Tony Robbins on Why Your Mind Resists Change and How to Overcome It

Why is it that we often wait to experience pain before we decide to change a part of our lives, make a different choice, to create a shift? Why is it that we wait so often for stress and pressure? I have that question that was burning in me cuz you know, I was traveling around have the privilege of this stage of life, you know, traveling around the earth and work with people from every walk of life, right? 100 plus countries I've worked in. And I'd see the same problems even though you mean different cultures. Like, you know, going to an Asian culture, it's not about the individual, it's about the group, right? But, I'd still see the same problems.

And then I got obsessed with it. Like, okay, what's the common human experience cuz I'm seeing the same problems even though it's a different culture, even though it's different beliefs, right? And I began to realize that there's certain human needs. And there are six that I identified that I've used ever since and it's helped me understand. And so, one of those needs is certainty. And it's the base human need. Certainty that you can avoid pain and that you can be comfortable is the most basic need. It's a survival need cuz if you have continuous pain, that's continuous damage, continuous damage equals death, right? But, what happens for people is most people that first basic need is where they live. They don't grow.

Another need, the second need is uncertainty because ironically, if you're certain all the time, you're bored out of your mind. If you're completely uncertain, you're kind of freaked out. And a balance is not it. It's the ability to use both, enter both worlds. And then there's the need for significance, which is a big part of our culture today thanks to social media. Um that need to feel special, unique, important, right? It can be a very positive emotion or need. It can be very negative depending upon how it's used, how it's directed. And then there's the need for connection and love, which everybody has. And those four needs, everybody finds a way to meet it. If you

have to lie to yourself, work 20-hour days, you're going to find certainty somehow. You're going to find variety, you're going to find some form of significance. Some people do it by tearing other people down. Some people do it by working harder. You know, it's different. You're going to find some level of at least connection if not love. But, the final two what make people feel alive, which is growing, everything in the universe grows or dies, and contributing, everything in the universe contributes or it's eventually eliminated by evolution. So, those are the spiritual needs, growth and contribution, where you get beyond yourself. And I think that the majority of us don't take moves because of fear, and fear is just uncertainty.

Mhm. It's that base need. And when I go around and I describe this in more detail, and I work with a big audience, 15, 20,000 people, and I'll say, "I'm going to set of exercises, and I'm going to figure out where do they get what triggers them to be certain or uncertain, what triggers them to have a variety, and so forth." So, they understand that like everything I do is to meet these needs. But then I go to them and say, "What are your top two? Not what you would think they should be, not what you want them to be, what are they?" And 90% of the people in our culture are certainty and significance or significance and certainty.

Mhm. Even though they really want love. Mhm. So, they have this route like if I can be successful enough, then I'll be worthy of it. Or if I can just control it enough and know it's that way, but you can't control love, right? And so, most people are they're trying to meet their needs in a kind of a backwards way. Mhm. And I think that fear, that uncertainty, is what keeps most people from growing until they get enough pain, and then that pushes them through a threshold where their needs aren't being met, they got to change. And unfortunately, most people wait till they have enough pain. Now, I That's not my preference.

Sure it's not yours, but I'm sure you've had experiences as much as I've had where you didn't have to be pushed that far to get there, right? Yeah, by the way, I'm so glad I asked you that question cuz that's the best answer I've ever had. It's brilliant. It's It's It's simple, but it's it's profound as well because usually we would say, "Oh yeah, the reason why we wait till we don't have to change is because we're comfortable and we're okay with it." But really, it's because you're saying these needs keep us trapped almost. In fact, if you're wanting to change but not changing, it's because some of your needs are met by what

you're doing, and some of them aren't. That's why you're in that push-pull, but you don't usually do enough until you're pushed over the edge. Like smoking a cigarette, what does it give people? Comfort. Cuz you take a breath of cigarette, you take a nice slow deep breath in and take it out, it calms with nervous system, right? It's something that they're comfortable with. It's variety. If they're all stressed out and then they start to breathe differently, it's variety in the body. For some people, they did originally for significance. I'm cool, I'm smoking.

Right, today it's not really that cool to most people, but for some generations, some places it is. Some people see it as a connection with themselves. Mhm. But if all of a sudden you're now in a relationship with somebody who doesn't smoke, and you really love them and you want their total love and attention and they're completely disgusted by cigarettes, now my needs for love, Yes. right, are really strong and my need for this comfort is really strong and so you have this push-pull. And then some people make the shift, some people don't.

Having said that, what do you think is the greatest human skill? Not habit, but mindset and skill. That's a great question. I don't know if I got the what the greatest There's so many. It depends on what you want out of your life, right? Yeah. But I think the ability to manage your own mind and emotions is probably one of the single most important, and maybe the second is the ability to influence others cuz that's what makes you a leader. And hopefully you're doing that for a higher good cuz there are all kinds of leaders, as you know. But I think I don't think most people are very good at emotional fitness.

Mhm. Most people are just not as happy as they could be. You know, I did one book, Money Master the Game, it's kind of like this. Only what I did in that case is I interviewed, you know, 50 of the smartest financial people in the world, Ray Dalio, Carl Icahn, Warren Buffett. And out of 50 of them, and I you know, again, it's in my judgment, I could be completely wrong, and I spent a lot of time with them, some have become really good friends, there's probably four or five that are really happy people. You go, "Oh, well money makes people unhappy." You know, money has nothing to do with money. Money makes you more of what you are, it just magnifies. If you're mean, you have more to be mean with. If you're kind,

you have more to give, you know? But I think that most people are just they haven't learned to manage what's going inside. Doesn't matter how much abundance they have, they're still unhappy. We've all seen people that great comedians that have killed themselves. Uh Anthony Bourdain, beautiful man, traveled the world, killed himself, you know? Um you know, fashion designers that have it. We've all seen all these different people, Kate Spade and it's like, what? They had everything. Except they didn't master what's going on here and here. And you know this is why you lived your life the way you have as well. So, I think that skill

set is the most important one. That's why even in the book, my last two chapters I think are the most important cuz it's really about power of the mind. Cuz like everybody knows about placebos, right? They were only discovered in World War II. And it was discovered by accident. This doctor ran out of morphine and he's treating these people that are badly injured. And you know, you need the morphine not just so they're out of pain, but so they don't go into shock. And the actual person who discovered this gets no credit was a nurse cuz the nurse handed him a syringe and said, "We've got some

more morphine." So, he believed it and he said, "You'll be out of pain in just less than a minute." He injected them and in every case, none of them went into shock, 90% of them were out of pain, and they used nothing. It was saline, right? So, after World War II, he went back to Harvard and he was the person that created what we now consider to be the double-blind studies, which are always compared to a placebo, right? And what most people don't know is the bigger the placebo intervention, the more powerful the mind believes it. So, a small pill is less effective than a big pill. Um an injection is more powerful than a pill in terms of its effectiveness. The most powerful is a is

a sham surgery. Um the Veterans Administration did a study and they did on people doing knee surgeries and they took 1/3 of the people and they just cut them open, anesthetized them, and sewed them back up, did nothing. A year later, this group, the group that had no surgery, had the least amount of pain, the most amount of flexibility, the most amount of So, they stopped funding those surgeries giving idea. But that's how powerful it is. And so, when you It's even more than a Harvard did a study where they took barbiturates, made these big red pills and said, "This is an amphetamine. You need to prepare your body cuz you're going to speed up."

They didn't give them something fake. They gave them an actual drug that slows the body down and the body sped up. So, most people don't understand the power of the mind. And so, what I try to do is show people, even in this book, here are the things that you can do to take control of your mind. Because if you take care of your body and then you don't take care of your mind and emotions, you're going to be miserable. Feel that often, and you've probably had this in your seminars time and time again. People are like, "Tony, I'm trying. I read the book. I'm I'm trying to put into practice, but I still keep failing or I still keep struggling."

Someone who's already on but feels that failure, that rejection, that pushback, what can keep them going? I think it's understanding there's no replacement for persistence, as simplistic as that is. It's like, you know, disappointment either destroys you or drives you. And you have to decide which one it's going to be. If you don't consciously decide, there's always going to be more BS for you to deal with. And I think that's why I think, you know, when I do my events, the reason I do the 12 hours a day, it's not cuz I like talking. It's just that I can tell you something all day long or I can get you to build the muscle.

Yes. And you build the muscle is by experiencing. And I always tell people a belief is a poor substitute for an experience. Like, I could have a belief about you when I experience you. So, I get to know who you are, right? The same thing's true as like you have a belief about China, you have a belief about working out. But a transformation requires immersion. It's like, if you ask the average person did you study a foreign language in school? And most people, "Oh, yeah. High school, college." Speak it? They don't. But if you turn around and you said, "Okay, what if you want to learn Italian?" And I just took you to Rome and dumped you off for 6 weeks Yeah. with no teacher, you're going to come

back 6 weeks later speaking, you know, Italian. So, it's immersion. And if you want to master something, I think that's the thing most people don't do. They read a little bit, they listen a little bit, they dip in and out. They don't go day and night, night and day in total immersion in something that transforms them. And also, something that makes them push through their fears. Yes. Because in the end, that's the only thing that stops you. Everybody's got a story. I didn't know this person, I don't have the resources. They have all the things they don't have. But if you're resourceful, you can get

the money, you can get the time, you can get the energy, you can get anything you want. And you got to get over your fear to be resourceful. So, we do experiences that are so physiologically profound that those fears do not stop you anymore. Tony, we end every On Purpose interview with the final five. Uh these are five questions that are aimed at usually one word to one sentence answers. Okay. But, we're not capable of that. Yeah, with you I don't even want to do it with you. I'm like I don't want to do that with you. I want to break the rules. I'm like why am I going to restrict your greatness to that?

Anyway, so here we go. These are your final five. We can totally go off piste. I do not care. I don't care at all. All right, question number one is what is the best advice you've ever received? I think um for me, my original teacher was Jim Rohn. I met him when I was 17. And I wanted to know why all my fathers were broke cuz they were good men. You know, I loved all four of my fathers. And um And I remember him saying, "Tony, we're all equal as souls, but we're not equal in the marketplace."

I was like, "What does that mean?" And he said, "Well, think about it." He goes, "You need to become more valuable if you want to have economic freedom." He said, "You have to work on yourself more than anything else, and you have to work on it in a way where there's something you can do for others better than anyone else or at least more at better quality." And he gave me the example of like working at McDonald's, and he said, "You know, if you work at McDonald's, you know, you make whatever it was in those days, $5 an hour or whatever it was." And he said, "You know," and I go, "Yeah, but that seems

so unfair." And he goes, "Yeah, and teachers" I gave the example of teachers, and there's these billionaires, you know, that make a billion dollars in a year, hedge fund guy, you know. And he said, "Tony, the guy you just mentioned, he provided a 40% return last year, and that went to nonprofits, everything else." He said, "That means those organizations double their money almost every 2 years. He is adding massive value, hundreds of billion dollars, so he made a billion." He goes, "This person is doing a job that anyone can learn in 20 minutes or half a day. So, it's a beginning job." He said, "You got to think of it as one thing. It's all about adding value. How can you do more for others than anybody else in the world?" And

that stuck with me. I mean, I was just like I decided I wanted to do more for others than anybody in the world. In order to do that, I had to have certain skills, and I went after those skills, and I still do. It's like it's a never-ending thing. If you think you're a master, you're full of it, right? Yeah. So, I think that's probably some of the best advice I've ever received at least on life and business and direction and it affected my mission. Yeah, that's great. Uh second question, what's the worst piece of advice you've ever heard? Worst piece of advice? You've ever heard, not received, maybe received, but Oh my god. Well, I've had lots of piece of advice about what to do with my body,

which would have you know, like the really sweet man, like sincere man. Yes, yeah. And I realized that people can be sincere and be sincerely wrong. Yeah. Um but like if I would've taken that drug, you know, I probably would've had cancer. Yeah. Um I don't know. I mean, I try not to listen to or forget any advice isn't too good. I think anybody who advises you to give up is the wrong That's that's probably the worst advice of all because anything that you persist in long enough, you can find the answer to, I believe.

Yeah, and based on that, also the first piece of advice you get on your health Yes, yes. is not always the right piece of advice. I'm glad you mentioned this. The Mayo Clinic did a study. In 2017, they took 286 patients with various diagnosis, and they took the first diagnosis, and then they had a second doctor do a diagnosis. Only 12% of the time did they match. That means 88% of the time, the first diagnosis and the second were different. As a result, the Mayo Clinic says you should always get a second opinion, and they believe getting a second, even a third one, refines the

diagnosis and makes it better because everyone's working through their perceptions. It's not We think of medicine is like black and white, you know, it's right or it's wrong. And it's it's a of art in medicine. And people don't realize that. And that's why the standard of care doesn't always get the result they want. That's why these breakthrough doctors beyond the standard of care, they were attacked some of them beginning like there's a man named Dr. June and they created these car-t cells and I think it's nature just did a publication 10 years later. They're still you know in cancer they never call it a cure. They're actually calling it a cure for the first time for liquid you know like leukemia and things like liquid cancers. And it's like it's amazing. So you

you've got to understand that there's more than one opinion and you don't give up too easily with this one. Yeah. And that applies to life too. In so many like you said. I always say it's like if it's about your health, if it's about your relationship, if it's about raising your children, if it's about your spiritual development, those are areas where people should be your coach not your commander. Get lots of input and you decide cuz they could be sincere and be sincerely wrong. If you're wrong at least you learn from your own experience. Absolutely. Question number three. Uh What's something you think the majority of people value but you don't value?

Fame. But it's you know it's easy when you have something then it's like easy go everybody wants it. You don't know but it's like when you experience it. that happen? Did Was there ever a time you valued fame or was it the experience of it that made you devalue it a little? I wouldn't say I devalue it. I still appreciate it. It's a privilege like I got you know I can walk in the room and have people that I have a connection with you know. But it's been more based on my contribution to them than just being famous per se. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Got it. And you know that's the difference. You know like all of my friends in the movie business like somebody comes up and they get upset cuz they go they don't even

know what I am. They just want something from me. And mine is it's a privilege if somebody can be lit up by your presence to me it's a privilege. So but I think I never I was never pursuing fame. Yes. Um I you know I certainly wanted financial freedom cuz I grew up without it for my family. But I never uh I was never looking to be wealthy. Um but I'm fortunate enough to have a lot of economic freedom at this stage. So but I know that there are people that have got billions of dollars. I've worked with them and they're miserable.

I've worked with people that have billion dollars, and they take their own life. Yeah. You know, what matters is where's your emotional home? Mhm. You know, where do you live emotionally? If you're worth a billion dollars, and every day you're pissed off and frustrated, your life is pissed off and frustrated. If you got three beautiful children, and a beautiful husband or wife, and all this love in your life, but you're worried all the time, you don't feel the love, you're worried. So, my thing is valuing the emotional home, and making it the richest place possible inside.

Yeah. Cuz that's the only thing you can control. Yeah, you reminded me of I was with one of my clients who gets recognized 100 times for every one time I would get recognized. And he'd get stopped every 2 seconds or someone take a picture, maybe someone come shake my hand and talk to me. And we spent a whole day together, and this would happen multiple times a day for him, and a few times for me. And he said something really beautiful with me that mirrors what you've just said now. He said to me, he said, "Jay, the difference between me getting stopped and you getting stopped is they stop me for who I play in the movies."

He goes, "They stop you for who you are." That's right. And that's what I feel with you. It's like what you were saying there, it's like that is a privilege and an honor Total privilege. and humbles me because it's the idea of, yeah, like that person He's like, "They don't even know who I am. They don't know what I stand for. They don't know what I care about." Yeah. That was Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. All right. Question number four is, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

Love. I mean as corny as it is, love is the answer, right? It really is. I think uh fear is what you know, if there's a disease of humanity, the disease [clears throat] that messes us up, I think really is selfishness. Yeah. And I think if there's a cure, it's love. Yeah. And I think um I you can't mandate it, but when people experience it, it becomes a mandate in their life, you know? I love that. Absolutely. And fifth and final question, you mentioned a book to me that I must read, and you said you wanted to talk about in the podcast, too. So, fifth and final question, I thought maybe I'd let you share on that point.

Yes. about psychos That's the book I read. I think it came out in the early '90s. It's called The Fourth Turning. And it's it has a the conceit of the book is that there are seasons in history. And as I mentioned to you earlier, if you think about like what gives somebody power in any context, it's three things. It's pattern recognition. So, if I'm great at running businesses as I am today, I'm pretty good at it. It's like I recognize there's only so many patterns. I know what to do. I can anticipate and not react. I can grow it. If you're great in let's say the stock market, you know to recognize if you're great with music, you recognize patterns. If you're great spiritually, you recognize patterns. But the second skill is you don't just

recognize them, you can use them. And then third skill is when you recognize and use enough patterns, you start to create them. And that's a different dimension of what's going on. So, in this book, you really start to see that humanity changed when we recognized the pattern of the seasons. Soon as we understood seasons, we didn't have to be wandering through the desert anymore searching for things. We could stay, we could grow crops cuz we found out if you plant in the winter, it doesn't matter how hard you work, nothing happens. But when you know the right time to plant, when you know how to do the right thing at the right time, then all of a sudden humanity grew into communities and cities and states and everything else.

Well, we have also seasons of our life. So, you know, in you know, some of the traditional let's say Indian philosophies as I'm sure you know, we can look at these four stages. But we can look at it and say the first 20 years of your life roughly you're primarily learning and taking things in. Some of us had to work at 5 years old and so forth, but overall, that's how it is. From 20 to 40, you know, that's springtime. Summer, you're figuring out who you are. Okay, they told me all this crap and now let me test it. Do I really believe that? Does it really work? I now have real relationships. I think I'm invincible, maybe I'm not. I'm going to discover. 20 to 40 is this massive growth period in your life. And if you

grow during that time, 40 to 60 is really a reaping time, right? It's like the fall and the autumn and things come together things go great. And then from 60 to 80, and maybe 80 on if you have an extended winter, that's the winter time where now you get to be kind of an elder. So, everyone is going to hit winter if they live long enough. Meaning, some people experience winter in that 0 to 20 stage. Some people 20 to 40. When you experience it, it shapes your life a lot. So, in America, the generation we call the greatest generation is the generation of World War II. And they were not respected as young people. I bring this up cuz millennials, you know, older people very often look at millennials and go, "Oh, they're

snowflakes. They can't handle anything." And some are. In every generation, there are people like that. But, the generation was born, let's say, in 1910. That generation, if you think about it, they came of age going to that 20-year-old range. What happened in those 20 years? Well, World War I ended, and America was one of the winners, and then there was the Roaring Twenties, and new technology, and cars, and parties, and all this abundance. It was everywhere. So, they grew up thinking that's what their life was going to be like. And at 19 years old, if they were born in 1910, it was 1929. And the whole world, around the world, people jumping out of buildings, the Dust Bowl in the middle of the place, jobs lost. I mean, it was intense. And

they were called flappers. They were not respected. They were just partiers. They didn't give a damn about anything. They had no responsibility. And suddenly, life hit them, and they grew. They had to. And they went through 10 years of that depression only to make it to 29 years old when it's now 1939, and World War II breaks out. And you and I weren't alive then, but anybody alive then will tell you, Hitler was winning. Countries were dropping. And your country, in London, was being bombed. I mean, it did not look like we were going to win. It was dark, right? And they made it through that, went over, fought the war, and won. So, they have this stage of their life from 20 to 40, which was a

horrendous experience, but it made them so strong, and they came back heroes. And they started the next springtime. Cuz that was winter, right? So, the next springtime was the late '40s after World War II through the 1950s, early '60s until Kennedy was shot. That kind of 18-20 year period was a period of great prosperity and growth, and everything's easy. And then you have a summer, which is always internal conflict. And you can see this in a thousand years of Roman history. Every 1,800 years you've seen the same patterns. And then after that, you have another fall where finances flow, stock markets rise, everything blows again. This happens over and over again through history. So, when

you see it, it gives you perspective. And so, we're in winter right now. We've been in winter since about 2008. And we're not done. We probably got another six If history shows, you know, that if it's repetitive, it's not exact. Yeah. There's probably another seven or eight years of this. And what happens in winter is the external world gets The last winter was World War II. And the external world is reformed. Different countries relate in a different way. You know, a new reserve currency happened. The United States became the dominant force. Now, you're dealing with China. We're seeing the challenges happening in Russia and the Ukraine. We're seeing things all over

the world. People are looking at life differently. People are worried about whether the planet's going to survive or not, global warming. And so, there's going to be a lot more turmoil. There's internal turmoil within most countries, including the United States. But what I try to tell people, and hopefully helps them, is winter does not last forever. No pandemic has lasted forever. No wars lasted forever. And what's next is springtime. Like if you were God, wouldn't you work it out that way? After the vicious night, you have this beautiful day. After the tough winter, there's this nice springtime. So, the

goal right now is get strong in winter. Not to fold. To If you can be strong in this season, in your business, in your life, then when springtime comes, it's a piece of cake. And if you do well in business during this time, if you look at the Fortune 1000, 65% of them were born in a winter, in a depression or a recession. Wow. Whether it's Exxon or it's Disney in depressions or whether it's Pizza Hut or Federal Express that was done in recession or Apple or Microsoft in a recession. So, if you do well then, you tend to do well through time. And so, this is a time you know, not to say, "Oh, it's winter. I'm going to freeze to death." It's like, "No, it's a time to learn, grow, expand, spend time with your family, snowboard, you know, take

advantage of the season and don't think the season is forever." Yeah. you if you read a book like this, it's a book that like some of the greatest leaders I know of all read this book. I got They also wrote a book called Generations. It's about 550 pages of Anglo-American history and it shows how each generation affects it. So, what you start seeing is there is patterns here. There's patterns in history. This isn't forever. How do I use what's in front of me instead of freaking out and saying, "Oh my god, the whole world's coming to an end." Cuz it looks like that when the dark nights of the winter happens or the dark night of the soul.

Yeah. Tony, thank you so much.