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“Don’t Be Cheap!” Tony Robbins on Frugality, Spending Money, & Building Wealth - The Iced Coffee Hour | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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“Don’t Be Cheap!” Tony Robbins on Frugality, Spending Money, & Building Wealth

The Iced Coffee Hour

Sun Jan 11 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Iced Coffee Hour – “Don’t Be Cheap!” Tony Robbins on Frugality, Spending Money, & Building Wealth

Episode Date: January 11, 2026
Guests: Tony Robbins
Hosts: Graham Stephan & Jack Selby

Overview

This episode features the renowned motivational speaker and author, Tony Robbins, in a high-energy, deeply insightful conversation with Graham Stephan and Jack Selby. The discussion centers around personal development, changing mindsets, understanding the seasons of life, historical trends in wealth building, frugality, and the psychology behind spending, hunger, and abundance. Robbins combines practical advice, powerful anecdotes, and motivational frameworks to challenge common beliefs about money, change, and fulfillment.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Foundation of Change: Hunger and Mindset

People Change When They Have To:
- “Most people are addicted to certainty…they don't usually change until they have to.”
  – Tony Robbins [01:08], [06:45]
Hunger and Relentlessness:
- “Hunger to be more, do more, give more, share more…”
  – Tony Robbins [01:21], [11:18]
- The essential trait in successful people is an "insatiable hunger" coupled with the relentlessness to push through challenges.

2. Internal vs. External Forces

Your Internal World Controls Your Experience:
- “Our lives are not controlled by the external world. It's the internal world that determines how you feel about things.”
  – Tony Robbins [00:57], [06:41]
Six Human Needs Framework:
- Certainty, variety, significance, love, growth, and contribution dictate priorities and happiness.
- People's “rules” for satisfaction (e.g. what must happen to feel successful) can either make values easy or impossible to reach.

3. Patterns & Seasons of Life

Value of Pattern Recognition:
- Pattern recognition leads to empowerment. The ability to identify, utilize, and create patterns defines mastery.
The Seasons Model:
- Spring (0-21): Easy, growth is natural
- Summer (22-42): Testing, building resilience
- Fall (44-64): Harvest, fulfillment, power
- Winter (65+): Mentorship, reflection, legacy
- “If you didn't plant in the springtime, you're not going to reap in the fall.” — Tony Robbins [17:00]
Historical Patterns Repeat:
- Societal cycles ebb and flow (“good times create weak people”), learning history helps dispel generational fears.
- Referenced “The Fourth Turning” and “Generations” by Strauss and Howe for understanding generational cycles.

4. Practical Advice for Growth & Happiness

Give More Than You Get:
- “If you want to have success in your life, stop asking what you can get…focus on what you're going to give.”
  – Tony Robbins [00:00], [30:13]
Be a Student of History & Personal Development:
- Study cycles, economics, psychology, and business fundamentals.
Modeling Success:
- Apprenticeship, mentorship, and modeling are crucial steps before innovating.
- “You get rewarded in public for what you practice in private, intensely.” — Tony Robbins, referencing Steph Curry’s shooting habits [36:14]
Compound Skills and Wealth:
- The greatest investment is in yourself, your skills are untaxed and travel with you.

5. Wealth Building: Principles & New Opportunities

Investing Wisdom – Holy Grail Principle:
- Diversify with 8-12 uncorrelated investments; reduces risk by 80% with increased upside ([40:41], [42:41]).
Expanding Access to Private Equity:
- New congressional rules are lowering barriers (test-based access) for investing in private equity, creating opportunities for non-institutional investors.
Speculation vs. Intelligent Investing:
- Robbins shares his worst investment (following a tip into penny stocks) and how painful mistakes forge real learning ([49:14]).

6. Frugality vs. Abundance: Graham’s Mindset Explored

Scarcity Mindset:
- Graham’s extreme frugality (e.g., spending excessive time to save a few dollars) is rooted in a necessity frame and disciplined upbringing ([76:05–80:53]).
Possibility vs. Necessity Framings:
- Tony describes Graham as “necessity-based” (acts when it’s required) and Jack as more “possibility-based” (acts because it’s possible).
Changing Deep Patterns:
- “You’re not going to do anything until you have to. You’re completely necessity driven. So come up with a necessity and you will.” — Tony Robbins [92:56]
- Consistent investment and incremental risks within his comfort zone are recommended.
Jackpot Principle:
- Tony sometimes gifts people what they’d never buy for themselves, creating transformative, joyful moments ([87:24]).

7. Service, Meaning, and Resilience

Fulfillment Comes from Meaning and Service:
- “Find something you care about more than yourself…it’ll give you energy, joy, and drive.” — Tony Robbins [34:56]
Impact Over Accumulation:
- Feeding a billion people, saving over 70,000 children from trafficking, producing “hero journey” films.
Resilience Through Adversity:
- Both extreme hardship and loss grind resilience and empathy.
- “You don’t know how strong you are until you have to be.” — Tony Robbins [62:23], [63:42]
- “Life is happening for you, not to you.” How you process and learn from challenge determines your trajectory ([67:39]).

8. Meta Programs and Human Psychology

Meta Programs:
- Subconscious filters drive decision-making (necessity/possibility, sameness/difference, how many exposures to be convinced, etc.).
Understanding and Accepting Differences:
- In both relationships and business, awareness of different wiring is crucial for harmony and influence ([97:26–99:45]).

9. Notable Passages & Quotes

“Direction determines destination or destiny.” — Tony Robbins [06:45]
“Good times create weak people. Weak people create hard times. Hard times create strong people. Strong people create good times.” — Tony Robbins [13:11]
“You get rewarded in public for what you practice in private.” — Tony Robbins [36:14]
“Abundance comes with more abundance. There’s a flow. And you can be the abundant one in this relationship ... you will benefit regardless.” — Tony Robbins [91:59]

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

On Changing Mindsets:

“Our lives are not controlled by the external world. It's the internal world that determines how you feel about things.”
— Tony Robbins [00:57]
On Hunger:

“It's not hunger to get to just a goal. It's an insatiable hunger, but they also have the relentlessness to push through all the obstacles that come up.”
— Tony Robbins [11:18]
On Wealth and Opportunity:

“The fundamental pathways are there. ... The game's always been rigged, right? But can you win the game? The answer is absolutely, but not by being a speculator ... You're going to have to learn the strategies of either building a business and growing it or investing over time and getting a compounded return.”
— Tony Robbins [09:22]
On Giving and Success:

“If you want to have success in your life, stop asking what you can get and worrying about what you're going to get and focus on what you're going to give. If you give more value than anybody else in the marketplace, you will dominate the marketplace.”
— Tony Robbins [30:13]
On Investing in Yourself:

“The most important investment you can ever make is in yourself. ... No one can tax it. Your skills keep growing and no one can take any piece of that.”
— Tony Robbins (quoting Warren Buffett) [48:09]

Memorable Moments

Graham’s Frugality:
Jack recaps Graham’s legendary stinginess—from using a stolen gym towel for lighting to refusing to buy a $19 charger, even when “affecting his quality of life” ([85:02–87:20]).
Tony’s ‘Jackpot’ Surprise:
Tony describes surprising a frugal employee with his dream Corvette, sparking tears of joy ([87:24]).
Rescuing Victims of Trafficking:
Robbins recounts undercover work and supporting survivors, referencing “Sound of Freedom” and personal impact stories ([57:26–59:57]).
Dissecting Generational Divides:
Robbins debunks myths about generational exceptionalism and suffering, referencing historical political mudslinging ([27:04–29:43]).
Meta Programs:
Tony explains how deeply ingrained psychological filters influence money mindsets, decision-making, and even business partnerships ([79:52–82:23]).

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

[01:04–11:18] – The psychology of change, hunger, certainty, and values
[13:11–17:00] – Generational patterns, The Fourth Turning, and seasons of life
[22:39–29:43] – Historical case studies: Roaring Twenties, Great Depression, WWII, and generational shifts
[30:13–34:56] – Success through value creation and skill investment
[40:41–47:44] – Private equity, new investment access, and the “Holy Grail” principle
[76:05–82:23] – Deep dive into Graham’s scarcity mindset and meta programs
[57:26–59:57] – Tony’s work fighting human trafficking

Closing Thoughts

Enduring Wisdom:
- Service: True fulfillment comes through meaningful work that serves more than oneself.
- Resilience: Adversity, when embraced, builds strength, resourcefulness, and generosity.
- Growth: Invest in yourself, learn from history, and recognize your patterns.
Abundance and Joy:
- Tony advocates for living large not merely in material terms, but in generosity, impact, learning, and love.
Personal Challenge:
- For those with a scarcity mindset, Robbins recommends safe, consistent steps into greater investment, both financially and emotionally, and not abandoning hard-wired traits overnight.

“If you can be more spiritual, should you? If you can be more intelligent, should you? If you can be more prosperous, should you? ...You have the capacity to grow in any area. Let’s grow in this area.” — Tony Robbins [94:02]

Links for further engagement:

Tony Robbins’ “Time To Rise” online event Jan 29-31, 2026
Book recommendations: “The Fourth Turning,” “Generations,” “How to Lie with Statistics,” “Money: Master the Game,” “Holy Grail of Investing,” “Life Force”

This episode crackles with the energy and depth Tony Robbins is known for—delivering both challenging truths and actionable optimism for anyone ready to break out of “cheap” or stuck mindsets.

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Transcript

Tony Robbins (0:00)

Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. If you want to have success in your life, stop asking what you can get and worrying about what you're going to get and focus on what you're going to give. I'm a kid from Azusa, California, who did not have any certainty. But I was certain of one thing. My insatiable hunger to end suffering for any human. I can't.

Graham Stephan (0:49)

I got to say, this is an honor. You have completely changed my life. It took me three years just to get up the courage to upload a video into YouTube.

Tony Robbins (0:57)

Our lives are not controlled by the external world. It's the internal world that determines how you feel about things.

Graham Stephan (1:04)

Why is the belief that people don't change so common?

Tony Robbins (1:08)

Well, because they don't usually change until they have to. Most people, right. Most people are addicted to certainty.

Jack (1:13)

What would you say? That one thing is that the people that end up changing successfully have that. Those who don't end up changing lack hunger.

Tony Robbins (1:21)

Hunger to be more, do more, give more, share more, create more. But they also have the endlessness to push through all the obstacles that come up.

Jack (1:28)

Graham has a bit of a scarcity mindset and all of the viewers are very well aware of this.

Tony Robbins (1:34)

Your YouTube viewers know you as being frugal. Jack, your co host says you're cheap. Whose love did you crave the most growing up? Your mother? Your father? I'm sure you love them both. But whose love did you crave the most?

Graham Stephan (1:53)

Tony, thank you so much for coming on the Iced Coffee Hour.

Tony Robbins (1:56)

My pleasure to be with you guys.

Tony Robbins (3:00)

I'll tell you a funny story about Shallow How. Yeah, so the Farrelly brothers are pretty hysterical funny guys, and they're friends of mine and they want to tell me, please come meet a movie. And I'm like, I'm not an actor, I don't want to do this. And then they sent me the script from Shallow How? So I read it and I'm an emotional guy. So I love, like the scene where the, you know, the guy's in the hospital and they see the kids the way they do it was just cool stuff. I like the theme. So I said, okay, I'll do it. And then. And so they gave me the script. And so I memorized the script. And it's terrible what I'm doing. It's not what I would really do. But the whole thing was originally, it was written by a guy that was a blind, legally blind guy who bought off of my infomercially, heard an infomercial, bought my cassette program, had never written a movie, and wrote this movie. That's why it's about inner beauty. And they didn't tell him that I was coming. They just. The original script wasn't me. It was, you know, this kind of faith healer that was turning people around. And I said, no, no, no, that'll never work. But if you're stuck with an elevator with Tony Rob. And so he'd turn you around. So I come in and I memorize the whole thing. And then I meet this guy for the first time. Here's my voice. And they didn't tell him or I that I was going to be there. But the funniest part was I said, guys, this is not what I would do. It's like, this is bs. I said, I'm happy to do it. It's a pleasure to be a part of this movie, but why don't I just show you what I'd really do? And they said, well, we don't have a script. And I said to Jason, Alexander, I said, don't worry. He'll react. And then I did that healing scene that you see. Right. And he did not know what to do. Shoulder go blind. It was so funny. But, you know, it's a movie. They shoot at eight times. Again, from every angle. Yeah, but it was a really. It was a fun experience because it was tied to someone who actually had been transformed by my work.

Tony Robbins (6:45)

Well, because they don't usually change till they have to. Most people, right? Most people are addicted to certainty. So there's six human needs you maybe remember familiar from one of my books. One is certainty. And certainty is a survival instinct. We want certainty so we can be comfortable. If we're not comfortable, you know, we could be in pain. If we're in pain on a regular basis, we could do damage. Damage equals death. So the most fundamental need is to be certain. And most people settle for certainty. We have also need for uncertainty, variety. We have a need for significance in our culture today. It's a little overvalued to be the most important, significant one. And when it's out of balance, it'll really kind of mess up your life, but it'll give you drive. But most people really want love. And then we need the need for growth and contribution. So those six needs are the same for all human beings. The difference in how people perceive the world is two things. Which of those six needs are at the top of your list? If certain is your number one thing, you're going to be moving in this direction, right? Avoiding if you know something like, you know, variety is that you're going forward. And by the way, direction determines destination or destiny. So I know, for example, significance is the number one need you're after versus love. I know what problems you're going to have in your business, your relationship. If you know, if you value growth, I know you're going to different experiences that you're going to bump into. So that's the common nominee. Then the second thing that's different about people is their rules. Like what has to happen for you to feel successful, right? What has to happen for you to feel loved. What has to Happen for you to feel like, you know, depressed or frustrated. For some people depress. All they have to do is someone doesn't smile at them in the morning, somebody else the US army can storm through their kitchen and spit on their face. And then they're not upset by it, right? People have different rules. Like, I remember years ago, I had a gentleman who was. Won't mention his name, was very well known guy came to one of my earliest seminars and I was describing, like these values that we have in these rules. And I was saying, you can have a value, but if your rules make it hard to experience, you won't feel that value. And so I use this guy because he's an obvious example. Very wealthy, successful, famous man and a good human being, like philanthropist and great father. And I said, sir, are you successful doing it? You know, being playful? And he said, no. And I said, at first I thought, is he feigning? You know, is he being humble? What is this, right? And then I looked at him, it's like, no, he really doesn't feel successful. I said, what has to happen for you to feel successful? He says a lot of things. I said, well, that's obvious. What are they? And he goes, well, if you're really successful, you never get upset with your kids. And he's got five, right? You know, what are your chances? Oh, if you're really successful, you're always there for your kids. I later got to know him well and his kids, and they thought he's the greatest dad in the world. But his rules not wouldn't make him feel that. When I asked App, I don't remember the number, it's been so many years, But I think he said, you have to have 9% body fat. And he was 10. You know, he's a marathon runner. You have to make $25 million a year. And I think I said, don't you really make that? He goes, no, no. I mean in salary, not bonuses and things like that. At that point, he lost rapport with everybody in the room, as you might guess, right? But then there's another guy in the room that this man does not feel successful, even though he values it, even though he pushes for it, he doesn't feel fulfilled. Then I have this other guy in the room I called on because certain people are obvious fly for the party guys, right? So I called this guy and I said, are you successful, sir? And he stands up and he goes, of course, right? Everybody laughs. And I said, what has to happen for you to be successful? He said, I Have to wake up, stand up, look down, and see I'm above ground. He said, every day above ground's a great day. Right. And he legitimately feels successful every day of his life. So our lives are not controlled by the external world. It's the internal world that determines how you feel about things. It's just like, I know I've seen you guys talk about wealth and, you know, Z generation and Millennial generation now, they don't think they still have the same opportunities and so forth, but that's a story that they're being told. The fundamental pathways are there. I wrote the book Money Master the Game because I wanted to answer that question. Can you still win this game? You know, is the game rigged against you? Well, the game's always been rigged. Right, but can you win the game? The answer is absolutely, but not by being a speculator. Unless you're lucky. Yeah. You know, putting all your money in Bitcoin, you might win, you might lose everything. That's not the way to wealth. That's the way, if you're lucky, to get a bunch of money, but you won't even keep that wealth if you have that mindset or approach. You're going to have to learn the strategies of either building a business and growing it or investing over time and getting a compounded return that allows you to actually get to a point of real wealth.

Tony Robbins (13:46)

And Gingrich historian. So I read the book, and it was one of those valuable books in my life because it put everything. It showed me that there are seasons to everything. And so I. I was waking up in A in a winter season, I was coming of age 18, 19 years old in a winter season, 78, 18 interest rates. So I studied my ass off. I figured out I made a hundred offers on pieces of real estate. 99 said, no, it's actually 103. 103rd 1 said, yes, I bought this piece of real estate. Try to make money at 18 on a piece of real estate. Good luck, right? But all I knew is real estate was the way that you could build wealth. I grew up from nothing, right? But what happened was then I had somebody. I hired him so far away the place I bought, I hired a little local managing company to manage the place. And they called me one day and said, well, a guy said that one of the stairs broke and he fell. He wants $100,000. What's kind of to me didn't have that. I could have just let that end me. But I was relentless, you know, I was like, okay, I'm going to learn. This is painful. I'm going to learn. But the season will eventually change. So think of it this way. There's the greatest breakthrough in humanity came from the understanding of patterns. Pattern recognition gives you power. Pattern utilization gives you real power. And pattern creation makes you a master of something. What do I mean? When you don't recognize patterns, you live in fear. You live in like, oh my God, the system's changed. I can't do it. I can't succeed. Because you don't understand that there's a pattern that's been around forever. It's just not in your lifetime that you've noticed it in your 15 years since college, right? Or, or 10 or whatever it's been for you, right? So as an example, when we figured out this thing called seasons, humanity went from hunter gatherers who couldn't survive to we could stay in one place. But we made one distinction. There's only one season you could plant in springtime. If you worked your tail off in the winter and planted, you didn't get the reward. So you had to plant in the spring. Then you had to go to the hard times of the summer, protect it. Then you got rewarded in the spring, then you better hang on to some for the next winter. When we figured that out, humanity grew.

Tony Robbins (17:15)

Very easy, right? If you start a business in springtime, you think you're a genius. You're full of. All it is is you're in the right place at the right time. And when the season changes, that's what thins it out, right? 0 to 21 is the springtime because you primarily like, I had to go to work when I was 14, but I didn't have to make the mortgage, right? I had to help my family, but I didn't make the mortgage. So you're still being taken care of to some extent, whether you like it or not. Some you're being taught things from 22 to 42 is like your summertime. That's where both of you are, right? And that's summertime. It's testing. And that the generation that's in that stage always thinks things are unjust and unfair. But always you can look at over 100 years. You go to the same examples over and over again. And so during that time, you finally say, I don't know if I believe all the crap. I was told, I'm gonna go test my own world. I think you're full of crap. Plus, when you're 22, 25, 27, 28, you know you're going to be a billionaire and you know you're going to be president, United States. And you know you're going to have a hundred relationships, relationships with everybody simultaneously, and everybody's going to be happy. By the time you're 35, you discover that isn't working so well. You have a hard time with one. You're not a billionaire yet, and it hasn't quite worked out the way you have. And so you have. You get humbled, right? That 22 to 42 range is the toughest time. All studies about happiness. It's the toughest time because you're trying to figure out who you are. You're trying to figure out, prove to yourself, maybe to the world also, but to yourself, who you are. And as you go through it, you're going to go through kind of the hero's journey. You're going to have stuff that hits you you're not prepared for, and it's going to feel overwhelming and you're going to think, oh, my God, this is. I don't know how to deal with this. But if you're relentless, you'll grow. You'll go on the little hero's journey. You'll meet new friends, new mentors, you'll fight good battles. You'll eventually win the war and come back and have something to share, and then it starts over again. But in that stage, that's when we start to consolidate relationships. Towards the end of that stage, you start to move into your power. Now, you guys might be ahead of schedule or behind schedule. I'm not telling you. This is exact. It's a really good rule of thumb. Third season, 40 and say, look at 44 to 64. That is the power stage for almost everybody. It's where you earn the most money in your lifetime. That's when all the accumulation of things you've done. When people say it wasn't working, they didn't give it long enough to work. Now it's working and they go, oh, my God, this is the greatest time. Then you have relationships that are 20 and 30 years long and you can do more with your pinky than it used to take. You know, working 20 hours a day, you know, everybody, you know what to do if you've taken care of your health, right? That's. It's a phenomenal stage. And if you've grown, if you didn't plant in the springtime, you're going to weep in the fall, you're not going to reap in the fall. And then the stage 65 to 85 or 65 to 105 or 65 to 125, the oldest living humans, that's the winter again. And that's when you get to be a mentor to society. At that point you don't give a what people think you care. But you're not here to try to convince any, you know who you are, you're not trying to prove it to anybody else or yourself. But you do want to help. And so you know that the racetrack of life is limited. So I'm about to be 66, I look at this and go, I've lost friends that are much younger than I am already and I've lost friends that are slightly older than I have. And you go, man, I work hard to take care of myself. Everything else, but there's no guarantees in life. You know, if I went by my life expectancy, I think I'm different than the average. You'd say okay, Tony, well you might have about 14 years left, you know, 14 years left, what the hell, you know, I, I prefer to think about 92. I've got a five kids and five grandkids, so I have a 52 year old daughter that I adopted when I was very young and I have thanks to covet a four and a half year old daughter. So I want to be around for, you know, her being older. But the point is at this stage in my life, I mean your life is about service. There's nothing else that you want. And if you've done a good job, your economics are beyond sound. But you have 40 year old relationships, 50 year old relationships, you have a level of fulfillment in your life, you have a sense of meaning, you have people you've touched and you're in a position where it's like you don't take things for granted. Everything about your life is there. So those are your personal seasons and here's the last one. I know it's a long ass answer and you can cut this up if you want to. There's seasons of history and this is the part your generation needs to understand. And that's why I hope you read the two books I mentioned now really quick.

Tony Robbins (23:17)

That's right. Explosion of new technology, the equivalent of AI. You had radio, television, telephones, you had airplanes, cars, mass. You had mass abundance that was going on stock market. And that happens every fall. That's a fall time, right? But fall's not forever. So when you're 10 years old, you were protected. You're born in 1910, you were protected during that time. You didn't go to war. And you grow up and you see, this is what you think life is. Life is this incredible opportunity. This is absolutely amazing. And you turn 20 years old, that transition from your springtime to your summer, and you think, I'm gonna go party, I'm gonna get a car, I'm gonna do these cool things, right? And by the Way those kids were totally looked down by their elders because they were called flappers. They said they don't need discipline. It's the same thing that millennials have heard from older generations. And Z's have hold from some of the older generations. Right. And the reason is it was true. They hadn't been through anything. It wasn't. They were bad kids. They just hadn't been tested. You don't build a muscle unless you lift some heavy ass weights, right? So what happens? You turn 19, 29 when you turn 19 years old and people are jumping out of buildings. And in the Midwest you got a dust bowl and people are standing in line to have some bread and it's like, holy. And those kids who were flappers and weak became the next heroes. They're known today as the greatest American generation. And the reason is because they not only made it through 10 years of depression, which isn't, by the way, all one dark time. Like stock market crashed and it rose three years later again. Then it crashed again. It wasn't like all darkness, just like winter isn't always dark, you know, beautiful days. But it was overall, the theme of emotion is fear. By the time you're 29 for that generation, think about your generation, what they were worried about, what happened when they were 29. If they're born in 1910, you must know your history. 1939, World War II, World War II, suddenly Hitler is Luftwaffe, is blitzkrieging and taking countries in days. And he was alive at the time. I wasn't. You weren't. They knew the world was over. The stock market in America crashed. Everybody's freaked out. Hitler looked like it's going to completely dominate everything that was going on. And the whole world was shaking from what this experience was. And so people volunteered to go fight that war. Right? To make this thing happen. Something very different for a generation later on. Right? Because they were raised different. They had a different experience. Long story short, though they fought the war five, six years, they came back the end of World War II, they won. And now they're the greatest generation. Why? They got muscle. They are a position where they literally went through a depression and a world war and they came back and they started the 50s. Now where the 50s ended, like the 40s? No. The early 60s? No. Then the next generation is raised. And that next generation, this is what you learn in generations is it's not individually, you individually, but as a culture, our parents overreact to how they were raised. So this generation that had nothing, one of the kids to have everything. They sent them to college. They told them, you're going to have the greatest time of your life. You're going to be smarter than me. And their kids believe them. And they went off and had a great time with music and drugs and a beautiful time and said, no, I'm not going to go to war. This is not fair. And so the 60s and 70s were very differently than the 40s or 50s, just like the 80s, 90s and 2000s are different. I'll give you one last example. For 50 years, they've asked the colleges this question, starting back in the 60s, what's most important to you for the quality of your life, A philosophy of life that you learn, that allows you to have happiness, or the pragmatic skills for you to be financially strong and secure? What would your answer be? Second, what would yours be?

Tony Robbins (27:05)

Interesting. 81% of the people that asked that question in the 60s and 70s set a philosophy of life. It makes total sense. Think about the culture then from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, 82% of the people, which is statistically irrelevant, said the direct opposite. It because they were raised, their parents were out having their little mission, and they were kids that had to let themselves in the house and watch television and make their own sandwich. And they were latchkey kids, not everyone, but as a group. And so they came up with their own music, their own rebellion, their own approach to things. And so this is how generations evolve. So when you think about the questions you kind of laid out for me about, like, you know, I'm happy to answer them individually, but isn't it different this time? No, it's not. I gave you an example. I just. I pulled this out to show you something interesting. It's like I heard people the other day. I pulled this out because someone was telling me we were the worst, most divided in this country politically than we've ever been. We're going to be in civil war. This is the worst it's ever been. I said, you don't know anything about history. For you to say that, it's the stupidest thing you could possibly say. So I brought this up for him, and this is two placards, because back then they didn't have social media, right? This is Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. So they put out placards when they're fighting against each other for president. Let me read what it says and you see how it sounds compared to today's days. If you like Thomas Jefferson, robbery and adultery will be practiced throughout the land. Are you Prepared to see your dwellings in flames, female chastity violated, and your children writhing on the pike. This is what Adams put out about Jefferson, right? You have co founders of our country, right? John Adams Jefferson put out. John Adams is busy importing mistresses from Europe or trying to marry some of his sons to a daughter of King George, which to me, to them would be like the devil. He's a hideous, hermaphroditical character with neither the force or firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman. I mean, when you study history, you no longer have these fears that, that millennials and Z's have right now. Your generations will be the next heroes. If you study this. This doesn't stop. We are not in a terrible winter yet. We have some challenges, we have lots of opportunities, but we're going to have winter. There's going to be a time, there's going to be some conflict probably between China and us. Maybe it won't even be physical war. Maybe it'll be purely cyber war. It already is a cyber war, but at a larger scale, there's going to be something that's going to disrupt your lives, our lives, immensely. Your generations will be the generations that will rise to deal with that. That is historically what happens, doesn't mean every individual will and all the things that they're worried about will go out the door.

Tony Robbins (30:13)

I'd say two things. What Jim Rohn taught me, my original teacher, when I asked him about why my fathers were broke, right? He said, if you want to have success in your life, stop asking what you can get and worrying about what you're going to get and focus on what you're going to give. If you give more value than anybody else in the marketplace, you will dominate the marketplace. He asked me at one point, because I was saying what. Why did my dads, four of my fathers, they were suffering, they didn't have enough money for food. And he said, tony, we're equal as souls. We're not equal in the marketplace. So if you want to have a balance, economic balance for starters, you've got to actually invest in yourself to get the skills that will give you the advantage over someone else instead of saying how the system's not supporting you because that mindset attitude isn't self fulfilling. Second, I'd say is you've got to become a student of history. We don't study history at all because you know it. It's not the same, but it rhymes as you've heard, right? There are patterns that are so clear. Those three skill sets I told you are the most important skill sets. I want my grandkids to have. Anybody have pattern recognition of anything. If you can recognize patterns, you can learn quickly. And you will not be in fear because it won't feel like it's random things happening to you. But you have to do your homework. You can't go online and just let somebody tell you who's pitching to you because they're afraid they're not doing well enough, that the system's rigged against them. You got to look at the people that actually have succeeded and find out what's going on in their life, what they went through to get that pattern. And so that's what I did early on. I went, I studied history, I studied everything I could on psychology because that's basically what shapes all human beings. And then I shaped myself around business and that those three skills for me were the most important skills.

Tony Robbins (31:46)

Well, yeah. If you have no desire to improve your life, you're not going to improve your life. Of course, now you, the truth is life will show up at some point and get you to make a demand. You'll have something that happens in your life. You'll have somebody in your family that gets ill. You'll have an economic thing will happen. You'll have a covet and your business will be shut down. You'll have life always is calling us to grow in some way. And so you, doesn't matter who you are. If you don't do it proactively, it'll happen reactively. But what I'd also say to you really is if you notice, if you understand these three skills, pattern recognition, pattern utilization, that's where the power comes. You see somebody who's great in investing, they don't just recognize the patterns, they had to use them. Right. I'm not talking about betting the money on one thing and hoping that's not investing, right? That's, that's, you know, betting. That's a betting process. Right. If you really Start to understand anything and you start to master the patterns, understand them, use them, and then eventually you'll create them. Like playing someone's piano. You learn someone else's music first. Right? Because they've already perfected it. That's what modeling is. But if you do it long enough and you were committed enough, all of a sudden you will come through. Now you're a pattern creator. If you look at somebody who's a goat in their industry, I don't care if it's a sports or business or anything else, it's because they're a pattern creator. And so if you just model everybody else, you'll succeed. Right? Find the pattern that works and do it. But if you start doing that enough, with enough different people, you're going to discover there's answers in you that don't exist anywhere else. You are a unique human being. You have something to bring to the table. But it takes time. It's usually quicker than people want. I think the biggest difference in today is people's expectations. Like people say, what about the wealth gap? There's always been a wealth gap, but the numbers now it's like there's a great book called how to Lie with Statistics. Bill Gates is a quote on the COVID of it. And it makes me laugh because you can manipulate any statistics to get any outcome that you really want. But the wealth gap is bigger. There weren't people worth 100, 200, 300, $400 billion a few years ago. So when you take that number against, like, median incomes. And the big difference today is social media. So kids say, I want to be wealthy, but you tell me, how many billionaires are there?

Tony Robbins (35:56)

Well, thank you. But it's more than money, right? It's creativity. Like, we're in. We're literally underwater right now. They told me it'd be impossible to do this. I wanted to build a squash court because I didn't want to drive 20 minutes each way. And the guy said, where are we going to put it it? Because, you know, we got two and a half acres. I got 25,000 square feet here. And I said, down here? And he goes, it's below the water table. The ocean's on this side, the intercoastal's there. You can't do it. I said, well, you've been to Atlantis. Have you ever been to Scripps Oceanography? I said, let's build a submarine. And they told me to do an 18 months. It took about three years. But nobody knows is down here, right? So, you know, my grandkids, kids, everybody comes here, we have a blast. We use this constantly. But thank you for that. But to me, it's never about the thing. So to answer your question directly, if you can find something you care about more than yourself, it'll give you energy. Like, there's not a reason to get up in the morning if it doesn't take that much to meet your own needs. Some people's expectations are higher than others. So it takes more for some people. And most people, as they go through life, either adjust their expectations down or up, that they usually make adjustments. But I think what you really want to be able to do is find something you care about most that gives you joy for you to get up and do where you feel like your life has meaning, because happiness goes up and down. Happiness is, you know, it's, it's. It's an energy, but meaning a meaningful life where you feel like, man, this is. This is. I'm so glad that I have the privilege to be alive. I'm so glad I get to serve this way. That is what ultimately gives people joy. So you can get that meaning by being a doctor, a nurse. Whether you have a hypercar or not, it's. Everyone has different goals. And I don't tell people what they should believe, but I tell them this. Whatever you want, be clear that you're gonna have to find something to serve more than yourself that excites you, that drives you two. Get incredibly good at mastering whatever that is. If you're going to get good at it, you're not going to get it because you're lucky. And it's like Steph Curry, you know, I'm a port of the piece of the Golden State warriors. Steph practices 500 shots a day. You know, he makes a shot from half court. You see him and he's chewing on the side like Bugs Bunny. And he doesn't even look back. He just turns, you know, and lets it swish. You go. He's a genius. Steph Curry in high school, never should be in the NBA. He was too short. His dad made him correct his shot because he never would have made it. He had to learn to reshoot while he was in high school and college, which made him terrible, but the level of work put in. So he put in 500 shots a day, every single day, seven days a week for his entire life, basically. But let's just take his 15 year professional career. That's 3,500 shots a week. 168,000 shots a year. 2.5 million shots in 15 years. So he can make 3,303s and be the best in history, you get rewarded in public for what you practice in private, intensely. So if you want something great in your life, find out what you want. I look at it though, across areas. I go, what do I want physically, what I want emotionally, what I want with my relationships, what I want with my finances. And then I put focus in that. And I've written books in each of those areas. So, for example, in the finance components, like, okay, how does somebody do it? Same way you always did. You're going to make money one of two ways. You're going to start your own business and grow it and sell it for a multiple or more than one business. Or you're going to work for somebody else and you're going to get really good at investing again, not betting, investing. And you're going to compound over time.

Tony Robbins (40:42)

It's really important. I wrote a book we had. I see Sam there. Somebody has there called the Holy Grail investing. Ray Dalio is one of the greatest investors in history. Obviously good friend of mine, I interviewed him years ago for. I went in for a 30 minute interview and he said Tony walked out with a four hour because I, because I just dug into his brain. But at the end, one of the last questions I asked him is what's the single most important investment principle you could teach another human being? He said, Tony, well you have to understand all investing is risk reward. And he said, so the more you can reduce your risk but have upside reward, the better it is. But there's only one way to do that consistently without luck. And he said I call it the Holy Grail of investing. He said, funny you should say that. I worked on it for 30 years to refine this principle for myself. And he said if you have 8 to 12 uncorrelated investments, hard to get uncorrelated today, right? Because many things are aligned across markets today. But you can do it when you have private equity investments, private credit investments and so forth. He said if you can find 8 to 12 that are strong investments, you reduce your risk 80% and you gently increase your upside. There's no loss on your upside. So I decided to write a book on that one principle, but also on private equity because right now it pissed me off. You know, I hear kids will say to me, well, well, you know, only the wealthy get more wealthy. This is total. I know it looks that way, but it's. But it's not their fault. That's what they get educated. So I thought, let me write this book because I knew this was going to happen in Congress. Congress has been talking about it. They passed it two days ago. Up until now, let's say you put money in the s and P500. That's where most people will put their money today. So over the last 36 years it's had about a 9.5% return, right? Over time, if you had a million dollars you put aside and you wake up 26 years later, 36 years later, it's $26 million. Private equity has compounded basic private equity, not the people I interviewed in this book. Basic private equity, not the great ones. 15.5. So almost 50% faster per year. What does that mean? Same million dollars. Instead of being worth $26 million, it's $142 million. Same investments, only one problem, Access. So you'd say to me, tony, that sounds wonderful. Maybe you can get it because, you know, some few people I could, but I couldn't get a large volume either because getting a volume of these investments is difficult. It's like the velvet rope. Right. You know, it's a. It's pre sold. Everybody's in, in the game. So I started doing my homework and I found out something was much better. I found out you can actually buy a piece of the companies, not the fundamental, and you get the 2 and 20 they normally charge everybody else. And so I own right now a piece of over 85 different private equity firms from Vista, $100 billion company. You know, Robert Smith, who's produced a 26% compounded return for over 25 years. Right. I can give you list after list after list. But here's what's interesting. You used to have a minimum, you know, net worth you have to have or a minimum income. They just changed the rules. I wrote a book about this and they did it yesterday. Senate has to pass it now, but they're going to. It looks like there's no challenge. All you have to do is take a test. Because the idea was you shouldn't have these sophisticated investments.

Tony Robbins (45:58)

Yeah, so you want to. Well, you do this. Think about this. I own these companies that own 100 or 200 companies each, but here's the difference. They buy the company as cheap as they can, and they're very smart. That's how they do it. Then what do they do? They put a new CEO, they bring in AI, they make new changes in technology, and they build the company up and either take it public or they sell it to another larger company. And so it's a. It's more efficient way of doing business. The number of stocks has shrunk over the last 30 years. Right. They haven't gotten larger. The number of private businesses that have private financing has gone through the roof. Private credit. I remember not that many years ago when, you know, people are trying to get junk bonds, you know, for. They're getting 4% of their junk bonds, and I was getting 11% on private equity. And I had less than one half of 1% problem in, you know, money dropping out. Any bank would die for that. Because these guys loan money to companies that they've already invested in. They know everything about them. They know who runs it, they know where they're going. These are the masters of finance. I, I'm not trying to sell a book because I gave away all the. Right, all the money for my book Defeating America. But so if anybody wants to pick it up, read the Holy Grail. Investing. It will blow your mind because it'll show you private credit, it'll show you sports teams. Like, you know, I originally was growing up like I was. I, I was in right field at Dodger Stadium once a year to buy a ticket to be in the bleachers. And now I'm an owner of them, right? So there's ways with sports teams to own a piece of. You don't have to own the whole company that give you tremendous benefits and are a blast. And they're an uncorrelated investment. Investment. They haven't tied to what the s and P500 is doing. So there's just so many opportunities to get a broader base. But again, you're either going to have to build businesses and sell them for a multiple or you're going to have to become a good investor. That's how you develop wealth in this country. It hasn't changed an ounce, but the access has changed. There's more access as we're speaking right now than there's ever been.

Tony Robbins (52:02)

Well, Ray Kurzweil is probably the, the smartest guy in the world in that area. He's, he's, he created MIDI music, he created Siri, he created just about anything you can imagine. He's the Einstein or Edison, I should say, of our time. And he's also has this mindset about our capacity. He also thinks you'll be able to download your brain, you know, you know, and put it into a, to a, you know, get rid of this bio substance and have something that can last forever. I don't know if I want to last forever in those areas personally, but I do want to last as long as I can in this lifetime. I think I have a company called Fountain Life. And what we do is we take people in and they come in, we help them to maximize their energy. And we do hormonal replacement therapy. We do everything about stem cells. You peptides, peptides as well. We do all the above. But what you've got to find is there's many breakthroughs. The biggest breakthroughs are probably going to happen with killer cells because that's what's going to change your immune system the most. Because aging is really the breakdown of the immune system system. All the things that people do when they age, the manipulation or the multiplication of cancers and heart disease and all those things is really the immune system starting to break down. So the most interesting work that I'm aware of is all the stuff that's being done with immunology right now. But I also, we have a group, I have a group called the Estate that I have partner in. And we have, we have 21 hotels around the world that'll be five star hotels that are exquisite, that people can go to. Instead of going to a medical center or going to a spa like environment, let's say in Switzerland for a week, you'll go in and do everything. About 15% of the people that come to our centers think they have no problem. They're just coming to maximize their health and vitality and strength like athletes, people like that. 15% walk in with a major problem that they're unaware of when they walk in. And so Sam Nazarian is my partner who created SB Entertainment, SLS Hotels, Mondran Hotel. He sold all of them in 1999, in December, right before COVID for, you know, billion plus dollars. And then his health had deteriorated and so he came to me. I wrote an entire book, by the way, called Lifeforce, which is like 700 pages, which is the best of the best in every area of health that exists. The cutting edge tools. He said, tony, no one's done this. I interviewed 150 of the greatest medical advisors, regenerative doctors, and so why don't you come to our program and just test them out? So he came through and we found two aneurysms for him. One was so bad, his doctor said if it had gone, he'd never made it to the hospital. So a lot of people, they find something, but we catch it when it's small. Today you want to know like a doctor's visit, you know, physical is absurd. We're doing the same thing we did a hundred years ago, but now we can get six terabytes of information about what's actually going in real time in your body. And we can make corrections on things when it's not a big challenge. If you find out you have a cancer today, for example, the cancers we die of are the ones we catch late because we don't test for those. And so people get colonoscopies, they get breast cancer tests and so forth. But there's about 50 different cancers. If you catch it at stage four, according National Cancer Society, you have a, you know, 80% chance of dying. I prefer the 20% chance of living. But their point is well made. If it gets you at stage one one, you have a 99.9 chance of living. And so today, having that kind of a screen where you can test 50 different cancers, blood, blood cancers, you can see a full MRI of your body, you know exactly where it's going, and you can make adjustments, it's priceless. But we're creating that now in an environment that's pure luxury. So you can live there or you can go visit there all over the world, from Abu Dhabi and to Paris to the Caribbean and so forth.

Tony Robbins (57:43)

Well, I've only. I've only done that experience with them once. They do it all the time. We rehearsed everything. We had hidden cameras everywhere. We couldn't tell the police because the police are corrupt. So I talked to the prime minister. So we do have a certain amount of risk, but I'm one of the smartest guys I know. Again, CTEL 6 guys, they. They know how to run an operation like you can't imagine. We rehearse everything. They bring this guy out for the negotiation, and right before he comes out, out, somebody in the boat goes, you're Tony Robbins. I'm like, what? They recognize my voice, so it didn't matter how I looked. So microsecond, the boat's coming up. They had me sit in the corner with these two women, and I just was going to nod my head if I get a big beard on and everything else, you know. And we finished the negotiation. There was one of the madams there. I could sense she knew something was off. And she just. She. She had like spidey sense. Like, just. I was watching her. She was processing it differently. And so they got him back on the boat. And they go in, and now they're supposed to capture them and the Special Forces supposed to come in and they didn't show up. And so we're all freaking out. And then sure enough, the last minute they show up, surround them, capture all these guys who captured, I think at the time we freed, I think it was 48 kids. And we locked up about 11 of these madams. But then we had to get the hell out of there because the police are coming and you know, we're not, you know, we're not qualified to be there. Plus they can be corrupt as well. So we took a speedboat and got out of the place and went out there. But. So I got to direct experience. But I have a friend that went through my seminars and then he's an AI guy, a machine learning guy and he went to Indonesia and set up shop in this old hotel. He was so moved by what we were doing. And he's the one that I fund the most now. And he is, his name's om. He just brought about 15 of these girls here that they free. They went to a seven day seminar I do called Date with Destiny. I do it once a year.

Tony Robbins (63:42)

No one's going to escape extreme stress. It's going to happen more than once in your life. You're going to get robbed or your house is going to burn down. Both of that. Or someone's going to tell you you've got a tumor. I've had that also. Or you're going to have to bury a mother or father or multiples. Or you're going to have some. You're going to have. Or someone's going to shut down your business with a Covid. You're going to have some extreme stress moments in your life. What you do with those moments, whether you use stress, you let stress use you, is going to determine your destiny. Destiny. And those moments, if you push through them. And it's like when they say, when you're going through hell, what do you do? Keep going. You'll learn three things. One, you'll figure out how strong you really are. Because you don't know how strong you are until you have to be. It's just the truth. Second, you'll find out who your real friends are. Not your effing Facebook friends, your real friends. The ones that, when all hell's breaking loose, that are actually there for you when it's not convenient. And the third thing, the most important thing is you'll develop an immunity to other challenges. Not like they won't bother you, but it's like it's hard to find a worthy opponent when you've been through enough. So some people have that extreme stress early on in life multiple times. Some people have it midlife, some later in life. I think the worst time to get it is later in life when you've never had it because you have no strength to really deal with that. So my hope for you gentlemen, as just as a person a few years your senior, is that those, when those things come, you'll see them for what they are. It is if you know the hero's journey, the longest story of humanity across all cultures, it starts with a call to adventure. It doesn't look like a call to adventure. It's your house burned down, right? So my house burned down years ago in la. So when this happened in la, I could help people because I've been through it, right. It was seemed like the worst thing in the world. Everything I had, there was nothing in the cloud in those days. All the things I had. But I had to remind myself we all lived. And it sent me on a journey. I moved to a new place. And when you go on a journey, it's a call. And when you go on that, you can resist the call, but it'll keep coming till you face the challenge. And then you meet new people, you meet new mentors, you fight new battles, you get stronger and eventually you evolve to a different level. And now you have something to give because you've lived enough life. You've been through so much crap and you've succeeded. Now you want to help because you don't want other people to have to go through that and usually can't help. And right when you think it's all over, it'll happen again.

Tony Robbins (67:39)

The difference is did you learn something? You know, if you can, if you can trust that life is happening for you, not to you. I know that takes a big trust. But as you get older and if you dig and if you have any level of faith whatsoever, I don't mean religion, just faith. Faith is how you drive down the street when there's, there's just cars come at you at 65 miles an hour and there's nothing but a yellow line. Right? How do you do that? Because if you don't, you have to sit at home and do nothing. So you develop the muscle called faith and you trust and you move forward. But if you do that several times in your life, like you just said, you've been through that experience, you're going to find yourself having a different mindset. So how do you do it. You feed your mind every day. You don't just read the crap that's fed to you on your phone. You don't just read what everybody gives you. You pursue really great ideas. Great ideas, great strategies don't interrupt you. They got to pursue them. And I look at them in my body, my mind, my emotions, my relationships, my finances, and the spiritual realm of life. Those six areas and then running businesses are the seven core areas that I look at. And I'm constantly learning in all of them, which is also why I love doing so many different businesses, because they make demands in each of those areas. And that's why I can help so many people, because I've operated in so many different areas that matters. Because if you think about life, there aren't that many areas that matter. Most people major in minor things, things they know lots about, something that doesn't give a damn. It doesn't change your life. But you better know how to have the energy and vitality and strength over a lifetime. You better know what it's going to take for you to have great relationships. You better know when you're facing unbelievable odds, how to retrain your mind. Because if you don't let that happen, you're not going to have anything.

Tony Robbins (77:19)

One of the things that I learned when I was writing money Master the game. I interviewed Mary Callahan Erdos, who's the most influential woman in finance of J.P. morgan, right. Manages two and a half trillion dollars, whatever was at the time great lady by the way. And I said to her I was asking about asset allocation because that's the most important thing in investing. And she said, Tony, I will actually put people in treasuries when they were even lower than they are now. And she goes, my associates are like, are you insane? She goes, if they're risk adverse. So the thing you have to think about is I'm not here to judge. You should be away a certain way or not. Whatever somebody is, they can be. If that's what makes him happy, then let him be fulfilled by that. To you it makes no logical sense. I would be on your side of the fence. But my wife does this. He used to drive me crazy and now I love that she's going to go, you know, have plenty of money and she's got, she used to drive like I swore I would never again go to a Kmart or whatever they call those things, Walmart, Target or. Yeah, I grew up in those places, right? I'm not going to go to those places again. And my wife would drive across town to save money for this or get gasoline. But that's her culture, that's what she was raised with. Now, gradually, gradually over decades, she's starting to loosen it up. But I think it's important that people, people, whatever you're looking for financially, you set it up in a way that makes you feel good. So the problem is your partners. You want different things. That's true in an intimate relationship too. And you have to be able to navigate that. What you might start to do is say, okay, I'm not giving all this up. I'm going to take this little piece here and use it for growth in this core business. Because in the end your business will probably be, I don't know if you run your business properly, the most profitable thing you're ever going to do. Because you'll sell it for a significant multiple. Yes. You'll compound through investments. Agree with that 100%. But because you have your own business and it seems like it's one you guys are doing well in, it might be worth a small investment and testing it. I would also just test everything. I test it with small dollars and see what I was able to produce. And that's how you'll get him more comfortable with it. But I think you guys have. That's a negotiation between the two of you.

Tony Robbins (82:23)

Understand, most entrepreneurs in the beginning of their career are operators. Operators do everything. They try to keep everything as tight as possible. They hire the best person they know themselves, then they hire the next best person they can do. But the first person they know they hire, they also don't pay them enough, usually because it's their business to make it go. And you get stuck in a certain plateau toe. Unless you get to a point, the reason I have all these businesses, how can I possibly run 114 businesses, have five kids, five grandkids, travel the world, do my speaking, do all the things I do, have a life. If I was an operator, I'm an owner. So I've learned how to be an owner. An owner is somebody. I've learned how to build teams that can do those things. But to do that, I had to go through the process that most young entrepreneurs don't do, which is, you know, you can do it better than somebody else, you do it yourself. And so as long as you do that, then no one else can make the mistakes. They can't learn, they can't grow. And you're tied to the business. So your business is really a paid job, a very paid job, maybe a highly paid job, but it's a job still, it's not a business. So you can walk away for a month or two and do nothing, have it keep growing. So you have to decide if you want a job or if you want a business. And there's nothing wrong with having a, you know, is a independent, you know, someone who's owns their own business is, that's what they call it. But usually what that person is, they're self employed to be a more accurate description. If you own a business then you have a system that works without you. All these businesses I'm telling about, I'm strategic, I enter in strategically different points, I make strategic decisions, I help the teams, but I don't have to be there for them to run or there's no way on earth I could do what I'm doing. I mean I'd be run ragged completely. I wouldn't even run ragged. I wouldn't be impossible, possible. So you're at a stage as an entrepreneur where unless there's nothing wrong with staying self employed. But if you ever want to get beyond that scarcity mode, you're going to have to take some risks, not huge ones. It can be risks that you guys can test, you know, you know, in a very simple way with small amount of money, prove that it works and then that would more his strategy and then move forward. But you're not going to usually, you know, in a, in a relationship people usually have opposites in how they deal with things. And what I did with my life, I fell in love with the fact that she wants to sa money. I mean most, most people want to just waste it and she doesn't need to. And gradually over the years and it's taken, you know, we've been together 25 years, it's probably taken at least 15 of those years to get her to open up a little bit and not do those things and have her be adjusted. His childhood, his life, his upbringing has made him be this way. Yours is different. And, and that's why you guys are good partners. You're opposites.

Jack (85:02)

I would not say that we are necessarily opposites because I am very frugal. I Think that it's just. As I started to make more money, I started to think, okay, I make my life easier. How can I free up my time a little bit more? How can I spend my money more efficiently? But even, you know, back in the day, I was maximally frugal, nearly to the same extent Graham was. Granted, Graham was making a lot of money off of YouTube, and he was still draping a free towel he stole from his gym over his light because he wanted to diffuse the light. Like, even to this day, I kid you not, I'll put B roll over the screen right now. You guys can see we're in a rented car that I'm sure Graham shop for the cheapest possible car. I guarantee you he did, which is fine. I actually support. That I'm totally cool with. But we're in this rented car, and Graham travels with a phone that's broken. You can't plug your phone in and charge it. And so what he does is he brings this whole apparatus, which is like, this big, and it's both for the back of a phone, so you put your phone, stick it up to it, and then on the right side, it's for your Apple Watch. He doesn't even have an Apple watch. And so he brings his apparatus with him instead of just buying either a new phone or just buying a USB C cable to the Mag Safe charger, that little circular thing you could slap on the back of your iPhone. Instead, he brings this whole living. And it's not working when he's plugging into the car. So he's like, jack, can you get your laptop out and plug it into your laptop? And I'm like, dude, a charger is 19. You know, maybe you could buy even, like, a cheaper one if you get a third party. And it's. And it's not only that, but I see it affecting, in my opinion, the quality of his life. And some, you know, the quality of his decisions is diminished when his number one thing outside of YouTube and work and his, you know, wife would be aquariums. He loves reef aquariums. And this brings him so much happiness. And I've seen it personally, because I've lived with aquarium guy. You know, we've known each other for several years, and his aquarium is his pride and joy. Well, there's a new aquarium he really, really, really wants. It fits in his space perfectly. But it's $10,000. He would be spending $10,000 on the one thing he spent $30,000 on in the past, but it gave him endless happiness. Endless tinkering, endless. Just joy. And I see it every time I walk into his house. Everything's meticulously placed. I see him tinkering with it. He's got these long tweezers. He's like, replacing a coral plug. And he's so happy, he's in his own. And he's hesitant to spend an extra $10,000 to get an aquarium that he knows.

Tony Robbins (87:24)

Need it versus possibility. But you can have it, and you can show it to a much greater quality of life. So you're, like talking to somebody, speaking a different language. It's not that you're not frugal, as you said. It's just he. As a necessity frame. You have a possibility frame. By the way, what I've done in that area. I'm not suggesting you do this. I like to. Every once in a while with somebody that I'm in business with, a partnership, whatever it is, I like to do what I call a jackpot, especially for people like him that are tight with their money. And what jackpot is, I think of something I know they really want. I mean, I had, for example, I had a guy that worked for me that was, well, the president, but a high CEO in one of my companies early on. And he started telling me he was obsessed with Corvettes, and the new Corvettes were coming out, and he had a picture of the Corvettes. And he's like, someday I got a Corvette like this. And I'm like, you got enough money? Why don't you just buy the Corvette? No, no, no. It's too expensive. And plus, they're now like $20,000 more in California because, you know, the first ones are. Are out there. They want a premium for them and all this stuff. So I called them the Christmas Eve. And I called him up and I said, sam, I said, I'm so sorry. I know it's Christmas Eve, but we got a problem. I need to meet you at the hotel. Come meet me at this hotel right now. What's it about? I can't even tell you. Just get here. So I guess they'll tell, right? And out front is the exact Corvette that you can't get anywhere in the country. And it's the most expensive one. It's the white with the red interior and so forth. The convertible down, everything else. And he. I meet him outside, and he goes, that's that car that was. What do you mean? No, that's the Corvette. That's. That's the car that's like, that's. That's the ultimate car. I mean, that's the one that's here. I said, wow, that's cool. I said, why don't you get in it? He's like, I can't get in it. I said, said, there's nobody here. I opened the seat, you know, the door. I said, jump in it. It's like, I can't. I said, get in. And I push him and he sits down at the corner. He goes. I said, how's it feel? Goes, that's incredible. I go here and hand him the keys, right? He started crying first. It was just shock. He started to cry. He had plenty of money. I got more for doing that for him than paying him as much as I pay him, which is plenty, you know, giving him bonuses that are different. I like to do things that, you know, it's a total shock. It's a jackpot. If you go to Vegas and you won every time, what would the experience be? If you pull down the first time, you went, oh, second time. If you win every time, after a while, it's a job. You pull it, you make money. You pull it, you make money. The surprise is very useful. He's not going to make that adjustment on his own. I'm not saying you should go buy him his aquarium for $10,000.

Tony Robbins (93:36)

I don't think so, because I don't think you'll be happy because you'll be fretting about the thing constantly. It's like you need to do something consistent with your current values and rules. I would never say my values and rules are the ones that you should have. That worked for me when I was growing up and I was like, I grew mentally, emotionally, spiritually, but it's like financially, can you really grow in that area? Because I grew up so poor. And I remember saying to my friends when I was growing up, it's like, someday I want to race camels between the people pyramids. And so by the time I was 19, 20, I made a certain amount of money. I thought it was a lot of money then. And I went back to my friends, I said, let's go to Egypt, I'll fly us all there. We're raised camps, the pyramids. And it was like, oh, easy for you. What do you mean easy for me? Well, you would call this money. I said, well, no, I'm not asking you to pay anything. No, but you got all this money. I said, well, I work my hats off, I want to share it with you. And so for a short period of time, I got rid of all the money in my life. Not consciously. I sabotaged everything because I really wanted money, love. And I grew up thinking my parents left each other because there was never any money. I thought that was the source. They would have left each Other. Anyway, I realize now. So it's like after a while, though, one day I woke up and thought, if you can be more spiritual, should you? Of course, if you give me more intelligent, it, should you. If you can be more giving, should you. If you can be more prosperous, should you? Well, the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes. It'd be stupid not to be, in my opinion. So it's like, I have the capacity to grow in any area. Let's grow in this area. And I think for the two of you, though, I'm not here to tell people how to live. I'm here to say, tell me what you want to do and I'll show you ways to get there. His way of doing it is going to be a little miserly along the way, in control. If he went and bought himself a big house. I did that. I went and bought a big house, and I was like, this is where my family's going to grow up. I bought the Del Mar Castle. It was literally a castle built from castles in Europe, overlooking the ocean in San Diego, California. And it's like, I didn't have the money for that. I literally leveraged everything I had to get a land contract for this place. And I had, like. I forget it was like $15,000 a month payments. This is like 40 years ago. I'd been paying $500 a month, was my rent before that. And it's like. And, well, that wasn't all. Every four months, there was an 80,000 and then 100, then $150,000 chunk that I had to come up with. I didn't have all the money. The guy who sold it to me, he was going to sell it to one of these Saudi Arabian princes. It was during 1984 Olympics. And they came down. We're looking at it, and, like, I was leasing it just for a month. And Mike's like, no, my family's gonna grow up here. We're gonna find a way. And so I figured, how to sell this. Buy this thing for this guy with literally no money down, not no money down, $40,000. I wrote a check for $4,000. He's like, no, no, you're missing some zeros here. But he found out how much money I had in total, and we gave him every penny and commit to all these payments. And I figured out how to do it. It was not comfortable, by any way, but I grew. Like, you can't imagine. It was incredibly uncomfortable. I said, this is where my family's going to grow up. This is going to be A metaphor for the abundance I have spiritually, emotionally, in my family. I want them to have that in terms of the environment they grow up. Because I grew up in a pretty rough environment and it worked for me. It would never work for him.

Tony Robbins (97:26)

Slack business plus I don't have a pen here I could show you, but if I showed you two rectangles, you know, up like this and one on its side and I said what's the relationship of these three rectangles? Some people say they're all rectangles. Some people say they're all written by by you. Some say they're all on the same page. In other words, they're all the same. Some people say they're all different. You wrote them at different times, they're different sizes, right? They written different moments. So some people look at life, how it's the same to relate to it. Symbol of God's different and most people have a mixture. Some people say well two of them are alike but one's different. Sameness with exception. And some people say well one's different but two are are alike. They look first for the difference, then what's alike. But if you get somebody who's a total sameness person with someone who's a total miss we call it matching and mismatching. If you're a total matcher and you're in relationship, somebody's mismatching everything and they drive you crazy in a business you have to shut the mismatcher up and have them open their mouth once the plan is laid out, you want them to mismatch them. You want them to try and tear it apart. But that's just another meta program. There's another meta program that has to do like what convinces you? Like, do you have to see something to become convinced? Do you have to hear it? Do you have to read it? What's this substance? And then the next, the most important thing is how often some people hear it once and then they're convinced. Some people have to hear it three or four times. Some people have to hear it over a period of 60 days, 90 days, same people, every time they hear it, you have to reconvince them. Right. So there's these patterns in the mind that are really critical to understand because they help you understand how people are wired to differently. And instead of being frustrated with them, especially if you have kids, that's when it'll really be interesting for you. It'll help you go, oh no, they're wired differently in this area. And then you can find different advantages. Like in Chinese medicine, they have different archetypes that they use. Some people are water, some people are fire. They have different qualities and some of them you don't relate to. But when you understand these five archetypes, you're able to go, oh well that's, that's the water in my life. You know, I get it, I'm not like, like that. But you begin to create building appreciation, excuse me, versus a judgment. So I, I. The more you can understand about human psychology, the more you can not only get along with people, you can have positive influence with people. You can meet their needs, which really makes them happy and you happy. And the more you can grow a business if that's important to you.