Stop Chasing Money, Start Adding Value w/ The School of Hard Knocks

Who am I here with today? Well, I think you know it's Tony Robbins. You're at my home. Alleged himself. Yes, sir. Nice to meet you. For those who don't know, how did you make your billions? I'm fortunate enough to have 114 companies. We do over $12 billion a year across massively different industries. But it all started with understanding human psychology because that's what drives all of business and all of life. I have one rule for everybody that I interview. There's no holding back. We're going to give them the secrets and the blueprint on what it takes to make it in today's world. Can we make that happen? I think we can make that happen. Let's do it, my friend. Let's take a seat. Have a seat. You got it. There's a saying that I love. You didn't come from a rich family. What was Tony Robbins' turning point to financial freedom? Tell us that turning point for those that don't know. Actually, the earliest was when I was 11 years old. We had no money and no food. I had four different fathers. My mom was a busy person. All my fathers, unfortunately, were not financially successful. And we had a Thanksgiving when I was 11. There was no money and no food. When I say no food, we had crackers and peanut butter, but not a Thanksgiving dinner. And there was a knock at the door. My parents were fighting and screaming at each other. And this man delivered an entire turkey, two whole bags of groceries for us. I thought it would make my father happy. But actually, he made him feel like he hadn't taken care of his family. Or he made himself feel that way. And he left us. So it felt like the worst day of my life. But I took a different meaning from it. Number one, there's food. What a concept. But number two is like, this made me believe strangers care. Because the person who delivered the food, I still don't know who it was. They didn't want credit. They just knew we were having a tough time. My entire life, people have said, we grew in a really tough environment. And it looked like everybody said, no one gives a damn about anybody else. But I had completely different evidence. And so I thought, if strangers care about my family, I'm going to care about them. And so it launched me. And I thought, someday, I'll feed at least two families, you know? So at 17, I fed two. And then I got to four. And then eight. A little small company I grew. And eventually, I got to four million people a year. And then 12 years ago, I decided I wanted to provide a billion meals in the United States. And so now that's grown. My whole life has grown from this focus on how do you give more, not how do you get more. Beyond economics, it makes you feel fully alive, like your life has real meaning. So I'm very grateful for what I thought was my worst day became my best day. At 17 years old, you found one of your first mentors, Jim Rohn. You found out early on that success leaves clues. And I recently interviewed Robert Herjavec. And he told me that some of the most bullshit advice that you hear all the time is that people always tell you it's not what you know, it's who you know. Because he's saying that successful people aren't necessarily going to give you the time of day if you don't have value to offer them and a reason for them to connect and pour into you. So I want to ask you for your advice to that young person out there trying to attach themselves to the right people. They may not have a lot of credibility. What would you do if you were them? Your best networking tip to the younger generation? I'll tell you what Jim Rohn taught me because the best advice I ever got. I was 17 years old and I went to work for him because I loved what he was teaching. I thought he was a genius in business and philosophy and so forth, the strategy. And so I went to one day and said, I've got four fathers. They were always broke. They were good men. Help me understand why we're broke, like no money at Thanksgiving. I don't understand. It doesn't seem fair that some school teacher makes in those days $40,000, $35,000 a year. And this billionaire hedge fund guy makes a billion in a year. And he said, Tony, listen to me. He says, I'll never forget. He goes, we're all equal as souls. You're right, but we're not equal in the marketplace. He said, if I asked you this, are there people making money twice as much money in the same time? I said, yeah, 10 times. Yeah, 50 times, 100. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How? I don't know. He said, it's very simple. You have to become more valuable. You have to do more for others than anybody else in the marketplace. And so in the beginning, when I went around to try to get around people, we didn't have the social media world that we do now where you can do some of the things you do. There was no way to get that out there. But I went to work for people. I worked as a janitor. So I'd be around them. I'd clean their desks and read all their ---- during the night, truthfully. But then I gradually, as I kept adding value to people, and that's the whole game of life. I think the biggest challenge, people are trying to figure out what they're going to get. But if you can figure out what you can give, the doors will open for you. But it has to be what people need, not what you want to give. Now, you've coached billionaires. You've coached presidents, military leaders, among yourself, and the most highly successful people that you study and know. What's that one trait they all have in common? Hunger and relentlessness, meaning it's never enough. They always want to be more, do more, give more, shape more, create more. I don't care if you're talking like, you know, somebody like Sir Richard Branson, or you're talking, you know, the greatest three-point shooter in the league. You take a look at what Steph Curry does. That hunger to always be the best. And they never let themselves be sucked into the bullshit that people tell you. It's like the system's against you. The system's always against you. Your job is to break through the system. That's what gives muscle. You don't get muscle by not having to work it. I mean, look at somebody like Steph. He makes it look so easy. He shoots the ball from almost half court, chewing on the side of his mouthpiece. He doesn't even look. He turns around. He just knows it's gone in it. But he practices. I've trained with him. 500 shots a day, every single day, seven days a week, 3,500 shots a week. Forget his college career. His professional career, 15 years, it's 2.5 million practice shots. So he can make 3,300 shots and be the greatest three-point shooter in history. Not even 1% of the practice shots are the shots he actually takes in a game. So I tell people you're rewarded in public for what you constantly practice intensely in private. What's the most fascinating thing you've learned about people throughout your career? Most people, rather than face their fear, they come up with a story as to why their life has not worked out. I have ADHD. It might be true, but so does Richard Branson. He's done quite well, right? Or, you know, I was abused as a child. Well, so was I. So there's so many people, right? Who cares, right? That's just a story. But most people, they'll come up with a wall to protect them, but the wall that protects you imprisons you. So you have to be fearless. Fearless doesn't mean you don't have fear. It means you fear less. It means you take action anyway. Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. Courage means you're scared, but you do it anyway. 114 companies. There's a saying that I love. Concentration builds wealth. Diversification keeps it. You weren't afraid to diversify and go into different industries. At what point do you think an entrepreneur should diversify? That's a great question. I think the worst mistake a parent can make is they're a terrible parent, so they have a second child, right? And a third before they're really good at anything. I see that with entrepreneurs often. It's easy. It becomes fun to start something new. I made that mistake early on myself. I remember one time I was going to a bunch of billionaire friends a month. I was coaching, and then I said, I really want your help. I have all these opportunities. And they, like, scolded the ---- out of me and said, look, Tony, you got to master this thing before you go do these other 12 things. And so I think you have to have a certain level of mastery of business economics and so forth. Otherwise, you spread yourself too thin. But once you get to move from being an operator to an owner, like, how could I run 114 companies and be on the road and deliver and have five kids and five grandkids and a wife that I adore and so forth? It's not possible unless you really know how to leverage yourself. So I know how to recruit great leaders. I know how to scale things and how to be extremely strategic. And so if you can scale and you're strategic and you hire the right people, that's how you get the job done. But running around and doing it yourself and just the whole hustle culture, I believe hustle culture is a useful thing to start things out. But then you need strategy. And I think you've got to be really smart about not dividing your interest until you're there. What's Tony Robbins' secret to sales? Get results. There's no better marketing tool than results. When I began, I was like you. I was very young. I was 17 when I started. But 23, I remember I was going out and people were like, how is this guy going to teach me anything, right? But I was doing the same thing you did. I was learning from all the other people. I was trying to compress decades into days by pulling those principles. But what I learned was if I had the skill, not just the knowledge where I could repeat what I heard from other people, where I could produce a repeatable result that no one else could get in sports and business and finance and their personal lives, and it didn't matter my age, didn't matter how much marketing I did, the world grew. Credibility kills all bad attitudes. That's a perfect way of saying it. How old are you now? 65, about to be 66. Tony, if me and you died tomorrow and you had one more message to leave with the younger generation, what would that be? I'd say be relentless. Become the creator of your own life. Don't settle for less than you can be or do or create or give, no matter how hard it gets. Obviously, it's hard. There's nobody who's got great success in their life or great fulfillment, even more importantly, who hasn't been pushed to the edge multiple times. But it's the person that just won't give up, who keeps moving forward, and the person who's found something they care about more than themselves. I think that's the most important thing. I don't care if it's your kids or it's your family, if it's your business, it's your mission. If there's something you care about more than you, you're going to have enormous energy for the rest of your life. If it's just about you, you don't need that much to fulfill your basic needs until you'll eventually burn out. But if it's about something larger than yourself, man, you know, I get up there and I go 12, 13, 14 hours at 66 years old and people go, holy, I'm 24 or 25. I can't keep up with this guy, right? But where does that energy come from? Yes, I work out like a crazy person, but that's not enough. It's psychic energy. It's emotional energy. It's the energy of knowing what you're doing matters. You've got amazing advice, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and your massive inspiration. Thank you so much. Blessings to you.