Tony Robbins Changes My Life (48 Minute Coaching Session)

Well, it's an interesting question. I was already interested in personal development because I had a kind of a rough background. I have 4 different fathers. We had no money for food. I had to work 2 jobs, work as a janitor. And my mom had a friend and dad had a friend that had been— my dad's description was he used to be such a loser and now he's really successful. And so he called and said, listen, I hear your son's gotten big. I was 5'1" in high school and I was 6'2" by my senior year. I grew 10 inches in a year. I tell people the difference is personal growth, by the way. But the bottom line is he said, you know, I got to move some furniture and things. I heard he's big, you know, could he come work for the weekend for some extra money? So I did. I worked really hard and the guy really was impressed by my work ethic. So he said, I'm going to take you to lunch. We go to this lunch and, you know, and he's saying, you know, I really think you can go places. You got a lot of drive. And I said, well, I'd like to ask you some questions. And he said, okay. And I said, my dad used to say you used to be such a loser and now you're so successful. How'd you do that? You know, only a kid can say this, right? I wasn't trying to be cute. I just literally repeated it. He goes, "You just said what?" And then he is like, "Well, it's kind of true." And he said, "Well, I went to this seminar." And I said, "What is this seminar? I've never heard of such thing." He said, "Well, a man who has really become accomplished takes 20 years of his life and teaches you in 3.5 hours the best of what you need to know to make your life work." I said, "Wow, that sounds really interesting." I said, "Could you get me in?" And he said, "Yeah." And there was no follow-up. So I said, "Well, will you?" And he said, "No." I said, well, why not? He said, well, because if you don't pay for it, you won't value it. And at the time I was working as janitor and making $40 a week. So I said, how much is it? And he said, $35. It'd be like $250 in today's dollars to give you an idea. But it was a week's pay is all I knew. And I was like, are you kidding me? For 3 hours? I said, no wonder the guy's rich. He goes, no, that's not it. He said, he really has these tools. But he said, if you think it's too much, then you go learn in your own experience and take 10 or 20 or 30 years and maybe never learn it. At all. And so long story short, I made what I thought was the biggest decision of my life to take a week's pay. And I went and heard Jim Rohn speak and I was deeply moved and I left there going, okay, I'm going to become president of the United States. I'm going to start with a plan of running for junior in high school. I'm going to run for student body president. I'm going to be a state. So I was just looking to have the most impact, but what it led to was me just really digging in and learning everything I could about human development. And then Very quickly, because I was studying anything I could get my hands on, I came across neurolinguistic programming, NLP, which at the time was a breakthrough new technology of how to use language to change human emotion and behavior. And I talked my way into this, you know, 6-month class. I was the only non-therapist in the class. And, um, and after the first weekend, I was just out using it. I wouldn't stop. I'd go to literally, I was this, the program I went to was at the airport, Holiday Inn in LAX. And I'd go to the Denny's that was right next door afterwards and look for people to help. It's like, come here, sir, I'm going to change your life. But, and then gradually I started modeling and I started figuring out other skills and I started challenging traditional psychologists and psychiatrists saying, give me your worst patient. I'll handle them in an hour. And I took people with lifetime phobias, you know, been in therapy 7 years and turned around in an hour and that built my reputation. And so then I started working with athletes and then I started working with Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela and Gorbachev and You know, President Clinton, and it just grew and grew. And then along the way, I used some of the same skills called modeling, finding out what makes the difference in performance around businesses. And I started building companies. So today, you know, now I have 111 companies. We do over $7 billion in business across radically different industries. And, but this is my mission. This is what I do on a daily basis here. My education company is what I value most, but that's kind of the journey. And I've had lots of ups and downs along the way. Obviously it wasn't like a straight up experience by any stretch. It's not a straight line, but I've learned a hell of a lot. I've been surrounded by a lot of great people along the way.

Oh, he was a teacher for sure. He taught me some of the most important things. I think the most important thing he taught me was when I was, you know, I had all these different fathers and we were always broke. And so he said, change your mindset, change it from, can I earn twice as much in the same amount of time, 10 times as much, 50 times, 100 times, 1,000 times? Yes, if you become more valuable. So you have to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. And he said, you've gotta understand whatever you do, do add more value than anybody else in the marketplace of what you do. And that really, it, it, it sung to me cuz I always try to overdeliver in anything I did, even at that stage of my life. And that's been the basis of every company that I've built across all these different industries. I mean, there's no way I'd be who I am without that piece. So I'm indebted to Jim as my first mentor.

Tell me if I'm wrong. Yeah. Well, I went to work for Jim Rohn, the personal development speaker. And, uh, so you would go out and make 2 talks, maybe 3 talks in a month where you would go to a real estate office or a stock brokerage or someplace where You would do a talk and show them by improving themselves, they could also improve their income. That's usually what they were interested in. And so what I did different was I went out and said, I remember the guy that was number one in the, in the whole company. There were about 1,000 employees in that company. And I went up to him the first day because he was such a jerk to people. I mean, it's like total jerk. And so I, you know, I've always been a kind of protective of the little guy. Oh, I was a little guy. I was 5'1". I was protective back then, right? When I was in high school. So I went up to him and I just said, you know what? I said, you're an absolute idiot. And I said, you better remember my name. I said, because it'd only be a few months before I'll dwarf you. And I said, I'll tell you why. You're lazy. You do 3 talks a month. I'm going to do 3 talks a day. So it doesn't matter if I'm as good as you are, I'm going to destroy you. Right. And I did. I booked myself to every kind of group you can imagine. But yes, you know, if you know, I'm fortunate enough to own a piece of the Golden State Warriors and I've coached the team. I haven't been there this year. I haven't had a chance, but they need it.. But Steph is a perfect example of what you're describing. 'Cause people don't know the greatest 3-point shooter in the league. When he was, you know, in high school, he was really good. He, his dad trained him continuously. His dad was an NBA player, but his dad at one point, he's the best player in the league, told him, we gotta change your jump shot. Speaking of jump shots, we gotta change it. You start it too low, you'll never make it in the NBA. And so he made him have to do this new form of jump shot and he became terrible. 'Cause you're terrible when you try to do something new. But he wouldn't let him play competitively until he could shoot well in this way. And then now he still does it. He shoots, you know, 500 shots a day to give you an idea, 3,500 shots a week. Think about it, 14,000 shots a month, 168,000 shots a year. These are practice shots. So he is been in the NBA 15 years. He's done 2.52 million shots in practice. In his entire career, he's only taken 15,000 shots. And he's made 3,000 3-pointers and he is the greatest in history. Less than 1/10 of 1% of his shots have actually shown up in a game. So I always tell people you're rewarded in public for what you practice in private.

I think of learning at 2 levels. I think of learning as immersion. The reason I do 12 hours a day for 3 or 4 days in a row, most people wouldn't sit for a 3-hour movie someone spent $300 million to make. I can do it because I know how to engage people in all their senses. In other words, how much is a long time? Some people say 10 minutes, some people say 10 years, right? But really a long time is when you're not enjoying yourself. You know, a minute can feel like eternity if you're in pain, but if you're enjoying yourself, time flies. And so my whole mindset was I gotta immerse people because that's how we learn. If you're gonna learn a language and you learn a little bit at a time in high school and college, most people don't speak the language. But if I took you to Italy and dropped you in Rome and said, I'll pick you up in 90 days with no teacher, you're going to be speaking Italian by the time I pick you up because of the immersion. So I like to immerse myself, but immerse myself with someone who is the best in the world at something, someone who's already done it, not somebody who's teaching me intellectually, like going to a university with somebody who understands it but has never done it. I wanted to model the very best in the world. So I, I would go interview with, I'd go to work for people in the very early days as a janitor so I could get around them so I could learn how they think and what they do. Gradually I got to the point where I had these skills and so I could help people. And so I'd help them, but then I'd also learn from them. Everybody I've ever coached who calls me a coach, I'm no dummy. I learned from them. So some of my dearest friends in the world were people started out coaching, like Marc Benioff of Salesforce. He came to my seminar, I think 4 times in a row. And he's as big as I am. He stands out. And on the 4th one, he came up, introduced himself and said, you know, I'm Marc Benioff and you've convinced me to leave Oracle. I'm gonna start my own company out. It's called salesforce.com. I want you to come on the journey with me. And I'll never forget, he said to me, he said, we're going to do a, we're going to change business around the world. And I promise you, we'll do $100 million in business. And now he's doing $35 billion, right? His company's worth $35 billion. So it's like, and he's done that in 16 years. You know, the growth has been unbelievable. So Mark says I'm his coach. Yeah. I learned as much from Mark or more than he's learned from me. Same thing with Peter Gilbert. You know, Peter and I are partners in the Golden State Warriors, the LA Dodgers. You know, we both invested and started with the LAFC football club. He's got 52 Academy Award nominations. He's, you know, he's one of the most brilliant human beings that I know. So I learned from him. So all the people that I've coached over the years, I've learned from, and I try to do it through immersion. The more you can immerse yourself where you're thinking, breathing, doing something 18, 20 hours a day, the faster you're going to learn. So that's how I go about it.

I'll tell you one of the most valuable principles I learned from him, him and a friend of his. When we became friends at one stage, you know, he said, changed my life. I want to do some more things with you. And he had a small group of men, about 8 to 10 that had been getting together twice a year, sometimes 3 times a year. They go on these amazing trips. And they just brainstormed, but everybody there was the master of their universe, right? So it'd be like Pat Riley, you know, who was at the time, you know, the winningest coach in NBA basketball. You'd have the richest man in Canada, like this amazing who's who group. And so he invited me to come on this trip with him and he said, look, we've never brought anybody in before. You're 18 years younger than just about everybody here, but you have so much doubt. I convinced the guys, let you come on the trip, and if they like you, maybe you come part of the group and come on a regular basis. Now this is, I'm just starting my businesses. I'm early on in my career of 30, 31 years old, and I'm in a place where he wants me to go off on this 12-day trip. Well, I couldn't leave my business for 12 days in those days. I was a business operator. I wasn't an owner like I am today. So I had to go on the trip. And on the trip though, it was such a push. I didn't wanna miss it. I did it. I was so stressed out 'cause I felt like I didn't belong there. So, uh, he then had this conversation with me about what I wanna do with my life. And then he said, well, let me tell you the most important principle to get you there. He said, proximity is power. And he and Peter both started nodding and saying, this is what makes everything work. And I said, what do you mean proximity is power? What do you mean by that? He said to me at the time, you know, how many investment bankers do you know? I said, no, I don't know. Maybe a dozen. He goes, how many do you spend time with? I said, none. He goes, that's a huge mistake. You must go spend time with them because as you spend time, they will think of you and they will come up with deals that will help you generate the economics you want to generate if you want to run for office or do something of that nature. And I said, okay. And so I started doing it. I felt really uncomfortable. And then I saw him again and he really gave me stuff. And so then I did it deliberately, ongoingly. And for a year and a half, I'd go meet people. I'm not a networker per se because I felt like I don't know, I'm not asking for something and I don't know what I can do for them. I try to always be the giver. And, but nothing came out of it. I made some good friendships and so forth. No business came out of it. And one day I got a phone call that led to a $50 million deal for me. And then another day, about a year later, converted that into making in one single day, $400 million with taking a company public. So I always tell people, if you think about important principles, one of the most important ones I learned from Peter and his friends was you've gotta get in the environment where the best people in the world are on a regular basis and add value, and then things will start to happen. Nothing accelerates more than that other than your own skills and development.

Yeah, that's, uh, it's just really simple. It's just, I remember my father used to come home, my fourth father especially. When the door closed, there was this pause and we waited to see what kind of state he was going to be in. And you could tell if he was in an unhappy state, you want to kind of avoid the environment, or if he'd say, "Monkey gurus," used to say this phrase, "Monkey gurus," made no sense, but he had so much enthusiasm and excitement in his voice that we knew it was a good day. So I thought, when I come home, I want to make a difference. So my wife and I have this little thing that we do is I come home, "Honey, I'm home." And then we look for each other and we run towards each other and we just hug each other and kiss. But it's a beautiful ritual that we've, you know, we've been together 24 years and we still have this aliveness and passion for each other because we still put ourselves in those high-energy states. It's easy because of being worn down by work or environments or kids or some of your family's ill or financial pressure in your business, let's say, to let your state drop. And then when you're around your partner, that's what they experience all the time. And then their state's low, and then you're both filtering life through that. So, I think it's really important just like if you're going to get up and perform in a peak state, if you're going to produce peak results, you got to be in a peak state. You got to train yourself to do it at home. And then, after a while, it's not phony, it's just like if you see an athlete, they have muscles. Why do they have the muscle? Because they work out regularly. Well, when you push yourself into a great state regularly, it becomes your standard and it becomes how you feel all the time. You kind of wire yourself for that. It's not to say you don't have downtimes or frustrating times or sad times or whatever. I have all those things, but they're not the majority of the time. And if they happen, you can snap out of it fast because you know how to. And I think that's a huge part of what I try to teach people is that you don't have to accept how you feel. And people all the time say, well, I don't feel like it. Well, if I waited till I felt like it, I wouldn't do 90% of the stuff I've done in my life. I've learned how to make myself feel like it. Because if you don't do that, you're not going to accomplish or achieve or enjoy your life at the level that you deserve and probably desire.

I'm glad you stole it. That's, that's a worthy thing to steal. Stealing. Life is too short to suffer. I, I'm not gonna suffer. I know how to change my state, but I wanna create a rule that within 90 seconds, if I start to suffer, I'm gonna snap out of it. Now, don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean you don't get angry or frustrated or pissed off or worried or Any of those things, I can have all those feelings. But if you train yourself to snap out of it in 90 seconds, and by the way, in the beginning, no problem, 90 seconds and easy things. But then life gives you some big tests, right? You get something that feels more like 90 days than 90 seconds. But you get, it's like any skill, like, like shooting the basket. You do it again and again and again. You get better and better and better. And it's changed my life because no matter what's going on, I can still find the beauty in that. And in a beautiful state of mind, you'll come up with the answers much quicker than a pissed off state. Or a fearful state or a lousy state. Plus it gives a gift to everybody else. Who wants to be around somebody who's in a crappy state, right? Think about it like this. You know, if you have a, if you have cable or you have satellite and you turn the channel, there's certain channels where it's all comedy, other ones all drama, other ones it's all horror, right? Other ones it's, you know, romance. Well, the channel changer is your body. Because if you look at the greatest athletes in the world, Tom Brady, you know, uh, locally here in Florida, You know, we have a group that's won the Stanley Cup over and over again, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and they're famous for coming from behind and winning. So the same group did tests on them before they ever worked with me, and they discovered there's a biochemistry of what they call championship biochemistry. It's where these people like Tom Brady's down by 10 points and it's the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl and he comes back to win. I mean, how? He has this huge surge of testosterone, which gives you total focus and drive. It also makes you remember everything. It's like if I asked you where you were at 9/11, everybody remembers the moment. I ask you where you were at 8/11, no one knows where they were, right? Because you don't have that surge of testosterone, the energy. But usually testosterone is matched by cortisol, which is a stress hormone. But in this case, their cortisol drops through the floor. So all they get is pure focus and drive. That doesn't guarantee you're going to succeed, but increases your chances about tenfold. Every time I get on stage, I develop that biochemistry.

Well, let me, let me give people a little background. So I've written 3 books on finance. I, I started back in 2013 because after the 2008 dropout, I've been working with Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 financial traders in the history of the world. I've coached him for 24 years. He hasn't lost money during that time, so I've learned a lot. Um, but when I saw that the way we dealt with 2008 was we, instead of punishing the people that almost destroyed the system, we gave them more of our money. It just Blew my mind. And so I, I thought, I can't change everything, but I have access. So I decided to write a book where I interview 50 of the smartest financial investors in the world, the most successful, all self-made billionaires. Nobody from the lucky sperm club. They didn't inherit it. They created it. You know, Ray Dalio, Carl Icahn, Warren Buffett, Paul Tudor Jones, all of them. So I was interviewing a gentleman that took $30 million and turned it into $2 billion in 2008, 2009, the worst economic time. And, and I asked him, I said, how'd you do this? And he went, asymmetrical risk reward. I've heard that from every great investor. I said, okay, I understand what that means, but how would you do it? And how he did it was he saw the mortgages and everybody thought these mortgages were going to hold up and that real estate was going to grow forever. And he knew that wasn't true and he bet against it with unique tools. So he literally, he could be wrong 13 times and still make money. So that's how he turned that money around and made the greatest return in just about any period of time. So I asked him, I said, his name is Kyle Bass. I said, Kyle, I said, how would you explain this to like someone who's unsophisticated? You know, how would you explain it to your kids? He goes, Tony, I can't believe you said that. I just recently asked myself the same question. I said, I want my kids to understand this principle because that's what'll make them wealthy. And he said, so I thought, how can I do this? And he said, for 6 months, I kept asking the question. Where can I find an investment that is so asymmetrical? There's no downside and there's huge upside immediately. Now, most people say you're an idiot to even ask that question. There's no such investment, right? No risk, no reward. And he goes, no, he goes, smart people ask questions nobody else asks. I kept asking and I finally came up with the answer. Nickels. I said, nickels? He goes, yes. He goes, here's how it works. Nickels to make a nickel costs 11 cents. That's how screwed up our government is. And he said, And he said, so years ago pennies used to have copper in it. That's almost no copper now. He goes, those pennies are worth 2 cents. He said, the reason is because the copper value's there, but also now they're so unique, right? He said, so I thought nickels, they'll never be worth less than 5 cents. I want to buy as many nickels as I can. 'Cause he said, the meltdown value alone will give me 30% return on day one, 30%. I'd like investment where you can't lose money and you're guaranteed at least 30%. I said, yeah, but I've seen the rules. You can't melt money anymore. He goes, yes, I know, that's what they say. He said, but I don't even have to melt it, Tony. The same thing happened to pennies will happen to nickels. He said, they can't do 11-cent, 5-cent nickels forever. Once it changes, the value of these original nickels is going to be great. So he went to the Fed and asked how many nickels he could buy, and I forget the number, was millions of nickels. It was truckloads of nickels. He has kids unload them and put them in there. He said, if I could push a button and convert my entire assets to nickels, I'd do it tomorrow. I can't ever lose money and I'm up at least 30%. So that's asymmetric risk reward. Another good example is my friend Richard Branson. And if you know Sir Richard now, as they call it, Richard's a fun guy. He's like, um, look, he'll, he'll take risk with his life. He'll like get in a balloon, go on a, go on a spaceship.

Except not when it comes to investing. When it comes to investing, he's like, what's the downside? How do we protect against the downside? That's why he's so successful. And so when he was going to take on British Airways with, you know, building his own airlines, think of the expense and the risk of buying Boeing jets, 150, 250 jets. So he negotiated for a year with Boeing till he finally got them to agree that he'd buy all these jets. But a year from now, if he was not able to be profitable in business or stay in the business, he could return all the jets with no credit loss, no cost to him whatsoever. So we had zero downside, only upside. That's how these guys play. And then the fourth one is diversification. And when I went through those and saw them with everybody, what triggered this latest book, the reason I decided to write this final book, was I saw that, wait a second, the most successful people have a different asset allocation. They're getting much more asymmetrical risk-reward. And I also, with my conversations with Ray Dalio, learned a principle. I asked Ray, 12, 13 years ago when we first became friends, I said, you know, I prepared for like 11 hours for my interview with him. It was supposed to be 30 minutes and went 3.5 hours because he got into it with me. It was great. And we became friends. And I asked him one question. I asked him was, okay, out of all things we've talked about, is there one principle above all others that would be the most important investment principle that would make somebody wealthy if they practiced it? He goes, Tony, I have wrestled with that for more than a decade and I can tell you what it is. He goes, I call it the holy grail of investing, which is Why? That, that's the title of this book. It's really Ray. It's not me. Right? And I said, well, I lean forward. What is it? He said, Tony, in order for people to get what they want, financial freedom, they've gotta compound, right? Well, in order to get higher rates of return, you gotta take bigger risks, which then could cost you getting to the goal. That's why asset allocation and finding that balance, what's right for you is so important. He said, but I discovered something mathematically. If you can find 8 to 12 uncorrelated investments, he said you can reduce your risk by 80% and make a slight increase in your upside. He said you're eliminating 80% of the risk. He was telling you that is the most important thing that's out there and people don't know this. But now for your audience, I'm sure they understand. In case they don't, if you think about correlated versus non-correlated, stocks and bonds would be an example, right? When the economy's going great, people want the growth that comes in stocks. Whereas stocks don't go great, they expect the bonds are going to get them through it, right? They're not necessarily correlated. So I wrote down the principle. I started looking to try to find things that were not correlated. It's rough in the world we're in today. So much is tied together in the public markets. And so sure enough, as I started doing this and looking around, I came across an interesting statistic that blew my mind. And here's what it is. In the last 35 years, every stock market in the world has produced a smaller return than private equity, average private equity in that same time. So I'll give you an example. Most people know the S&P 500, the index of the top 500 companies in stock market. And if you invested in the S&P over the last 35 years, you had an average of a 9.2% compounded return, which is amazing. You know, you're at 5%, you're doubling your money every 14 and a half years. If you're You know, at 9%, it's every 8 years. That's a big jump. But if you're an average private equity, not the people I interviewed this book, people I interviewed this book are the 13 biggest in the world. So they have like 20% or more compounded for decades. One of them in this book is 37% compounded for 26 straight years. I mean, it's unbelievable, right? So when you're compounding that, it goes crazy. But the average is 14.2% per year. So Understand this, you're compounding 50% greater every single year compounded. So what does that mean? If you put a million dollars in the S&P 500 35 years ago and forgot about it, it's worth $26 million today. It's unbelievable. But if you put a million dollars in the average, not these guys, in the average private equity, 14.2, you have $139 million in the same money in the same amount of time. So I was like, whoa. No wonder the ultra high net worth people have 40, 40% of their assets in private equity and private real estate. So I started digging into that area and that's what this book was all about.

People were like, this is a crazy guy because no one had paid more than $800 million for a sports team. And most people believe the Dodgers worth a billion, but not $2 billion. So I went to Peter, I was like, I know you're not dumb. I know the smartest guy I know. So you must know something no one else knows if we're going to do this. Tell me. He goes, Tony, you know, I like making movies with cliffhangers. He said, I want to make you wait 3 days because I'm making an announcement. When you hear the announcer, come over and have a little party together. They made the announcement. He sold the local TV rights, just the local TV rights for $7 billion, made $5 billion on the spot. So why? Because sports teams now are media enterprises. Of the 100 best shows, most watched shows last year, 92 were sporting events. And they'll watch the ads because everybody's cord cutting everywhere else and going and watching things, you know, streaming. Sports, the only thing live you want to see in real time for it to have value for you. And they can do those ads. So, and they buy real estate today. They, they are unbelievable organizations. So now I'm a part of the Dodgers, of the Warriors, the Red Sox, the Pittsburgh Penguins. I mean, I go on and on and on and I have the ownership benefits, but I also have something that's not correlated. So it's 1.8 to 12. Plus on top of that, you share in the revenues of every other team's media. In other words, it's equal share if you're a small team or a big share. You keep your local media that you get to sell locally. So the income streams are amazing. I'll give you an example. Michael Jordan, we actually bought it. Michael Jordan bought, uh, the Charlotte Hornets for $275 million controlling interest, uh, 12 and a half years ago. He just sold us. We're one of the buyers, there's a group of buyers for $3 billion. That's his return on that time period. In the last 10 years, if you take the NBA, the, the Major League Baseball, soccer, And hockey, those 4 together, they've averaged between them 18% compounded during that time versus 11% there in the S&P 500. So just, you're only doubling your return, having fun, having something you're a part of that's really cool. And people can have an experience that they once dreamed about without having billions of dollars and go through all the hell of it. So there's so many opportunities like this.

Yeah. I tell people, if you won't give a dime out of a dollar, you're not gonna give $10 million out of $100 million or, you know, $100 million out of a billion. Don't kid yourself. Right. And also the value of giving transforms you out of scarcity. But the background on it is I was working for Jim Rohn, this personal development speaker. And I really did well. And then I did poorly for a while and I was really frustrated. I was working hard. I wasn't getting the return. I was totally broke. Sure. You're in business, you make some mistakes. And I found myself totally broke again. And I'm in this 400-square-foot bachelor apartment in Venice, California, feeling sorry for myself and watching Luke and Laura on General Hospital. It was just terrible. And I'm down to my final, you know, $19, $20, $21, $22. I know it wasn't some change. I haven't paid my rent and I gotta figure out what to do and what to eat. So my focus was, okay, I'm gonna go to this all-you-can-eat salad bar, taco bar, and I'm gonna load up for the, for the winter. And you know, spend $5 and then, you know, and then I didn't drive there because it was only about 3 miles, but I couldn't pay $3 for parking too. It was just, I couldn't do that. So anyway, long story short, I get to the place, it's on the water in Marina Del Rey. It's why I went there. There's boats going by and I can't, I don't have a pot to pee in. Right. But I'm visualizing. And then my, my stack of food this high. And then I could see the front door because of where I was sitting and the front door opens and this beautiful woman walks in. She was just absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't help but look. And then I waited to see if there was a guy with him as if I had any shot at this. Right. And she had a guy with him, unfortunately. And he was about 3 feet tall and he had a little vested suit on, little tie. And, you know, he opens the door for her and he pulled out the chair for her. And I was just, I was mesmerized and I was moved and I got emotional. I don't know why. I don't know if it's thinking of my own mom. I don't know what it was at the time, but anyway, the bottom line is when I was done eating, I went and paid it and it was $5.95 or something like that. And I had the rest of the money in my pocket and I had no plan for this. And I, as I'm walking out the door, there's that little boy with his mom. And her back's to me. So I didn't talk to her. I wasn't going to her. I just went up to him because I was so moved. And I just said, hey, I said, my name's Tony. What's your name? I can't remember his name anymore. It was, you know, Johnny or whatever it was. And he goes, uh, I said, Johnny, I said, you are a class act. I said, I just want you to know I have so much respect. I saw you hold the door for your lady. I saw you pull the chair out for her. You're so present with her. And I said, taking her to lunch like this. He goes, well, She's my mom. And I said, well, that's even more impressive. He goes, well, I can't take her to lunch cuz you know, I'm just 11. And I said, yes, you can. I had no plan for it. I just reached in my pocket, took all the money I had in the world, $19, whatever was left over, and poof, dumped it on him with the change and everything right in front of him. And his eyes got big and, you know, garbage can covers. And he goes, I can't take that. I said, sure you can. He said, how come? I said, cuz I'm bigger than you are. And then I smiled and he laughed. And I didn't even look at the woman. I didn't do it for acknowledgement. I just walked out that door to get my car and then realized I didn't have my car there because I'd walked. So I, I, I look like a stupid white guy skipping my ass, I'm sure, all the way home. I mean, I was high as a kite and I had no money and I got home and I was still cool about it and I was full 'cause I ate so much. And I woke up the next morning with no plan, no idea, no nothing, and no money. And it's like, I mean, no money, not a dollar, and no one to call to get money from. And there was a guy I'd loaned $1,000 to about 2 and a half years before when I really didn't have it, but he needed it more than I did. I loaned it to him. So I've been for months been calling and sending, you know, regular mail to him here because he wasn't answering the phone. There was no email in those days. And, um, and that morning I get my mail and no, no call, no response. That morning I get my mail and there's all the bills and there's a handwritten note and I open the note. And it's from this guy apologizing to me and telling me that he was so sorry I was there for him when he really needed it and he had not been there for me. And he had put in, you know, an extra $200 for interest and so forth. So it was $1,200. $1,200 is more money than I could live on that for a month in those days. Right. And I just started crying uncontrollably. I was like, you know, why am I crying? This is beautiful. This is beautiful. You know, it's like, And then I realized, wow, you know, when I had nothing, I gave everything. And here this is, what does this mean? I said, I don't know what it means, but I'm going to decide it means because I didn't give to get and I didn't give what was easy. That's why I'm receiving. And it's like that day on, I can tell you I've had ups and downs. I have so many companies in the early days. I had a couple companies on the verge of bankruptcy. They didn't go bankrupt. Thank God I hung on and made it through it., but I never felt that scarcity. I never felt that scarcity again since that day. Because if you get to that point, your brain realizes there's more than enough. When you can give when you feel like there's nothing there, that's what transforms you. When I interviewed Sir John Templeton, who was the first billionaire investor, started with nothing, he said to me that the secret to wealth is gratitude, right? Because it doesn't matter how much money you have, if you're not grateful, you're not rich. But then he said also, I've never met anybody that tithed for at least 10 years who didn't become wealthy. He said, tithe, it doesn't have to be a church. It's just taking 10% of what you're earning and giving it away. And I'm proud to say I've given away 17% and have done quite well. But I did it when I had nothing. It's there. I want to plant one more seed with the audience though, and that is if they'd like to have an experience, you know, they can't come for the, you know, 3 or 4 days yet for an event, but they like to have an experience. Since COVID started 4 years ago, everyone was trapped at home and I was doing stadiums, you know, and they started shutting down the stadiums till they could put 100 people in a stadium. So I decided I'd build a studio and I'd build these 20-foot ice, you know, walls, 0.67 resolution. I could see everything. And I went to the guys, you know, who built Zoom and I said, look, you know, I need you to help me get to 20,000, 30,000 people, not 1,000. I built software so that people could, instead of clapping, could shake their phone. It would send electric signal. And if one person didn't hear nothing, when 20,000 people do it. It's like thunder. And it allowed me to literally explode in the number of people I reach. So now I do a free seminar once a year for 3 days. It's coming up January 25th through 27th. Just, it's been about a week and a half. If you want to go, there's zero charge. It's not partially free. It's totally free. And it's about 2.5 hours, 3 hours a day of immersion for 3 days in a row. And it's really designed to help you get a plan and make the changes necessary in your energy and your emotions. In your business, in your finances, in your career. And we just, we put the most we can in those 3 days and create huge momentum. And last year we had over a million people again from 195 countries in the world. And then you're part of a community of people helping each other. So if anyone likes to go, you're welcome to, you can do it from your home or your office. You can bring friends or family. Again, there's no charge. You just go to, what is that? What is the highlight? It's the, uh, it's the timetorisesummit.com. Timetorisesummit.com. It starts January 25th through the 27th, and I'd love to serve you guys and go deeper.