Speaker 1in a world of um in a world of challenging meaning where a lot of a lot of my viewers are struggling with meaning one of the things i've noticed is that it appears especially with young men who talked about earlier they it appears that more and more of them are turning to religion and you mentioned your your faith in god there yeah it's a really interesting phenomenon for me that i've observed in my own life i've talked about this a few times um certain friends of mine who were very individualistic they were living the dream in any way that you might define it you know yeah they had money they had freedom they had no boss no dependence no no partner and suddenly you see their life turn into what looks like depression a form of depression yeah an absence of meaning in their lives and i i wanted to just to throw this out there because we we are in a society that's um i think increasingly encouraging independence yes and there's upsides to independence of course we all understand those but i wondered if there's a sort of a double-edged sword here when we're we're you kind of said earlier about making the world more about just me me me and i and in a world of abundance i imagine many more people are going to choose to make it about i i i i i because because i can i could put a headset on but theoretically never leave my house someone could literally put a robot puts the food in my mouth i could have some sex robot that just gets me off money comes in my account by ubi the reason your friends got
Speaker 2depressed i've had this happen i've seen this as well i've had you know most of my friends are old and i am usually for some reason i gravitated to men that were 18 20 20 and i'm like oh my god i'm my senior who brilliant and learning from them and seeing where they're going in their life and so forth but i watched something like sell their company and make a billion two and then they were happy for like a month maybe and they'd call me let's go to this go do that and you know try to go from somebody i got you know i got a lot of companies got a lot of kids i got a lot of things right and it's like and eventually they all want to get back in the game because we have six human needs certainty uncertainty because think about this if you were certain every moment of your life you know what someone's going to say and i'm sure you've had this somewhat you know what they're going to say before they're going to say it but if you knew what someone's saying before they're going to say you know what's going to happen what's going to happen every moment of every day in the beginning it'd be cool but after a while what would you feel bored out of your mind bored so god in her infinite wisdom gave us uncertainty we need variety we need surprise so i ask people you're going to stay in 15 000 people and i say how many of you love surprises and everybody raised their hand yay and i go bullshit you love the surprise is you want the surprise you don't want you call problems but we need those too right third need is significance they need to feel unique you need to feel special they need to feel important who do you think has that need all of us everyone yeah now some people like donald trump is pretty obvious right and some people though it's like i don't want significance i don't want to be i don't want to be special that's only because they feel they get special to get attacked right every some people do it by earrings some people buy tattoos in certain areas somebody wears about a sport more than anybody else some people buy their art some people the way they dress some people buy their money somebody be more generous everyone finds a way okay however some people do it through violence okay so let me give you another seed why has violence always been with us if i feel i'm insignificant and this is by the way even more powerful in most men's cases because the nature of testosterone right testosterone is about significance it's about being dominant right so if i'm uh i'm in a community and i'm driving by or i'm walking by this community and it's a tough community a tough environment somebody comes up puts a gun to my head i've never met him in my life why well first of all how certain do you think that person is you're going to respond when they put a gun to your head before you may not have paid attention to them but you're going to pay attention now how significant are they in your life on a 0 to 10 scale with that gun to your head they're the most significant thing on earth and by the way every time it's a little different they they're the most significant thing on earth and by the way every time it's a little different they meet a belief an emotion or a behavior meets at least three of these six needs you will become addicted to that thought that feeling of that behavior it could be a positive one or a negative one but you will become addicted to it so violence connects to those three but you can also get significance by tearing other people down so why do we have so many warriors in their little house you know doing their little virtual signaling doing what they're doing because they've never done anything with their life and it used to be i'd have to confront you now i'm not going to confront you i don't even know who i am i can say all this terrible shit and i'm sitting in my place and make my seal feel significant because i make you smaller i'm bigger it's why social media is so terrible there's great things social media so it's so terrible about it's like people now can meet their need for significance without much effort no consequence you come and say this directly to me you're going to pay a price of some sort right that's no longer there now fourth need connection and love everybody wants love most people settle for connection because at one point it was so painful when it ended they decided to settle for connection how can you get it you can get it by going for a run and feeling connected to god of the universe nature you can get it by prayer you can get it by uh being with some friends you can get it by making love you can get it by getting a dog if nothing else get a dog don't get a cat cats leave but you know dogs you leave for two minutes it's like you've been gone for six months they'll make you feel very loved there's a million ways to feel connection and love some are positive some are negative some people get problems they're always comparing problems you ever seen two people comparing but i have this well you think that's bad let me tell you mine they're arguing over significance and they're connecting through their problems right so the biggest drug on earth is not cocaine it's not fentanyl it's not dope it's problems because the deepest fear everybody has is they're not enough and our deeper fear is if we're not enough we won't be loved i've never met a human being i've imagined academy awards scientists there's some point in which you might feel for someone you care about most that you're not smart enough young enough old enough pretty enough funny enough rich enough playful enough something enough and it is the worst feeling on earth to feel like you are unloved and worthless is internal death so people come up with a story it's just because i have you know um i have this dyslexia that's why or it's because i was raped and maybe they really were raped i'd like to kill the guy that hurt them but that's not why they're feeling what they're feeling right now i'm not feeling what they're feeling right now i'm not feeling what they're feeling right now it's because they're fearful and so if you have a big problem that's why i'm not where i want to be it's not that i'm not enough and not worthy of love and so people use problems the way to connect now these first four needs certainty uncertainty you can see how they'd have a conflict but have you ever rented a movie you've already watched yeah get a life i have two why would we do that because we're certain it's good but it's been long enough that we hope it's been there's a variety that we won't remember it all have a variety you once again yeah so you can meet multiple needs through the same task potentially but certainty uncertainty significance here you are in hollywood why do people come to hollywood be famous and be famous right they don't know what that really is if they did some of them would move away from it but significance is what they're looking for but what they really want is love that's what everybody wants but you know what the problem is they think if they're significant everyone's going to love them and i get these clients without mentioning any names the biggest name in hollywood the biggest names in sports and you know what their number one thing is they're angry why are they angry because they thought if i'm significant everybody loved me and now they go people rip me online they interrupt me with my family trying to have dinner they don't give a shit about me they just want a picture they just want this and if i don't do it they write that about me they care about themselves they care about themselves and so what happened is i thought by being significant i would be loved and now i'm super significant and i'm not loved i'm attacked because the more you try and put your significance on someone the less significant they make you if you love someone there's nothing more significant that true love not a trade not i'll love you if you give me something genuine love and if that happens you become significant in people's lives but that's the number one challenge in this community so significance love have attack if you're significant you're the individual but i need to be connected or if i'm so connected who am i and that's the pull the secret to it all are the final two needs these are the spiritual needs not religious but spiritual and that is we all must grow when you grow you feel alive and if you don't grow you start to die inside and this isn't my rule everything in the universe grows or dies as you well know this is the law of the universe if your relationship's not growing it's dying don't bullshit yourself if your business is not growing you're a businessman you know it is not growing it is dying you better do something now right but we grow so we have something finally to give which is where meaning comes in life when i grow i have something more to give and if i can give that to someone then my life is more meaningful than just the process of giving and if i can give that to someone then my life is more meaningful pleasure of i have the machine that you know makes me feel pleasure in certain parts of my body and feeds me and all the things you talked about if you went to vegas and you pull down that you know that little jukebox thing and you get boom boom boom bars bars bars what's your reaction amazing amazing wow and you pull it a second time and you get it again amazing you get it again that's amazing and now you do a hundred times yeah that's amazing and now you have a job you do this and you got a predictable outcome the fact that you don't know what the outcome is that that's the jackpot in it they get someone hooked on anything that's what makes it significant because it's scarce right so when you do this if i said to you osama bin laden what would you say is top need driving for us was it certainty was it variety was it significance was it love was it growth or contribution i'd say probably significance 100 he was one of i forgot the 27 children, literally it was 27 children. he was a nobody he took his dad's money he was not very religious and he went to afghanistan and he used his money and became significant not by shooting people he provided resources and then all of a sudden his entire life changed how do you know the most significant thing is he sent other people to die he didn't go to die he sent other people now his number one drive is significance and his way of doing it was get other people to die on that same day in 9-11 there were men and women in the fire department police department who entered those buildings knowing it a good chance they would die to save a stranger also driven by significance but with different rules if i die a hero my life is meaningful and that's a meaningful life so people can even have the same need structure but their beliefs about how to meet those needs are the most important thing and the needs of connection and love growth and contribution have no downside certainty make if you have you have certainty is your number one thing you're always trying to keep life the same way and you're going to be stressed out especially with ai you're going to be really stressed out if you're a variety person you can have a lot of fun but eventually not much variety of life you describe for all these people now they have the money they have the sex they have this they have that they have the woman they have the notoriety they have the academy award it all gets old because if we're not growing it doesn't matter how many people do you know that were famous who were rich who had supposedly everything people want and took their own life why are they taking their life they stop growing and stop having a sense of meaning by giving you can show you i can show you example after example of people so these need structures in the new world have to be met we can meet certainty right now very easily by going online and controlling our communication that's why people text that's much easier than communicating back and forth with someone right we can get variety by going online so easily now we can get significance tear other people down or work on something significant we think right ai explore the world we can get a sense of connection through people online or through a robot or these days people have an ai and they talk to it like it's their boyfriend or girlfriend because it totally affirms them they say something idiotic and they tell you you're so smart right you're better right but you're missing growing and contributing if you're missing growing contributing you will not feel fulfilled you as a person if i've read your books correctly and i didn't read them all but i thought pieces of it probably the best lesson you got early in life was there's the science of achievement there's the science of fulfillment there are two different skills if you want to extraordinary life you need both you go to the east they're really great about fulfillment they can live in poverty and feel totally happy and connected to god of the universe you come here and people can have an incredible external life but their internal life often not so nice they get really pissed off because they didn't get their special sauce on their burger right it's a different world i believe you can merge those two how you master the science of achievement there are rules to achieve as you well know you wrote a whole book with 33 rules in it me too right so i know those rules i know i wrote books on finance three of them i want an answer is it still possible to win the financial game because so many young people think it can't be done so i interviewed 50 of the greatest financial people alive today all started with nothing all billionaires nobody from the lucky sperm club they all did it on their own ray dalio carl icon warren buffett all of them and guess what i found they're all different but i'm a modeler i found the strategies that are common between them and i applied them i taught other people wrote the books but i applied on myself and that's how my businesses my life grew geometrically i modeled i didn't have to learn on my own experience you follow
Speaker 1i've got to ask you some questions on those two points so on these six needs because i also want to ask you about the the 50 rich people that you've you've interviewed for the books but on those six needs when you look at someone like me and you look at the broad world that i'm heading towards as a 30 30 year old man what what configuration of these needs well i'll tell
Speaker 2you what creates all the pain first okay please so if i go to a room and i'll say i explain these needs like i have i'm going to explain these needs like i have and i'm going to explain these needs like i have i know this is kind of lecture here i didn't mean to be that but i just want to share because i'm so passionate about it and i'll get people to understand what they are and then i ask them i want you to write down what you think your top two needs have been not in what you want but in the way you've been living because people might want love but they think they have to be significant before they can get it or they might want love but they want certainty that love will never go away you follow me and so that modifies things and i'll say so the way you've lived the way you've lived where it would have been the top two and then i say i want you to write down the a paragraph about what's the downside of having that one so high on your list and it's amazing so then i say now write what you think your list top two should be to go to the next level of your life okay let's have that you do that what do you think your top two needs have i see you doing it right which i love i love how active you are so what would you say your top two have been up until now i think if i'm being completely honest yes and by the way by the way i want to thank you because i watched several of your pieces and you are you're not bullshitting about
Speaker 1there's just no i'm gonna die someday so there's no even if being honest makes me look bad it's my of course like significance of course yes especially from where i you know where i came from yeah that was the big problem was you know being different and not in a good way right and then i would say um interestingly it feels like uncertainty and significance are really really high for me because yes yes i've for some reason i have a very a huge appetite for uncertainty yeah well you're wired that way in a beautiful way it also leads to learning for you that's one of your vehicles for learning is it not yeah yeah dropping out of school stopping going to school when i was younger dropping out of university yeah yeah um quitting jobs where you know i shouldn't have quit them after a month which by the way if certainty was your top need would you
Speaker 2have done that no no no completely so that you understand this these are i'm talking about the six controlling forces of your life there's a million stories about your life but there's only six reasons you do anything yeah you have all these stories with reasons so what would you say would be the downside of that there by the way there's been upsides right yeah yeah yeah great yeah we're sitting here because the upsides your desire for significance made you look for significant ideas significant application succeed in the downsides of wanting significance at the at the top not because it's valuable significance is valuable period everyone should want it but it's the sequence so if it's the top of your list what's the downside for me it costs me
Speaker 1connection and love and all these and some of these other opportunities that's correct
Speaker 2which is what you really want underneath it all yeah your desire for significance really came from the fact that you were not loved and connected by people people judge you the color of your skin they put you in a community where you were different you're outside the so it's like i'll show them yeah yeah right yeah which by the way is a very healthy response right but now at this stage of your life yeah this is the gift that you have now at this stage of your life right you're entering this second season right yeah now you don't have to be driven by that anymore you already are significant like what more are you going to do i'm sure you'll find more significant things to do but you've done so many significant things you've helped millions of people i'm sure through your insights your elements you've written books you've built businesses and you're only 33 years old that's pretty effing awesome right so now you get the leisure of be able to sit back and say now with a greater level of consciousness what would ideally be my top two what would you say your top two need to be to have the next level of your life to go to the next level for you it's really easy for me to answer this question um connection and
Speaker 1love and the the need to grow and give yeah i'm sure you'll find more significant things to do but yes yes yeah well those are two different ones contribution okay growth and contribution of
Speaker 2those two which one do you think is even more important for you oh god of those two yeah it's hard because one you can see is the vehicle to the yeah exactly i understand that but i'm asking a different question i'm saying which is more important to feel experience it would be contribution yes so for you you're saying love and contribution i'm saying love and
Speaker 1contribution in what order love first and then contribution it's a good choice i try in my head i tried the other way around and i thought no it's almost like that like monks have said to me many years ago that you need to fill up your cup so you have something to pour out for others yes and that's what i was thinking i was thinking it doesn't work the other way around that was a wise
Speaker 2wise choice most people wouldn't make that choice i for most of my life was contribution first and then love it was my way of earning love and so like i'd be on stage for 13 hours and this is before people had phones and everybody wants to sign something and give me a hug i work my guts out and then that was my take it in time so i'd be there finish at 1 30 or 2 in the morning and i'd be there till 3 30 till every person had an autograph got you know their hug and everything else now his picture is a lot faster but that was my life i met my wife sage changed my entire life she didn't care that i was tony robbins she just loved me and all of a sudden i never thought 12 000 15 000 20 000 people could of love pouring out you could compare one person compare but way beyond that so now i finished it when i give my guts i go to one in the morning but then i get up and i leave right you know i take pictures in the middle of the day but then i leave at that time i go and be with my wife and it switched where love was there because think about this if contribution is first and this is what a lot of people do then it's a way to protect yourself from feeling rejected because if i i'm always giving to you truly generously over beyond what you can imagine and then you treat me like shit well then you're clearly the problem right i don't have to think i'm not enough so but the more honest way is love because if it's love first now i'm giving because i want to not because i have to does that make sense so tell me how you think that would change your life if you made love and contribution your top two and the way you actually live because you already value love and contribution but if they were the highest priority how would it shift your life for the
Speaker 1better in your mind i feel like i would be significantly less stressed you're correct
Speaker 2you're absolutely correct so when i ask the audience this i have them write down and i've got 15 000 people and i'll say okay how many have certainty on your list and they've come to an event firewalk, right? And you get like 50-60% of the rooms in their top two of their list, right? Because in our culture, it's still the most important one. It's the foundational one. It's the one that's going to have the biggest problem with AI because they want things to stay the same and life isn't. The only thing that's for certain is change. And now rapid change, like geometrically rapid change. Okay. Variety, small number, significance through the roof. Social media has made significance disproportionate in our culture and it's why people are so unhappy. You used to maybe compare most yourself to your neighbors or your friends. Now you compare yourself to a billionaire in which there's only 3000, right? And so you're like, my life's not that great anymore. Or you compare it to pictures that have been doctored. A friend of mine owns a gym and he says, you can't believe it. Women and men come in here who are influencers. They lay everything out and then they do their video and they never work out. They're 27 years old. They don't have to work out for shit. I mean, it's like they do a minimum workout. They've got genes. They're just fine. They don't even do the workout. It's all pictures. It's all bullshit, right? You know, he goes, it makes me so mad because, you know, real people, they're working hard to make something happen. So that's why people get so, women, especially depressed, comparing themselves to images that are not even real, right? It's totally absurd. So when I do it with the audience though, certainty and significance is 80% of the room, right? There's growth people, contribution people, but that's the dominant force because of our cultural conditioning. And because certainty is basically a survival tool. Then I've asked them to do what you did. And I say, okay, tell me, I don't tell them anything. Like I didn't tell you anything. And then I say, okay, who has certainty on their list now? And in a room of 15,000 people, 12,000 people, there might be like five. Okay. There's five people that really don't like pain. So I point that out to them and they look at me and then I go, okay, how many of you got, you know, variety will be more variety. How many got significance? The number plummets just like it did with you. People, I didn't tell them anything. Their own intelligence knows this, right? How many got love through the roof, right? Contribution through the roof, growth through the roof. Those are the ones that expand. And then we show people how to condition that though, because it's one thing to know it. It's another thing to start training it in your body to make those priorities happen in your life, right? Just like any other habit working out or anything else. You have to build the neurology of that. You have to practice putting yourself in those states over and over again, where you make the value based on love, or you make the value based on contribution. See, before you do something to be significant and you miss out on some of the love. Now, love is probably always what you wanted. That's why you can make that decision so quickly, right? But now I'm going to go for that. That first, not this circuitous route. And by the way, you will still be significant. You'll be loving first and you'll be contributing and that will make you significant. Is it really possible to change like that, that deeply? No, not at all. I've never been able to do that in my 49th year. I'm just, I've never seen that
Speaker 1happen. No, I was, I was thinking really, really deeply about what you were saying. And I was thinking there will be some people that are listening. And I think there was maybe a part of me, my conscious that's like, because that's a journey I've never gone on before. I've never shifted from the, well, you're not going to do
Speaker 2it by discussion. You have to have leverage. What is that? Leverage is, uh, you have to have something you value more than your present way of doing things. Leverage can be pain or pleasure, right? So like my fiance, your fiance, I understand how you got to LA and a little leverage, right? Her love, her happiness for joy. Oh, that's beautiful. That's my girl. You and Sage. That's awesome. You're good at putting people's date with her pictures. That's impressive. It's a beautiful photo. Yeah. I love her so much. And we've been together 25 years. I love her more today than ever before. She is a force in nature. This woman really, really great. But yes, she's leverage in my life. My, my, my youngest daughter's massive leverage, you know, four and a half years old. It's beautiful, but I'll give an example. I had, I worked with a woman one time on stage and she was a colon therapist and a vegan and, you know, so, but she was always sick because she's so stressed all the time trying to be perfect at everything. There's a constriction in her body, right? And, um, and the level of stress was just ridiculous, right? So I was trying to get her to see, have some other options about what to do without boring me the whole story. I'm looking for leverage always. That's how you get someone to make a change. You got to get, make change a must, not a should, not me making it to you. If I put a gun to your head, that's leverage, but some people would rather die than bend to your will. You'll find out what moves that person. It's unique for everyone. Not what motivates them. I hate the word motivation. I've never used it. I don't know. Your drives. Look, if you're fat, you're motivated to eat. I want to know what's underneath. I want to know what the drives are. So this woman, I'm trying to help her make changes and I show her these things and see the consequences and she wouldn't change, wouldn't change. So finally I said, man, I got to push this lady. I was like, I said, how long? I wouldn't tell her this. I asked, I said, how long would the person with a level of stress with these things you're doing and these ailments, how long will a person like that live if they don't change? And she paused and she thought, and she said, probably to 35. How old are you? 32. So I thought, okay, she's going to change now. Maybe she's going to do it, right? That's the leverage. She's got to change. But I can't change. I just can't. It's just how my life is. I said, well, I said, this session is on videotape, you know? And I said, how do you think your daughter's going to feel when she's carrying your coffin and she knows that you knew you could shift this and you didn't? This is pretty intense. I mean, she thinks she's going to die. If she didn't do it, she probably could. So I'm picking up big leverage, right? She goes, I know that's horrible, but I can't change. And part of my head, I'm like, holy shit, she's not going to change here. What the hell is going to change her? And then I said to her, I said, yeah, what if her new mother is a meat eater? And she exploded on stage. That is not happening. I will not make this happen. I mean, she wouldn't have circ. And she goes, fine, I'm changing this now. Like, there is always leverage. There is something that will make change a must and not a should. Change is never a matter of ability. It's always a matter of strong enough reasons, of motive. If you've got strong enough reasons, you can do just about anything. But if you've got weak reasons, you're not going to do anything. So the fact that you understand this is our discussion. In an event, you'd be in a rather peak state, and I'd take you through a process of consequence where you will envision what the consequence is going to be. And I'd take you through a process of consequence where you will envision what the consequences are. And then you can make that shift. And you've still got to
Speaker 1condition it. This specific change is the hardest one. I think a lot of people might say, I was thinking forward as life events to come and becoming a father. Yes, it's often that will do
Speaker 2that will absolutely shift a lot of people becoming a father, getting married, falling in love. There are certain events, losing people will make you reevaluate things, hitting a birthday, you know, you're 33. When you hit your 40th birthday, I'm sure you don't think it'll be any different. I remember people telling me that, but you tend to reevaluate. For some weird reason, our culture, and after 40, usually a five-year or a 50-year, 60-year, it's just part of the way we look at life. There's a process you go through, and there'll be different things that trigger you. But when you want a real lasting change, you have to change the driving force. When we change these, it's changing your values. So again, like, think about how your brain is a predictor, and it's trying to close the gap between what it's predicting and what reality is. When it's not working, it looks for an answer. When you get to the point where your old strategy doesn't work enough and you have enough pain, you will search for something new. And if at that time we can give you something that actually works, you'll grab it. It's like if you're drowning in a sea of confusion, and I throw your life raft, you're not going to go, I don't like the color. You're going to grab a hold, and it comes into your unconscious. And the last thing I'd say about that is, it's also about going beyond your conscious mind, right? If you ever try to do something and then sabotage yourself, it's just consciously you want to one thing, subconsciously, I don't want to do it. And then you're going to say another. I believe all lasting change happens in an altered state. When I say an altered state, you could call it hypnosis. I tell people, I'm a de-hypnotist. Most people walk around in hypnosis. People tell me, like, you can't hypnotize me, and they're in a hypnotized state in that moment. Do you ever drive your car, and then something catches your attention, and you stay focused on it too long, and all of a sudden you realize, holy shit, who's been driving the car? Do you ever have that experience? That was a hypnosis state. Hypnosis just means you're inside, not outside most of the time. And in a hypnotic state, what goes in goes in deeper than just in a consciousness state. That's why I like doing storytelling. And my wife and I, there's certain things in life that just shouldn't happen that are inhuman, and trafficking is one of them. And we had a friend that child was taken and trafficked. It was the most brutal thing. And so I got us involved. And so now we've contributed to 72,000 children being saved. I've gone out on some of these undercover with scars on my face and elements. It's the most brutal thing you can possibly imagine. I tell you this because when you witness certain things in life that are so intense, they alter you. They change you. They change what you value. They change what you make important in your life. And so what I say to people, you want your life to keep growing, keep putting yourself in new environments. Keep getting around things you're not used to, and let something hit you. People don't know their passions because they keep going and doing the same things. It's like, get around where it's better and see what hits you. And something's going to strike you. Something's going to make you feel more, desire more, want to give something to life as opposed to just live your life. Because the life you described to those people is predictable. You get familiarized. Even pain. I mean, you look at people in Auschwitz, you know, Man's Search for Meaning is one of my favorite books. Have you read it? Victor Franklin. Yeah. And I bought the rights. I'm making the movie, right? Oh, really? The only reason I was telling you about finding the kids is I made The Sound of Freedom. Did you see it? Yes. Incredible. And we beat Disney that week. And people thought it would never happen, right? But that movie changed people, radically woke them up, brought resources to the table, has created real shift. Man's search for meaning, I think, can do that as well. But in those places, they get habituated to the pain. You get habituated to pain or pleasure. That's why we've got to grow. And when we grow, we get that life cycle. We feel more alive and then we got something to share and then we feel meaning. And it's like a virtuous cycle and life gets better and better.
Speaker 1What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you. Bye.
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