well, you know, it works for the moment. That's, you know, leadership at the moment. I call that management. It works. But if you're not there, and it pops up a second later, then obviously, it's only leadership in the moment. By the way, leadership at the moment, I don't want to denigrate. Most people don't even have this ability. Most people are followers. Most people go wherever they're most directed, like Josh. They move away from pain at that stage of his life rather than transcending it. The challenge happens, and they're controlled by the environment. They don't create a vision larger than the moment. They don't figure a way to influence the environment. The environment influences them. So, the ability to change in a moment, even yourself, is a critical skill in life, and most people don't have. So, it's not something to be embarrassed about if you've got this, but you can probably tell by my tone that's not why I want you to stop.
The second level of depth is where you really are changing with a context. Which means anytime that child now is in an environment where they're around others, they're eating, they produce this quality of results whether you're there or not, right? You've changed their context. Changing their level of life is that they show a different level of respect for all people, not just at the dinner table. When they're at level four of depth, you've influenced them to the point where they, without your coaching, have such impact that they shift other people's level of respect for other human beings. So, hopefully, this metaphor gives you an idea. So, the question is, what level of depth do you currently dive to when you're leading people? Do you just make the shift in the moment? And that works. Because some of you, for example, your definition, you said, "Well, people tell me the way I know I'm a great leader is I get the results." Well, no, that probably means you're a great manager. If you're able to get the result without being there, at the different level, if you're able to have people get the results in not only this situation, but other areas of the business, of the family, of the community, of their life, now, and they're able to do it consistently, that's great.
If a person, for example, is about to give a speech, and they're panicked, it's at the company, they've got to get up in front of their peers, and they've got to give a report, and you can see they're panicked. And you're a good leader, and you care. You might come up in that moment and crack a joke and break their pattern, or encourage them, say, "You can do this," and then they get the job done. And you say, "Look, I was a great leader because I got them to go from an undesired state to a desired state. I'm a great leader because they got the result." Can you be right? You're a good leader. But I would say, you might want to set your sights deeper. You might take that person. Let's say, for example, if you're going to go to level two of leadership, you'd say, "I don't want to just help them make this speech better. In the same time I'm interacting with this person, I want to make it so that anytime they have to communicate in front of other authority figures or peers, they're going to do better."
So, you might, for example, take that person and say, "Listen, I dealt with guys like this, for example, who, you know, a guy that was a tremendous athlete, but he had to get up, and he couldn't move up in the company because the job required, as a manager, as a leader, to get up and to communicate." And you go to a stark pen, this guy, 200 and probably 50 pounds, six foot two, just muscle-bound guy, scared like a little girl to get in front of the room. So, could I get him up there just by changing his triad? Yes. But when you go to level two, you're basically anchoring a new triad in the context. So, all I did was, I said, "Listen, I want you to imagine you're on the football field, and I don't remember what position he played, let's say he was a linebacker. And that person's coming at you full force. How certain are you? How confident you can take him down?" And as you might guess, as he focused on that, as he changed his focus, it changed his physiology. Every ounce of his body got totally solid in his center, right? And he started using different language. He said, "I know. I just know he's going down." I said, "Great. Now I want you to imagine this audience, and I want you to know that they're going down." Meaning, you're going to bring to them a level of impact like you would on the football field, because what you're sharing is that important. And then I didn't just anchor it to this one time he was speaking, but anytime he was communicating. And obviously, he not only did well in his speech, but it transformed his career. Why to transform his career? Because he actually looked forward to stepping up and communicating with authority, with passion, with deep feeling, what he knew to be important or true. And so now he had the capacity to expand the scale of his reach, the number of people, and move up within the organization. So, that would be a level two.
Level three would be, if I were to find where else in his life does he feel fearful or playing small, where we could develop this same pattern where he would tackle any situation, because then it would change his whole life, not just business, not just the context of communicating in front of peers, but life. Level four is if I got him now to help other people do the same. So, I've beat this up several times because I think the depth is so important. And often times, we lie to ourselves about the depth. We say, "Oh, yeah, no, I've helped them change their whole life." No, you just changed them for the moment. And you can't tell that just by results. You've got to tell that by the way in which someone lives their life. And the goal of this session is to show you ways that you can go to level three and four in depth, because that's where leadership capacity has its most impact. Now, the depth of your influence, I think, is the mark of great leaders, personally. That's how I monitor it. So, whether again, you're a parent, a friend, a mentor, a lover, your depth is everything. I don't care if you manage 10 million people or what. The most important thing is how deeply can you influence that person. That's the leader's job: influence their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions, either in the moment, in a context, through time, their whole life, or where they affect the whole lives of other people as well.
So, once we look at depth, then the second thing we look at in leadership is scale. So, like a piano, the number of scales you master impacts the level of mastery that you can really deliver to the world. So, the first scale of leadership is, you're able to influence yourself consistently for the higher good. In other words, you're able to influence you. You can get through your lower self, your fears, your frustrations, your overwhelms, and you know, in an instant, you can make that shift from where you were, where you don't want to be, to where you want to be. Now, within scale one, there are four levels of depth. Can you influence yourself in the moment? Can you make a change in yourself and make it last in a context or an environment or an area of life? Can you make a change that affects your whole life consistently? Can you make those changes so powerfully that your example inspires and influences others to do the same? So, that's the first level of scale. So, every level of scale, you've got to measure what your level of depth is.
The second scale is that you've grown in the scale or the breadth of your leadership. That you don't just lead yourself. You've led yourself strongly enough now, you can lead others. So, scale two is, you can consistently, and by the way, that's the key to leadership. It's not what you do once in a while. Can you consistently influence at least one person, one-on-one, to the current level of depth you've mastered? Can you consistently get them from the undesired state to the desired state in the moment, if that's the level of depth that you've mastered? Or can you consistently get one person, another individual, your child, your husband, your wife, your friend, your co-worker, this person you're supervising, can you, on the scale of one to one, when you're interacting one-to-one with a person, consistently get them to go to a deeper depth of change or transformation or influence? So, this is you on one person.
Scale three is when you have the ability to consistently, simultaneously influence a number of people at whatever level of depth you've mastered. You can take on two people, 10 people, 100 people, 500 people. In other words, you move to the scale of groups. You can do what you've done with yourself and what you learn to do one-on-one with another, and you can now affect multiple people simultaneously with consistency to the depth you've mastered. Now, some people can talk to a group of people and change how they feel in the moment. Some people can talk to a group of people and change how they operate, feel, and behave in a context. Some people can do that where they influence somebody and they have that impact in terms of depth where it changes their whole life. A group of people simultaneously, because it changes their model of the world. And some people can inspire and move people to point where they don't just change themselves, but they change others. And they can do it in a group. Some people only do that currently at the current level of mastery with one person at a time. Some people can not even do it with themselves yet. Does that make sense?
And then, finally, the fourth scale is the scale of the ultimate leader, a leader that creates a culture. This is where you can consistently influence many people simultaneously without your even needing to be there, at whatever level that you've mastered. So, you're able to influence many people without your presence. So, you know, a great leader starts out influencing themselves. And hopefully, they move deep, deep, deep into depth. They move from just not just getting myself to do it right now because I can get pumped up enough, but I consistently deliver in this challenging environment where I, I do it every time. It's my standard. It's my state. It's my model of the world. Deeper than that is, I'm constantly expanding who I am and what I can give to the world, my level of contribution. I can change my whole life, not just in an area or context. Deeper than that is, I'm expanding everything. So, most leaders have a path where they produce a depth in themselves that now they're able to influence other people with. Even if all you've mastered is the ability to change your own state in a moment, the next level is the ability to expand the scale of that. And now you can take that, you can show someone else how to do that. Or now you take a group of people and show them how to do that. Or now you create a culture with a set of beliefs, procedures, operations, a model of the world where your entire family does this stuff. They know how to change out of a cloudy state where your kid says, "Hey, Dad, come on, you can do this. Change your physiology, right? Or ask yourself a better question." You want to strangle the kid, but you know they're right because you've created a culture where the whole family knows, or the whole department knows, or the whole company knows. And even when you're not there, these levels of influence continue to live and impact people when you're not there. That's the fourth scale.
Now, what's more important? Depth or scale? Breadth of influence? I would argue to you that I believe depth is more important than scale. And the way I'd ask you that is, I'd simply ask you, what's more important? The molecule or the atom? What's more important? The animal or the ecosystem? Now, you might try to argue for one side. You say, "Well, my gosh, you know, the atom is more important because there is no molecule without it." Well, that's true. But also, without a molecule, you know, there's not nothing to build up. There's no organ system without an organ. There's no human or animal without that. There's nothing that can be part of an ecosystem. There is no higher or lower importance in leadership. Depth is the importance. That's what you want to get good out of. Depth. The stronger you are at your ability to penetrate another human being's soul, not just in the moment, but through time, and without you being there, the greater leader you are. And then you can move to scale, if it matters to you. Scale is driven more, I believe, by your drives and your model of the world.
I'll give you an example. Sage, my Bonnie Pearl, my wife, is a miracle of human being. I'm not just my wife, she just is. She's she's a healer. And for her, depth is everything. I mean, when she goes with somebody, nothing else on the earth exists. And she gives her soul because her goal is not just change in the moment. Her goal is to serve their soul, to have an impact on them, and hopefully so much so they'll touch somebody else. Depth is all she cares about. If she worked with one person, and that's what she did, she's completely fulfilled by that. And she's right. But what the whole world is the soul. But her model of the world and mine are like masculine, feminine. They mold together. I have the same feelings about depth, but I also have this model of the world that says, "Okay, now I've got to help reach that to the largest audience of people possible. How do we change the world with this?" So, I'm trying to figure out, how can I do this with a thousand people, five thousand people, ten thousand people? How do I get those ten thousand people taken to a million people? It started out, for example, where I influenced myself to step out of my own world, Thanksgiving, and feed someone, feed two families. And then what I did was, after years of really doing that, developing that process within myself, I led a couple of my friends, one of my friends initially, to do it with me. And then a couple of my friends had joined me. And then that grew into me transferring that model of the world.
That vehicle for making a contribution, the desire to do it, the model, the world that would make you do it, the principles that would guide it to others. And now it's a culture. This last year started out with me 25 years ago feeding two families. Last year, it fed 1.2 million people in 44 countries between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So that's an example of expanding the scale.
Now, how deep did I influence those people? That depth may have been different for some people. For some people, it was a context, like once a year. So it was level two. For some people, putting that environment starts to create a level three of influence of depth, where they start to say, "Life is about contribution." I'm hooked. And the only reason the Basket Brigade has succeeded is it's grown virally because I've had a level four influence on many people, and I haven't had to be there to do it. It's a legacy. It's a vision. It's a culture. It's a process I set up that's expanding. So that would be an example of a level four of depth and a level four of scale, a four times four, if you would.
Let's change the piece and we'll see how we can use this, and you'll see why you might find it valuable. Let's look at you, and you'll see it has real value. Question I have for you is, where are you on the scale of your leadership mastery? If you're really honest, and to answer that question, you're gonna answer two questions for me.
First is, how deep is your level of leadership? What's the depth of your impact? Are you level one? Is it influencing in the moment? Is it level two? You can influence people to create that change from an undesired place to a desired set of feelings or actions in a challenging environment or area of their life, or a context? Or is your depth of leadership your real capacity, what you really deliver, the ability to change their whole life? That's level three. It should say, "whole life," which means across contexts. Or is it level four, where you not only affect their whole life, but you affect their model of the world, so that they become so impactful as a leader, they're a leader now too, that influences other people at that level? If you had to say your center of gravity, where would you say your level of depth is that you go for? You might have the ability to go for level three, but maybe you're so busy with people, you know, you got so many irons in the fire, you just hit level one.
If you're only going to level one, and you own a business, you're always solving, putting out fires, because you help people put out the fire, and then you leave, and there's three more fires. If you're level two, a classifier gets done with you. No longer have accounting problems, or you no longer have conflicts based on integrity. If you go to level three, the whole company changes, because now you're in a situation where you've helped people change their model of the world, and now, as a result of that, that entire department really shifts how it operates. If you're level four, the whole company changes. Now people aren't coming to you. They're not saying, "Oh, Tony, what do I do?" or whoever you are, "Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Owner, what do I do?" They're saying things like, "What's right?" You know, not just, "What would Tony do?" but "What's right based on what you set up in the culture?" And they're able to train other people in that mindset, and the entire company gets better.
So you can take this metaphor of depth to a company level, to a family level, to a friendship level, to a cultural level, political level, any level you want. Then the second question is, currently, what's your level of mastery and scale? Not what can you do if you're lucky, but have you really even mastered your ability to do any of these levels with yourself? You know, have you mastered the ability with one person consistently? Well, you know, you can deliver a total change in that moment, a total change in that context, total change across context, their whole life, total change, and turning them into a leader. Are you able to do some level of depth with all groups, with groups of people? And what is the size of group that you're comfortable in influencing? Some people can influence three to five people. Some, they get to 10, and they're over-chunked. Some people, 50. Some people can do a thousand. Some people can do ten thousand. Pretty rare, but it exists. Some people can get to more than that. Level four, are you able to get to an unlimited range of people because you can affect groups of people, and you can influence them at various levels of depth, one, two, three, or four?
So where are you? Are you a one by zero? We always measure depth first, by the way. So what's the depth is what you want to measure first. Are you a one where you can change in the moment? Zero meaning you can't even influence yourself. You know, you're totally driven by cigarette smoking, by food, by the environment. Probably, if you're on this video conference, you're probably not in that range. But you and I both know people like that. And it's good to measure what people's current level is, including the people you're managing, because if you're really a leader, your job is to create leaders, as you've already said. So you've got to create leaders. You've got to know where they are, not just they're getting a result. Somebody's been getting a result just because they're a level, let's say, one in depth, and they're a level two. A level one, two, and one times two is a great manager. They can get people in the moment to change, and they can produce that result one-on-one with somebody. That's a great manager.
You know, you might have somebody who's able to get the whole group going for the moment. That'd be a level one, three. They can change the depth of the moment, and they can do it with a group of people. You find out what's the scale that they did. Uh, you might find somebody who is deeper, somebody who is a leader. They're able to step in and not just solve the problem in the moment, but help this person solve this problem forever in the context where it doesn't show up anymore. So their depth is a two. And the question is, are they, you know, a two, one, where they can change something once they face it within themselves forever, and they don't have to keep revisiting this problem? They don't have to keep saying, "I've lost, you know, 10 pounds, the same 10 pounds, 10 times." They know how to get themselves to change. They've mastered that level of leadership of themselves. Or is their depth to, but they can do that not only themselves, but at least one other person at a time? So that'd be a two, two. Or are they somebody who can take a group of people and get that group of people to produce the change that solves it? That's a two, three. Or can they get a group of people to challenge the problem, solve the problem, and they don't even have to be there anymore? That would be a two, four, because they created a culture, a model of the world that guides those individuals. Is this making sense for you?
I hope. You know, a three, three, of somebody, a depth of three, is you can go in and change somebody's entire life. Can you do that with yourself? That's a three, one. Is that your current level of mastery, if you're honest? Not in moments, but I mean, I'm talking about your center of gravity. Or are you a three, two? You can take any person one-on-one. You're a great friend, you're a great coach, you're a great mentor, you're a great parent. You know, you can go in and change their entire model of the world for the greater good. So that would be a three, two. It's one-on-one. If you know you can change an entire group of people, what I would consider "Date with Destiny" to be for me is a combination of three, three and four, four. When I'm at my best, meaning I'm helping someone to change their entire life, across context. They're learning the value of contribution more than significance, or love more than certainty. Or we change their identity from being a victim to being a person who can make the shift right now. Or we change their entire value system from getting security at number one to giving love to number one. These are global changes that affect not just how they feel in the moment, not just how they operate, let's say, in a certain situation with a particular person in their life, but their whole life. If I'm able to deal with a group of people simultaneously, I'm going to a depth of their whole life, and I'm doing a group of people. That's an example of three, three leadership. If I'm able to influence them so much that I don't just get them to affect their own life, but their example is going to affect other people and create more leaders, now I've achieved four, four. My goal is four, four leadership as much as possible. Does this make sense to you?
Where are you in this scale? So if you go, the next question, what's your center of gravity? What's really your center of gravity? And when I say center of gravity, we all have moments of perfection where suddenly we were able to lead a whole group of people, or lead ourselves, or lead an individual, or we go deeper. But if you're totally honest, where do you live consistently? Where do you have an ownership of your mastery? Not just in your ability, but what you really demonstrate in the world. For example, how deep do you go? Are you always solving the problem in the moment with people? Or do you solve that problem once and for all within the context or area? Or do you try and figure out what the deeper situation is? Do you get Josh to walk down the driveway and solve it right now? Do you solve it contextually so he always walks down the driveway without fear? Or do you solve what's behind it all, which is his ability to deal with any form of fear and his ability to take on what seems to be overwhelming challenge and not be a victim, but be a solution? Or do you go to a depth of he now owns things so much, and you've led him that level, he creates other leaders, other people that aren't fearful? Does that make sense?
Where's your center of gravity? Start with that. Write it down and be honest. And I'm going to ask you, what's your depth? And then what's your breadth? What's your scale? Are you able to do this consistently in a center of gravity where you can just do it yourself? Sometimes you help other people, but really, it's just you. Are you able to do this at the level of one other person at a time? You can do hundreds of people, but you do it one at a time. Is your scale? You can do it with groups of people. If so, what's the size group you're comfortable that you feel you have a true sense of mastery with at that level of depth? And or are you able to do it without even being there?
And I want to warn you that, first of all, you may have a certain level of skill. Like, you might say, "Well, Tony, I can take somebody to level three." But the question is, how do you really show up? What's your center of gravity most consistently? Because that tells us what the quality of your leadership is right now. And what I'd say to you is this: It doesn't matter where you start out. What matters is knowing where you are. Because if you know where you are, and you decide the level of leadership you want to go to by having a way to measure this, you can change. You might say, "You know, Tony, I'm happy with my depth, but I'm not happy with my scale. I want to expand the range and number of people I can impact at a time." Or you might say to me, "Tony, I don't care about scale other than moving beyond myself. One to one is where the world's changed. I want to infect my my family, my children, my friends, my, you know, one-on-one. That's all I want. But I want to increase the depth, because right now I'm influencing people in the moment, or I'm influencing them there, but I will influence the whole world." And I also want to remind you, it may vary based on, you know, a context or a subject. Like, some of you, if you get up and you're trying to influence somebody about changing their body, you have such an ownership of that that you don't just change them in the moment. I mean, you take them down to level three, man, you're going to change their whole life. You're not willing to have them just work out right now. You're not just willing to get them to do it because you want to change everything. But when it comes to money, you're not much of a master. And so the depth you go is not very deep. Or parenting, you feel comfortable in, but maybe managing at work, not. Or better yet, more often, people feel like, "Well, I'm really good at my level of depth when it comes to work," let's say, "because I feel confident that I feel, you know, I can't do it with my kid. My kid has more power than I do. I can't take them very deep. Or on a surface, I only change my kids' work. I get my co-workers to change the entire context, level two. But at home, I'm only able to get my kid to change for the moment, and then if I turn my back, it doesn't go anywhere." So sometimes this changes based on context or subject. But I'm really interested enough, first, what's your center of gravity? And then, is there an area you're more masterful of in depth and scale than another?
The reason most leaders don't grow is they're over-chunking. A, you don't know where you are. The first secret is that honesty of knowing where you are in depth. Second problem is, most people haven't gone deep, and now they try to go wide. So their level of leadership may have some scale, but it doesn't have any depth. And depth is what matters. So they're best are a good manager, or they're a speaker who can get everybody to feel good for five minutes or an hour, and then it's over, right? But if you're a great leader, you at least go to level two. You can change the situation with one person, multiple people, consistently. If you're a great leader, you're changing their world. So you know where you are now. Know where you want to go. Trying to jump from a 1-1 or a 1-2 to a 4-4 makes it overwhelming, and you don't know how to get there. My point is, know where you are, everyone. Know where you're committed to being, and why it's a must for you. And then figure out what's the next step. The next step is usually depth for most of you, then scale. And the depth has to be in you first, or you can't take somebody else there. You can't influence others unless you've been influenced. You can't touch others unless you've been touched. So what you're dealt with your scale? Are you 2-2, 1-1, 0-1? What are you? And then how do you...
So take a minute to think about your scale of leadership. If you're in the car driving or out moving around, just think about this and write it down later. And if you can right now, grab a pen and your manual and write this down: What's your depth? What's your breadth? How do you know? And where are you committed to being? Please pause the audio right now and write down your answers to these questions.
Well, this marks the end of our time together. I really want to wish you the best in your journey ahead. You know, for me, this has been a great, great pleasure. Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart, just having had the chance to assist you, maybe even just a little bit, in what I decided to devote my life to. That gives me an enormous sense of fulfillment. And, you know, I feel very proud of you. I mean, you made an investment of time, money, commitment, energy to make this happen. Do you remember we said, "You get out in direct proportion to what you put in"? Well, I'm sure you put in a lot. So now you're really equipped to be able to make a major contribution to the people around you, both professionally and personally. Now, here's Tony with some final thoughts.
Well, you made it. I really want to congratulate you. You have completed this program. We're coming to the end of our time together, at least for now. And I want to thank you for sticking with it. I mean, so many people talk about wanting to master an area of their life, but they're mostly dabblers. You know, they try something a time or two, do it for a little while, and get distracted. So if you listen to this final session, you've made it. So I really honor you and I respect you for that. I know I dropped a lot on you here. Think of all the territory we covered from that first session when I dumped the whole load on you. And as we walked through those seven master steps, and then starting to move through all those tools you can use, like the power of identity, or the tools for pattern interrupts, or pre-reader d-framing, or anchoring, or global metaphors, or really understanding someone's values. There are so many tools here. So I really want to encourage you now to not just let this end here. This is the beginning of the next step in your level of leadership. What will take you to the next level is really putting it in your body again and again. How anything gets better is you don't just hear it and understand it. It goes to three stages. Step one to mastering anything is you get cognitive understanding. You know what? You understand it. It makes sense to you. And you know, cognitive understanding and three dollars will almost get you a Starbucks these days, you know what I mean by that? Is it's great to understand something, but lots of people understand something and they never use it. They never do it. It's just, you know, random knowledge. Now, I don't want you to know this. So it is the first step, though. You know, if you've gone through this and it's made sense, you know, repetition's the mother of skill. You might want to go through it again, or a portion that you think could be valuable for you. But the second thing is, if you do enough repetition, and you have enough emotion linked to it, you get to the second level of mastery, and that's emotional mastery. You don't just understand intellectually, but now you start to go, "Man, I can see how using this can change my life." Or not using this is costing me emotionally, or physically, or financially, or spiritually. When you start to link up in your head the price of not applying something and the beauty and the power of applying it, now you'll find yourself starting to use something, starting to follow through, because you're so vested. It isn't just information in your head. There's emotion attached to it. Information without emotion is random knowledge. Information with emotion moves us. If you can go through this enough, if you can start to apply this and review this and use your notebook and check your notes and start to look at some of the interventions you're doing or working with people to create change and see what you're missing, see when you're succeeding. If you do this enough, if you're repeated enough, and you physically use it, it gets in your body, and you get the physical mastery. And that's where all of a sudden, man, it's automatic. You don't have to think about it. It's not a concept. It's not something you got to try to remember. It's you. And the most powerful way of doing that is to use this stuff. Put yourself in environments. Have your little checklist there and make sure you're applying it. The more you use it, the better you get. In the beginning, you're not good at anything. I mean, you might kind of fumble a little bit, maybe forget the steps. But if you repeat it, if you go through it, if you'll apply it, if you'll feel and see the impact with enough consistency and enough repetition, it'll be automatic. You won't have to think about it. You'll do it. It'll feel strong. You'll be proud. If you want to go further in this process, I tell you, the best way to learn is immersion. I try to give you a way to do this in a convenient way through what I call "Net Time," no extra time, where maybe you listen to this while you're driving in your car, while you're working out, you know, so it didn't take any more time for you to really be able to understand this and get it in your body, at least start the process. But if I could really encourage you to go to a deeper level besides practicing this, come get trained with us. Come to one of our leadership programs. And in a weekend or in a four or five-day process, get a chance to learn this, see it, feel it, and apply it. It'd be my great gift to serve you. And if that works for you, or if you'd like to learn from me or get coached by Chloe Madonna, who's my partner, then please make sure you take action as soon as you end this program here. Because, you know, one of the things I've learned in my life is never leave the site of setting a goal or raising your standard without doing something while you're in state to get yourself to continue that progress. So if that works for you, call us at 1-800-898-TONY. How's that for corny? 1-800-898-T-O-N-Y. That's the way you can reach us. People seem to remember it, so that's why we got that silly phone number. Or you can go on the web at www.tonyrobbins.com, and you can get it there as well. But would love to serve you. I also want to give my special thanks to Dr. Andy Frey Ray. What an amazing soul. To having me part of this project is truly a privilege, and I'm sure his insights into these different principles have helped you immensely. Thank you, Andy. And lastly, I just want to say, you know, there are so many experiences in life where leadership is needed. I don't think there's any time in history where there's been more demand for leaders and fewer quality leaders. And what this whole program has been about is becoming the kind of person that is a servant leader, someone who cares, someone whose motive does matter, someone who's not only skilled and intelligent and effective, but somebody who's committed, you know, somebody who is committed to find a way to influence the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions, the behaviors, the results that people get in their life. And I hope that I'll have the privilege of hearing how you use these things. So if you do, write to me. I do get the letters and the emails, and I get to see them once a month in a big review. Love to hear about how you've used this or how you've applied this in a leadership format. Or hopefully someday, I'll get a chance to meet you at some program or somewhere on the street. I'd love to hear your story. This is not the end, but a beginning, as long as you take some action right away. So I hope you'll do that. And I feel privileged to have worked with you. Thank you for the investment of 10 days of your life. And I say to you, let this be the beginning. And from this day forward, take it to another level. Be sure to live and lead with passion. God bless and hope to see you soon.