A (3:20)
Okay. So I began to realize that all thinking is, is asking and answering questions. That's what thinking is. And for me to get things done, I have to think a certain way. So what's the question? I'm asking, what do I got to do? What I got to do? What I got to do? Wrong question. If you keep asking what to do and keep a to do list, I know you're stressed. If you're a productive person. And, you know, as I start expanding, having multiple companies, it was like, impossible. So I began to realize the real question. For my life to matter, for me to feel productive, for me to be in a position I can move forward, I need to answer first the question, what do I really want? What's my outcome? What's the result? Because if I ask what to do, it depends on what you want. Remember I think I mentioned, you know, I get this phone call from President Clinton. He says, they're going to impeach me in the morning. What should I do? Remember, I'm like, could you call me sooner? Was the first question right. But then my second question was, you're asking the wrong question, Mr. President, because you don't know what to do unless you first ask, what do you want? Otherwise, what you're going to do is what everybody throws at you or what you think you should do, or your base conditioning or whatever seems urgent. You gotta say, what do I really want? Do you want to stay president? Do nothing? They're not gonna beat you. The Senate's not going to. You want moms and dads to tell their kids how incredible the President United States is and be a role model? Then you're gonna probably have to do something different. So the first question to turn, teach yourself. I teach this thing called rpm. RPM means results. Focused, purpose driven, massive action. Plan or the rapid planning method. RPM. If you know cars, you increase the RPMs, you have more power to get from here to there faster. It's three questions. I teach it as a system, like a time management system, but the base of it is three questions. Question one, what do I really want? What's the outcome and what I want from this week? And there'll be more than one outcome. But I try to say, what are the three to five to thrive? What are the three to five most important things? There'll be all kinds of other shit that shows up. What are the most important three, four or five things I want to accomplish this week or this day or this month? And I get crystal clear. Because clarity is power. Your brain, when it knows exactly what it wants, will figure things out. But most people are asking what to do. And it's like whatever's around, whatever has to be done, whatever's coming at them and they're out of control. Second. I then ask, why do I want it? I know this sounds simplistic, but I'll give you an example. I remember one day I came home. This is years and years ago. I was in my early 20s. I was exhausted. It was before email. That's old. I am. It was before social media. And I had been on the road. And I came back and there was a list. I don't remember the real size, but let's make it up. Like 150 messages. I had 150. And I just got off traveling for 12 hours from 13 hours from Australia. I was exhausted physically. And I look at this list. Holy shit. That's gonna take me a couple days to get back to all these people. And I'm feeling stressed. Why? Because it was a to do list with no outcome and no purpose. Right. Purpose is where the power is. You say, I want to make a million dollars. That's nice. Why? Well, make a million dollars because it feels good. That's probably not going to do it. You're going to have to get through bigger obstacles. But if you go, I want to make a million dollars so I can put my son through Harvard. I want to buy my mom a home and my dad his truck. And those people matter to you. Now there's an emotion to get you to follow through towards that outcome. But when you know the outcome and why you want it. So for me, I look at this list and it was just like, ah, I gotta call these people. I have to. No, I read the list and I was like, what's my real outcome? The President states Was one of the people on the list. A very famous actor that I really like was on the list. A business partner who I love was on the list, but it was just to do so. I was like, okay, what's my outcomes? My outcomes is to support this person. My outcomes is to get back to my business partners, to make sure they're totally supportive. Why? Because they deserve it. Because I love them. Because whatever. And now I look at my list, and what I began to see is I could call some of them together. I'm going to put these three people on a conference call. Let's all do it together. Knock off four at a time. How to get to the goal. That's the last question. So it's, what do I want? You know, what's my outcome? What's the result? You get real clear what you want. Not general, because you go, I want more money. Here's a dollar, you're done, right? I want to lose weight. You lose a pound, you're done. You got to be specific. Why do I want it? What are my reasons? My teacher, Jim Rohn, used to say, reasons come first, answers come second. If you get strong enough reasons why to do something, you can figure out how. And then you ask, okay, what do I need to do to get this done? And what I do is I create a massive action plan. I call it a map, and I write anything that I think I need to do, but I know I'm not going to do it all. So then I look at the list, I think about my outcome. I know the target, I know why I'm doing it. I go, okay, 20% of these things are going to give me 80% of that result. Let me asterisk the 20 that I'm actually going to do today or this week. Then my day gets interrupted. But I'm not trying to think of 100 action items. I have six outcomes or five that I'm trying to achieve. I know why I want to do it. And when I get interrupted, I go back, what am I after for today? And I do one of those 20 percenters, and it gets it done. So that's a real quick squeeze on rpm. But I have a program, if you want to get it, that's called the time of your life. And it teaches you this process. But then one more thing. Failure. Nobody likes failure, right? Nobody wants to fail. So don't learn. See, the difference in your body between failure and learning are very big. Let me tell you a story, just a real quick one. So I have a dear friend his name is Peter Goober. He and I are partners in a variety of sports teams and things. But he's also just a genius. He has 52 Academy Award nominations. He's made everything from way back when, Midnight Express, Batman, all those movies, you know, you name it. Rain man, he made all these films and he's been the head of a studio of Sony and Columbia and tristar. He has his own studio now. He owns the LA Dodgers, he owns the Golden State Warriors. Together we own the LAFC football club. Total genius professor at UCLA part time because he wants to give back. Unbelievably achieved guy. So I was asking Peter when I first got to know him 25, 30 years ago and I never forgot the story shared with me. I said, you know, we all have certain events in our life that shape the way we look at life. And I said, peter, you are so persistent. You never give up. You know, it can look so dark and everybody else is freaking out and you just keep moving forward. I said, I really respect that. I said, I have some of that too. But I'm wondering what gave you that. What experience do you base it on? What belief? He said, tony, it's interesting you see that. He goes, I pride myself and never gave up moving forward. But he said, you know where I got it from? When I was a little boy and I don't remember how old he said he was, but I'm going to try and make it in my head. I think he was like in the third grade or fourth grade, so it would have been like eight, nine years old, right? And he said there was a neighbor kid, you know, my, my house was a two story little house in this little tiny little community. And the neighbor crossed the street just to the right. His bedroom was up on top, my bedroom was up on top. So every now and I glance across and see him and one day he said, I see this kid. And I didn't realize when we first moved in that he was handicapped. He had some real physical challenges. And he said one day he said, I watched his dad take him outside. He could barely walk and he had a two wheel bicycle with two training wheels on it. And he told his son to get on it and then he gave him a shove and walked away. And the kid was and crash. And the father got up and walked away while the kid's on the ground crying. And he said, peterson, I couldn't believe how mean his father was. He said, I, I was so angry, I want to run down there. And my mom says, don't interfere. It's not your place. So he said the kid tried to get up and he was on the ground for, like, 15 minutes, struggling, trying to do it. He finally kind of got the thing up. And eventually his dad come back, took the bike and took the kid in the house. He said, tony, this went on every day for three weeks. He said it was like a horror story. He said, I'm just this little kid, and I felt for this little boy. And his father doesn't give a shit about him. He said, I got in a fight with my mom at one point, and I said, you gotta do something. Till one day. One day, just like the other days, father came out, put the kid on the thing, gave him a shove, and then quickly stormed in the house. So he's on his own. And the kid was. Oh. And all sudden he started going and going, and he turned the corner and everything else, and he had momentum. And he looked down to see where the father was, and he saw the father was on the Second Story, cheering for his son, yelling out there for his son, and he running down the stairs and he took his son. He fell down, he picked him up and he hugged him. And Peter just said. He just cried his eyes out. And he said, that day I realized I learned something so important for my life that that father loved him because he let him struggle. He let him figure it out. He let him push through failure. He taught him that failure is not deadly. Giving up is. And he said, I learned that day that, you know what, rejection and failure are just speed bumps on the way to success. He said, tony, it really served me because when I was 35 years old, he became. Maybe in 34, he became the chairman of Columbia Pictures. The Last chairman was 64. The man Everybody thought they'd pick for chairman was a war hero in his mid-50s, and everybody loved the guy. And they picked this young punk, Peter, because he had insights about VHS and video that nobody was doing back then. And he said, tony, I remember I took it on. He goes, I was scared as shit to fail. And he said, a bunch of people were not rooting for me. And he said, we made the first film I greenlighted, and we did the premiere. And he said, tony, it was the worst film that you could ever make. It was so bad. He goes, I was just. So. This is my first movie as head of the studio. And I could feel everybody looking at me. And he said. And when the film ended, there was no applause. And he said, I'm trying to figure out how to get out of this place. And he said, the war hero guy who thought he's gonna be the CEO comes up to me and he goes, hey, Peter, are you scared? And Peter said, I took a moment, I took a breath, and I said, yeah, I'm scared as shit. But you know something? I'm gonna push forward and we're gonna make some great films, and nothing is gonna stop me. And let me tell you why. And he said, I told him the story of the boy, and he said at the end of the story, he had a tear in his eye. He says, so what I've learned is failure is just a speed bump on the way to success. And all I do is get back up and keep pushing. And I will win. We will win as a studio. We will win together. And you're gonna come with me. Or you can antagonize. It's your option. But I want you to know what is driving me. And the man with a tear, his eye turned around. He went from his opponent to his supporter, and he said, and together they made all kinds of beautiful decisions. He learned from them, the ego got set aside, and their studio became number one. So I'm here to tell you, failure is a speed bump on the way to success. If you convert it to learning, there is no failure. Failure is you thinking it should work every time. It doesn't work that way. If you saw the number of things I failed at, you would understand. I am not some superstar. I'm just one persistent mofo that won't give up. And I'm driven by my mission and my desire to serve. And I have a lot of emotion inside, and I see it in you, too. So use that emotion. Use it to move you forward instead of move you back. Is that helpful?
