Tony Robbins Changes My Life (48 Minute Coaching Session)

I cannot believe who we have here today. Tony Robbins is coming on the podcast. Tony Robbins is the number one life coach, performance coach in the world. He's the highest paying public speaker of all time. This guy's built a business um um empire that does seven billion a year in revenue. Um incredible entrepreneur and coach. I mean This guy's customers, his clients, the guys who pay him to coach them are like

you know, top athletes, uh, you know, Serena Williams and Tom Brady and Connor McGregor. You know, um to politicians Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton. Uh the top Traders and investors in the world. Ray Dalio, Paul Tudor Jones. They pay him because they know that Tony is can help be their edge, right?

Uh, he can help them level up. So if he can help them level up, I think we can learn a lot from him. I'm gonna ask him about three specific things. The first is I actually went to a Tony Robbins event eight years ago. This is my notebook. from that event. Uh I still have it eight years ago, eight eight years later and The reason why is because I hate to be that guy.

It's like I went to a self help seminar and it changed my life. But it did. Uh I really came out a different guy. I came out a happier guy. I ended up You know, at the time I you know This podcast called My First Million. I didn't have My First Million then.

And I came up with a plan, I came up with a strategy, and I stuck to it after that event. And I made I did it because I he I made three specific shifts. And so I know most of you will never go to one of his events. You'll never go to the seminar. It's a four-day thing. It's kinda weird. It's not as cool as just Go in a coachella or whatever. But I wanna ask Tony about those specific three shifts so that you can hear from him.

Exactly what I heard in that event that changed my life. That's what we're gonna do on this podcast today. Those same exact things that changed my life. I'm gonna have him explain on the pod today. It's kinda like a live coaching session, which is People pay this guy a million bucks to do this and we're gonna get it for free. Uh also at the end of this, uh Tony doesn't know this, but I'm gonna actually give away just under a hundred thousand dollars worth of tickets to his seminar. So for people who are listening to this, there'll be directions at the end.

of how you can actually get a free ticket to go to one of his things if you so choose. So that money is not your limitation. So the least I could do, this guy's helped me out so much in my life. I would love to pay it forward to the next person and uh and send them to the seminar. Um Lastly, we talk about his his new book, which he's been interviewing all these billionaires, right? The There's this championship mindset, right? He works with the top one percent of the one percent.

And I wanna know what's different. What are they doing differently? He tells a story about an investor Who boughty million nickels. Like literally like the coin, the nickels. Uh why they did that and why that was such a good idea. Um, I wanted to hear some of these stories from him hanging out with these billionaire investors.

Uh, because he doesn't talk about that a lot and I I'm I nerd out about that kind of thing. So enjoy this episode. With Tony Robbins, this is a real uh Cool moment for me with this podcast to be able to do this. I thank Tony for coming on and I hope you enjoy it. I feel like I can rule the world and no way

Be what I want to I'll put my all in it like a day's off on the road. Pull this one out today to just do a little refresher. Where'd you go? When'd you go? I went to New Jersey. It's actually a funny story. I I had heard oh Tony Providence is motivational speaker and I I kind of was like, Oh, do I do I need motivation? I don't need motivation. I don't either. But I there was something inside me that because when you when I had watched your videos, I thought well it's not Just that. I mean he's a He's an entrepreneur, he's doing his company's doing billions in revenue.

He's clearly a leader. And when I went to this event, I knew that It wasn't just like It wasn't just some generic self help BS and I go And a couple of things stood out right away. I just want to tell you about this my experience at your event. So I go and the very first thing that happens is I plan to just sit back. I'm here to learn. Okay. I'm not gonna jump, I'm not gonna do all that dancing, jumping around stuff. This is my mentality.

Fifteen minutes later, that's out the window. I'm into it. I'm having a great time. Uh the second thing is I notice I see These celebrities up front. These are some of the most successful people I know. All right. I I hear this scream that almost sounds familiar. I look over and it's Jared Butler, the guy from three hundred, like the Spartan. I'm like, all right, if he's into this, I I think I could be into this. Uh, you know, like You have this thing where give your neighbor a high five. I turn it's Vanessa Hudgens. I'm like giving her a hug.

I had this amazing experience and when I was there, was one guy who turned and looked at me and he said First time, huh?'Cause you just see this grin on your face. And I was like, Yeah, this is not your first time. He goes, No, I've been to five of these. And honestly, I was like A little discouraged. I was like you gotta come to this thing five times. Like I don't know. Uh is that how this works? And I go, Why'd you come five times? He goes

Because when Michael Jordan's in his prime and he comes to your town, you go watch him play. And I thought that was one of the best compensation. I said, Michael Jordan. He said, Yeah, he's this is the Michael Jordan. He's like, he does many things, but he's the Michael Jordan of public speaking. And after that, I started looking at what you were doing differently. You work with billionaires and presidents and athletes and all this stuff. But Every superhero has a origin story. Right? Like Spider Man got bit by the spider, and that's you know, that's where he got his powers from. I think your origin story is amazing and not not a lot of people know the full story. Can you take me back? You're seventeen years old.

I think you're a part time janitor. And you've never been to a seminar in your life, how did you st What was your spider bite? How did you stumble into this? Well that's an interesting question. I was already interested in personal development because I had a kind of a rough background. I have four different fathers. We had no money for food. I had to work two jobs to work as a janitor and

My mom had a friend and dad had a friend that had been my my dad my dad's description was he used to be such a loser And now he's really successful. And so he called and said, Listen, I hear your son's gotten big. I was I I was five one in high school and I I was six two by my senior year. I grew ten inches in a year. I tell people the difference is personal growth, by the way. But the bottom line is he said, you know, I I gotta move some furniture and things. I heard he's big, you know, could he come work for the weekend for some extra money? So I did.

I worked really hard and the guy really was impressed by my work ethic, so he said I'm gonna take you to lunch. We're going to this lunch and you know, and he's saying, you know, I I really think you go places got a lot of drive. And I said, Well, I'd like to ask you some questions. And he said, Okay My dad used to say used to be such a loser, and now you're so successful. How'd you do that? Only a kid can say this, right? I wasn't trying to be cute. I just literally repeated it.

You go said what? And then he's like, Well, it's kinda true. And he said, Well, I went to this seminar and I said, What is this seminar? I've never heard of such a thing. He said, Well, man It's really become accomplished. takes twenty years of his life and teaches you in three and a half hours the best of what you need to know to make your life work. I said, Wow. That sounds really interesting. I said, Could you get me in?

And he said, Yeah. And there was no follow up. So I said, Well well, will you? And he said, No. I said, Well why not? He said, Well, because if you don't pay for it, you won't value it. And at the time I was working as janitor making forty bucks a week. So I said uh How much is it?

He said thirty five dollars. It'd be like two hundred and fifty dollars and and you today's dollars to give you an idea. But it was a week's pay, is all I knew, and it's like Are you kidding me for three hours? I said, No wonder the guy's rich. He goes, No, that's not it. He said, He really has these tools, but he said, Uh, if you think it's too much, then you go learn your own experience and take ten or twenty or thirty years and maybe never learn it up. At all. And so long story short. I mean what I thought was the biggest decision of my life to take a week's pay.

And I went and heard Jim Rhodes speak and I was deeply moved and I left there going, Okay, I'm gonna become president of the United States. I'm gonna start with a plan of running for junior in high school and run for student body president. I'm gonna be a state of so I was just looking to have the most impact. But what it led to was me just really digging in and learning everything I could about human development and then

very quickly because I was studying everything I get my hands on, I came across neurolinguistic programming, N L P Which at the time was a breakthrough in new technology of how to use language to change human emotion of behavior. And I talked my way into this, you know, six month class. I was the only non therapist in the class. And um and after the first weekend I was just out using it. I'd stop I'd go to literally

Well, this the program I went to was at the airport. All it in and L E X. And I'd go to the Denny's that was right next door afterwards and look for people to help. It's like I'm gonna change your life. But and then gradually I started modeling and I started figuring out other skills and I started challenging traditional psychologists and psychiatrists saying Give me your worst patient. I'll handle them in an hour.

And I took people with lifetime phobias, you know, been in therapy seven years and turn around in an hour and that build my reputation. And so then I started working with athletes and then I started working with Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela and Gorbachev and you know, President Clinton and it just grew and grew. And then along the way I Use some of the same skills called modeling, finding out what is makes the difference in performance. around businesses when I started building companies. So today

You know, now I have uh a hundred and eleven companies, we do over seven billion dollars in business across radically different industries. And uh but this is my mission. This what I do on a daily basis here. My education company is what I value most. But that's kind of the journey. And I've had lots of ups and downs along the way. Obviously it wasn't like a straight up experience by any stretch. It's not a straight line.

But I've learned a hell of a lot. I've been surrounded by a lot of great people along the way. I don't know if you've seen this. Have you seen this little clip of Jim Rome talking about you? No, I have not. Let's play this. Alright, can you play that clip? Yeah, Tony Robbins sat in my seminar when he was seventeen. Seventeen, he was on the outs with his parents and he was sleeping in his car.

And someone got him to come to my seminar, age seventeen. So you don't you never know who's in the audience. And he worked for me for three and a half years promoting my seminars back then called Adventures and Achievement. Three and a half years. Finally ran one of my offices at age twenty in Los Angeles. Tony Robbins. Now he's a big time superstar, bigger superstar than I am around the world.

Unbelievable. And he mastered all the stuff? You know, I didn't teach him to firewalk and all that stuff, but That's Tony style. You know, he can get by with that. I couldn't do that. I did say to him one time, Tony, you gotta do water instead of fire. They'll come from all over the world.

And knowing Tony, guess what? He'll probably try it. Kids unbelievable. He's unbelievable. So

What's it like? I mean, hearing your mentor, you know, uh somebody who became a friend, but but started off as a you were the student, he was a teacher in a way. How does it feel hearing that? Oh, he w he was a teacher for sure. He taught me some most important things. I think the most important thing he taught me, um was when I was, you know, I had all these different fathers and we're always broke and so he said, Change your mindset. Change it from Can I earn twice as much in the same amount of time? Ten times as much?

Fifty times, a hundred times, a thousand times? Yes, if you become more valuable. So you have to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. And he said, You've got to understand whatever you do, do add more value than anybody else in the marketplace than what you do. And that really it it it sung to me because I always try to overdeliver in anything I did, even at that stage of my life. And um that's been the basis of every company that I built across all these different industries. And there's no way a BYM without that piece.

So I'm indebted to Jim as my first mentor. One of the questions I wanted to ask you. Is you can't ask Steph Curry how do you make a jump shot. It's too complicated, right? I can't ask you how do you be a good public speaker, but I can ask you how did you get good? Because my sense is Yes, you had some natural gifts. However

I want to bet and you tell me if I'm right or wrong. That from the ages of kind of like seventeen when you went to that first seminar to maybe twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, I would bet that you probably got more reps in than Anybody else in your field. Is that I I could be wrong. Tell me if I'm wrong. I went to work for Jim Rohn, the personal development speaker. And uh so you would go out and make two talks, maybe three talks in a month. where you would go to a real estate office or a stock brokerage or some place where You would do a talk and show them by improving themselves they could also improve their income. That's usually what they were interested in.

And so what I did different was I went out and said I remember the guy that was number one in the in the the whole company, we were about a thousand employees in that company. And I went up to him the first day'cause he was such a jerk to people. I mean it's like Total jerk. And so I you know I I've always been a kind of protective of the little guy. Oh, I was a little guy, I was five one, and I was protective back then, right? When I was in high school.

So I went up to him and I just said, You know what? I said, You're an absolute idiot. And I said, You better remember my name, I said, because it'd only be a few months before I'll dwarf you. And I said, I'll tell you why, you're lazy. You do three talks a month. I'm gonna do three talks a day. So it doesn't matter if I'm as good as you are. I'm gonna destroy you, right? And I did. I booked myself

Uh to every kind of group you can imagine. But yes, you know, if you know, uh I I'm fortunate enough to own a piece of the Golden State Warriors and I've coached the team and I I haven't been there this year, I haven't been on a chance, but they need it. But Steph is a perfect example of what you're describing. 'Cause people don't know the greatest three sports shooter in the league. When he was, you know, in high school, he was really good. He his dad trained him continuously. His dad was an NBA player. But

His dad at one point, he's the best player in the league. Told we gotta change your jump shots. We get a jump shot. We gotta change it. You start it too well, you'll never make it in the NBA. And so he made him have to do this new form of jump shot and he became terrible'cause you're terrible when you try to do something to But he wouldn't let him play competitively until he could shoot well in this way. And then now he still does it. He shoots, you know, five hundred shots a day to give you an idea.

Thirty five hundred shots a week. Think about it. Fourteen thousand shots a month, hundred and sixty eight thousand shots a year. These are practice shots. So he's been in the NBA fifteen years. He's done two point five two million shots in practice. And his entire career's only taken fifteen thousand shots. And he's made three thousand three pointers and he's the greatest in history. Less than one tenth of one percent of his shots.

I've actually shown up at a game. So I always tell people you're rewarded in public for what you practice in private. I think that's an amazing strategy. Is that Is that your method to kinda learning in general? How do you think about that? I think of learning at two levels. I think of learning as immersion. The reason I do twelve hours a day for three or four days in a row when most people wouldn't sit for a three hour movie someone spent three hundred million dollars to make

I can do it because I know how to Engage people in all their senses. In other words How much is a long time? Some people say Ten minutes, some people say ten years, right? But really a long time is when you're not enjoying yourself. You know, a minute can feel like eternity if you're in pain.

But if you're enjoying yourself, time flies. And so my whole mindset was I gotta immerse people because that's how we learn. If you're gonna learn a language And you learn a little bit at a time in high school and college, most people don't speak the language. But if I took you to Italy and dropped you in Rome and say I'll pick you up in ninety days with no teacher You're gonna be speaking in Italian by the time I pick you up because of the immersion.

So I like to immerse myself, but immerse myself with someone who is the best in the world at something. Someone who's already done it. Not somebody who's teaching me intellectually. Like going to a university with somebody understands it but has never done it. I wanted to model the very best in the world. So I I would go interview with them, I'd go to work for people in the very early days as a janitor so I could get around them, so I could learn how they think and what they do.

Gradually I got to the point where I had these skills and so I could help people. And so I'd help them, but then I'd also learn from them. Everybody I've ever coached who calls me a coach. I'm no dummy. I learned from them. So some of my dearest friends in the world were people started as coaching, like Mark Betty off of Salesforce. He came to my Someone I think four times in a row and he

The biggest I ever stands out. And on the fourth one he came up, introduced himself and said, You know, I'm Mark Bennyoff and You've convinced me to leave Oracle. I'm gonna start my own company out called Salesforce dot com and Why don't you come on the journey with me and I'll never forget he said to me, he said.

We're gonna do uh we're gonna change business around the world and I promise you we'll do a hundred million dollars in business. And now he's doing thirty five billion, right? So it's like He's done that in sixteen years, you know? The growth has been unbelievable. So Mark says I'm his coach. Yeah. I learn as much from Mark or more than he's learned from me. Same thing with Peter Goober. You know, Peter and I are partners. The Golden State Warriors, the LA Dodgers.

You know, we both uh invest in started with the L F C football club. He's got fifty two Academy Award nominations. He's yeah, he's one of the most brilliant human beings that I know. So I learned from him. So all the people that I've coached over the years, I've learned from and I try to do it through immersion. The more you're gonna immerse yourself or your thinking, breathing, doing something eighteen, twenty hours a day, the faster you're gonna learn.

So that's how I go about it. What's something you learned from Peter?'Cause he's a fascinating guy that I think most people don't You know of his work? you don't know him necessarily. He's not super out there publicly talking all the time and trying to share knowledge. Do you have any good Peter Gruber stories or uh or lessons learned you've had now that you partner with him on some things? How he thinks it's a little bit more than that. I've had one of the most valuable principles I learned from him, him and a and a friend of his.

When we became friends at one stage, you know, he said, Change my life, I wanna do some do some more things with you and He had a small group of men. Uh but eight to ten that had been getting together twice a year, sometimes three times a year, they go on these amazing trips. And they just brainstorm, but everybody there was the master of their universe, right? So it'd be like

Pat Riley, you know, was at the time, you know, the winningest coach in NBA basketball. Uh you'd have the richest man in Canada, like this amazing Uzuger. And so he invited me to come on this trip with him and he said, Look, we never brought anybody in before you're eighteen years younger than just about everybody here. But you have so much doubt, I convince the guys let you come on the trip and if they like you, maybe you come part of the group and come on a regular basis.

Now this is on just starting my businesses. I'm early on in my career, thirty, thirty one years old. And I'm in a place where He wants me to go off on this. Well they triple. I couldn't leave my business for twelve days in those days. I was a business operator. I wasn't an owner like I am today.

So I had to go on the trip and on the trip though it was such a push. I didn't want to miss it. I did it. I was so stressed out'cause I felt like I didn't belong there. So Uh he didn't

have this conversation with me about what I want to do with my life. And then he said, Well, let me tell you the most important principle to get you there. He said proximity is power. And he and Peter. Ball started nodding and saying, This is what makes everything work. And I said, What do you mean proximity is power? What do you mean by that? He said to me at the time. You know, how many investment bankers do you know?

I said, No, I don't know, maybe it doesn't. He goes, How do you spend time with? I said, Not he goes, That's a huge mistake. You must go spend time with them. 'Cause as you spend time, they will think of you and they will come up with deals that will help you generate the economics you want to generate if you want to run for office or do something of that nature. And I said, Okay. And so I started doing it. I felt really uncomfortable. And then I saw him again and he really gave me stuff. And so then I did it deliberately, ongoingly. And for a year and a half I'd go meet people.

I I'm not I'm not a networker per se. Um,'cause I felt like I I don't know I'm not asking for something and I don't know what I can do for them. I try to always be a giver. And but Nothing came out'em. I mean some good friendships and stuff, but no business came out of'em. One day I got a phone call that led to a fifty million dollar deal for me and then another day.

About a year later converted that into making in one single day four hundred million dollars, taking the company public. So I always tell people If you think about Important principles. One of the most important ones I learned from Peter and his friends was You've got to get in the environment

Where the best people in the world are on a regular basis and add value, and then things will start to happen. Nothing accelerates more than that, other than your own skills and development. One of the things I got from being in proximity with you at your events, immersion, going there for four days and and and really s soaking it all in was When you came on stage, there was an energy shift every time. And you you mentioned Mark Benioff, I know you've talked at the Salesforce conference, and I watched the video and he he said something great. He goes, The next guy who's coming out here, he doesn't come is I mean, Salesforce is like you know a bunch of sales reps in the audience. It's a white collar crew, they're all sitting down, they've been at a thing all day. He says,

He doesn't come out to a cold room. Hey guys, so if you want if Dodie's gonna come out here, we better warm up right now. And immediately everybody raised their standard of how they were gonna show up. For you and you came out. And you had a certain energy with you. I stole that and I started using that. I said, I I don't come out to cold rooms anymore. I raised my own standard in that way. That's great.

But I It's not just in the work context, because um Even though I went to your event'cause I wanted to be more successful and more more ambitious, whatever, and I had these goals. I wanted to have, you know, ten million dollars by the time I was thirty, and then Yeah. Today it's like our companies this year will do like fifty million dollars in revenue but it's it's it's it's continued to grow.

But the thing I took away the most wasn't any of the work stuff. It was how you show up at home. You had this thing that I want you to talk about called the Honey I'm Home Energy. I've been doing this now for like Eight straight years since I I went to your event. People don't know this. Explain what coming home with the honey and home menu. Yeah, but it's uh it's it's really simple. It's just

I remember my father used to come home, my fourth father especially. When the door closed. There's this pause and we waited to see what kind of state he was gonna be in. And You could tell if he was in unhappy state and you want to kinda avoid the environment, or if he'd say monkey gurus. You say the spray monkey gurus make no sense.

He had so much enthusiasm and excitement in his voice. That we knew it was a good day. So I thought when I come home, I wanna make a difference. So my wife and I have this little thing that we do is I come home, honey, I'm home. And then we look for each other, we run towards each other and we just hug each other and kiss. But it's a it's a beautiful ritual that we

you know, we've been together twenty four years and we still have this aliveness and passion for each other because We still put ourselves in those High energy states. It's easy because of being worn down by work or environments or kids or some of your family's ill or financial pressure in your business, let's say. So like your state drop.

And then when you're around your partner, that's what they experience all the time, and then their state's low, and then you're both Filtering wife do that. So I think it's really important just like If you're gonna get up and be a Perform in a peak state. If you're gonna pro peak results, you're gonna be in a peak state.

You gotta train yourself to do it at home, and then after a while It's not phony, it's just like If you see an athlete, they have muscle. You know, why do they have the muscle?'Cause they work out regularly. Well, when you push yourself into a great state regularly, it becomes You're a standard. And it becomes how you feel all the time. You kinda wire yourself about. It's not to say you don't have down times or frustrating times or sad times or whatever.

Have all those things. But they're not the majority of the time, and if they happen, you can snap out of it fast'cause you know how to. I think that's a huge part of what I try to teach people. is that you don't have to accept how you feel. And people at times say, Well, I don't feel like it.

Yeah. If I waited until I felt like it, I wouldn't do ninety percent of the stuff I've done in my life. I've learned how to make myself feel like it. Um, because if you don't do that, you're you're not gonna accomplish or achieve or enjoy your life at the level that you deserve and probably desire. Right you said something about The ninety seconds of suffering. Can you explain this concept? Because I stole this.

I stole this like it's Ocean's eleven and I came into I stole this framework from you and I have been using it since you stole it. That's that's the one stealing. Life is too short to suffer. I I'm not gonna suffer. I know how to change my state, but I'm gonna create a rule that within ninety seconds If I start to suffer, I'm gonna snap out of it. Now don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean you don't get angry or frustrated or pissed off or worried or Any of those things. I can have all those feelings.

But if you train yourself to snap out of it ninety seconds, and by the way, in the beginning No problem, ninety seconds and easy things. But then life gives you some big tests, right? You've got some Feels more like ninety days than ninety seconds. But you get it's like any skill, like like shooting the basket. You do it again and again and again, you get better and better and better. And it's changed my life'cause

No matter what's going on, I can still find the beauty in that. I mean it Beautiful state of mind. You'll come up with the answers much quicker than a pissed off state. Or fearful state or a wowy state. Plus it gives a gift to everybody else. Who wants to be around somebody who's in a crappy state? Right.

Think about them like this. Yeah, if you have a if you have cable or you have satellite and you turn the channel, there's certain channels where it's all comedy, other ones all drama. Other ones it's all horror, right? Otherwise it's you know romance. Well The channel changers your body.

Because If you look at the greatest athletes in the world, Tom Brady, you know, uh locally here in Florida. You know, we have a group that's won the Stanley Cup over and over again, the Tampa Bay Lightning. And they're famous for coming from behind and winning. So the the same group did tests on them before they ever worked with me.

And they discovered there's a biochemistry of what they call championship biochemistry. It's where These people like time breakers down by ten points. And it's the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. It comes back to Wayne. I mean, how? He has this huge surge of testosterone. Which gives you total focus and drive.

It also makes you remember everything. It's like if I asked you where you were at nine eleven, everybody remembers the moment. I asked you where eight eleven, no one knows where they were, right? Because you don't have that surge of testosterone the energy. Well usually w testosterone is masked by cortisol, which is a stress hormone. But in this case, their cortisol drops to the floor. So all they get is pure focus and drive. That doesn't guarantee you're gonna succeed. But increases your chances about tenfold.

Every time I get on stage I develop b biochemistry. Love it. And uh I have so many more questions, but I also I feel like your PR team, I feel like there's a red dot that's gonna come on me if I don't talk about your book. So I wanna ask you a question about this. So I read the advanced copy of your book. So The Holy Grail of Investing. It's the third of these kind of like money related books that you've been doing, which has been fun'cause I like the business side. That's obviously where I kinda nerd out. Yeah. Tell the story about the guy you you know who I think is a billionaire who who bought millions of nickels and why this guy bought millions of nickels. I think this this was so fun. And uh you gotta tell that story. Well, let me let me give people a little background. So I've written three books on finance. I s I started back in twenty

thirteen'cause after the two thousand eight Drop out. I've been working with Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top Ten financial traders in the history of the world. I've coached him for twenty four years. He hasn't lost money during that time. So I've learned a lot. Um but When I saw that

The way we dealt with two thousand eight was we instead of punishing the people that almost destroyed the system. We gave them more of our money. Just Blew my mind. And so I I thought I can't change everything, but I have access. So I decided to write a book where I interviewed fifty of the smartest financial investors in the world, the most successful. All self made billionaires, nobody from the Lucky Spine Club. They didn't inherit it. They created it.

You know, Ray Dowlier, Carl Icon, Warren Buffett, Paul Tudor Jones, all of them. So I was interviewing a gentleman that took thirty million dollars and turned it into two billion dollars in two thousand eight, two thousand nine, the worst economic time. And um

And I I asked him, I said, How'd you do this? And he went, Asymmetrical risk reward. I've heard that from every great investor. I said, Okay, I understand what that means. But how'd you do it? How he did it was He saw the in the mortgages. Everybody thought these mortgages were gonna hold up and it

Real estate was gonna grow forever and he knew that wasn't true and he bet against it with unique tools. So he literally She could be wrong thirteen times and still make money. So that's how you turn that money around and made the greatest return in just about any period of time. So I asked him, I said His name's Kyle Bass.

Kyle I said. How would you explain this to like Someone's unsophisticated. Yeah, how would you explain it? To your kids. He goes Tony, I can't believe you said that.

I just recently asked myself the same question. So I want my kids to understand this principle because that's what'll make'em wealthy. And he said, So I thought, How can I do this? And he said, For six months I kept asking the question. Where can I find an investment? That is so asymmetrical, there's no downside.

And there's huge upside immediately. Now most people say you're an idiot to even ask that question. There's no such investment, right? No risk, no reward. And he goes, No, he goes, smart people ask questions nobody else asked. I kept asking and I finally came up with the answer. Nichols. I said nickels. Yes. He goes, Here's how it works.

Nickels. To make a nickel costs eleven cents. That's how screwed up our government is. He said And he said, So years ago pennies used to have copper in it. That's almost no copper net. He goes, Those pennies are worth two cents. He said the reason is because the copper value is there, but also

Now they're so unique, right? He said so I thought Nickels. No never bewest less than five cents. I wanna buy as many nickels as I can. 'Cause he said the meltdown value alone will be give me thirty percent return on day one. Thirty percent. I like investment where you can't lose money.

And you're guaranteed at least thirty percent. I said, Yeah, but I've seen the rules. You can't melt money anymore. He goes, Yes, I know, that's what they say. He said, But I don't even have to melt it, Tony. The same may happen to Penny as will happen to Nichols. He said I can't do eleven cent, five cent nickels forever. Once it changes.

The value of these original nickels is gonna be great. So he went to the Fed And asked how many nickels he could buy. And I think the number was millions of nickels. It was truckloads of nickels. He has kids unload them and put them in there. He said, If I could push a button, convert my entire assets to nickels, I'd do it tomorrow. I can't ever lose money and I'm up at least thirty percent. So that's asymmetrical score. Another good example is my friend Richard Branson, and if you know Sir Richard, now as they call it. Yeah, Richard's a fun guy. He's like um Look he'll he'll take risks with his life. He'll like get in a balloon, go on a go on a spaceship.

He's like the oldest twenty one year old in the world. That guy that guy's just having fun all the time. Not when it comes to investing. When it comes to investing, he's like, What's the downside? How do we protect against the downside? That's why he's so successful. And so when he was gonna take on British Airways. with you know building his own airlines think of the expense and the risk of buying bowling jets a hundred and fifty two hundred and fifty jets. So he negotiated for a year.

With bowling. So we finally got their degree. That he buy all these jets. But a year from now, if he was not able to be profitable in business or stay in the business, he could return all the jets with no credit loss, no cost to him whatsoever. So we had zero downside. Only upside.

That's how these guys play. And then the fourth one is diversification. And when I went through those and saw them with everybody, what triggered this latest book and the reason I decided to write this final book Was I saw that Wait a second.

The most successful people have a different asset allocation. They're getting much more asymmetrical risk reward. And I also my conversations with Ray Dalio learned a principle. I asked Ray twelve, thirteen years ago when we first became friends, I said You know, I I I prepared for like eleven hours for my interview with him was supposed to be thirty minutes and with three and a half hours'cause

You got into it and he was great and we became friends. And I asked him one question I asked him was okay, out of all things we've talked about, is there one principle? Above all others, that would be the most important investment principle. It will make somebody wealthy if they practiced it. He goes, Tony, I have wrestled with that for more than a decade, and I can tell you what it is. He goes, I call it the holy grail of investing, which is

Why that that's the title of this book. It's really Ray, it's not me, right? And I said, Well, I'd lean forward. What is it? He said, Tony In order for people to get what they want, financial freedom, they've got to compound, right? Well

In order to get higher rates of return, you gotta take bigger risks, which then could cost you getting to the goal. That's why I said location, finding that balance, what's right for you is so important. He said, but I discovered something. Mathematically.

If you can find eight to twelve. Uncorrelated investments. He said you can reduce your risk by eighty percent. And make a slight increase in your upside. He said, You're eliminating eighty percent of the risk. He was telling you that is the most important thing that's out there, and people don't know this.

And now for your audience, I'm sure they understand in case they don't. If you think about correlated versus non correlated, stocks and bonds would be an example, right? When the economy's going great, people want the growth that comes against stocks. Where stocks only go great. may expect the bonds are gonna get'em through it, right? They're not necessarily correlated.

So I wrote down the principle. I started looking to try to find things that were not correlated. It's rough in the world we're in today. So much is tied together. In the public markets. And so sure enough As I started doing this and looking around

I came across an interesting statistic that blew my mind, and here's what it is. In the last thirty five years. Every stock market in the world has produced a smaller return than private equity. out its private equity at the same time. So I'll give an example. Most people know the S P five hundred, the index of the top five hundred companies in stock market.

And if you invest in the S P over the last thirty five years. You had an average of a nine point two percent compounded return, which is amazing. Yeah, you're at five percent, you're doubling your money every fourteen and a half years. If you're You know, nine percent it's every eight years. That's a big jump. But if you're an average private equity, not the people I interviewed this book, people I interviewed this book are the thirteen biggest in the world. So they have like

At twenty percent or more compounded for decades. One of them in this book is thirty seven percent compounded for twenty six straight years. It's unbelievable. Bye. So when you're compounding that it goes crazy, but

The average is fourteen point two per year. So Understand this, you're compounding fifty percent greater Every single year compounded. So what does that mean? If you put a million dollars in the SP five hundred thirty five years ago and forgot about it. It's worth twenty six million dollars today. It's unbelievable. But if you put a million dollars in the average not these guys in the average private equity of fourteen point two

You have a hundred and thirty nine million dollars in the same money in the same amount of time. So I was like Whoa. What are the ultra high net worth people are forty some percent of of their assets and private equity and private real estate.

So I started digging into that area and that's what this book was all about. Yeah, I really like it. There's a great chart we should throw up. It said, What was the lowest five year returns? Buy asset class. Lowest five years. So like How bad can the bad get? Because everybody tells you about the good. Nobody tells about the bad usually. And I love this one because private credit was the only one that had a positive return in its lowest five years in the last thirty years, twenty years, something like that. So it was it was cool to see these different asset classes that most people don't have the knowledge of or the access to. And I think that's the

The premise of the book. So who are the people? What's the largest number of billionaires? And most people think it's tech and it's not. And then they think it's real estate and it's not. It's financial services. But it's not hedge funds and it's not D C funds, some B C funds, but not most. I very small.

It's private equity'cause they have the money for five years. So when the market goes down They don't have to sell, they buy. When the market goes up, they sell. We have the room to play, right? To get things done. And they're not just trying to buy something with the right timing. They're buying a company and making it better. Bring in new marketing, bring in a new CEO, bring in new systems and building up and then selling it private or taking it public. So they have a lot more flexibility

And they're the they're the masters of the universe. So it's like Okay, let's see what they're doing. And to my friend, I said, I'm getting into some of these private equity, but the very best are like You know, going to a club and you're you got plenty of money and you're outside if you're not good looking, you don't know everybody, you're not getting in that club. I don't care how much money you have, right? It's very similar like, you know, buying a Ferrari in any Ferrari, yes, but the newest Pot SP three?

You know, they cost four million bucks, you can't even buy it'cause they're all gone already by collectors who buy them before they even come out. Well, it's very similar for the best people in private equity. I'm saying I've gotten a few because of my name and some relationships, but The amount I'm getting is too small. And he was just Tony goes, um

I'll tell you a little secret. I'll tell you where I put the majority of my money. And this guy is very, very wealthy, very successful. So I'm leaning in. And he goes. There's a sperm in Houston, Texas, I guess. Houston, Texas. In New York, Connecticut, right? He goes, Yeah, they're off the beaten path. The best of this.

They have found a way. They're the biggest in the world right now, one of the three biggest. And they said they found a way where you don't have to buy into the fund. Where you can buy into the company and own a piece of the company and you own all their funds. Now if you know how these funds work. They make two percent on your money, they tie it up for five years.

And you're willing to tie it up because of the greater returns, right? They make two percent of their money if they don't make you anything every year. So they have a Built in income that's great. And then they get twenty percent of the upside. If they make you a bunch of money, they get twenty percent of that.

And it's not uncommon for them to go from a billion to two billion in five years. So They make a hundred million fees in those five years. And they make another twenty percent on a billion or the they make three hundred million dollars on a billion dollar investment. That's why they're the wealthiest people in the world. I don't know how to do this. So I met with these guys in Houston. I became a client and then I eventually invest with them. I'm partner with them.

And then I was like, man, we gotta get this out. But Nobody could take advantage of it. Now they can't. So As a result, we put it out there. So you can imagine I own now sixty five of the largest private equity firms. I own a piece of them as a partner.

In every phone that they have. So and I'm not there working every day till two in the morning like there on those pieces. The other one I'll tell you about is uh you read the book, so you know is sports. I always wanted to own a sports team. I was we're totally poor. You wanted to be a baseball player, right? That's right, you got a good memory. I I used to go to Dodger Stadium every once in a Mar Moon, way off in the deep spar seats in Brightfield, the cheapest seat you could buy.

And I I bled Dodger Blue. I'm a piece of the Dodgers, but To get to that point. The first team I was able to make a purchase of uh and be a partner in was the LASC football club, the soccer team there. We built the stadium, I got to help design it, it was fun. I got to with my friend Peter Goober who's just a genius.

But the amount of money, time and energy and the amount of Like a microscope in your bum that they do to qualify you is mind boggling, right? To do it. So But now in all these sports teams, I even have competing teams because the rule was changed three years ago. And this is amazing. Only a few firms have been able to do it. And the rule allows you to buy a small sliver of teams.

And why would you want a sports team'cause they're not correlated to the stock market. In inflationary times, sports teams do well. They've done extremely well. They raise the price of the hot dog people pay it. Doesn't matter. And they used to be just putting butts and seats. That's not true anymore, so I'll give you an example. You know this if you read the book.

Um My partner, Peter Good, bought the Dodgers with a group of people, Magic Johnson of the whole group of people. I'm part of it now too. Yeah. When they bought it, they paid two billion dollars for the fur. And everybody's freaking out, right? I remember the news. People were like, This is a crazy guy. Because nobody paid more than eight hundred million for a sports team, and most people believe the Dodge is worth a billion, but not two billion. So I went to Peter's like

I know you're not Dumb. I know the smartest guy I know. So you must know something no one else knows if we're gonna do this. Tell me goes Tony. You know, I like making movies with cliffhangers. He said, I wanna make you wait three days'cause I'm making an announcement.

When you hear the announcer, come over and we'll have a little party together. They made the announcement. He sold the local TV rights. Just the local T V writes for seven billion made five billion on the spot. So

Why? Because sports teams now are media enterprises. Of the hundred best shows, most watched shows last year, ninety two were sporting events. And they'll watch the ads'cause everybody's cord cutting everywhere else and going and watching things, you know, streaming. Sports the only wide you want to see in real time for it to have value for you, and they can do those ads.

So And they buy real estate today. They they are unbelievable organizations. So now I'm a part of the Dodgers, of the Warriors, the Red Sox, the Pittsburgh Penguins. I mean I go on and on and on. Yeah, but

ownership benefits, but I also have something that's not correlated, so it's going like eight to twelve. Plus, on top of that You share in the revenues of every other team's media. In other words, it's equal share if you're a small team or a big share. You keep your local media that you get to sell locally. So the income streams are amazing. I'll give an example. Michael Jordan, we actually bought it.

Michael Jordan y bought uh the Charlotte's for two hundred and seventy five million controlling interests. Oh, twelve and a half years ago. He just sold us. We're one of the buyers, this group of buyers. For three billion. That's his return on that time period.

In the last ten years, if you take the NBA, the the major league baseball, soccer and hockey, those four together. They've average between them. eighteen percent compounded during that time. versus eleven percent there in the S P five hundred. So just you're only doubling your return, having fun. How do something you're part of that's really cool?

And people can have an experience that they once dreamed about without having billions of dollars and go through all the hell of it. There's so many opportunities like this. And people can get it get the book. It's at the h the holy grail of investing dot com. I think there's like a free chapter so you can go download the free chapter. There's a free audio chapter you can listen to, and then you can pre order the book. It comes out in a few weeks. I know we're over, but I gotta ask you for one thing. The one thing is we talked a lot about money and making it and all that stuff. One of the things I pulled away from you was about giving. And I think, you know, when you when I was at the event, you were talking about, oh, I've given I give this many meals every year. I think now it's like a billion meals, some insane number of Because you know, you remembered what it was like to not have food.

And a part of me was like I'm gonna do that someday. I should do that. I should myself again. I should do that in the future. When I you know, when I'm rich, I'm gonna do that too. And I think this is probably a pretty common thing. Easy for him. He's rich. What does it mean what does it matter to him to write a five million dollar check, right? Until well, right, fair enough. Until you told a story.

About Giving early on. And give yeah, yeah, I and I I I just want you to tell us one story because I think for most people, if they've made it to this part, this will make a bigger difference in their lives than anything else that you tell them. Cause I know it did for me. You told the story about going to the salad bar. Oh yeah. Going to a salad bar, you're twenty four years old, you're broke, and you had a giving moment that sort of shifted you. Would you please just tell that one because I think

Giving is not something you gotta wait till you're rich to do, which is I think the common misconception. I tell people if you won't give a dime out of a dollar, you're not gonna give ten million out of a hundred million or You know, a hundred million out of a billion, don't kid yourself, right? And also the value of giving transforms you on scarcity. But the background on it is I was working for Jim Rohn, this personal development speaker. Um I

Really did well and then I did poorly for a while. And I was really frustrated. I was working hard. I wasn't getting a return. I was totally broke. Sure, you're in business, you make some mistakes. And I found myself totally broke again. And I'm in this four hundred square foot bachelor apartment in Venice, California.

Feeling sorry for myself and watching Luke and Laura on General Hospital. It was just terrible. And um I'm down to my final, you know. Nineteen twenty, twenty one, twenty two dollars, I know it wasn't some change.

I haven't paid my rent. And I gotta figure out what to do and what to eat. So my focus was okay, I'm gonna go to this all you can eat salad bar, taco bar, and I'm gonna load up for the for the winter. Um and you know, spend five bucks and then you know And then I didn't drive there because it was only about three miles, but

I couldn't pay three bucks for parking too. It was just I couldn't do that. So Anyway, long story short, I get to the place. It's on the water in Rio Del Rey. It's why I went there. There's boats going by and I I can't. I don't want to pop the pea in, right? But I'm visualizing

And then uh my Yeah, Might. And stack of food this high. And then the I could see the front door because where I was sitting. And the fat door opens and this beautiful woman walks in, she was just absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't help but look.

No, we didn't see if there was a guy with him as if I had any shot at this, right? And she had a guy with him, unfortunately. And he was about three feet tall. He had a little vested suit on a little tie. And you know. He opens the door for her and they pulled out the chair for her and I was just I was mesmerized.

Um I was moved. And I got emotional. I don't know why. I don't know if it's thinking of my own mom. I don't know what it was at the time, but Anyway, the bottom line is

When I was done eating, I went and bat it. It was five ninety five or something like that. And I have the rest of the money in my pocket. I had no plan for this and I as I'm walking out the door, there's that little boy with his mom. And Her back's to me, so

I didn't talk to her, I wasn't going to her. I just went up to him'cause I was so moved and I just said, Hey, I said My name's Tony, what's your name? I can't remember his name anymore. Yeah. Jaughty or whatever it was. And it goes uh

I said, Johnny, I said, you are a class. I said, I just want you to know I have so much respect for I saw you hold the door for your lady. I saw you pulled the chair out for her. You're so present with her. I said, take her to lunch like this, he goes, Well She's my mom.

They said. That's even more impressive. He goes, Well I can't take her to lunch'cause, you know, I'm just eleven and And I said, Yes, you can. I have no plan for it. I just reached in my pocket, took all the money out in the world, nineteen dollars, whatever was left over. And poof.

Dumped it on him with the change and everything right in front of him. And his eyes got big and g in garbage can covers and he goes I can't take that. I said, Sure you can. He said, How come? I said,'Cause I'm bigger than you are. And then I smile And he laughed. And I didn't even look at the woman. I didn't do it for acknowledgement. I just walked out that door.

to get my car and then realized I didn't have my car there because I'd walk. So I I I look like a stupid white guy skipping my house, I'm sure, all the way home. I mean I was high as a kite. And I had no money. And I got home and I was still cool about it. And I was full'cause I ate so much. And I woke up the next morning with no plan, no idea, no nothing, and no money.

And it's like, I mean no money, not a dollar. And knowing the call to get money from. And it was a guy I loaned a thousand dollars to About Two and a half years before when I really didn't have it, but he needed it more than I did. I loaned it to him. So I've been for months been calling and setting

you know, regular mail to him here'cause he wasn't answering the phone and there wasn't an email in those days. And um And that morning I got My mail and no no call, no response. Now I get my mail and there's all the bills and there's a handwritten note and I open the note.

And it's from this guy apologizing to me. And telling me that he was so sorry I was there for him when he really needed it and he had not been there for me. And He had put in You know, an extra two hundred dollars for interest and so forth was twelve hundred dollars.

Twelve hundred dollars is more money than I could live on at for a month in those days, right? And I just started crying uncontrollably. It's like, you know, why am I crying? This is beautiful. This is beautiful. You know, it's like And then I realized wow. You know?

When I had nothing, I gave everything. And here this is. What does this mean? I said, I don't know what it means, but I'm gonna decide it means Because I didn't give to get And I didn't give what was easy. That's why I'm receiving.

And it's like That day on, I can tell you I've had ups and downs. I had so many companies in the early days, I had a couple companies on the verge of bankruptcy. They didn't go bankrupt, thank God I Hung on and made it through it. But I never felt that scarcity. I never felt that scarcity again since that day. 'Cause if you get to that point, your brain realizes there's more than enough.

And you can give when you feel like there's nothing there. That's That's what transforms you. Well I interviewed Sir John Templeton. was the first billionaire investor. Started with nothing. He said to me that the

Secret to wealth is gratitude. Right,'cause it doesn't matter how much money you have, if you're not grateful, you're not rich. Um, but then he said also, I've never met anybody that tithe For at least ten years, who didn't become wealthy. He said, Ty, it doesn't have to be a church. It's just taking ten percent of what you're earning.

Giving it away. And I'm proud to say I've given away seventeen percent and I've done quite well. Um, but I did it when I had nothing and it's it's there. Um, I wanna plant one more seed with the audience though, and that is If they'd like to have an experience, you know can't come for the you know three or four days yet for an event, but they'd like to have an experience. Since COVID started four years ago.

Everyone was trapped at home and I was doing stadiums, you know, and they start shutting down the stadiums telling me about a hundred people in the stadium. So I decided I'd build a studio. And I build these twenty foot ice, you know, walls, point six seven resolution. I could see everything. And I went to the guys you know, who built Zoom and I said, Look, you know, I need you to help me get to

Twenty thousand, thirty thousand people, not a thousand. I built software so that people could instead of clapping could shake their phone and would send electric signal and if one person didn't hear nothing when Twenty thousand people doing it's like thunder. And it allowed me to literally explode in the number of people I reach. So now I do a free seminar once a year for three days.

Coming up January twenty fifth through twenty seventh, just in about a week and a half. If you wanna go there's zero charge, it's not partially free, it's totally free. And it's about two and a half hours, three hours a day of immersion for three days in a row. And it's really designed to help you get a plan And make the changes necessary in your energy and your emotions.

in your business and your finances and your career And we just we put the most we can in those three D's and create huge momentum. And last year we had over a million people again. From a hundred and ninety five countries in the world, and then you're part of a community of people helping each other. So If you anyone like to go, you're welcome to. You can do it from your home or your office. You can bring friends or family. Again, there's no charge.

You just go to what is the what is the Highlight it's the uh It's the TimeTorise Summit dot com. Time to rise summit dot com. It starts January twenty fifth through the twenty seventh, and I'd love to serve you guys and go deeper.

Amazing. Tony. I don't know if you know this, but at that event when you told some of these stories, I well on the moment uh in that moment I was like, you know what, uh I'm gonna start giving and I the the idea I came up with I go, you know, this was a pretty crazy experience I had. I just got lucky, I bought some Black Friday tickets. Uh I I don't know how I stumbled into this, but this was cool. And I've uh I'm a different guy right now. And I decided all right, I'm gonna start giving I what I did was I said, all right, next year I'm gonna send one person to this. I'm gonna give somebody an experience to go to UPW. And I was like, every year I'm gonna give more people than the year before. So I've sent forty four people now to your events. You know, my my mom, my dad, I don't know peop anybody. Anyone who, you know, other entrepreneurs who I thought, you know, might like it. And uh how they respond to this result. How do they react on these events?

Fifteen percent of people Are um like me. They're like they come back and it's like, did somebody plug you in? You're like electric now. What happened to you? So 15% of people. Uh they're a new person never look back. I would say seventy percent of people were like That was a great experience. I loved it.

And they're like You know, but th th they didn't fully get like, you know, for me it was like a a full transformation. Just being totally honest. So seventy percent of people say all the poll experience. Yeah, exactly. And then I would say fifteen percent of people were like, What the hell is this? Um you know, this was I I don't know what this is. And they uh often uh a lot of people I send are like successful tech people and they come in almost like They wanna be the smart guy in the Reddit comments almost and they're like uh you know, they're so worried about he said this and d is that the real statistic fifty four percent or fifty one percent I'm like, you're missing the point trying to be so you know, you're you're

Being so smart, you're being dumb right now. And so people have you know everybody has their own experience. I think it's uh you know what I tell them is just go have the experience, right? Go go decide for yourself. Uh, so you know, for people who listen to this, uh, I'm gonna put a thing in the c in the description. I wanna send people who actually listen to the podcast because I've been sending people I know, but now uh, you know, this year I'll send uh I want to double it. So I think I've sent forty four people lifetime on to send another forty four people this year. So I'll put a thing in the comment for people who go to the four day UPW, that's your kind of like starter event. Uh, that's the one I've been to a couple of times and uh I think you're really like it, so. Since you're gonna do that, I'll match it. So

We'll make it rain in total. You do your forty and I'll give you forty, uh to to match it, since uh we'll we'll we'll we'll invest in these people's lives together. Amazing. Thanks so much, Tony. I really appreciate it. They talk with you and congratulations on what you built. Yeah, likewise. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to

I'm putting my all in it like my day's off On the roadless travel, never looking back

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