You're Only ONE Decision Away From a Different Life
Tony Robbins and Jay Shetty break down why people stay stuck, the six-step process behind a $400 million decision, and what separates a life that's merely successful from one that's actually fulfilled.
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yesterday
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Interview
educational
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
People stay stuck not from missing information but from refusing to decide, and treating decision, commitment, and resolve as three separate stages turns indecision into forward motion.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You feel stuck in a relationship, job, or life direction and keep waiting for more certainty before acting.
You want a repeatable framework for big decisions instead of relying on gut feeling or endless analysis.
You're curious how a self-made entrepreneur ties a practical decision process to a personal sense of purpose and spirituality.
You've hit a goal and want to understand why it didn't produce lasting satisfaction.
SKIP IF…
You want tactical investing or business-strategy advice; the finance material here is anecdotal, not a how-to.
You're looking for structured religious teaching; the God discussion is personal reflection, not doctrine.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
The guest argues that people stay stuck not from missing information but from refusing to decide, since conditions don't shape a life, decisions do. He separates the process into three distinct stages: deciding (a single moment that can change), committing (extending that choice into the future), and resolving (treating the outcome as already settled, win or lose). His six-step model, O-O-C-E-M-R (outcome, options, consequences, evaluate, mitigate, resolve), is how he structures big calls, including the one that made him $400 million. He closes by arguing that success without fulfillment is failure, self-esteem comes only from doing hard things, and life runs in four roughly 21-year seasons, so the real risk isn't making the wrong decision but never making one at all.
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Conditions don't determine the quality of a life, decisions do; stress tracks how controlled by events a person feels, not how hard life objectively is.
03:10 – 05:02
02 · Why the smartest people make terrible investors
The most analytical investors often underperform because they wait for total certainty before acting, and the opportunity closes while they wait.
05:02 – 07:48
03 · The general, the private, and Rule 14
A story about a general forced to decide after a decade of deadlocked debate ends in one rule: do what's right, because the decision has to be made.
07:48 – 09:36
04 · Why it's only a decision if you act
A decision only counts once it's followed within minutes by an action that commits the person to it, backed by the 'burn your boats' idea of removing the way back.
09:36 – 13:17
05 · Deciding vs. committing vs. resolving
Three distinct stages: deciding is a moment that can change, committing extends it into the future, and resolving means it's already settled internally.
13:17 – 15:51
06 · The power of problems
Problems are reframed as a sign of being alive, not a malfunction, using a line from a 92-year-old mentor and a story about building muscle through resistance.
15:51 – 20:16
07 · The six-step decision process
The O-O-C-E-M-R model is laid out step by step: outcome, options, consequences, evaluate, mitigate, resolve, including the rule that one option isn't a choice.
20:16 – 25:03
08 · Systems and spirit
A philosophy-versus-strategy split is introduced, illustrated by comparing a culture built around internal development against one built around material comfort.
25:03 – 28:19
09 · The art of fulfilment
Fulfillment has no universal formula the way achievement does; growth, not achievement, is what actually registers in the brain as happiness.
28:19 – 31:10
10 · Success without fulfilment
Chasing achievement without meaning behind it leads to burnout even when the achievement succeeds, illustrated with the story of a famous entertainer's suicide.
31:10 – 35:03
11 · The $87 million orange square
A friend's $87 million painting purchase illustrates that what produces fulfillment is entirely a function of what a person has learned to find meaning in.
35:03 – 37:25
12 · Where self-esteem really comes from
Self-esteem isn't created or destroyed by what other people say; it's built only by doing difficult things a person knows are right.
37:25 – 39:38
13 · Scoring your life 0 to 10
Rating each area of life on a 0-10 scale forces honesty, and the specific word someone uses for their work reveals how fulfilled they already are in it.
39:38 – 43:55
14 · Being a dad at 25 vs. 61
Fewer patterns are recognizable at 25 than at 60; teaching kids to be contributors is framed as mattering more than the parent's age.
43:55 – 48:35
15 · The four seasons of life
Life is mapped across four roughly 21-year seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter, with the 22-to-42 stretch identified as the most painful for most people.
48:35 – 50:03
16 · The gambler who wasn't in heaven
A parable about a gambler who wins every single hand in heaven shows that unlimited reward with zero risk removes meaning rather than creating it.
50:03 – 56:28
17 · What a relationship with God feels like
A personal relationship with a higher power is framed as something that should be as individually shaped as a signature, closing on the idea of being a blessing.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Stress correlates with how much a person feels events control them rather than the reverse, not with how hard life objectively is.
The smartest investors often perform worst because they wait for complete information, and by then the opportunity window has closed.
Deciding is a single moment that can be reversed, committing extends that choice into the future, and resolving means the outcome already feels settled internally.
A decision only counts once a person takes an action within minutes that locks in the follow-through, otherwise it's just an intention.
A framework for hard-to-reverse versus easy-to-reverse decisions shows most decisions, even scary ones, turn out to be reversible.
People who can't decide what to eat for dinner won't suddenly develop the muscle to make a life-altering decision.
A six-step model (outcome, options, consequences, evaluate, mitigate, resolve) replaces panic-driven choices with a repeatable sequence that starts with what's wanted, not what's feared.
Needing at least three real options is the difference between being at choice and being stuck in a two-option dilemma.
Problems aren't a sign something has gone wrong, they're a sign of being alive, since the only people without any problems are no longer living.
Success without fulfillment is framed as the ultimate failure, because achievement alone produces a happiness spike that fades within days.
Self-esteem isn't built by compliments or criticism from others, it's built only by doing difficult things a person knows are right.
Progress, not achievement, is what the brain registers as happiness, which is why a finished goal stops feeling good within days or weeks.
Life is described as running in four roughly 21-year seasons: growth (0-21), testing (22-42), reward (43-63), and decline (64+), with the testing years identified as the most painful for most people.
A parable about a gambler who wins every hand in heaven illustrates that unlimited reward with zero risk removes meaning rather than creating it.
Regret from a decision never made is framed as worse than regret from a decision made wrong, since a wrong decision can usually still be changed.
Cited statistics put Gen Z anxiety-disorder diagnoses at 61%, with 54% of Gen Z women reporting a diagnosed mental health condition.
A nine-week study found participants who did more, not less, during a structured time-management push reported a 20% increase in life satisfaction and an 18% increase in productivity.
Takeaway
Decide first, then commit, then resolve.
WHAT TO LEARN
Every stuck feeling traces back to an unmade decision, and deciding, committing, and resolving are three separate skills, not one moment, each needing its own deliberate action.
01Why you feel stuck
Feeling stuck is a decision problem, not an information problem: conditions don't determine the quality of a life, decisions do.
Stress tracks how much a person feels events control them versus the reverse, which is why more information without action increases anxiety rather than reducing it.
02Why the smartest people make terrible investors
The most intelligent investors often underperform because they wait to know everything before acting, and by then the opportunity window has closed.
There is no absolute certainty available in any decision; the substitute for certainty is a deliberate choice to act despite not knowing everything.
03The general, the private, and Rule 14
A general who let two sides argue a career decision for over a decade still had to choose with incomplete information, because the decision had to be made at some point regardless of certainty.
'Do what's right' is offered as the only guiding principle needed when no amount of analysis can supply a guaranteed-correct answer.
04Why it's only a decision if you act
A decision only counts once a person takes an action, within minutes, that commits them to follow through, otherwise it's just an intention.
Removing every path back to the old choice works because the brain reverts to comfort the moment an exit remains open.
05Deciding vs. committing vs. resolving
Deciding is a single moment that can be reversed; committing extends that choice into the future; resolving treats the outcome as already settled internally regardless of what happens next.
Most people stall between deciding and following through because they leave the emotional state that produced the decision and get pulled back into old patterns.
06The power of problems
Problems aren't a sign something has gone wrong, they're a sign of being alive, since the only people without any problems are no longer living.
Pushing against resistance, physical or otherwise, is what builds capability the same way muscle is built by pushing against weight.
07The six-step decision process
A six-step model, outcome, options, consequences, evaluate, mitigate, resolve, replaces panic-driven choices with a repeatable sequence that starts with what's wanted, not what's feared.
Needing at least three real options is the difference between being at choice and being stuck in a two-option dilemma; one option isn't a choice at all.
Writing a decision down, rather than working it entirely in your head, matters because the brain can't reliably hold and rank multiple competing outcomes at once.
08Systems and spirit
A useful split for any pursuit is philosophy versus strategy: philosophy determines whether a life feels fulfilled, while strategy determines how efficiently a goal gets reached.
Comparing cultures that emphasize internal development against ones that emphasize material comfort shows economic opportunity alone doesn't produce contentment.
09The art of fulfilment
Fulfillment has no universal formula the way achievement does; it has to be defined individually rather than borrowed from someone else's version of success.
Growth, not achievement, is what the brain registers as happiness, which is why reaching a goal produces a spike that fades within days to weeks.
10Success without fulfilment
Chasing achievement for money alone without a sense of meaning behind it leads to stress and burnout even when the achievement itself succeeds.
A person can hit every external goal and still end in crisis if the pursuit never connected to anything beyond personal achievement, which is why success without fulfillment is framed as the ultimate failure.
11The $87 million orange square
What produces fulfillment is entirely a function of what a person has learned to find meaning in, so the same object can be worthless to one person and priceless to another.
Other people's judgment of how someone else spends money or time on what fulfills them is irrelevant to whether that choice is reasonable.
12Where self-esteem really comes from
Self-esteem isn't created or destroyed by what other people say; praise and criticism both have essentially zero lasting effect on it.
Self-esteem is earned only by doing difficult things a person knows are right, which is a muscle built through action, not a belief installed by encouragement.
13Scoring your life 0 to 10
Rating each area of life on a 0-10 scale forces honesty, because what isn't measured can't be managed.
The specific word someone uses for their work, job, career, or mission, reveals how fulfilled they already are in it.
14Being a dad at 25 vs. 61
Fewer patterns are recognizable at 25 than at 60, which means older parents often bring more patience and perspective even with less physical stamina.
Teaching kids to be contributors rather than people who expect life to provide for them matters more than the parent's age when they had kids.
15The four seasons of life
Life runs in four roughly 21-year seasons: growth (0-21, easy to grow), testing (22-42, everything gets tested), reward (43-63), and decline (64+, managed by staying active).
Doing the right thing at the wrong season produces nothing, no matter how hard the effort, which is why timing a decision against the right life stage matters as much as the decision itself.
The 22-to-42 stretch is identified as the most painful season for most people, which is exactly when people start actively seeking frameworks and mentors for how to live.
16The gambler who wasn't in heaven
A parable about a gambler who wins every single hand in heaven illustrates that unlimited reward with zero risk removes meaning rather than creating it.
Scarcity and the possibility of loss are what make any experience valuable; removing all uncertainty removes the value along with it.
17What a relationship with God feels like
A personal relationship with a higher power is framed as something that should be as individually shaped as a signature, not copied from someone else's version of belief.
Asking an unanswerable question to someone who had turned belief into rigid rules was used to loosen certainty-driven thinking without directly contradicting it.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Type 1 / Type 2 decisions
Jeff Bezos's framework distinguishing hard-to-reverse decisions (Type 1) from easily reversible ones (Type 2); most decisions people agonize over turn out to be Type 2.
O-O-C-E-M-R
A six-step decision-making sequence: Outcome (what you want), Options (at least three), Consequences, Evaluate (probability), Mitigate (combine options to reduce downside), Resolve.
Resolve (as a decision stage)
The third and final stage after deciding and committing, where the outcome feels already settled internally no matter what happens in the real world.
Date with Destiny
A multi-day personal-development seminar format referenced as a setting where attendees stand up and share deep personal struggles in front of the room.
Resources
Things they pointed at.
03:50bookTony Robbins' book profiling 50 top investors (Ray Dalio, Carl Icahn, Warren Buffett among them)
14:10bookThe Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
55:00productI'm Not Your Guru (Netflix documentary)
Quotables
Lines you could clip.
00:40
“It's not your conditions, it's your decisions that determine the quality of your life.”
universal thesis line, works as a standalone hook→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
00:55
“We're drowning in information. We're starving for wisdom.”
short, memorable personal motto→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
Topic Map
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 07:48denseDecision-making fundamentals: why people stay stuck, certainty vs. faith
07:48 – 13:17denseThe decide/commit/resolve framework and burning boats
13:17 – 25:03denseProblems as fuel and the six-step O-O-C-E-M-R decision model
25:03 – 35:03Fulfillment vs. achievement, philosophy vs. strategy, success without meaning
35:03 – 43:55Self-esteem, self-scoring your life, parenting across life stages
43:55 – 56:28denseThe four seasons of life and a closing reflection on God
The Script
Word for word.
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Tony, I want to start with, you know, with you, there's so many things we can talk about and you've been doing this work for decades. I feel like your ability to learn what's at the root of things is second to none. It's so powerful for you to know.
And I feel today, since even when you started, people are still stuck. The thing I hear the most is I'm stuck in a relationship. I'm stuck in a dead end job.
I'm stuck in life. And I feel like I can't move. I don't know what I need to do.
What's the first thing people need to do if they feel stuck? They've got to make some decisions, right? I mean, and what stops people making decisions?
You and I don't know. What is this fear? People are afraid of making the wrong decision, fear of not being perfect, fear of the consequences of their decisions.
But let's chunk it up a little bit. What do people really want? We started out, we were all here created by something.
I like God is the term. Some people like the universe. I'm not here to argue with that whatsoever, but we have to agree that something created us and that something gave us choices.
And choices are how we create, we co -create basically our lives. It's not your conditions, it's your decisions that determine the quality of your life. I had pretty rough conditions growing up, to say the least, but I turned those into good conditions because of a mindset, because of certain psychology, because of certain decisions.
And if you think about your life, most people are stressed because they, stress is usually measured by how much you feel you control events versus events control you. The more you feel events are controlling you, the more overwhelmed you feel, the more stress, the more anxiety, the more fear. And we live in a culture where mental health is at record lows in terms of quality and happiness and joy and fulfillment and depression and anxiety are through the roof.
And it's not because the world is so much more stressful. It's because the way we process the world. We have more information coming at us than any time in history, obviously.
We're drowning in information. We're starving for wisdom. In order to go from being stressed to not, we understand that I think the single most important tool is decision -making because I think that's been the skill that took me from barely surviving in a family that had tremendous pain and tremendous...
angst was the nicest word to say and no finances and four different fathers and a lot of physical and emotional abuse to being able to serve literally hundreds of millions, billions of people. It's been decisions along the way. So if you look at your own life, yours, mine, anyone's life, anyone listening or watching, you have to be honest and say, I'm a creator.
And if I don't like what I have, I've gotten here by the decisions that have created that. And look, there's lots of little decisions we make all day long. And I know you talk about decisions.
I'm writing a whole book on it right now. And most people, you know, don't understand that most decisions are easy to change, right? You know, I think you give an example.
I give the example of Bezos as well as Amazon and type two decisions. The ones you can change very easily. Type one are significant, right?
They're going to be hard to change. Focusing on those big decisions is really important in life. But I think most people, they're afraid.
And then the second thing is they think they don't have enough information, which is really just fear again. Because, you know, I wrote an entire book where I interviewed 50 of the most incredible financial people in the world. All people started with nothing and became billionaires.
The best investors in history. The Ray Dalios, the Carl Icahns, the Warren Buffetts. And one of the things I learned over and over again from them is the smartest people usually are terrible investors.
I said, how could that be? And he said, because the smartest people want to know everything before they decide. And if you wait till you know everything, the opportunity is gone.
And that's true not just in finance. I think that's true in life. We wait till we have absolute certainty.
There's no absolute certainty in life. The only absolute certainty is faith. You know, it's like, how do you drive down a street with nothing but a yellow line separating you from crazies, coming, driving at you at 65 miles an hour, and every single day in every country in the world, in every city in the world, someone will cross that line and kill someone because they were drunk, because they fell asleep, because they're texting.
And yet, how do you get out there every day without fear and do it? You use a gift that God gave us. It's called faith.
It's not what you learned faith. I'm not talking about a religion. I'm talking about the capacity to see beyond the present moment and have a sense of certainty.
right? So the fastest way to change your life is start making some real decisions. And I know it's hard initially.
The other part is, it's just that. The more you make decisions, the more decision -making muscles you get. You know what I mean?
It's like, well, you barely, some people have weak decision -making muscles. They, you ever been to a dinner with somebody or a group of people and there's always one person that's hanging on to the last moment, still can't decide. You see the waiter or waitress trying to be nice.
You can see them kind of losing their patience, right? It's like, just freaking decide, help this lady out, right? And they finally decide.
Well, that's the habit of a lot of people. And if they can't make a decision on what to eat for dinner tonight, how are they going to make a life decision, right? So the first step is to make some.
Maybe make some small ones that you can do and get some momentum. But the more decisions you make, the faster it gets. I think the whole idea that I have to make the right decision.
is the wrong way to look at it. My whole view has been not deciding is the worst decision, right? I need to consciously decide if I don't want to feel like things are affecting me, if I'm going to shape my world, I make a decision.
And if I'm wrong, I'll find out quicker. I asked him what the most important skill was of a leader. And he said, decision -making, which I agreed with, obviously.
And I said, well, what do you think he's doing making decisions? And he said, I'll tell you a story. So he told me the story.
I'll tell you the short version of it briefly. When he was a private, he represented a general. And the Pentagon had worked for almost, I think he said more than a decade and a half, analyzing this strategic decision they had to make.
And there were people on both sides. And they argued on both sides fully, so strongly that no one made a decision for over 10 years. He said he came in the meeting.
He said, give me your arguments. One person stood up for 20 minutes and gave this full -blown argument. This is the direction to go.
All right, give me your argument. 20 minutes, full blast, their argument. He said, okay, do this.
And he all saluted, and he walked out of the room. And he said, Schwarzkopf said, he was a private, not a general, right, at that time, right? He said, I don't know what the hell to do.
He couldn't possibly know all this information. He couldn't possibly know what to do in this situation. And he was totally stressed by it.
And so he worked up enough courage to knock on the general's door and said, general, permission to speak freely. He said, at ease, at ease. He goes, General, I've worked on this for four weeks with eight people.
I said, you weren't even here last night. This is one of the most important decisions ever. How could I know you didn't have all the information?
How could you possibly make that decision? He said, young man, because the decision needed to be made. And he said, and both sides are equally strong.
So I picked the one I believe is right. If I'm wrong, we'll find out quicker. It won't take a dictate, you know, 10 years to find out.
And if I'm right, we'll continue. If I'm wrong, we'll make a shift. And he said it.
He said it just was outside of his world. It was so simple. And then he told me one other one that I thought was really good.
He said he was leaving one time, and he left him as a private in charge of things. He said, you're in charge. You make these decisions.
You do these things. He said, General, General, how do I know what to do? He said, Rule 13.
He goes, Rule 13, sir. He's starting to go out the door. He says, what's Rule 13?
He couldn't figure out what Rule 13 was. When put in command, take charge. He goes, OK.
And he goes. But how do I make the right decision? He goes, rule 14.
He goes, rule 14, sir? What's rule 14? Do what's right, right?
And those simple approaches, I think, can guide us. And I really believe decision -making is the most important thing. So if you don't like your body, change it.
If you don't like your relationship, change it. Maybe change you first. Otherwise, you'll just trade people and have the same problems, right?
You know, you don't like your career, change it. For things to get better, we got to get better. For things to change, my teacher Jim Rohn said, you got to change, right?
But it all begins with a decision. So maybe start with small decisions or maybe attack a big one. Because when you do, you get momentum.
And by the way, it's only a decision if you act on it immediately. And so I have a rule that's like, anytime I set a goal, anytime I make a decision, I make sure that within a few minutes of making it, I do something that commits me to follow through. Because here's the other problem.
Have you ever done this? You ever made a decision that did not follow through? Yeah.
Why? Because I was, maybe because I made a decision and I was uneasy about it afterwards, or there was some fear that crept in, or I didn't have a plan to execute it on it properly. Maybe one of those.
All those are the typical answers. So you're spot on in your experience. But the biggest reason is people think decision is a one -step process.
And I found it's three, right? You can decide in the moment. The reason I make that commitment that when I'm in the moment, I do something that commits me when I leave that moment, you get in state.
You get inspired enough or you get pissed off enough. Something moves you and say, not another day, not an hour. I'm changing this, right?
But then when you leave that moment. And you get caught up with some meeting or something with your family or something in your social media or email or whatever it is, gradually you're in a different state and then you don't follow through. And what you said is true.
Something else comes up that you weren't prepared for, right? So a real decision, the word decision comes from incision in Latin, right? It means to cut off from.
When you cut off any other possibility except what you committed to, you'll find the way. It's always told people, if you want to take the island, burn your boats. As long as your brain has a way out, it'll go back.
And it's amazing what you'll do when there's no option to go back. Most of my career has been because I had no net. You know, I'm working with Serena Williams and I got to turn around right now.
She can't get on. Her sister died. She can't get on the US Open.
She can't get on stand up. She can't get up to do anything. Everybody knows I'm working with her.
I don't get her up. The whole thing's over. I get her up.
I turn the president around. I do whatever I've got to do. No matter who it was, with no net, you find a way.
So I think the biggest thing is once you decide. You want to go to the second step is commit. In fact, I hear women say this to me all the time.
I know you have a large female audience. They'll say, you know, men don't commit. And I said, has he even decided?
Because there are different steps. Women jump to commitment very quickly. Men, not as quickly, right?
And so deciding is like a war sometimes. I've got to figure it out. Okay, I've decided.
But then commitment, if I ask your audience to ask them, what's the difference? Let me ask you, what's the difference between deciding and committing to you? I feel like decide is I know which direction I want to go in.
Commitment is I want to stay in that direction for a long period of time. Yes. You just added exactly what it is.
A commitment takes it into the future. Decision is the moment, and that moment can change. To me, resolve is whatever you did in that moment, it's done.
Right. I know Jim Rohn had told me one time that he was speaking about resolve to this audience of young people. I think it was like a nine -year -old girl.
He said, who's got definition of resolve? And this young girl stood up and she said, I think it's promising yourself you will never give up. That was a beautiful example.
When you resolve, you're at peace. Deciding is like a war, right? Committing requires energy and taking into the future, as you described.
And then resolve, it's amazing. It's like it's done. It's done in me.
It may not be done in the world, but it's done in me now. I'll find the way or I'll make the way. And there's no uncertainty.
There's no fear. There's no anxiety. There's no, it's like, when you get to that psychological, emotional place, that's the place in which you get results.
When you see like, you know, somebody like LeBron take the ball to go straight in and go over top of somebody's head and put it through. There is not, he didn't just decide. He didn't just commit.
He has resolved that every ounce of his being will push. That's where the ball is going. That's where it's going to go.
Yeah. Right? So I think.
Just to summarize, I think there isn't a more important skill than decision making. And if you're not good at it, all you got to do is start making some decisions. My question would be, instead of just listening to us today, if nothing else came out of this, what's one little decision you could make that would increase the quality of your life that honestly you know you should make?
Maybe even putting it off because it's inconvenient. You've got lots of other stressful things in your life or you're not really comfortable. But if you're really committed and you follow through, you just decided, committed, and followed through, right?
Resolved. Where would you be a year from now? What would your life be like?
And I would take a little decision. And what action would you take today? Make that decision now.
And then if you're bold, what's a big decision? What's a tough decision? What's a decision you've been putting off or, you know, and you've got it's right.
You know, it might be about a relationship. You know, it might be about how you're dealing with your kids. It might be around your career or your business or your finances.
But that's how life gets better. That's how you start creating life as opposed to being a manager of circumstance. And I think when people are maintaining, when they're managing their circumstances, when they're surviving, they're miserable.
We are made to grow and we're made to give. When we grow, we have more to give. And so I think decision -making is the pathway, one of them certainly, to getting there.
Yeah, it's so powerful listening to you talk about it because I feel... A lot of us, the second mistake we make is that after we make a decision, we hope that that decision solved everything. So it's like you make one decision and then you're like, all right, well, I quit my job or I left that person or I got a new job and that should solve it.
And the reality is what you're saying is no decision -making. is a continual process. It has to happen time and time again.
You don't get to make one decision and your life is solved. That's right. Life is made up of lots of little and big decisions along the way.
You know what the biggest problem is that people have? They think they're not supposed to have them. Oh, right.
Yeah. Problems are a sign of life. I remember I interviewed...
of, what was his name, Norman Vincent Peale, Dr. Peale, who wrote the original Power of Positive Thinking book. When I was 32, he was 92, and he invited me, because my career was growing, he invited me up to Toronto to meet him at an event he was doing.
So I came backstage, and we spent about an hour in advance, and I remember asking him, I said, you know, I'm curious. I said, why is he still doing these events? He goes, well, Tony, there's still a few negative people around here.
At 92. I said, what's the most, think about 92, he's, men's horse and carriage to rockets, right?
You know, nothing to computers, right? Just the changes in his lifetime were just unbelievable. I said, what do you think is the most important thing people need to understand?
And he said, the power of problems. And I said, what do you mean by that? He goes, well, the only people without problems are in cemeteries.
And I said, I think I heard that somewhere. He said, in 1947, I said that. He said, but they never finished my quote.
I said, the only people without problems are in cemeteries. So if you don't have any, you better go on your knees and pray for some. Because he said, problems are a sign of life.
And what I find is problems call us. He said he was sitting one time at this dais. He was at a speaking dais.
It was like a luncheon. And beside him was the heavyweight champion of the world. It was back in the 40s, right?
And he said that he looked at him. His name was Gene Tunney. He's a pretty famous guy.
And he said, Gene, how do you get muscles like that? And Gene said, do you really want to know? He just asked him.
And he said, he told me in his head, he goes, I was thinking, I was just asking, but now I really want to know because he was so intense about it. He says, no, I really want to know. He goes, every day I push against unbelievable resistance and that's what sculpts these muscles.
That's how you build muscle. And he said, I thought about it a long time afterwards. And he said, I think that's how we develop spiritually.
We push against problems, and that's what sculpts our souls. And so I think to think you shouldn't have problems, you can call them challenges. It feels better.
But it's part of life. It's part of the journey. And solving them makes you bigger, more alive, more spiritually developed, more human, more caring.
You know, pain and suffering, you don't have to suffer long, but we're all going to experience some of it, right? But decision -making is how we get out of it. Yeah.
And you're so right because one of the biggest challenges today is overthinking. Yes. So decision -making is the kind of arrow that cuts through that.
100%. Because that's the only way to get out of overthinking. Yeah.
And so if someone's spiraling, if they actually listen to you and said, hey, if I just make one decision off of this, that will actually create a shift for them. I can tell you too, it's too long in a conversation like this to describe in detail, but I can give you how I make important decisions. Please.
I have a six -step process. And if people want to jot it down, I call it O -O -C -E -M -R. Those are the trigger letters for what I do.
O -O -C -E -M -R. I developed this years ago because I only had one business. Now, I'm fortunate enough, I have 114 companies.
We do over $10 billion in business. I have no business background. All decision -making, learning skills, et cetera.
But way back then when I had a small business, these decisions were just, it was tough. They were important decisions. They felt like they were life and death decisions for the business.
And I knew that no matter how smart I am, you're better with a group of people around you. Because even if you have more information, they have another perspective, you know? And so I was trying to find a decision -making model.
And I thought, well. All decision -making is really value clarification. Like what's most important to you?
Like what you decide, what someone else decide may be different, but maybe right. Because it's about what do you value most, right? So I thought I should start with decision -making, not by all the emotion that I may have of either anxiety or fear or excitement or passion.
Either one can lead you astray. It's like, what do I want? What's the outcome?
That's the first O. Outcome. So I get people, and by the way, I tell people, do not do this in your head.
The reason people get overwhelmed. as they ask multiple questions too fast to answer their heads. Like, what am I going to do?
I don't know what to do. What if she says this? What if he did that?
But what if it doesn't do that? And you're asking 20 questions, and you don't have the processing power to answer them, so you're just going to overwhelm. Slow it down one thing at a time, right?
But start not with what you're afraid of. Start with what you want. Because that's how the human nervous system is designed.
It's designed to make things happen, to create. So if you become a creator, you start with the one. So what are your outcomes?
And this is the reason it's hard to make decisions for most people is, They have multiple outcomes they're trying to get from the same decision, right? They want to make everybody happy and they want to make a million dollars and they want to have more free time, you know, all simultaneously.
So you have to say, which of those things is most important to you? Is it the free time? Is it the family time?
Is it to make more money? It's like, what's most important for you, right? So I have people write down their outcomes and they're usually, if they're having a hard time, it's because there's multiple outcomes.
And I also say, don't ever do this in your head because you can't manage it all in your head. Pictures worth a thousand words. So you write down the outcomes and then you put them in order.
And then you put the why, because the why is what matters. Like, what is the reason? What's the emotion behind this?
What is it I'm, even though I say this is what I want, what do I want out of this? What's it going to give me? It's going to give me joy.
It's going to be happiness, fulfillment, spiritual development. What is it, right? So now when you're crystal clear what you want and the order you want it in, and that's critical, what's number one?
You got to be rigorous. Now you can make decisions by going into second O, what are your options? And I always tell people one option is no option.
Two options is dilemma. You need at least three choices to be at choice, right? And so, and when you get to three, usually find there's four or five.
Now you may not like them all, but you shouldn't lie to yourself and say, this is the only option that'll stress you out. Or these two are the only option, you'll get stuck in a dilemma. So I write out all the options.
Then I go to OOC is consequences, which is what you're doing the decisions for. What's the upside and the downside of each of these decisions, to the best of my knowledge? The upside could be this and this, the downside could be that and that.
I've converted the first half, okay? Now you know what exactly you want, you know what your options are, and you know upsides and downsides of each. So now we're going to go into the last three stages.
I'm going to evaluate, mitigate, and resolve. E, evaluate. Now I'm going to evaluate, what's the probability?
of those consequences. Because you might have something that's like, oh my God, if this happens, it's the worst thing on earth. But the probability is next to zero and you're all stressed out.
Unless you evaluate probability, you're wasting your time. You might have some go, oh my God, if this works out, it's going to be the greatest thing in the history of the world. But the likelihood of happening is zero, right?
You can't let those extremes get you. So you got to start to see by evaluating what's there. And then the last two steps are fast.
It's mitigation. Mitigation means, okay, I've seen what I want. I know my options.
I know the upside down. I know what's probable. Now, could I take something from this option and mix it with this one?
Is there a way to mitigate the downsides? And almost always there are. And at this stage, your brain gets really creative because it's not in fear or uncertainty or anxiety because you're not in your head.
It's right in front of you. And the last part is resolve. And I gave you a million stories.
It was too late to do, but I can just tell you I've made. Personally, $400 million from one decision I made from this personally. I'm trying to give you an economic piece.
What the spiritual, emotional value has been on things is priceless. I was going to ask you, Tony, you have such a systematic brain. When I've learned from you, listened to you, everything is so process -oriented, which I love.
But at the same time, you have this deep faith, this deep spirituality, and you brought it out there. You said, I made $400 million, and at the same time, the emotional and spiritual benefits are off the charts. Talk to me genuinely, because I think today we all hear about, oh, you can manifest this and you can get that and this.
I feel like you have a really pragmatic and process -driven approach to both. How does faith, how does energy, how does spirituality correlate with a very systematic process -driven approach? That's a great question.
No one's really asked me that question. That's nice. It's a reflection of your qualities as well, which I think you look at both sides as well as I do.
I think... There's nothing more important than spirit, soul. There's nothing more important than your spiritual development.
Anything else is a joke. And yet... Maybe the best way to describe it is think about it as East and West, right?
We both have experiences of both. I go to India at least once a year on average, and I've been going since I was in my 20s because I was fascinated by the cultural differences. And as a gross generalization, the East is more about internal development.
If you go to a place like Varanasi, which is one of the oldest cities on the planet, you know, 3 ,800 years old, they have fires that have been burning for 38 straight years nonstop. And for people who don't know it, in that culture, You know, everyone has different perceptions of God or belief of what God is.
But in that particular culture, it doesn't matter what kind of Hindu you are, if there's some believe you should give up all your clothing, everything but your clothes. Some people believe it's studying the Vedas. Some people believe it's through yoga.
Different ways to get to God. A million different ways. And there's more than 300 million different gods, your own personal god in that culture, right?
Very different. But they have a belief there that if you die in Varanasi, It's the only thing you have unified.
Then you don't come back because the belief is reincarnation. So they want to not come back, which would be nirvana, right? And they burn these fires.
And when someone dies, they try to get to Varanasi no matter what they do because they believe if they die there, they won't come back. And the city is filled. You've been there, haven't you?
Yes. Yeah. Filled with people that are dying and joyous.
Like I remember we went to Mother Teresa's facility and there was a woman there that was, you know. tiny little lady and she was like in her 90s and I was talking with her, she had no broken English and she was mad as hell. She was dying and she was mad.
They scooped her off the streets and they're helping her. She came here to die because this was her, I mean, really pissed off, right? And then most Americans have, you know, they burn the bodies.
I watched them burn the bodies on this boat and I'll never forget the first time I did this. And I watched this little boy who's flipping this look like stick or twig and it was his grandfather's leg. No one is crying.
No one is sad. They believe that the body is the T -shirt. You burn it, and it goes away.
So the spiritual side of life is all that is seen there, but yet people live in squalor. You come to America, and people get stressed about they didn't get the special burger sauce on their burger, right? And you see people that live with tremendous economic opportunity who spoil it and don't take advantage of it.
I noticed almost everybody specialized in either how I look at it as philosophy or strategy, right? philosophy is critical. It determines the quality of your life.
It determines whether you're happy or not happy, fulfilled or not fulfilled. Strategy is how, how do you get it done? And strategy is critical because you could save a decade with the right strategy in business, in your personal life, with your body, the wrong strategy, and you're going to be ill, right?
And so early on, I decided you need both. So I teach both. And I don't think that's anything but intelligent to do both.
So that's how I look at it. But if you think like, What creates, you know, when you look, I try to look at what does everybody want?
And we're all different. And I think the best example I can give is that people want an extraordinary quality of life. But that definition is different for everybody.
Like some people's idea of an extraordinary life is, you know, three beautiful children and a husband or wife that they adore. Some people's is to write poetry or write music. or to build a farm or a garden.
Some people's is to grow a business. Everyone has completely different eyes of what that is. I don't pretend that my life should be your life or I'm the example for you, but I'm an example of how you can take what you believe you want to create and make it real by a combination and enjoy it.
Because how many of you know have achieved everything you want and then said, is this all there is? Because they didn't have the right philosophy. Or they were trying to achieve something they thought would meet a need for significance and they missed love, you know, the more important pieces of life.
So I believe that there's two primary skills to have an extraordinary quality of life, which I would define as life on your terms. So the first one is the science of achievement. That's a skill.
But my point is fulfillment is an art and fulfillment is as different as you and I are. There are no laws to fulfillment, but there are some principles. And one is growth.
If you're going to be fulfilled, you got to grow. In fact, the whole self -care mentality we have, which I think was important, it was like the antidote to the, what they used to call it, the hustle culture. Hustle burnout culture.
And people are always stressed. You know why they're stressed? They're hustling just to make money.
There's no meaning. When there's no meaning, you can work your ass off and be so fulfilled if it's meaningful to you, if you're doing it for a higher purpose than just money. I'm not saying you shouldn't have money.
You should. It's part of a master skill of being alive and take care of your family. But if that's the only thing you're doing it for, you're going to stress out and burn out.
I mean, stress comes to making things more important than it really is. Failure comes to making things less important than they really are. It's an art, right?
But the fulfillment side is finding what it is that allows you to grow, because when you grow, you feel alive. I always tell people, people ask me all the time, they say, what is it that makes people happy? You travel the world, you meet millions of people.
What's the common key to happiness? And I say progress. Progress equals happiness.
When you're making progress, you're happy. Even when you achieve it. Like, can you think of a goal you've achieved that you're really proud of?
And then afterwards thought, is this all there is? Most people have had some celebration that they've had. And when they celebrate that, what I always ask people is, you're really celebrated.
It was great. You achieved it. You're proud of yourself.
Great. I say, how long did that feeling last? Not long.
And I say, did it last six years? No, six months, six weeks, six days, six hours. Most people, somewhere between six days, six hours, and six weeks max.
Because, you know, why does it go away? Because we're not made just to achieve goals. We're made to grow.
We're made to become more. Because when we grow, we make progress. We have something to give.
We have more to give. So it's like everything in the world either grows or dies. If your relationship's not growing, don't BS yourself.
It's dying. If your business is not growing, it's dying. If you're not growing, some part of you is dying inside.
So, but I found that when people really grow, they're happy and then they want to share and they have something worth sharing, right? So if you look at somebody like Robin Williams, I mean, Robin Williams. I think was one of the gifts of our country to the world.
You know, he made people laugh all over the earth. He came here to Hollywood, where we are right now, and he had almost no resources except creativity. And he said, I'm going to star in my own TV show.
Everybody says that. Nobody does it. He did it.
Then he said, okay, I want to not only star in my own TV show, I want to make it the number one show in at least five countries. He did it in nine, right? Then he said, I don't want to do TV anymore.
I want to make movies. That's more dramatic. And he did.
Then he said, I want to win an Academy Award for not being funny. A dramatic Academy Award. And he won.
He said, I want a family that totally loves me and I love me. He did it. He said, I want to have more money than I could ever spend.
And he did it. And he hung himself in his own home. How do you explain that?
Now, people say he had Lewy bodies in his brain, but he abused alcohol and cocaine and drugs his entire life, staying hyped up. He worked to make everybody as happy except himself. So I really believe that success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.
And you do not have to separate them because if what you're doing is designed to try and serve something more than yourself, you're not going to be stressed. I mean, when you're trying to serve your kids or you're trying to serve your community or your country, when there's something you care about more than yourself, there's an energy that you have.
All suffering comes focused on the self. And ironically, Again, I started to mention self -care.
I'm not being derogatory towards self -care because I think it's important to take care of yourself so you can take care of others and take care of yourself. But it's become the new hustle culture. Self -care means you're doing something, directing your mind, soul, and spirit to become more, not just checking out.
right yeah and so many people are doing it now and i think that's a huge reason why i don't know if you saw i looked it up the other day i was actually brought i want to make sure i had the right numbers it blew my mind yeah 61 of gen z has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder 61 of a generation um 54 of gen z women report diagnosed mental health conditions by american psychological association 34 % of Gen Z are currently taking the prescription medication.
And there's been 129 % increase in the trajectory use of antidepressants among teenage girls since the pandemic. I mean, it's like, there's something wrong here. This mental health crisis is because we think we should do less and we're going to be happier.
There was a study done right in the middle of COVID. by a woman who wrote an article in the New York Times. And she took people who are miserable and angry and sad and said, we're going to do a time management course with you for nine weeks.
And I'm going to ask that you do more during these nine weeks. And at the end of nine weeks, just by feeling control of their lives, right? 20 % increase in life satisfaction, 18 % increase in productivity by doing five times more than what they were doing when they kept, because the problem with.
pulling back and taking care of yourself when it's the extreme side, not what you or I would do. I know you have the meds thing you talk about, right? In terms of meditating and eating well and diet and sleep, right?
Couldn't agree more with you on that. But when people make it like just letting go and doing nothing, I don't find the value of that. But the weaker we get, the harder it gets.
It doesn't like, you don't hit a bottom and now you're okay. You just get weaker and weaker. Now little things are stressful.
It's just like the decision -making. The more you don't make decisions. The more anxiety you have, the more you start making decisions, the stronger you feel.
You feel like you're in control of your life. And all it takes is a few good ones for you to start getting momentum. So I think those two skills are the key to a great life.
Master the science of achievements. You can study how people did it. Get the same thing with your body or your emotions or your relationships or your finances.
But then when it comes to fulfillment. You have to discover what will help you to grow and what will help you to give more and what taps you. I'll give one final little example because it's humorous to me.
Steve Wynn is a good friend of mine who built most of Las Vegas, about half of Las Vegas. My favorite hotels. Yes, beautiful, beautiful old man.
And Steve is quite a philanthropist, great human being, a good friend of mine. So we both have vacation homes in Sun Valley, Idaho for the snow. And I arrived one morning or one night, the night before, and I got there like two or three in the morning, and the phone rings at 8 a .m.
I'm going to have four or five hours sleep. Who could possibly be calling me from this home, right? It's Steve.
Tony, it's my birthday. I want you to come over today. I said, Steve, I know, but it's, what, 8 .15, 8 .30 in the morning.
I just got here. He goes, listen, I got this new piece of art. He said, it's unbelievable.
I've coveted this piece of art for the last 13 years. He said, I outbid everybody at Sotheby's. And literally, they delivered it late last night for my birthday.
You must come and see this painting. I said, all right, Steve, I have one question. How much did it set you back?
$86 .9 million. $87 million. So I said, Steve, screw lunch.
I'm coming for breakfast. I got to see what an $87 million painting looks like. And I'm picturing God crashing through the clouds, some Renaissance image and everything else.
I get there, and he takes me to the room. He goes, see? And I look at it.
And I understand what it is. It's a Rothko, but it's an orange square. If you've ever seen a Rothko, it's literally an orange square, orange and red square.
And I said, Steve, they missed a few spots because it isn't filled in right. And he said, this is a Rothko. I said, I know what it is.
He goes, yeah, but I said, Steve. I said. Give me $100 worth of red paint.
Give me a piece of paper. Give me 20 minutes. I think I can do this again.
And it stirred him up a little bit. You know, he knew I was teasing him. He goes, Tony, you don't understand.
He committed suicide. Start telling me the whole story of the guy. I said, well, for suicide, it should be his blood for $87 million.
I mean, come on, right? But the reason I tell this story is he can barely see, but he can have almost no orgasm looking at that. Because he finds meaning in everything.
Like he knows what every stroke means. I'm looking at Icey at Orange Square. I'm unsophisticated.
So what makes you feel fulfilled depends on what you focus on. And, you know, some people say, why did he do that? He should have given that money away.
He's given millions and millions and millions, hundreds of millions of dollars away. That's just everybody's judgment. I think you should figure out what it is that fulfills you, because if you don't find fulfillment, you're going to be miserable.
More stress comes because you're not fulfilled. It's not because you're not achieving. It's because you're not making progress on what matters to you.
It's because you feel at the effective events versus your affecting events. And that's the hard choice, because that hard choice is choosing the discomfort, choosing the discipline, choosing the... decision that may feel hard, but is right.
But the one that's the hardest one is regret. Not making the decision almost always leads to regret. If you make a decision that's wrong, you can change it, make another one.
Even those type one decisions, you know, that Jeff Bezos talks about, most of them are still possible to change. This just takes a lot. So it's always possible to shift.
What will screw your life up is not deciding, is living on the fence because the brain does not do well with uncertainty, right? That's one of the human needs is the need for certainty. And the fastest way to certainty is just make some decisions and act on them and discover what's real.
So I appreciate your meta comments about that because I think it's really important to master both skills. I know so many people that achieve so much and they're so unfulfilled. And there's so many people that are trying for fulfillment and they...
you know, never lasts. Not feeling good is part of what gives you drive. It either destroys you or drives you.
You have to make those choices. And most of us will not let it destroy us if we don't medicate ourselves. We find a way to push through, but if you don't have to, people go for comfort.
And comfort will never make you proud. Comfort won't make you strong. Comfort will not allow you to inspire your kids or your community or your friends.
But there's a greater thing than comfort. comes from fulfillment by pushing through. And here's the other part.
It's like, I hear the word, the other pop culture element drives me crazy is self -esteem. Oh, I don't have any self -esteem because when I was a child, people said these horrible things to me. How convenient you only remember the horrible things they said to you, right?
They said lots of things. But the truth of the matter is what people said to you makes no means whatsoever as to whether you feel like you have high self -esteem or not. Self -esteem is earned by yourself, with yourself.
Someone can tell you your whole life, you're beautiful, you're gorgeous, you're so smart, and you can fear you're not, right? I mean, people like that all the time, right? And they have all this anxiety because they thought they were the best in the world and they find out they're not.
Their parents overblew who they were at that stage. They didn't teach them to develop it or to push through or develop the muscle that would make them the best in the world at what they do. On the other hand, you can be told by people, you're a piece of worthless, piece of junk, you'll never be this, you're a piece of that.
And that person can say, screw you, I'll show you who I am. What people have said has zero impact on your self -esteem. And telling people they're great or not great does not change it.
Teaching them to have grit, teaching them to push through. The way you develop esteem for yourself is by doing difficult things that you know are right. When you do something that you know is right, even though it's difficult, your esteem for yourself grows.
And no one can take that away. You can't take away money or material things. No one can take away who I've become as a man and my path or you as a man.
anyone else is a woman. And I think it's really important to know if you want to feel good about yourself, it's not by relaxing. Don't get me wrong.
I know how to relax. I know how to take time. And I have a beautiful family.
I have five kids and five grandkids. So I certainly have to be able to do that. And one of my kids is, thanks to COVID, I have a 51 -year -old daughter and I have a four -year -old daughter.
So I have quite a spread at 60 when I'm going to be 66 pretty soon. So to give you a sense. So my life is full, but it still has to have growth in it.
It still has to have progress, and that's what makes it fulfilling. Yeah. What's the difference between growth and hustle?
Meaning? Well, yes, exactly. Hustle, I'm just doing it to try to make money.
If I'm busting my tail, but, man, I know what I'm doing. You know what it is? I measure people's lives.
Again, I have to give a zero to 10 score on their body, not compared to someone else. Like your idea of a 10. When I was 20, I thought washboard abs was a 10, and they had them, and my back hurt.
You know what I mean? I was out of balance, right? Everything else was screwed up.
Big biceps. weak in other areas. So I ask people, where are you zero to 10 in your life today based on what you want for your life?
Is it energy? Where are you zero to 10 in the level of meaning and emotion? Because if you don't measure something, you can't manage it.
Give it zero to 10, a little description. Give me zero to 10 where you are in your relationships. And the most important one, your intimate relationships, because friendships are easy, right?
And if you don't have one, that's zero. And you want to see that, so it pushes you, right? Where are you in, you know, your, and this is the one that led me to it, is your work or is it for you a career or is it, you know, a calling or a mission?
And I already know who people are based on which word they pick. If it's work, it's work. If it's a career, they work at it and they're pretty fulfilled at it.
But if it's mission, like I know you and I are both called. I don't have to do this another day in my life. I do it because it's my mission.
It's my purpose. I believe it's what I'm made for. There is no amount of work that can wear you down when it's mission.
Zero. And if you haven't found that, I would caution against one other thing, if I may. You've stirred me up with some different questions.
Yeah. It's good. I think it's important to understand a lot of people are trying to find their purpose.
What's my purpose? What's this big purpose? Who said you had one?
Who said you had one for a lifetime? I, if you write down a purpose statement, it's long mission statement. It sounds real good.
And you read it. It's never going to cover all of who you are, what you're for. You know, I have a different purpose when I'm sitting down with my daughter, my youngest daughter than I am with my oldest.
I have a different sense of purpose and what I'm doing in this business is for that. I have a different purpose in our conversation today. Purpose is what gives life meaning.
But you don't have to have one giant purpose that you're struggling to find. Isn't this an unbelievable gift that we're sitting here breathing, this heart's beating, we don't have to work at it, that the skin's working, that we can have a conversation, that we can feel, that we can live, that we can have our children. That's a miracle.
We forget what a miracle does just to be alive, right? So are you celebrating? And then are you contributing?
Because celebration without contribution doesn't last. So I say measure those things. But to answer your question specifically, I think it's critical that you understand stress comes from having activity without purpose is the drain on your emotional well -being.
Talk to me about what being a dad at that age was like. in your 20s to what being a dad in your 60s looks like? What's different?
What are the different challenges? What are the different lessons? My favorite stage of life is this stage of life.
I would say that first. For everyone listening, I look at life in seasons. I'm a big believer that the three skills we need to teach our kids or ourselves, especially in a world that...
In the next five to 10 years, we'll have more change than any time in human history. Between nanotechnology and AI and, you know, robotics and everything else, the world is going to change like never before. So how do you have an advantage there?
You have to master three skills. You have to master pattern recognition so that you're not fearful. A lot of fear is because you think this is the only time this happened.
Politically, we've never been this way. It's bullshit. I can show you stuff that makes Republicans and Democrats look nice to each other from the past.
You know, when you recognize a pattern, you go, okay, this has happened before. And seasons are one of those patterns, right? And then you're not fearful.
And then the second part, it's not random. The second skill is mastering really pattern utilization. That's what gives you power in your life.
Because now a baby can't get out of this room until they recognize almost all rooms have an exit. And I look around there, it's shaped a certain way. And there's a handle that if I push, pull, I can get out of here.
If you don't, you're trapped. So pattern recognition is power. Those three skills are how you can compete or do well.
And I want that for my 51 -year -old, and I want my four -year -old. Having said that, you don't recognize as many patterns when you're 25, to answer your question, right? And I'm proud of the father I was.
I mean, I got married in my first marriage to a woman that was 12 years my senior, and she'd been married twice before me. She had kids from both husbands, and she moved in with me, and she was so unhappy. And I was like, Bring them here.
And I adopted all those kids. So if you can imagine, I was 24, just turning 25 years old. I had a 17 -year -old son, an 11 -year -old daughter, a five -year -old, and then shortly after, a blood child of my own coming on board.
And so I was out to change the world. I had to learn how to manage my life and who I was. And these kids, I fell totally in love with them and the joy of my life today.
And that marriage lasted 14 years. And when I grew up, I really, I was there for the kids, honestly, more than anything else. the right match for each other.
We're still good friends. And me and my wife now, we've been together 25 years, the greatest gift of my life. But my wife didn't think we could have kids.
The doctor told her point blank we couldn't. So we ended up doing it with a surrogate and it was COVID. And I'm normally going on the road 225 days in a year, 200 days in a year with COVID.
They shut down every arena in the world. I mean, it went from... doing 15 ,000 people to them saying I could put 100 people in the arena.
So we pivoted, and I started doing digital seminars. We did the biggest ones in the world, 1 .3 million people. Huge screens, yeah.
Three days, you know, and really made it an experience that was amazing. So there was time. So we got our daughter.
But to answer your question specifically, I think in my 20s and 30s, I was still trying to figure out completely who I was. And all I knew is I want these kids to be loved. I want them to know that they're not here to demand from life.
Life is expecting something from you. And that if you're here to be a contributor, you'll always be happy. And I really accomplished that.
I'm proud of all my kids. They're all contributors. They all contribute time, energy, money, resources to help people who are not as well off as they are.
They're all great parents. And they're all just good people. But with my daughter today, it's, you know, I had her at 61.
Certainly not what I planned for. It brought more joy to me than anything else because you know so much more. You have so much more wisdom to share.
You have more time to just experience things versus when you're running, trying to make it all happen. And I think someone like yourself at 38, we talked off the air here that at some point you'll probably have children. I think in that 38, 39, 40, you have more wisdom because you're still, you know who you are now.
to a great extent, you'll continue to evolve. I'll continue. Especially you, right?
I'm continuing to evolve, right? But I think there's just more to give at that stage. But I also would tell anybody that I wouldn't, if someone would have told me, if you think of zero to 21 as being a pattern of seasons, like when I say pattern recognition, the pattern that has changed humanity the most, the first recognized pattern that we changed and started to use was seasons.
If you do the right thing at the wrong time, you get nothing. It doesn't matter how hard you work. So I'm a big believer in looking at what season you are in your life, what season you are in history, right?
What season I'm in with my family. And so I think a 021 is springtime. Everything grows in springtime.
It's easy to grow in springtime. If you start a business in springtime, you think you're a genius. You're not a genius.
You're just in the right season, right? But then summer comes and things are tested. And God or the universe, whatever you want to call it, has made it so we have an easy time and then we have a tough time.
to test this, to make a sprout, an easy time of rewards and a tough time. So summer, think of it as like 22 to 42, roughly. Zero to 21, you're taken care of.
I had a childhood that was a little tough, but I was 13 or 14. I had to work to support the family, but I still, I didn't have to make all the money for the food. Someone else was housing me.
Someone else was taking care of me. At that stage of life, you're taking in information. 22 to 42, now you go test it, right?
Now you go say, well, I was taught all this stuff, but what do I believe, you know? In the early stages of that season, you think you're invincible.
You think you're going to be a multi -billionaire, president of the United States, and have 100 relationships simultaneously, and everyone will be happy. And by the time you're 32 or 33 or something like that, you start going, I'm not a billionaire, I'm not the president of the United States, and I can't even one person happy in a relationship.
What the hell is going on here? And that's usually when people start to look out for people like you and I who are looking for some wisdom about how to live life in a way that's happy and fulfilling and growing and expanding because they know they're not invincible. That stage, if you're listening, if you're in that 22 to 42, it is the most painful stage across all studies, most unhappy stage.
If you're happy right now, that is awesome. And anyone can be, but most aren't fully happy at that stage. It's the most trying stage.
It's the testing time. And if you didn't grow during spring and take care of yourself summer, then you won't reap in the fall. You're going to weep.
But if you grew in both those stages, now you go to the third stage. That's, you know, basically 43 to 63. And these numbers are round, right?
Some people are early, some people are late. But in that stage of life, you've accumulated enough skill and knowledge if you've grown. There's a stage of life that if you've done your job and have contributed enough to society, that you know most of the players or you know most of the people in the industry, and you've got relationships that are 20 years long or maybe 30 years long.
And the talent pool is not elastic. There's only so many people that keep growing. And so you usually know those people and have a role in that.
So that stage is where most people have that stage that we can think of as autumn, as the fall, as the reward stage. That's when most people earn the most. That's when most people tend to grow the most.
That's when you start to really become a leader in that stage. Now, obviously, it can happen earlier. And then 64 to 84 to 104 to 124, which is the oldest living humans.
is the winter stage, which is there's a gradual decline in the body, no matter what you do at some stage, and you have to make sure you keep your mental facilities up. I have 40 -year relationships now. I've got five kids and five grandkids.
You know, I've got... People that I love with my soul, that I would do anything for, would do anything for me. I don't know many things in life.
I feel closer to God and the universe than I've ever felt in my life. I feel like my life is such a blessing. If my life ended tomorrow, I'd be the most blessed man on earth.
I'd like to continue contributing, but that's not in my hands. Yeah, we need you around. But that's not in my hands.
Whenever I go, it'll be the right time. So it's just like, I want people to know, and all the studies, by the way, show, if you stay healthy. This stage I'm talking about is the most fulfilling stage.
And it's a stage where you get to become, you know, an elder statesman. And you're not trying to prove to somebody who the hell you are. You know, you don't play the social media game.
You know who the hell you are. If people know you like, people know you're a good person. But if they don't, you don't really care, right?
You just go deliver what you're here to deliver and do what you're going to do. So those stages of life I think are useful because we're all different, but there's a racetrack to life. You're not there yet, but there's a stage in your life when your brain will go, there may be more days behind me than ahead of me.
That's usually midlife, whatever age that is in people's heads. It's different for everybody. And there's a beauty.
There's a massive increase of the beauty of life when you begin to realize it's a limited racetrack. You value every moment, every relationship, every... The experience you have even more.
And I'm at a stage of life where I have so many friends that are 20 years my senior. I have a lot of friends in their 80s and friends my age that have passed away just in recent years. And it just reminds you that it's a limited racetrack.
It's about a man who is a gambler and he goes to heaven and his day of heaven is staying at the Wynn Hotel in the presidential suite, right? Or the encore presidential suite. And he wakes up.
In heaven, he wakes up at the top of the encore and he opens his closet. There's all these suits and outfits and he opens the drawers and there's cash and there's jewelry and watches and all these things. And he goes downstairs and every woman notices him and he goes and he's blackjack, you win, 21, you win, you win, you know?
And all of a sudden he's playing craps, you win, you win, you win. And he's like lit up like a Christmas tree. And he goes home that night with more than one person and he thinks it's the greatest experience of his life.
And he wakes up the next day and does the whole thing again. And the next day he does the whole thing again. The next day, there's the whole thing again.
After three weeks of this, he's sitting at the table. He's playing blackjack. He goes, 21, you win.
He goes, of course I win. I always win. He's getting angry.
He goes, there's something wrong here. He goes, I want to speak to the head angel. There's something wrong here.
And so the head angel comes over. He looks like Guy Lombardi in his tuxedo and says, can I help you, sir? He says, yes.
He goes, I win every single time. He goes, there's a mistake here. I don't belong in heaven.
I'm not the kind of guy that should be in heaven. And the angel looks at him and said, who said you're in heaven? If we always got everything we wanted, if time was unlimited, would you value life as much?
So I'm here to make sure we make every moment matter with meaning and with love. Last question, Tony, before we end, you mentioned there that And you've talked about in your seminars, I've seen you talk about it, your relationship with God, the universe.
Yes. And I wanted to ask you about that because I think we often refer to a relationship with God, a relationship with the universe. What does a relationship with God and the universe look like?
How does one nurture that? What does that mean? It's more of what it feels like to me than what it looks like.
It feels like, I feel like I've been guided in my life because I've asked for guidance and I believe I've been created. I think we're all created for different purposes.
my own personal belief which may be wrong is that i'm here to make things better i mean i have a i wear these silly baseball caps all the time just for fun but um if you read them on the side it says be a blessing and you'll be blessed is what it says underneath and that's my whole philosophy of life be a blessing and i think um I know one of my sons, Josh, I remember when he became a Christian.
I'm of the Christian faith personally, but I'm quite broad in my approach. I'm not restrictive in my thinking, and I don't believe everyone should be what I believe to believe. In other words, if you have a spiritual belief, I hope you follow it.
Because whatever it is, if you don't follow it, you're probably not going to be happy. And I'm not a proselytator of people to have to be or think a certain way. But I remember my son, he became Christian.
And when people... you know, find God in whatever way they find it, they often think no one else has that. It's only their way, you know?
And he became very, very rules -driven about, this is how it is, and that's how it is. And I was quite concerned. But rather than trying to push him to be a certain way, I told my wife, Sage, I said, honey, we were in Fiji, and I said, you know, I've got a few days.
I said, I'm going to go on a fast for the next four days, maybe five, four or five days, just drink juice, and I'm going to read the whole Bible from cover to cover. And I said, because I've never read it that way. I've never done total immersion like I talked about.
I read the whole Bible and literally about 18 hours a day. And I was struck at the end by an overall pattern. So I went to my son.
He's been very devout and very right, wrong, good, bad. And anytime you make things extreme, I think it creates problems, right? And I didn't try to make him wrong in any way.
I said, God's this and God's means that. And this is what Christ did and this is how it is. And I said, okay, Josh, I have one question for you.
I said, I just read the entire Bible. from cover to cover, and his jaw dropped open. I said, I'm dead serious.
And Sages of the Magi goes, he did it. I said, one thing that comes out of it, I read the Old Testament, and God seems like a selfish bastard who's mean and vindictive. And I read the New Testament, and God seems incredibly loving and supportive of all.
So I said, if that's true, does God grow?
And there's this long pause. He felt like he was being trapped. You know, like, you're trying to trap me.
And I said, I'm not trying to trap you. I'm asking an honest question. I mean, everything in the universe either grows or dies.
So does God grow? If the Bible is a real reflection of God, and there are many other books that are a reflection of being inspired by the divine, but let's say that's the book, does God grow? Because it sure looks like it in the book, you know?
And if that's true, the only reason I'm bringing that up is I know what you're fearing is that you can't have absolute certainty about how things are, which is what everybody wants. But you could have faith. And I said, he goes, well, God knows everything.
God knows what you're going to do before you're going to do how it's going to be. And he gave me this rattle. And I said, OK, I believe all that.
But the question is, does God grow? And he couldn't give me an answer either way because he felt like he was being trapped in it. But eventually he loosened up.
And I can say today he's much more balanced, you know, in that area. He's not trying to make everybody else believe what he believes. But I think the universe grows.
I think God grows. And I think it's our job to grow. And I think that when I look at the spiritual side of life, the relationship I have is one that's more emotional than visual.
I feel like when I get up to serve, God comes through me. When someone stands up and... Let's say it's a date with Destiny.
You've been to a date with Destiny. You never know who's going to stand up. They could say, you know, I'm suicidal.
Or they could say, you know, I'm considered killing myself and my five kids. I mean, I've had that come up. I could say I made $400 million and I'm depressed and people want to slap them.
You never know what somebody's going to say. But the minute they stand up inside me, it's already done. Not because I'm so smart, because I know they stood up in this moment, I believe, because this is all by design, and the right answers will come through me, and they do.
I mean, I've never lost the suicide knock on wood in, you know, 48 years. And, you know, I'm sure people have seen, some people may have seen I'm Not Your Guru on Netflix. It's a piece, but you see people six years later, like the woman that was there that was suicidal, that was in that cult where they make you have sex with the adults.
And she's got out. She's now a psychologist. She's rescued all these other kids.
She doesn't have an ounce of depression or suicidal thoughts, you know. Stanford did a study that shows that. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the spiritual side of life is critical.
But what I said to my son is this. I said, I want everyone's relationship to be God if I had a choice, which I don't. But if I had a choice, it should be as unique as your signature.
Why should everybody be copying everybody else? You should have an individual relationship with God. So I said, I really appreciate if you read the Bible or you read any great spiritual book, a personal Christian, but read any of them and let God speak to you.
Don't just take it from another man or woman standing on a stage telling you what to believe. I always tell people at my events, I'm not here to tell you how to be. Who the hell would I be to do that?
I'm just sharing with you insights and tools and strategies that can help you guide yourself to who you want to be. And hopefully to ask you, who do you want to be in this lifetime? Because in the end, what you get is not going to make you happy.
Who are you going to become? That's going to make you happy or sad. So I think it's an individual decision.
And I think it evolves for people over time. But I think it's one of the most important things. Because for those who believe that there's nothing nihilistic, but...
this moment or this body, I think that's a big mistake. It's like saying Webster's Dictionary is the result of an explosion at Print Factory. It all came together perfectly in balance.
I just don't buy that, even logically. And I think you're missing out on life if you don't think there's something more than you and also something more to serve than you. And that gives me personally a great sense of meaning.
Yeah. Tony, thank you for your work, your tools, your insights, your life, your service. Thank you for your time and energy today.
Thank you for all that you do. I appreciate it so much. I'm so grateful for our friendship, honestly.
It's been a real gift. If this clip brought you value and you'd like to watch something else, this next video has been chosen especially for you based on your viewing behaviors. I hope you enjoy it.
And if you do, please subscribe to the channel so we can keep bringing you fantastic conversations.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Jay Shetty opens by naming the complaint he hears most: people feel stuck in a relationship, a job, a life they can't seem to move out of. Tony Robbins' answer is blunt: it was never a lack of information holding them there, it was an unmade decision.
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A 68-minute conversation on rewiring your emotional default settings, bending time into three mini days, and rooting your identity in who you are rather than what you do.
Ed Mylett's own problem-solving framework, stress-tested against four archive clips: Tony Robbins on why fear is physical, a world champion barrel racer's 2% chance to live, Amy Purdy's second fight to walk, and Dean Graziosi's hardest six months.
Spiritual coach Katie Clarke tells Lewis Howes that manifestation isn't about chasing outcomes — it's about becoming, internally, the person who already has them.
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