Why Modern Creator?

Stephen Hilgart · YouTube

I worked for Tony Robbins...and made millions (what i learned)

The head trainer who sold $200M in seminars distills five psychological principles behind every business he built.

Posted

May 31st

2 weeks ago

Duration

29:09

Format

Talking Head

sincere

Views

1.7K

59 likes

Big Idea

The argument in one line.

Every million-dollar business decision is downstream of one skill: the ability to manage your emotional state so that clear thinking stays available under pressure.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…

You are building or growing your first serious business and wonder why tactics keep under-delivering.
You have consumed a lot of personal development content but have not yet translated it into revenue.
You are an entrepreneur whose business plateaus keep feeling like business problems when they might actually be personal ones.
You are drawn to Tony Robbins-adjacent ideas but want them delivered by someone who ran the operation from the inside for eight years.

SKIP IF…

You want a step-by-step playbook with specific funnels or systems — this is mindset and philosophy, not tactics.
You are already deeply fluent in the Tony Robbins canon; the material here is a retelling, not a reinvention.

TL;DR

The full version, fast.

Eight years inside Tony Robbins' organization taught one lesson above all: your emotional state is the master variable. When it is managed, business decisions are clear and execution is consistent; when it is not, what looks like a business problem is actually a psychological one leaking into your results. The five principles covered — owning a business over a job, providing more value than anyone expects, demanding more from yourself than others do, treating success as a must not a should, and building trust as the primary currency — are all downstream implementations of that central idea. The video grounds each principle in stories from a homeless winter in Chicago, running a 1,000-student karate school, and selling $200M+ in seminars.

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Chapters

Where the time goes.

00:00 – 01:15

01 · The hidden side of Tony Robbins

Hook: the public Tony vs. the Tony who shaped the speaker. Sets up credibility — eight years as head trainer, sold $200M+.

01:15 – 05:00

02 · Homeless in Chicago — the $20 book

Origin story: sleeping in a car in February, buying Awaken the Giant Within with his last $20 food money. The book's parallels to his life hook him in.

05:00 – 09:00

03 · The decision that changed everything

Moves to Minnesota, opens a karate school that grows to 1,000 students. Sells it, travels 65 countries, starts two more businesses.

09:00 – 13:20

04 · Provide more value than anyone would expect

Integrating personal development into the karate school — report cards, school partnerships — created exponential loyalty. Value means more than your core product.

13:20 – 17:30

05 · Expect more of yourself than anyone else would

Teaching 16 classes a day, prospecting elementary schools. The if-you-can't-you-must mantra. Should vs. must as the dividing line between entrepreneurs who survive and those who don't.

17:30 – 22:10

06 · There are no business problems

Personal problems are the only real business problems. Emotional state management as the master skill. Business is math — finite formulas, limited touchpoints — but wrong emotional state corrupts the math.

22:10 – 24:40

07 · Becoming a trusted supplier

Trust is at an all-time low in 2026. First sale is the hardest it has ever been; repeat sales are easier than ever. The third option: when a binary choice appears, you are missing the real solution.

24:40 – 29:09

08 · Make two decisions today

Close: recap of all five principles. Call to action borrowed from Tony — make one decision that affects today, one that affects the near future.

Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

Your emotional state is not a soft skill — it is the operating system that every business decision runs on top of.
There are no business problems; there are only personal problems that bleed into your business.
Everyone overestimates what they can do in a year and dramatically underestimates what they can do in a decade.
Satisfied customers always leave when the market gets tight; raving fans never look for a new supplier.
In a trust-deficit economy, the first sale is harder than ever — the second sale is easier than ever.
A job earns you a living; a business earns you a fortune. The ceiling is structural, not motivational.
If something is a should, it will never get done. The moment it becomes a must, resources appear from nowhere.
When you see only two options, you are blind — the correct answer is almost always option three, four, or five.
Business is math, not art: finite touchpoints before a customer buys, finite touchpoints after — master the sequence.
Competing with everyone in your category is the wrong frame; your real competition is every alternative your customer could choose instead.
Adding personal development to a martial arts school turned a fitness business into a community pillar that parents never canceled.
Becoming a trusted supplier means customers stop evaluating you and start asking what else you sell.
Most entrepreneurs fail because building the business is still a should — not yet a must.
You cannot make the right decision in the wrong emotional state; this is not motivational advice, it is cognitive science.
Expecting more of yourself than anyone else would is different from hustle culture — it is intelligent intensity, not burnout theater.

Takeaway

Five habits that outlast every business tactic.

WHAT TO TAKE

The moves that produce consistent business results are not strategies — they are psychological disciplines that keep decision-making clear under pressure.

A business is not a job with better branding — the ceiling of wage income is structural, not motivational, and breaking through it requires owning something rather than performing something.
Satisfied customers are a liability; they leave when the economy tightens. The goal is customers so well-served they feel the product exceeded what they paid for.
Most business problems are personal problems in disguise — stress, poor sleep, unresolved conflict, and emotional reactivity corrupt every decision downstream.
The difference between a should and a must is the difference between a goal and a commitment; until something is a must, the brain quietly keeps all alternatives open.
When you see only two options in a difficult situation, that binary framing is itself the problem — the correct answer almost always requires expanding to a third or fourth option.
Trust is the scarcest resource in a saturated market; getting someone to buy from you once is harder than ever, but getting them to return is easier than it has ever been.
Expecting more of yourself than anyone else would is not about volume of hours — it is about raising your personal standard until ordinary output no longer feels acceptable.

Glossary

Terms worth knowing.

Trusted supplier: A vendor or provider a customer returns to by default, without re-evaluating alternatives, because prior purchases cleared the know-like-trust barrier. The goal of every repeat-revenue business.
Should vs. must: A mindset distinction where a should stays optional and is routinely deprioritized, while a must eliminates all alternatives and mobilizes full effort. Tony Robbins uses it to diagnose why goals stall.
Emotional state management: The ability to consciously shift your emotional state before making high-stakes decisions, preventing stress, anger, or frustration from corrupting business judgment.
Raving fans: Customers so positively surprised by their experience that they actively promote a business without being asked. Contrasted with satisfied customers, who leave when conditions change.
Fractional CMO: A part-time or contract Chief Marketing Officer who works across multiple client companies simultaneously, providing senior marketing strategy without full-time overhead.
Personal power: Tony Robbins' term for the ability to take action — power over yourself rather than over others. The foundational concept in his Personal Power audio program.

Resources

Things they pointed at.

01:37bookAwaken the Giant Within

05:22bookThe Richest Man in Babylon

06:22bookJim Rohn — Profits are better than wages

19:28bookZig Ziglar — Help enough people get what they want

17:53productTony Robbins Unleash the Power Within (seminar)

21:13linkstephenhilgart.com/class ↗

23:36linkstephenhilgart.com/consulting ↗

Quotables

Lines you could clip.

03:24

“Everyone overestimates what they can do in a year but dramatically underestimates what they can do in a decade.”

Clean standalone quote, no setup needed, instantly applicable→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote

14:11

“There are no business problems. There are only personal problems that affect your business.”

Contrarian and memorable — sounds wrong until it lands→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote

22:08

“There's never been a harder time to get someone to trust you the first time, and never been an easier time to get them to buy from you the second time.”

Dual-tension structure, 2026-relevant, highly shareable→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote

The Script

Word for word.

Read-along

Don't just watch it. Burn it in.

See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.

metaphoranalogystory

00:00There's a version of Tony Robbins that you see on Instagram and then there's a version that I worked with for eight years or so as his head trainer. The second Tony is the one that very few people ever get to see and he's the reason that I made millions of dollars. Alright.

00:13Let me take you back to the beginning of the story. So here I am, I'm in Chicago. It's a random city for me.

00:18I had no money, no savings, no job, no nothing. I end up in this position where I'm homeless. I'm living in the back of my car.

00:24I'm sleeping on the floor of a karate school. I mean, wasn't destitute living on a park bench, but I was sleeping in the back of my car every night. I was sleeping on the floor of a karate school when I had the opportunity to.

00:35But for me, I kinda spiraled out of control and I was depressed and sad and frustrated, pissed off and angry like maybe a lot of people in this world. But for me, I was just so desperate for answers. I was so desperate to try to make something to myself that I was willing to pay those dues.

00:49And you know, and being a little older, wiser, more mature, I realized I probably didn't have to go through all those struggles. I could have learned from other people, but I didn't know that at the time. So for me, if you can imagine, I'm sleeping in the back of my car.

01:02It's February in Chicago. It's 30 below zero. I I can't sleep.

01:06It's too damn cold. So I go over to the Barnes and Noble, little book store across the street. And I'm walking through the aisles just to stay warm, to have something to do.

01:15And I see a little book on the shelf called Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. And I had seen the infomercials back in the day, Change Your Life, Tony Robbins.

01:23And I had been up late at night watching those and all this good stuff, but it never really occurred to me to go buy a book because I hated school. I hated education. I hated this.

01:32You know, come to find out I love learning. I love education. I hated the school system, which I think is a complete joke, has failed me, failed everybody else.

01:41But now we're standing here, I see this little book on the shelf, Awaken the Giant Within, it's $20 and take a wild guess how much money I had in my pocket that night. $20. Divine intervention, universe talking me, whatever you wanna call it, but I bought that book.

01:53And for me, it was a wild decision because that was last my food money. I didn't eat for like two weeks. I mean, was going to the dollar menu every single day just to get my one double cheeseburger from that dollar menu just to survive and try to find something to do.

02:06Right? But I bought that book and I remember I'm sitting in one of the the parking lots of a mall not too far from there and I I've got a bunch of jackets as my blankets in the back of my car and I'm just sitting there in the parking lot and I'm reading this book.

02:19And if you ever had the chance to read it, Tony's describing the first couple of paragraphs. He's like, I'm flying my jet helicopter from my castle in Delmar, California to my sold out seminar in Los Angeles.

02:31And I'm sitting here thinking, first thought in my head was, man, this braggadocious dude, I've made a huge mistake. I gotta try to get this book refunded.

02:40I gotta try to get my money back. I don't know. But for whatever reason, I just kept reading because I didn't have anything better to do.

02:46And he said, I stopped my helicopter because I recognized a building and that building is a building that I had worked at as a janitor just ten years ago. And I remember him saying like, man, in those days, I was wondering where I was gonna get my next meal.

03:00And I'm sitting in the back of my car like, man, I don't know where I'm gonna get my next meal. And then he said, I was living in my car. I'm like, dude, I'm living in my car.

03:07And he said, man, I was just depressed and frustrated and angry and upset at the world. And I'm like, I'm depressed and angry and frustrated and upset at the world. I'm like and it was just an instant connection.

03:16There were so many weird parallels to his story and mine in that moment, so it caught my attention. And what Tony said in the book, he said, listen, everyone overestimates what they can do in a year.

03:25I'm gonna be a millionaire this year. I'm gonna be a billionaire this year. But they dramatically underestimate what they can do in a decade.

03:32And he said, listen, if you just stick with me, if you learn these lessons, these skills that I have to show you in psychology and mindset and emotions and the strategies that I have for you here. I promise you, your life is gonna look a little different the next year, but in the next decade it'll be unrecognizable. Because he says in your moments of decision, your destiny is shaped.

03:51And now you can't change your destination overnight, but you can sure as hell change your direction. And if you make a new decision right here, right now, you can decide to go down one path versus the other. And for me, I decided to keep going down that path.

04:02I'm like, you know what Tony? I'm bought in. I got it.

04:05If you can just I I remember, you know, in all the movies, they're shouting out to God. Let God save me. And I'm like, Tony Robbins, save me.

04:11So I remember reading that book and I won't bore you with the whole story, but I moved back to Minnesota where I'm originally from and I ended up opening a karate school. And it ended up being one of the biggest karate schools in the country at one point. We had, you know, three, four other competitors around the country.

04:25I was really competitive, so I wanted to build the biggest, baddest school. We had over a thousand students at one small point in time, and I was very proud of that. But as time went on, we built that.

04:34It was a very large business. I sold that, moved overseas, and I traveled about 65 countries, lived in seven. I started two more businesses, sold those, and it probably all sounds like I'm sitting here banging on my chest and telling you now how great I am.

04:46But I'm telling you this because it's the same lesson that I learned from Tony. Is that if you just make a new decision in the next year, it might not look like much, but if you take it out ten years, life looks dramatically different. Now it's been almost twenty years for me and life has been pretty unique.

05:01So I wanna just share with you here today some of the lessons that I've learned over the years and some of the lessons that I read in that book originally that didn't make sense until later on in my journey. So I figured I'd just start sharing these with you. So first and foremost, if your goal is to make millions of dollars, you can do it, everyone can it.

05:18And the biggest mindset shift that I had to make here an amazing amount of abundance in the world. And for you to make more, earn more doesn't mean you're taking away from other people.

05:29And this is an old story in the richest man in Babylon And, uh, the reason I bring up all these different books is because Tony told me, he's like, I used to read a book a day and I tried to get through everything and I was like, that's what I'm gonna do. So I read over 2,000 books. I went to over 200 seminars.

05:43I bought every stinking course on audio tapes. Yeah. Actually cassette tapes and CDs and audio programs and it wasn't till way later did they come out in m p threes and everything.

05:53But I remember the richest man in Babylon, he said, you know what? If if someone buys a plot of land and they build a a palace on it, they build a mansion on it, is the land not worth more now that that home is there? Of course.

06:05Is the land adjacent to it now worth more because it's there? If it's beautiful and it's really good? Of course.

06:10So wealth grows in exponential ways and a lot of people look at this and they say, well, you know, if I make more money that means I'm taking from somebody else. You know, it's just not true. So we gotta start with this mentality of abundance, but abundance can only be created in your own business.

06:25And this is gonna be my own philosophy here that I'll share with you. And Tony was very much, uh, influenced by Jim Rohn. And Jim Rohn used to say this all the time.

06:34He would say, listen profits are better than wages, which means that you can make a living if you have a job, but you can make a fortune if you own a business. It just means that you can do more for more people.

06:46And the thing that's so fascinating about being an entrepreneur, being a business owner then, uh, instead of being just an employee and not to denigrate any employees. Listen, there's a lot of people out there who, you know, they don't want the stress. They don't want the challenge.

06:58They don't want the responsibility. They don't wanna deal with all this. I mean, there's payroll and there's taxes and there's all these things that you're gonna deal with as a business owner.

07:05I understand that, but if your goal is to make millions, there are very few employees who have ever done that in their entire lives. So first and foremost, the lesson is you gotta have a business.

07:16You gotta be able to provide a product or service to somebody somewhere out there and then there's only a couple ways that you can do that. So in your mind, if you're looking to make millions, the same lesson that Tony taught me, he said find something valuable as a product or service and deliver it.

07:29And the first thing he said is listen, you gotta provide more value than anyone else in the marketplace. So lesson number one is, yeah, you need a business, but lesson number two is your goal is not just to try to sell the cheapest crap. Your goal is not to just provide the the most basic mediocre service.

07:44Your goal is to provide more value than anyone else would ever expect. So when someone comes to buy your product, your service from your business, you start to feel like, man, not only can you be proud of it, but every single person they get all excited. And Tony taught me, listen, you gotta create raving fans.

08:01You can't just have satisfied customers because satisfied customers go away. They'll always leave especially when the market gets tight, especially when the economy gets tight, especially when the world challenges are at an all time high. Satisfied customers will always find a new trusted supplier.

08:15And that's what we wanna be to our customers, to our clients is a trusted supplier. And how do we do that? We gotta provide more value than anybody else.

08:23Well, one thing that I noticed in the karate school back in the day is we had another karate school down the street from me and it's a long story. Uh, but he he ended up shutting down while we were exponentially growing like crazy. And the reason wasn't because he was a bad instructor.

08:36He had a great school. He was a great instructor. He was a great guy.

08:39And one of the things that I noticed in the martial arts world is we weren't competing against other martial artists. There was nobody who went from his school over to my school. So nobody like joins karate or martial arts or Taekwondo and says, I need to go to a different school.

08:52No. They either do it or they don't do So for me, I realized very quickly is my biggest competition in the martial arts world was soccer and football and dance and gymnastics and every other activity that kids can do instead of martial arts. And for me, I knew that if I got the kids enrolled, I would get the parents because they were already there.

09:11They wanted to get in shape. They love the exercise. They love the family activity.

09:14So I just had to market to the children but how did I do that? How did I provide more value? It wasn't that I taught better kicks and punches, I did.

09:22It wasn't that I taught better martial arts, I did. But it was because I added personal development, personal growth inside of everything.

09:30So for the kids to grow inside of the martial arts world, it wasn't just go from your white belt to your gold belt and you learn a couple of kicks and punches. No. We integrated with the schools and we said, hey, listen, your teacher has to sign off on your graduation to your next belt.

09:43If you're not doing well in school, you're not gonna do well here. Hey, by the way, I need to see your report card. By the way, I need to see you this.

09:50And we would attach all of this personal development to our martial arts world. And what do you think that did for the parents? They were super excited.

09:57Every kid, every single kid that came into that karate school had a d d, a d h d. They were misdiagnosed, mislabeled, missed whatever, and they came in and all of a sudden their grades went from d's to a's. All of a sudden they went from being the shy kid to the confident kid.

10:10All of a sudden they had a better attitude. All of a sudden they had better grades. So the first lesson that I learned from Tony about providing more value was like, we've gotta do more than just kicks and punches.

10:18We've gotta be more to this community than just a place to go work out. So that was one of the biggest things and we built that school and I think the last year that we had it, we did something like 1,800,000 or or whatever it was. Now, of course, not all profit.

10:30Right? Uh, you know, when you get into business, you start to hear all these big revenue numbers. You're like, oh my god.

10:35This person's really rich. And you forget that they've got taxes and payroll and rent and all of these things. Right?

10:41So with that being said, the second piece, the second lesson that I'll give you here is you just gotta expect more out of yourself than anyone else ever would. And this is one of the things that Tony said was just it hammered home because I I was raised in the martial arts and I had martial arts instructors who had told me that like, hey, listen, I was so competitive.

10:59Right? As a kid, if someone did 10 push ups, did 11. If someone worked out, I worked out twice.

11:04Like I was just so competitive. I always wanted to be the best in the martial arts world. And then I took that attitude into Tony and Tony said, hey look, you gotta expect more out of yourself than anyone else ever would.

11:14And for me, one of the biggest things at one point, I was teaching 16 karate classes a day. 16. And for most people who are running martial arts schools out of their gym, they teach like two classes every couple of days or whatever it is or you look at the YMCA, it's teaching one martial arts class a week, whatever it is.

11:31And even schools that are struggling, dojos, karate schools, whatever that are struggling, they just don't put in that time and effort and energy that I ever did. Not only did I teach 16 classes, but I would go to the 11 schools in my district, actual elementary schools k through eight, and I would go teach your gym classes for a week.

11:48Hey, such and such school. How about I come in there and teach martial arts for your gym classes for the next week? And then I would do that in rotation, and I would go speak at the classrooms, and I would go to the business expos.

11:58So for me, it was all day every day. I expected more out of myself than anyone else ever would, And and that's why that thing grew. That's what was expected.

12:07So I was always prospecting. There's always lead generation. I was always building and growing and everything.

12:12So that lesson from Tony of just like expect more out of yourself than anyone else ever would. You know, everyone else thought I was crazy. Everyone else thought I was lying.

12:19Everyone else thought it was like, oh, that's too much for one human being to do. And I'm like, no, it's just not true. You know, look at Michael Jordan.

12:25Look at look at all these other sports superstars who just do more. And that's what I'm talking about here. So expect more out of yourself than anybody else ever would.

12:34Now along those lines, one of the biggest things that Tony would say is that if you can't, you must. And if you must, you can. So so many people say, hey, you can't do that.

12:42That's too hard. That's too much. It's too far.

12:44It's too difficult. Let's do this. I can't do it.

12:46And he would just This mantra would always come up whether it was a personal power cassette tapes or the ultimate edge audio program or like seeing him live. The biggest thing he was, if you can't, you must. And if you must, you can.

12:58And in that moment, it was just one of these things. Is it a must or is it a should? Because a lot of people spend all day long, I should make more money.

13:05I should start a business someday. I should work out more. I should eat healthier.

13:09I should exercise more. I should say I love you more. Should And most people spend their whole life shoulding all over But when it becomes a must, when finally did you decide in that moment, you decide to cut off any other option.

13:19You say, listen, I've had it. I've had enough. I'm gonna make this happen.

13:22I don't care what it takes. I must make this happen. And it's so funny the resources that you find inside of yourself when something is a must instead of a should.

13:31When you have to work out, when you have to exercise, when you have to eat healthy, you just do it. When you have to show up to work, when you have to do these things, we just do these things. And for a lot of people they they start a business with a should.

13:43And the reason most businesses fail is because it's a should for them to succeed. And this might sound harsh, it might sound kinda mean, but the truth is the reason people fail it's because it's a should not a must. And for all of us we have to make that distinction in our lives is is it gonna be should for you or is it a must for you?

13:59Now here's one of the biggest challenges that I I faced throughout my career and maybe you have been a successful entrepreneur yourself. I don't know if I'd call myself successful. I've done pretty well.

14:08But over the years, one thing that I noticed that is that there are no business problems. There are only personal problems that affect your business.

14:16And for a lot of people, they think that there's these business problems and payroll and this or that or whatever, but really it's your lack of the ability to make decision because you're emotionally stressed. You're pissed off. You're frustrated.

14:27You can't control your thoughts. You can't control your discipline. You can't control yourself.

14:31And Tony would always say in the old personal power infomercial. He said, personal power, the definition is the ability to act. The ability to take action.

14:39That's what personal power is. It's not about power over other people. It's about power over yourself.

14:45And so the biggest thing that I've realized over the years is when I was stressed, when I was pissed off, when I was frustrated, when I was in a down emotional state, that turned into poor decisions in business. That turned into poor financial decisions.

14:57That turned into things that cascaded into big problems. You know, and I remember there were times where I would treat people harshly. I would treat myself even more harsh.

15:06I would not be focused or present when I needed to be whether it was in relationships or business or negotiations or anything along those lines. And it was because I didn't deal with my personal problems first. And my challenge to you if you're listening to this wondering like how the heck do I make this thing happen?

15:20How do I make my business go? How do I make millions of dollars? I guarantee you this might sound like fluff, but the number one thing that I can give to you here is that lesson is just there are no business problems.

15:31There are only personal problems that you bring into your business because business is just math. Business has very little art to it. It's very scientific.

15:40You do x y z formula, you get this result. And for a lot of people, you start to realize that business is actually kinda boring.

15:47There's only two things you can do, a product or a service. And there's only so many ways you can do that. There's only three ways you can sell things, one to one, one to many or on display on a shelf.

15:57Right? We call it a merchant and there's only a few things that you need to do. There's only, you know, eight or nine things people can see before they become a customer and there's eight or nine things they can see after they become a customer.

16:07You can start to see why I got so good at marketing. It wasn't because I was such a genius with a capital j. It was simply because I started to understand the simplicity of marketing, the simplicity of business, and understanding that all of these things.

16:19I made it so complicated because I wasn't emotionally there. And the number one skill that I can give you if Tony Robbins says this, I don't know if he says it very much these days, but it's emotional state management. That's a number one skill of all time, the ability to control and manage your emotions.

16:35More importantly, the ability to manage and control your decisions because we all make the wrong decisions than a down emotional state.

16:42I mean, come on. Let me ask you. You ever said something you really wish you could have taken back?

16:45You would have said something different in that moment if you're like, baby, love you instead I'm gonna kill you right now. Like you make a dramatically different decision whether you're happy, positive, motivated, driven, passionate, hungry, whatever it is versus when you're pissed off, angry, depressed, frustrated, upset.

17:00Am I making sense here? Because emotional state management is the one thing that will take you from zero to millions. And again, I know it sounds like fluff.

17:10I know it sounds like this is a very woo woo conversation. But I'm telling you man, everything about making money is about the right decisions and you can't make the right decisions in the wrong emotional state.

17:20Now, there's probably a million more things that I can share with you because like I said, I spent twenty years, you know, around Tony Robbins and reading everything that he put out and listening to every single thing. I listened to it so many damn times that I've memorized it. You probably even see in some of my language like how I speak.

17:35I tend to speak like him at times just because I've spent so much time obsessing over his content, his material. I mean, I've been to, uh, all the seminars dozens of times, know, unleash the power within which is the main flagship seminar that me and my team sold. You know, I've been to it now probably 60 times.

17:54The four day seminar I've been to 60 sometimes, maybe 70. I don't know what the what the real count is anymore. But I tell you this because there's a million things I could teach you but one thing that's really valuable in business is what we like to call the third option.

18:07And the third option is for a lot of times you're gonna get caught in this situation. Maybe you haven't been there yet. I'm sure you have, maybe just didn't recognize it.

18:15Is there always seems to be a black and white decision. And every time there's a binary choice, one or zero, yes or no, black or white, up or down, left or right. If that is your only two options, you're blind.

18:28And when you're blind, it means that you're missing option number three and four and five and six. Right? And for a lot of times in business, business problems get solved with creative solutions.

18:38So your job and business, you are always gonna run into problems. Here's what a business is. A business is only designed to solve problems.

18:44To solve problems for its clients, for its customers, for its internal operations, for its finances, for its capital, for all of these things about how do I make a better product, how do I have a better service, how do I charge more money, how do I make more profit, how do I do that, whatever it is, it's all just problem after problem after problem after problem.

19:01And the best part about this, most people hate problems. But for you and I as entrepreneurs, business people, we enjoy problems because when we fix them, when we correct them, when we find something new and unique, a different way to solve this problem, we get paid more money. And life is pretty damn good when you solve other people's problems.

19:17I remember Zig Ziglar used to say, if you can just help enough people get what they want, you'll have everything that you want. And that's really what the definition of a business is. It's just helping people.

19:27And here's what I would suggest, my own personal philosophies. Business is about service. Service to our fellow mankind, service to our fellow people, service to our fellow community, city, state, country, world, whatever it is.

19:39And I don't think there's a greater calling than service to our fellow mankind. I'm not a religious person by any means, but I think we can all agree that one of the best things that you can do in this world is serve your fellow mankind. And that's what I really truly think of business is and that's where the wealth comes from.

19:53Not just monetarily, not just money, finance, but wealth in the personal sense, in the fulfillment sense, and the ability to, you know, really make an impact and a difference on this world.

20:03So what I'm trying to get at here is you are gonna be faced with a lot of problems and those problems sometimes feel like they only have two options, two roads.

20:13And if you ever catch yourself in this moment, we can only do x or y, you need to stop, reset yourself, and come up with three or four or five more solutions. You gotta brainstorm different ideas.

20:24You gotta figure out what else is out there. You gotta talk to other people to see how they have solved that problem in the past. Because I promise you, if you feel like a rat in a maze that you can only go left or right, you're missing it.

20:34You're missing that you could just go up. Right? You can dig down.

20:38You can do whatever you want. So you gotta look for that third option and I hope that's helpful to you. Maybe it doesn't make sense here today but I promise you at some point in your future, it will make sense because that's one of the most beneficial things.

20:48Last thing I'll talk about here and this is something that's gonna be very fascinating for a lot of people and and again, whether it makes sense to you today or not, you have to find a way to become a trusted supplier. And this is a a a piece of language that Tony would always mention when he taught business mastery.

21:04He taught some of these other programs that was about entrepreneurship, that was about businesses. Your job is to try to become a trusted supplier of a product or service. And I always thought that was kind of a weird way to say it, and it didn't make a lot of sense to me.

21:16But as the years went on, it started to make more and more sense. It became more and more clear because here's where we are. It's 2026.

21:22We are in a massive trust deficit economy.

21:26What do I mean? There's never been a harder time in history to sell someone a product to service the first time because everybody's seen everything.

21:34Everybody's been scammed by everybody. Trust is at an all time low because every product or service you buy doesn't meet our expectations. It definitely doesn't exceed it.

21:44Nobody goes above and beyond these days. Nobody tries to make your experience better. Nobody tries to make the product better.

21:50They can only try to find ways to cut cost to make the product worse. I mean, when's the last time you had McDonald's? That garbage has been horrible for twenty years, but it's even worse now.

22:00It's just straight up plastic garbage that they're feeding you. Right? I haven't been there in a while, but man, you can't even look at it without just like gagging.

22:07Maybe I'm saying this because I used to sustain myself on double cheeseburgers. Right?

22:11But the reason I bring this up is because if trust is in an all time low, like how are you ever gonna succeed? There there's no way. Everything is against you.

22:19Nobody's ever gonna trust you. Everyone hates you. But listen to me now.

22:22There's something really fascinating about the world today is, yeah, there's never been a harder time to get someone to know, like, and trust you the first time, to get you to buy, uh, to to buy from you the first time, but there's never been an easier time to get someone to buy from you the second time, the third time, the fourth time, the fifth time.

22:38Because if you can cross that barrier of know, like, and trust, now you become what we call trusted supplier. And instead of this customer client looking for a new person to trust, they just wanna go back to someone they already trust and say, hey, what would you buy here? How do I find this?

22:52Where do I get this product? Do you have that for sale? Do you have that for offering?

22:55In my own business right now, I make my living these days as a fractional CMO. So I work with a lot of very large companies and you know, I I make them millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Uh, I'm very proud to say that one, but one of the things that's so fascinating in this world is they keep coming back to me because they trust me.

23:13They're like, hey, you built out this website and this funnel and you're running these ads for us. Can you do this? Can you do this?

23:17Can you do this? And originally, I started my career back up when I retired from my role with Tony Robbins. I started marketing consulting and at the beginning people just wanted ads.

23:26They just wanted websites. They just wanted a strategy. They just wanted a consultation.

23:30But for all of those people who trusted me enough to give me money, time, effort, energy to go look into their business, the trust too. Right? To go look in their business and see, hey, here's what you could do.

23:39Here if you have you tried this strategy? Have you tried this tactic? Let's turn this around.

23:43And it worked, which almost always does, you know, not to toot my own horn here, toot toot, but it and when it worked, now all of a sudden they're like, hey, can you also do this? Hey, can you also do that? Hey, can you also do this?

23:53And that turned again from just like a one man shop to now I've got a little agency where I've got several employees and team members and and teammates and, uh, my brother has joined me in my business now, so that's exciting. So we got a lot of really cool things, but that only happened because I became a trusted supplier.

24:10So how does this affect you? Well, listen to me. You gotta find a way to become a trusted supplier in your market, in your product, in your service.

24:17And how do you do that? Well, goes back to everything we talked about here today. Number one, you gotta have emotional state management.

24:23You gotta control and manage your emotions so that you can control and manage your decisions. Because when that pissed off angry customer comes back with questions and they are a little snarky and they're a little rude and they're a little in your face, are you gonna react to that or you're gonna respond to that?

24:39Because most people react, well, screw you. We don't need your business anyways. Other people are cool, calm, collected.

24:45They can respond and say, hey, listen. It's not as big of a deal. And you start to realize that in the moment they might be upset about something else but you take care of them, now they know like and trust you even more and they do even more business with you.

24:56So emotional state management is a big piece of this. Next up, you gotta provide more value than anyone else in the marketplace. If you're selling loaves of bread, it better be damn well good bread.

25:06Right? Because there's a lot of competition in the bread world, so you need better bread. You need a better product.

25:11You need a better service. These days, you can't just get by with drop shipping crap from China. You have to go there and figure out what is gonna make this product better.

25:20How do I improve upon this? How do I make this 10 times better than my competition? How do I improve upon this service to, you know, here's what everybody's so upset about.

25:28Let's fix this problem so we can do a better product, a better service, provide more value. And then number three, you gotta expect more out of yourself than anybody else ever would. Listen, a lot of people buy programs and courses and they take these coaching programs where people are telling them how to build a business and there's nothing wrong with that.

25:45I've done it a million times. I love those courses. I still buy them today, but nobody can do it for you.

25:51Nobody's gonna run to your house and knock on your door at 5AM and say, hey, listen, we gotta do prospecting today. Let's put together your list of prospects. Let's go figure out who do you need to door knock and cold call and how do you need to email people, how do you call people, how do you ask for referrals.

26:04Gotta expect more out of yourself than anyone else ever would. I've taught a coaching course over the last couple of months here, very small private group. And for these guys, one of the funniest things is the younger guys and the older guys and the the middle aged people here, uh, men and women both, they all tend to struggle with this expectation of someone is going to give it to them.

26:23They struggle with this, I was an employee, now I'm a business owner, so I need somebody to tell me what to do. But the truth is if you're gonna survive and really thrive in business, you need to expect more out of yourself than anyone else ever would. That means if someone tells me to prospect 10 names, I'm going after 20.

26:40If someone tells me to do a 100 of an activity, I do 200. Whatever it takes, I do it because I expect more out of myself. And I would never just go out there and pound on my chest and tell you, oh, I'm gonna do double.

26:50I'm gonna do No. I'm just gonna quietly do it. So when that 100 someone comes around and says, hey, if you wanna be successful, you need to reach out to a 100 people.

26:57I'm gonna reach out to a thousand. I don't care what it takes. I expect more out of myself than anyone else ever would.

27:03And that's different than this hustle culture. We're not hustling in place burning ourselves out. We're being intelligent about it but we are expecting more out of ourselves.

27:12Now, the last couple of ones, if you can't you must, you must, you can. Right? And that's the the bottom line of there are gonna be days you're burnt out.

27:19There are gonna be days where you're tired and exhausted and you're gonna say I just can't go on. I can't do anymore. I can't make it happen and the truth is you can and if you can you must and if you must you definitely can.

27:30Right? And then of course we talked about these other pieces. There are no business problems.

27:34There's only personal problems that affect your business. So you gotta make sure your psychology, mindset, your home life is right in order to do this business well. And then the last thing that we talked about was becoming a trusted supplier and having that third option.

27:48When you're really going through and trying to decide between black or white up or down, you gotta look at all the other things. I call myself a strategist because I wanna look at the entire battlefield. I wanna look at all of my options and I don't wanna just pretend it's forward or backwards, up or down, left or right.

28:03I wanna know all of my options and I wanna pick the best one. So listen, I know this has been an intense video for you here today, but if your goal was to make millions of dollars, you wanna learn some of the lessons I learned from Tony Robbins to be able to do this for myself and now four different businesses and, uh, you know, for Tony Robbins, I was out there.

28:19I probably sold about 200 some million dollars for Tony and, uh, you know, life has been pretty good for me because I made that original decision. And I guess now at the end of this video, it's your turn to make a decision. What are you gonna do?

28:30Where are you gonna go? Who are gonna be? Where are gonna go from here?

28:33And are you gonna make the decision to start your own business or to grow it? Are you gonna make your decision to push yourself to the next level to be more emotionally resilient, to be more forthcoming, more more energetic, more whatever it is you wanna call it.

28:47What's the decision that you're gonna make for yourself today? And I remember back in the old personal power cassette days, take number one. I still haven't memorized.

28:54The personal power, your first thing is make two decisions. What's one decision that's gonna affect your life today? What's one decision that's gonna affect your life in the near future?

29:03Uh, so if you want, do yourself a favor and make two decisions right here, right now.

The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

For eight years, Stephen Hilgart operated inside Tony Robbins' organization as head trainer — close enough to see the version of Tony that never makes it onto Instagram. This is what he learned about making millions, starting from a parking lot in Chicago where the only book he could afford cost him his last meal.

Frameworks

Named ideas worth stealing.

12:07concept

Should vs. Must

A should remains optional and gets deprioritized; a must eliminates alternatives and mobilizes full effort. Tony Robbins uses it to explain why most businesses fail.

Steal forDiagnosing client commitment issues in coaching or consulting intake

12:07concept

If you can't, you must — and if you must, you can

Activation mantra that reframes inability as non-necessity. Flips the internal story on impossible tasks.

Steal forHigh-pressure sales scripts, coaching calls, keynote transitions

14:11concept

No business problems, only personal problems

All business dysfunction traces to the owner's psychological state leaking into decisions under stress.

Steal forBusiness coaching intake — reframe where clients look for root cause

20:56concept

Trusted Supplier

Becoming the vendor a customer returns to by default — the goal of every repeat-revenue model. Especially valuable in low-trust markets where first sales are expensive.

Steal forRetention strategy, customer success frameworks, email nurture positioning

06:22concept

Profits are better than wages

Jim Rohn via Tony Robbins: wages pay for a living, but profits fund a fortune. A structural ceiling observation, not a lifestyle judgment.

Steal forEntrepreneur recruitment content, offer positioning against corporate salaries

18:00concept

The Third Option

When a binary choice appears, you are blind. Every black-or-white decision hides at least three to five better options.

Steal forNegotiation training, creative problem-solving sessions, strategic planning facilitation

CTA Breakdown

How they asked for the click.

VERBAL ASK

28:00product

“If you want, do yourself a favor and make two decisions right here, right now.”

Soft close borrowed from Tony Robbins Personal Power. Links to a free class and private consulting in description. No hard pitch inside the video itself.

MENTIONED ON CAMERA

21:13linkstephenhilgart.com/class ↗

23:36linkstephenhilgart.com/consulting ↗

FROM THE DESCRIPTION

PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.

stephenhilgart.com ↗

OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.

stephenhilgart.com ↗

Storyboard

Visual structure at a glance.

open — hook

hookopen — hook00:00

homeless origin

storyhomeless origin01:15

karate school build

valuekarate school build05:14

personal dev integration

valuepersonal dev integration09:00

should vs must

valueshould vs must12:07

no business problems

valueno business problems14:11

trust deficit (B-roll)

valuetrust deficit (B-roll)20:13

trusted supplier (B-roll bakery)

valuetrusted supplier (B-roll bakery)25:02

two decisions CTA

ctatwo decisions CTA28:44

Frame Gallery

Visual moments.

open — hook

Frame at 00:27 from I worked for Tony Robbins...and made millions (what i learned)

homeless origin

Frame at 01:18 from I worked for Tony Robbins...and made millions (what i learned)

Frame at 01:56 from I worked for Tony Robbins...and made millions (what i learned)

Frame at 02:14 from I worked for Tony Robbins...and made millions (what i learned)

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