Tony Robbins on the Psychology and Skills of Exceptional Leaders

Hi, I'm James Ledbetter, I'm the editor of Ink Magazine and Ink.com. I'm so glad to be joined this morning by one of America's most esteemed authors and

leaders

hip experts. Nowadays, it doesn't need much of an introduction, so I won't give you one, we are very happy to speak this morning with Tony Robbins, Tony, thank you very much for coming, it was a pleasure to see you. I want to talk today mainly about

leaders

hip, something you think and write about a lot. So why don't we start by giving me a definition of what leadership is from your point of view?

It's interesting that I was very young when I started. I was looking for answers. Leadership in you is like looking in Webster's Dictionary. Leadership is one. who leads useful really useful I believe that leadership is truly an influencing skill, it is the most important skill that any human being can master and I don't think of leadership as a position, I see it as a skill, a tool that all of us In words, you have to have the quality of your life. I truly believe it all comes down to your level of leadership. Other people don't have to follow you to be a leader, but you have to live life on your terms and in the first person you have. to influence yourself you know if you are fit or fat you know if your children are out you know if you are on drugs or not who has more influence the boy on the corner or you if you are fit or fat is can you influence? your own hands, your own body, your own mind to do whatever it takes, so I think being able to influence the thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions of another human being, that's what leadership is and quality leadership, obviously, authentic leadership is one in which it is servant leadership. you're looking to influence those thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions for the greater good, not just yourself, and I think the people who master that are the people you know, I mean, they're not, they're the captains of industry. .

People who are celebrities because they have learned how to influence people are some of the best teachers, you know, some of the best scientists because you can't just propose ideas, ideas will die on your lips unless you become a person of influence. . and that's what leadership is. One of the things I've seen you say in the past about leadership is that to become a leader you need to destroy the limitations within your own mind. What does it mean to destroy a limitation? Well, first of all. Everything, if you look at a company, the growth strangulation of any business is always the

psychology

and the skill set of a leader and it is 80%

psychology

and 20% mechanics, which means that there are so many small businesses that you know the owner can be an amazing innovator, maybe they write amazing code, maybe there is great influence, but they don't know the economic side of their business well and they get in trouble because someone is giving them financial information after the fact that they have no real intelligence financial to make decisions and they get stuck.

Can you give me an example of a business like that? you have to give names no, I will choose my own examples. I had several companies early in my career and we're on the brink of bankruptcy because I sat there and would I know how to produce products that would change people's lives? He knew how to market. I knew our people building teams, but what I didn't know was finance, so I look and say, you know, what are we doing? Oh, you have a Great, you know you made a 20% profit, you know you made two million dollars in profit that day, a small business and I got to the end of the year there was no cash, right?

I didn't know that profits are a theory and So just not having that skill or someone can be really good at finance but they're not good at marketing so sometimes it's a skill issue but 80% of that you can solve those

skills

, you can get those

skills

if you can change your psychology. but when you accept that, oh my god, the markets go down or, oh my gosh, the economy in areas goes down when you let the environment control your psychology, you're not going to win. There's an interesting guy named Mel Fisher that you might remember from back in the '90s.

He was the name that stays in your mind. He was a guy that spent I think it was 27 years if I remember correctly looking for the Spanish galleon that was supposed to be full. gold yes that's great and he found it after 27 years now here's my question for you Jim yes five years later you've worked every day for five years and found nothing what are you going to do and how Are you going to raise more money because you've run out of money ten years later, fifteen years later? It's been 20 years, so I tell people in business that they understand psychology.

This is the biggest challenge for most companies. They think they have maximized what is possible because they believe they have tried everything once you believe your beliefs control you. and you missed the innovations you missed the answers this guy found that gold because he had three beliefs: the first belief was that there was a treasure out there and he was sure it was there even though he had no absolute evidence and that certainly drove him , but if you knew that there is a treasure in your business, that is not enough, you also have to believe that I will find it and he also has to believe that it is worth it, and without those three beliefs he would never have found it, so changing the psychology What will change a business faster than anything else is changing your skills, but many people don't execute their skills, and you and I know that executions are more important than those.

Now we will simply succeed through execution every single day and that execution is changing psychology. I can't even look for a lego with my son for ten minutes if I don't find the piece in ten minutes I get 27 years old but but I guess my second question is about That idea of ​​destroying limitations is how it's done. There should be more leaders in psychotherapy. They should be climbing mountains. What is one of the mechanics of changing a limitation? After all, if it's your own limitation, presumably you know you put it there. We are probably attached to it on some level, well, unconsciously maybe, but let's talk about how it happens, people are not just one way, we are a reflection of the states we live in when you are in a state of frustration and overwhelmed , a state of fatigue. your brain processes completely differently than if you are in a passionate state if you feel determined if you feel committed if you feel completely determined learn to change the state of leaders learn to change your own state because you know the people I want the most questions fools who do this to me, you're not really that happy, are you?

You have bad days, don't you? Of course, you know the bad times, but I no longer have bad days and it's not nonsense, it's because I have trained like an athlete to reach these Peaks, I have done them so frequently that they are just natural because it's like building a muscle, so it's not that I'm so smart, I'm just so confident, it's like why would I waste it? my time stressing I have a 90 second rule. I'll stress for 90 seconds but stress isn't going to solve it. Let me go back to a different state and the way I do it is by using my body because I have I've done this with athletes on the foredeck with billionaire businessmen.

If you see someone get into a bad patch, some kind of great athlete, Paul Tudor Jones, some of the greatest financial traders in the history of the world, you know I used it. I have trained him for 22 years. When I came to see him, this is a man who made 200% in 1987, when the stock market had its biggest drop in the day in percentage terms, yet he still made 200% for his clients, more than anyone could dream of. , then he went to the Moon and he came down to earth and lost money, so they brought me in to turn it around.

Well, how do you turn around a guy like that? Yes, I saw it, he had his shoulders slumped, he breathed like that, he sits like that all the time. Because he had gone through these failures and started storing himself in his body in this state, this man is a genius, he couldn't do it, so I watched movies when he was in his prime and he was like he stood up and was doing this. I'm going to sell this, make this happen and the movement, the intensity, the way he used his face, so I showed him a video of himself today.

He should have a video when he's at his best and I said, what do you notice? It was like those were two. Different people said yes, but we can go back to this guy by just using the body first, trying to use your mind, you'll go in circles, but I've been teaching for years that a radical change in your body instantly changes your biochemistry for thirty-eight years. they taught two years ago at Harvard they did a scientifically proven study that we've been teaching all these decades where they say they call it power postures, yeah, the only thing a woman does standing like a Superman moment for two minutes, yeah or like you see guys like this back off like that for two minutes, it literally increases your testosterone in your biochemistry in two minutes by 20 percent, reduces cortisol by 18 percent, which is the stress hormone, and increases your chances of engaging in a behavior riskier, which is what is required. of the leader by 33% two minutes now, that's just standing a certain way.

I show people using their voice, their body, their movement, which is 10 times more dynamic than just a rigid posture and when you change your state, your mental and emotional state, you change the points. Haven't you done it in times when you can't remember how to spell a difficult word like love or your own email? The opposite man's name and then you've had moments where you're in the flow or after you do something like you know I did that, I know how I did it, but I did it, yeah, I was in the flow, well you're the same person. , the only difference is the states, so be prepared to be in a maximum state every day, I mean, you know, you think.

As a great businessman, I think a great artist like Elton John has been around and made rock and roll for 42 years, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's mind-blowing and most people still like some sample of his music. Well, he has to have days where he gets up to entertain when he thinks if you make me sing that Daniel song one more time I'll go crazy, but he never does it every time he's in that same beautiful state, that's not because be naturally so, he has trained himself to do it. that like a great athlete trains himself, that's what leaders have to do the state of the union the state of the company is the culture and culture starts in the head, whoever that leader is, his state impacts to everyone else, so train yourself to be at that top.

Status is the key to everything. Can anyone be a leader? And I asked for two reasons: one, simply, my own curiosity about supply and demand. If everyone is a leader, then who is a follower? And we have to have leaders and followers, but second. I'm curious what you think about innate qualities versus qualities that can be taught. First let's look at what the scarcest resource we probably need in our society today is great leaders, I mean look at the political process we are going through right now, if there is any evidence that we are suffering for leadership the most I see in the government you see it in companies there are not so many great leaders now so the opposition of the priests for many people then it must be this innate talent if there are people who are born and grow up read when you can be born with more certainty as people willing to take more risks certainly there are people of that nature but anyone can be a leader in something in which they decide to become a master in you you can be the leader of your own wife, each one must lead his own life, he must be the leader of his family, for I believe that everyone can be a leader, but there are different types and styles of leadership, and I believe that leadership is a skill that begins with having something that you are committed to that is bigger than yourself a vision that is bigger than you. same if there is a big enough vision if you have enough passion for that vision then you will have enough drive to start executing and then leadership is the ability to disappoint your disappointment because you will have to go through failures and instead of making failures you have to learn. of them and then it all comes down to the scale of influence once again and so anyone can learn anyone can develop a vision anyone can discover their passion anyone can learn to influence, that's a skill that can be learned, so yeah, Leadership can be taught and leadership can be learned.

Can everyone be leaders? The answer is yes, because there are many different eggs to lead and it is not a situation that you have to follow. In order for you to lead, I only have to know what I really represent, consequently, it is not necessarily a zero-sum equation, no, my leadership does not take away the leadership of another person, the fact that, as a boss, people have that following me does not mean thatthey themselves cannot be leaders what a great boss wants for someone who you are you want to hire leaders how you want to hire people they are smarter than you if everything is humanly possible at this moment the ego of some people does not believe that anarchy is possible, but I really believe that if you really look at what will free you as a leader is recruiting other leaders, yes, training other leaders, that's what enables an organization because the leader gets the result, finds the path to victory, finds the way. . to create breakthroughs with teams of people, they don't do it themselves, otherwise you can't take advantage, you can grow.

How important is that? Where in the hierarchy of things that people should lead? ability to connect I really think that people with Nordic influence have to know what already influences them who the mistake we make is that we don't connect enough to find out who this person is and what most of us do is try to guide other people Influence them the same way we have the influence they try to influence their child to clean the room the way they would force you to do it, but even though they are your children, they are different than you and so they will do it for a different set of reasons than you would do it, maybe you did it because someone told you to, but your children I am all day , it's not like that, there has to be something more, it's a feeling of freedom that they get from it or a sense of mastery, something that will move them, that's why I always say that there are two things that influence everyone, if you want to be a leader, you have to know how to change other people, a person is in a state of O, a person is in a state of anger. people in a state of frustration, you have to be able to influence their bet;

If you change their state, you will change the result they get, but the second thing you have to understand is what people's blueprints are, my blueprints, my shorthand for what the values ​​are. What do you believe? What do they fear? I always tell people that life is in the dance between what you want most and what you fear most. If I want to guide and support you, I get to know your goals, your desires. I don't know what you are afraid of when you are afraid of what stresses you and I do understand that I can communicate to you in a way that inspires you to maximize not only when I am here, that administrative leadership depends on God and on you.

You have raised your own standard and you are going to continue to perform at a higher level. It seems to me that a lot depends on an internal mechanism of when something works and I'm curious to hear your opinion on this. I mean, am I a success if I'm hitting my numbers. Am I a success? If I am achieving my goals. Do we have ideas of success that are not realistic and that can even hold us back? Sure there's a show I've done for 25 years called "Date With." fact of fate I was on South by Southwest and we aired a documentary made by Joe Berliners you know Kadim you were nominated brilliant documentary filmmaker he goes what about you it's about it's not about my life it's just a show I do every year I watch a couple of hundreds of thousands of people and you know thirteen countries and then we have a program D for 2,500 people, the most intimate program that I do six days and six nights, I mean the documentary, yes, that's what yes, yes, and in that understanding of that experience what I really have.

Showing people is how people create real, lasting change. I made him agree because it is his documentary that I would wait a year to publish it and follow up with people a year later to show what is really happening. It's just coming out now, but the reason. What I am mentioning is that if you are really going to bring about change, you must become a student of what really works. I have not missed one suicide among thousands in my life. Knock on wood in 38 years and I'm the man. that he gets the phone call when the boy is melting down.

I got a phone call from President Clinton calling me and he says, I'm going to impeach in the morning, what should I do? My first response is: could you call me first? It's like, come on. So when you learn how to influence, when you learn the skills of influencing and you can learn them from so many different places, what you are able to accomplish is impressive to other people. I mean, when people see that someone is suicidal, I have a night of this event. and I call you don't have problems and in a room of 2,500 people on average there are 12 people who are suicidal and I say who is suicidal, let's handle it now and each one of them is different and no one reproduces and the reason it works is because I knew what you just said.

I connect. I found out what your belief structures are for someone who wants to commit suicide. I have to believe that dying is less painful than living and I got a change that either they are not going to change, they are going to commit suicide. So how to do it is an art, but it's also a science, and what I tell people is that success leaves clues. If you find someone who is a great leader, the best thing you can do is model that person and find out what he or she does differently. Anyone else could save a decade if he spent a few weeks modeling someone that strong.

In recent years we hear a lot about inequality in our society and the way the growth of wealth has been concentrated in the hands of very few, perhaps at the cost of many depends on one's interpretation and I wonder what you have What to say about people who say well the problem is not what is on my mind the problem is what is not in my pocket are there cases where people are really held back by their lack of material resources, well of course You know, half the planet lives on two dollars and 50 cents a day, the challenge is the people who complain that they are the 99% against the 1%, in reality they are the 1% that suits Tony.

What are you talking about those people who are in those tents below and you know, a few years ago? If you see them typing on their iPhones and drinking a Starbucks drink, they think they're really suffering, but in reality, if you're in poverty in this country, you're in the top 1% of earners in the world, you're the top 1%, so you really care about the 1%, you should care about everyone, but I think the real challenge is not money. as the world has changed if you are a manual worker, if you are an unskilled worker, meaning you are not technology oriented, you are not cognitively driven in your work, you cannot have problems and I don't care what the politicians about getting these jobs back is that there are no jobs to get back and the reason is that technology is making labor less valuable and that's why the jobs don't produce as much unless you're high cognitive, high take decision making, high technology. people don't have any problems, there is 1% unemployment for people who earn $100,000 or more, it is very small because they have learned to be more valuable.

I always tell people that the most valuable lesson I learned from my mentor Jim Rohn was that I asked my father to work two jobs. We were always broke, we didn't have money to eat and we lived in a community, we moved into it, I just thought everyone was rich and we were on the other side of the tracks, it was lower middle class, but compared to where we lived. Before, these people seemed rich compared to us and I just didn't understand it and Jim told me Tony, it's not about the value of your soul, it's about the value of you and the market, and your father's skills are not that high. , so he used. to drink, he was an underground parking attendant and took people's tickets and made the change.

Research now shows that it is being done at Yale also abroad, in England, and they discovered that 40% of all jobs that they project in the next 10 years are going to disappear because technology is going to be replaced by an algorithm. It's going to change, you know, all these guys on Wall Street are seeing all these algorithms take over and they're getting rid of all these traders, right? It's radically changing these in these hedge funds there are three million truck drivers, the Self-driving cars will be here in the next five years they will be the standard, no doubt, in seven or eight years, will they hire someone who can only work eight hours a day and sometimes get drunk or can make money?

It's a mistake when you can buy a machine, write down the machine and be in a position where it works 24 hours a day driving, but no one tells these drivers this and they have to re-equip themselves now, so technology is the biggest challenge. Labor is less valuable. because of the efficiencies with technology and it's going to get better and better for technology, which is scary when you think about what's going to happen to jobs, so I tell people that they need to participate in their own rescue and they need to restructure. the idea. Bernie Sanders' idea of ​​providing free education sounds wonderful, but the education he wants to do is Community College;

Today there are no skill sets or community colleges for the most part that prepare you for the economy or a job that exists, so what is that? what you are going to do, you are simply going to lose more money, more time, we need to reequip ourselves, the government is not going to do it for you and a great leader in a company is training his people all the time, the training never stops because That's the advantage of creative and innovative marketing as your own people most companies receive less training today than they did in this time 30 years, that's crazy, so where do you get the training from?

I think they have to educate themselves. I mean, I'm an example that you have to self-educate yourself. Tell me what is one area I want to dominate because amateurs will never have financial freedom. You know, if you're going to run a company, you have to find what your niche is. What are you going to do better than anyone else? one of us has to say that and then say now where do I get that education in a world that we live in today with the Internet where there is education from all over the world from MIT to Harvard online and there are people that you can go to work for?

Who could become an apprentice if there are so many approaches but you can't have a standard education and expect to have an extraordinary life? It's not going to happen. The only advancement for all leaders is constant, never-ending improvement and that means educating yourself and continuing to develop even greater emotional mastery because that is what affects whether you execute or not. It really is remarkable what is available online. It is not like this? You can learn Economics 101 with Robert Shiller. Yes, he is exactly the Bell Prize-winning economist for free. He's okay, maybe. I have to buy a textbook, but you can pay for it.

Yes, he thinks of all the possibilities that are available. The opportunity for self-education. Is there? We have to change our psychology. I'm going to do what everyone else does and I'm angry because it doesn't work anymore - the reality is this is the best time to be alive if you're growing, you're learning, you're educating and you're developing valuable skills, it's like you're going to work. For McDonald's, I don't know. I think the average I read recently is seven dollars and seventy-five cents an hour in the United States working for McDonald's the skills establish the value you provide can be taught to anyone in about 20 minutes David Tepper earned what I think 3 .5 billion last year produced I think it was a 40% return, right, 41% return in a world, those are those billionaires, those one percent, he is not that 1%, he is point zero zero zero one percent, but my point is the added value it made for all those families.

Who would have gotten 33 basis points, half a percent? You know, 1%. Well, it will take you 72 years to double your money. He is making those people's families get 40 percent more than they did in a year. He is worth three point five trillion million dollars. Well, instead of complaining, you should say where skills are valued in the market and how I work harder on myself than anything else, because if I become more valuable, I will be able to give more, do more, and change more when I interview. . Warren Buffett asked the best and most important thing he did in his life.

You know, he said it was. He was thinking about all the companies they have created. You know, he said he. Tony goes to Dale Carnegie, he said what goes because in developing myself, that's the most. important investment those skill sets learn to persuade learn to speak learn and influence all my ideas would have died on my lips if I had not been able to influence and I learned it from that little course, the most valuable thing I have ever done in my life my life, he said, so we all have to understand that this is the most important investment we have to renew ourselves and the leaders, we have to incorporate other people into our teams and continue to grow and that is what will make your company valuable, not only recruiting new people but constantly improving the skills of the people you have I met a man last week in Omaha talking about Warren Buffett yes, it wasn't Warren Buffett yes, a young man who describes himself as a struggling artist yes, a big fan of yours and that is one of the reasons why I am mentioning him and his question was:I'm still trying to develop enough resources to live a decent life while also trying to make these artistic dreams I have come true.

Yes, how can I do both at the same time? Always tell people I said tell me tell me your schedule doesn't look well you know I go to work and I work from 9:00 to 5:00 and I come home I'm exhausted and then you know what I'm going to start a business. I said well what about the other eight hour shift because that's what I did right I haven't been able to work from 8:00 to 5:00 in a normal job and then I start working as a janitor because I work my own hours in the middle of the night, but I worked from 8:00 to 5:00 and I would literally come home, have something to eat, and then start work at 6:00 p.m. 6:30 pm. and I go from 6:30 to 2:00 a.m. and I have another 78 hours and this is how I built everything in the beginning, that's honestly what it takes and not doing that is cheating yourself because in the end what we get we will never achieve. make us happy I don't care how many stars on your list and how many Academy Awards how much money you make what makes us happier progress progress equals happiness if you're not growing you're dying within your relationships it's not growing it's dying if your business isn't growing no business remains static it is growing or it is dying you are on that plateau you are going down you better do something right now so the mindset has changed be this is the way I live in the future I am a learning machine because we live in a world where Technology is changing me very quickly.

I have to be at the forefront and that makes people feel satisfied because you become more, you are not just doing something. Because half of them do it or because they are trying to keep up with the business, each of your readers or viewers, if in this case they should really ask themselves: Who am I? I am central because we all have different gifts that we can obtain and do business with. I think you know that, besides love, your work is probably the most sacred gift you can give any human being because it is a large part of your time, your energy, it is the essence of everything you have developed in your life.

If you look at it, there are three gifts. you could give the gift of a specific art, a skill set, an ability, a talent that you have and a lot of people are artists, they're not just artists because they paint, they have something that they're so good at and then they start a business. because they say, you know, I can design better clothes than the person I work for. I can write better code of course, running a business is more than just the art of it, and most businesses are started by an artist and those businesses you know fail.

So if you look at that, you would say that if I am an artist, I am a struggle because I am going to want to make my art. A great business person says that no matter what I care about, I can't fall. fall in love with my product or service I need to fall in love with my client and I constantly change to satisfy their needs don't fall in love with your product or service fall in love with your ideal client that is a different game there is another type of person who is more of a manager leader, which means that their gift is not a specific skill set like selling or creating or something, it's managing people and processes and they love it and it's their nature, when it's your nature, you tend to be good at it if you work at it's true because what you reinforce It is who you are and then there is the entrepreneur and everyone calls themselves an entrepreneur but there are people who are entrepreneurs and there are entrepreneurs and an entrepreneur by nature is different they love risk they live risk it is like My Dear Friend by Steve Wynn and he took me to the cow and I saw this guy lose 30 not ten million dollars, excuse me in less than 30 minutes and the guy stood up and gave Steve a hug and said, sir, win, it's amazing.

He actually he said: would you take a photo of me? I'm used to hearing this, so I'm sure that no, you would take a photo of me with mr. won and he just lost 10 billion dollars forever right, that guy is an entrepreneur, you lose 10 million, I'll just think of another way to win it again, right, it's a different mentality, an entrepreneur is in it for the money , true, there could be other things. also but they want to make money the artist is not that committed to making you money they want to make money but they want to make their art they want to make that dress they want to write that code they want to do what they love so If you are going to be a financially successful entrepreneur you have to say: Who am I and who do I need?

If I'm a great artist, I probably need a good manager, a leader as a partner because they will help me build the organization. and I can still make art that people love and I'll make sure my art is what they want, not just what I want, if I'm going to grow and scale. Who am I if I'm a leading manager you might want? link up with a great entrepreneur because there will be something much bigger that I can be a part of and potentially own a part of if I'm there, but I'm at Turner. I'm looking for great artists because they will be the core of my business I'm looking for great management leaders so you have to know who you are and who you need at Inc. we pay a lot of attention to entrepreneurs, what they think, we survey them, we read other people's surveys and a The questions that come up again and again will ask people who identify as entrepreneurs what their biggest challenge is.

Yes, surprisingly, people will volunteer. I don't have the right idea, which fascinates me because if you don't have the right idea, why do you identify as? I'm an entrepreneur first and foremost, but at the same time I don't want to dismiss it. I'm trying to try to understand and I'm curious. Well, is there another idea? The right idea to be successful. What is my dream business? Your goal was to inspire people and get people to go deeper into themselves. Where do those good ideas come from? Where should these people turn to find the right ideas? You know Steve Jobs used to say that the best ideas are stolen.

You know he didn't create mouse, you know the key to Apple, he went to Xerox, right, and they built the mouse, they built that interface, he just went out and basically stole it, right? I would say you know Starbucks was modeled correctly. Herschel is abroad. He sees this incredible situation in Italy and says: wow! This could translate very well, let's take this here to Seattle. It is not necessary to be the creator of an idea. You can see a model that works and it just performs better than someone else or see something that works in one place and take it to where.

It's not the idea that you have to be an original thinker. I think I have a lot of original thoughts, but I also think that my goodness, I stand on the shoulders of so many people that I've learned about over the years and forgotten. Half of it comes from because I've read so much, I've learned so much, I've interviewed so many people. Ideas come from searching for them. I am obsessed with finding them, greeting them and being clear about what you are looking for. I'm looking for something that's going to change lives in this way or that I'm really passionate about this topic and that I really think can have a margin, so I think that's one thing and the other is that it's about creating the right questions.

So I tell people that if you want to create innovation in your organization, if you try to do it like once a year, the rain dance never works, you have to train your people in a different way and the way I do it in all my companies and the way. We've grown so much that I'm always bringing new voices to the table, new voices emerge, new conversations emerge, new decisions emerge, new ideas emerge, so many years ago I met a billionaire who is now a good friend of mine, a very private man and I asked him what is the most important aspect of growing his business as he said every year I bring someone new into senior management every year and he said and the reason is that new blood has a new thought, they have a new voice , they have a new perspective. and they shake things up a little bit and he said get someone off the team.

You know he applies the GE approach to things very often in that area. At that point, the second part is if you get those new voices, you want new conversations, so you need to ask new questions and you know one of the questions that I teach business and I ask is what business are you in, what business are you really in and that I got it from Marc Benioff because Steve Jobs was his mentor and I had shared that with him. when he took over Apple after the near-bankruptcy debacle, the first question he asked here, but that's what he really said all this, the computer business, he said, if that's true, we're in big trouble.

In fact, it doesn't even call me a computer. It's not that Apple is right and what they said is that they worked on it over the years and at an early point they said we're in the business of giving people connection to their passions and we do it artfully, we do it beautifully . doing it in a way that works and connecting their passions led them to music which became the transformation of Apple, they wrote iTunes and then that led to the telephone, I mean Apple, a telephone company now, if they had said Apple Computer , they wouldn't be one of the richest companies in the history of the world was when they expanded and increased what was their true core business, so new questions, new voices, new experiments.

Twitter was an experiment that sounds like an idiotic idea. A couple of guys were doing a project and it ruined any character yeah and I don't want to do that, what am I going to do that? Who will care? It took off a bit ooh, you have to try experiments, most of them won't work and I think if you try a new experience you will get a new voice, you are asking new questions, you will stimulate new answers, but most people do the same thing and also when you start to say I don't have the idea and you think I don't have the right ideas, you don't even have them. look for them more, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

One of the other things you've said that intrigues me is that people who run one business actually need to run two businesses. Yes, that is the business you are operating today. Yeah and there's the business that you're becoming that is so critical and I and I think about our ynx readers and Inc communications viewers. We talk to them and they can barely execute the one you know, it's all what they can do. get up at 5:00 in the morning and work until 1:00 in the morning and start a family and then how do you do that? How is that planned?

Which is essentially a second business, that's how you point it out, oh yeah. It is the most important thing I teach all my employees, all my leaders and all my companies. It's like most people want to do new business, but if you don't take care of the business you have, you have a real problem and then other people are totally focused on this business and don't anticipate where they need to go. The way they do it really effectively is they have to develop a system where once a week they spend at least 90 minutes with their team. it may be an army or two, your team may be twenty thousand, but will you work on the business, not in the business, and you will take every stage of the business, you will focus on it because what most companies do if you are really good at marketing, that's what you do a lot and it keeps you going and then you get bothered by employees or you get bothered by human resources, you get bothered by accounting or you get bothered by sales, or you're very good at innovation, you're innovating, so No matter how broke you are and you're not able to produce the level of sales and those 90 minutes will allow you to work on the business you're in and the business you're becoming, but if you don't, we're always reacting and I always tell people that losers react and that leaders anticipate that in recent years I think there has been something of a shift in the way that people think about failure in Silicon Valley, possibly almost a cult of failure, There is the idea that they fail faster. fail smart or iterate fail launch again sometimes seems excessive and also it's a little strange to tell people like go out and fail, you know, it's a little strange, yeah, and I'm curious what you think, do you know what it is? the right level of failure, how should someone who wants to be successful think about failure?

Oh, how should I think about failure? They should see it as learning. I mean, anyone who has had incredible success has failed more than other people. I just don't see it because they recovered so quickly and learned from it, that's really how the quickest way to avoid failure is not to learn from your own experience, but from other people's experience right now, which I think. by compressing decades into days and the way you do it is to model again, find someone who is the most successful in the world, take 20 or 30 years and dig deep and find out what is the core essence of what made them successful, What are the failures they had? what they learn from them so you can avoid them, but the other part is that you also have to know that success is buried on the other side of failure, it's buried on the other side of frustration, it's buried on the other side of conflict, and so I have to see this as part of Peter's natural evolutionYour friend Gruber of mine, he owns the NBA Warriors, knocked him out of last place.

You know, dominion of the champions. I'm not a bad season, so yeah, and that's about this year. I mean Curry is amazing. He told me a story about his life from the beginning, he told me that when he was just a child there was a neighbor boy who had major physical and potentially mental deformities and he saw one day his dad took him out and stood him up like that. . He rode his bike with these two like mini training wheels and he put the kid on this thing that could barely walk and he pushed him and the kid went for a while and he just crashed and when he crashed and started crying the parents got up and got up. were. and Peter said that he was very angry with this man and said that this would continue like every morning and Peter was looking out his windows and told his mother that he had to do something.

She is abusing this poor child. Something interesting happened. He said his mom said to stay out of her business and one day Peter is looking out the window before going to school and he sees the kid out there and the dad pushes him and the kid goes and goes and goes and he doesn't fall. , goes. It goes and goes and goes and finally it crashes, but it went on forever and suddenly she turns around and looks at her father, there's death like a female madness like this and Peter said at that moment he made a decision, he said, you know. every failure is an obstacle on the path to success and the great gift of that man was that it didn't cost him a cent, he got his son to do this and he said: Tony, years later, I'm the president of Columbia Pictures and I think he was 34 and they chose him over a man who was 55 and was a war hero and was highly respected and then there's this conflict and the first movie that Peter made they screened and it was terrabyte and these horrible views and the guy walked up. and he said are you scared and Peter?

I looked at him he said I really am but that won't stop me he said let me tell you a story and he told him a story about this little boy you know what I learned he said I learned that as long as you keep getting up Failures are a hindrance towards success and nothing will stop me in this job or in anything else and he said that the story was voluntary in the eyes of this man, he related it in many ways in his own life and he said that he went from his adversary to his ally from from that day forward, so I really think we're all afraid of failing, but it's the only way to learn sometimes.

I mean, when people succeed, they tend to celebrate, when you fail, you tend to reflect and then reflection is when you usually get the growth the vision the strategy that will change about us is that they will change your personal life that will change your finances and that's why I don't think I vote for failure for anyone, but thinking that you won't experience it is absurd. The way not to experience it is to become an apprentice to the person who can go through failure like butter and it doesn't stop them, they just change their focus. I mean, how long will you give the average child to learn to walk? before you turn them off and say you're not a walker, people say, what are you crazy?

My children will keep trying until he or she knows that you are a walker, which is why almost everyone walks well, but singing, how many people sing a little if? Someone says what do you bet what's that noise you're making stop with that you're not a good singer once you decide to stop trying failure is only when you give up permanently if you learn something and apply what you've learned Failure is a stepping stone. I'm going to make you listen to my wife sing one of the other topics that we're obsessed with is Millennials and the degree to which Millennials represent, you know, a change in American thinking or just the way they are because they're young and when they grow up they're going to be like everyone else and I'm curious to know if they think Millennials bring any particular advantages to leadership, any particular disadvantages to leadership, how they think about the next generation when you're making a generalization about a generation that's going to be wrong because it's a generalization. , but one thing is true.

Millennials have grown up and their brains have been shaped differently because of technology that we don't realize you know you use. technology uses you and if you are unconscious it uses you some people like you know that they are disconnected from their Twitter, their Facebook or Instagram, you know what I'm going to do well, it's crazy, that's why their brains have been connected for an instant. answers, they believe that the answer is there, which is a certainty and an incredible gift, and they lived in a world where it is there for them, it is available to them now you have to search the Internet, which is full of lies, but there are also true there. find the truth correctly, but they also have a different level of community focus, social focus and you know each generation has different gifts, there is scalability, there is problem-solving ability, there is the ability to find answers, there is the ability to build a community that is generated in this. generation, everyone is different, but it is in the generation as a whole and I think it will bring them extraordinary gifts that it already has, but it will bring them even greater gifts because at the age where they will not be like any other generation, they will adapt to certain things that they will adapt to what it means to have a family, because you know, older Millennials, you know you're approaching 35?

Now you know, when you reach 35, that implies more family training, although longer training, you have different responsibilities. When you look at life differently, you learn that you're not invincible just when you're 25, you know you're going to be the billionaire and the United States of today and you're going to have twenty-two husbands or wives or whatever, but then you start to realize, maybe know that I have some skills, but I have to work a little more here, so I think there will be some things that will be similar, but they will definitely bring unique gifts because they grew up in a different time.

Great human story, thank you very much. It has been a fantastic interview. I have enjoyed it. Tony Robbins. Thank you so much. I'm Jim Ledbetter from angin Inc. Don't worry, thanks for stopping by.