Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business
and life you love.
And I am so excited I can barely contain myself because today’s guest is someone that I’ve
admired for so long.
He’s impacted tens of millions of lives all around the world and he’s written an
incredible new book, which we’re gonna talk about today.
Tony Robbins is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
For more than 37 years, millions of people have enjoyed the warmth, humor, and the transformational
power of Mr. Robbins’ business and personal development events.
He’s the nation’s number one life and business strategist.
He’s called upon to consult and coach with some of the world’s finest athletes, entertainers,
Fortune 500 CEOs, and even presidents of nations.
Robbins is a founder of or partner in more than a dozen companies in industries as diverse
as a five star island resort in Fiji to custom 3D printed prosthetic limbs.
Through the Anthony Robbins foundation and his matching funds, Tony feeds four million
people per year in 56 countries.
He’s also initiated programs in more than 1500 schools, 700 prisons, and 50 thousand
service organizations and shelters.
He lives in Palm Beach, Florida.
Tony, it is so amazing to have you here.
Thank you so much for making the time.
Thanks for having me.
So I think I told you this way back when you interviewed me for the new Money Masters.
You know, I just wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart.
When I was in my early 20s I went to Unleash the Power Within…
Yes.
...and you made such an impact on me and it’s influenced everything I’ve done personally
and everything in my business.
I just want you to hear, like, who you are, what you do, how you serve, it makes such
a huge difference and it means the world to me to have you here today.
Oh, that’s so sweet.
Thank you.
So…
Thank you for that.
Let’s get started because one of the things I admire so much about you is your energy
and your passion and your stamina.
I mean, you’ve been doing this for over 3 decades and I know everybody watching…
It’s getting closer to 4 now.
Which is awesome.
It’s so incredible.
Yeah.
And one of the things that I so admire is I feel like you keep getting better, you keep
doing more, you keep serving on a higher level.
And from a personal just stamina standpoint, tell us a little bit about what you do every
day.
What are your habits?
How do you keep yourself at this high level of service?
Well, I think there’s the physical side of it, which, you know, I do the equivalent
of an ultra marathon every weekend.
You know, I do 52 hours.
On the last day I do 26.5 miles, the previous day is 22 miles.
So just the physical side, you have to be in incredible shape.
And I’m in better shape physically today, both my endurance and my muscular strength
and so forth, then when I was 25, which is wonderful.
And so I do certain things [inaudible] but I think I should mention first, what’s even
more important is the psychological, spiritual side of things because I think energy comes
first not from your body.
It doesn't come from eating, it doesn't come from sleeping, because I’ve gone without
those things for long periods of time and still been able to deliver.
It comes from having a mission.
It comes from something that you’re being pulled by, not something you’re pushing
on.
There’s two forms of motivation.
You can push yourself to do things, and there’s only so much you can push yourself to do.
But if you’re pulled, if there’s something that you want to serve that’s greater than
yourself, there’s something that excites you, there’s something that you’re about,
there’s something you’re made for, then there’s a level of energy that most people
would never dream of.
And we all have that, but most of us don't connect to it and unleash it.
So every day I connect and unleash that.
Every single day.
I don't hope it’s gonna be there, even though I know it will be, even though it’s there,
I just…
I don't take it for granted.
And so I start out my day by a process I do called priming.
What priming is, it’s not a meditation but it has meditative qualities.
And what I do is I sit down, first thing I do in the morning I go and I jump in the hot
tub or a hot water type of experience and then I go to freezing water.
All of my homes, fortunately I have to have multiple homes, that I go… one of them I
have a river I get to jump in.
You’ve been there.
Yeah.
There are other places I have these cold plunges.
And I do that to train my nervous system to go from 0 to 60 like that.
You know, every muscle, every nerve in your body, every organ gets when you hit 57 degree
water, it hits.
And so it’s just my mental discipline.
And the second thing I do is I prime, and priming is I sit down and I do a minimum of
10 minutes because my mindset is if you don't have 10 minutes, you don't have a life.
Right.
So there’s no excuse.
So every day, sit down, and what do I do?
I do three and a half minutes where I do an explosive breathing pattern, a pattern that
changes my biochemistry, and after I’ve done that, 30 of these intense breaths three
times, I close my eyes, I’m in kind of an altered state, and I focus first for 3 and
a half minutes on just everything in my life, at least 3 things, that I’m really truly
grateful for.
And I don't do that in a hokey way, I don't do it in a mental way, I step into my body
and I feel it.
And I make sure at least one of those things is something really simple: the wind against
my skin, the look on my son’s eyes or daughter’s eyes, something that is just very fundamental,
but I really…
I cultivate that feeling of gratitude, of appreciation for those feelings.
I do it for three and a half minutes, then I do 3 and a half minutes where I do this
process of focusing on healing, strengthening, and serving, and I start in a circle starting
with myself and then I go through all the people in my life and associates and I just
send love to them.
Again, it may sound corny, but to me it’s… it’s a part of what I’m here for and it’s
part of cultivating that energy, that healing and strength energy, strengthening my passion,
my appreciation, my insights, my…
my capacity, my endurance.
And then I do the last three minutes are what I call three to thrive, which is what is it
that I really wanna make happen?
And sometimes I do that over what I’m gonna do for the next 6 months or month, sometimes
it’s today.
I shake it up.
But I’m…
I see and feel and own that those things are done, and that starts, you know, pretty much
my day between those two items.
And, you know, then I might work out, some things that I do of that nature.
Yeah.
And how about eating wise?
Has that changed for you a lot over the years?
It’s… it’s pretty simplistic.
You know, I’m very simple.
I eat a salad and I have some protein.
I have fish or I’ll have turkey bacon.
I don't eat red meat or chicken, but those are the things that I have usually in the
morning.
And my afternoon, evening meals are pretty simple as well.
But, you know, before I met my wife, Sage, the greatest gift in my life, when we first
met, she’s a phlebotomist and nutritionist and acupuncturist, so I thought, “This is
gonna be the easiest thing in the world.”
And I’ll never forget, we went out on this date and she had wheatgrass juice and I was
like, “Wow, this is gonna be so easy, man.
This is awesome.”
And then she ordered a hot fudge sundae and I was like, “What in the hell are you doing?”
and she goes, “Eating, you bastard.”
I wish I could give some term around bastard, that I was like too rules driven.
And so she had this whole thing, you zig and then you zag.
So I do that with her now.
I do enjoy other aspects of life, but when I first met her I noticed she zigged a lot
more than she zagged, or the other way around.
Which way it was.
But it’s been a nice balance in my life.
So I enjoy food and things of that nature, but I use food mostly as fuel because life
gives me so much juice.
You know, I’m not looking to get out of food, usually.
And how about, because I know for me my mind can go and I have so much excitement, so much
passion that at night sometimes winding down.
Do you have a wind down process?
My wife would say no.
I say yes, she would say no.
My wife loves sleep.
Yeah.
My wife can sleep 8 hours, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.
To me it’s like sleep when you die, so that was one of the first things in our relationship
that was a bit challenging.
Because I’d wanna get up and just go.
I’ll never forget, we were in Fiji and it was like even there we’re supposed to be
on vacation, it’s our home, I jump up at 6 in the morning and she’s like, “Where
the hell are you going?”
“I’ve gotta start my day, run up the mountain, do this.”
She goes, “Get in bed, I’ll show you how to start your day.”
Like, ok, now that’s a better way to start my day.
Totally.
But now what I’ve done is I get in bed with her because she’s, you know, she’s a lady.
If you get up in the middle of the night, “Where are you going?”
“China.
Where do you think I’m going?
It’s three in the morning.
I’m going to the bathroom.”
You know?
So I’ve learned to get my work done in bed beside her and then she goes to sleep.
But I watch silly movies, I watch things to let my brain disappear.
Reading does not slow me down because then I start incorporating and using it and my
mind goes crazy.
I’m underlining everything.
But I’ll watch cartoon type movies like Family Guy or something to knock my brain
out quite frankly, or I’ll watch some silly series, you know, I’m thinking now of the
different ones.
What is it?
Revenge or something of that nature.
Yeah, yeah.
Something that my brain can just truly let go, and that’s how I do it for the most
part.
Awesome.
So, I mean, you’ve worked with presidents, you’ve worked with people like Serena Williams,
and, you know, one of the greatest investors in the world, Paul Tudor Jones.
When you’re called in to work with these incredible folks, how do you start to prepare
yourself?
Like, what are the questions that you ask to start to go in to serve at that level?
Well, they’re different for everybody, obviously, but what I try to do if I was trying to look
at it from a universal perspective, I guess what I really wanna know before I get there
as much as I can is everything I can about the person.
And I do that because I really wanna know what do they want?
What do they want in their life?
What’s their mission?
What are they after?
And what do they fear?
What are their concerns?
Because I believe life is found in the dance between what you desire most and what you
fear most.
And if I know those two edges of a person, I know a lot.
And then I dig under and I try to learn as much as I can from other people about whatever
the challenge may be, and then I go prepare to just learn from the person directly.
But I wanna know as much as I can before I go in there.
Then I take all that I think I know and then I see what’s really real when I meet them.
And I’m digging in to discover what…
what’s the challenge, what do they perceive it is.
And usually, if I were to grossly generalize, if you’re gonna help somebody create a breakthrough,
you really…
it all comes down to 3 areas.
Either they’ve altered their strategy.
We all have strategies, a specific way of succeeding.
Sometimes we alter it, whether it be in sports or whether it be in finance or any other area.
We just… we forget something, we lose a little edge, we drop something out, and then
it becomes a bad habit.
Or sometimes it’s a change in our beliefs.
Like, you know, you may have done something for decades and been really successful, but
now…
I know one gentleman, he’s a good friend of mine, that, you know, had 52 Academy Award
nominations and he said to me one day, he said, “If I make one more frickin’ movie
I’ll kill myself.”
You know?
He’s just like, “I don't want to make a movie, I don't want an Academy Award, I
don't want to do these things.”
You know?
And it’s just like he’s satiated.
And so sometimes when people get satiated they lose their hunger, they shift their beliefs.
When you change a belief, you change your biochemistry.
When you change your belief, you change the way you execute.
You change everything.
And we all develop a story.
And sometimes stories are empowering and sometimes the mental stories are disempowering.
So I’m listening for those, I’m digging for those.
And then I also look at their state, because you can do the same exact action from a place
of being pissed off or from a place of playfulness and the same action is not gonna get you the
same result.
And so I’m looking for that quality of what’s going on in them, and then I look and try
to find out what it was like before.
So Paul Tudor Jones, I went back and I watched videos of him when he was at his best and
I saw what he… how he used his body and the way he moved and I saw him now sitting
still and kind of slumped over and he’d broken his leg and he talked in a different
tempo.
So I look at biochemically what’s happening, physiologically, I look at psychologically
what's going on, and then I look at structurally what they’re doing.
And then I develop a plan to help them get back to where they were and beyond, to a better
performance than they had before.
Incredible.
The other thing that I was fascinated for…
I wanted to ask you so bad, you’ve probably accomplished more than most people do in…
I can’t even…
I don't even know what time frame.
And, of course, you get to talk with people who are at the highest level of their game.
When it comes to productivity, what do the top performers know that a lot of people just
don't?
What are we missing?
Well, I think the best performers are focused on outcomes and not activities.
If you try to manage your to do list, in the world we live in today where most of us have
multiple roles, we’re trying to be a great businessperson, a great husband or wife, great
father, great community member, whatever, there’s just so many roles, you can never
get all of your to do’s done.
And what helped me in my life was I started at one point saying, I’m not gonna let myself
fail every day.
I’m not gonna make a to do list and I’m not gonna not write a list so that I don't
fail.
I need to focus on what matters most.
I need to discuss… organize my life into categories where I say, “These are the most
important outcomes,” and then I know why I’m gonna do it.
If you know what you really want, the target, and you know why, you have the focus and you
have the fuel, then how to get there, there’s so many ways to get there.
And then the most important thing I think that most productive people do is we leverage
what we do.
We don't delegate.
Delegation is I give it to you and then when it doesn't work out, I’m pissed at you.
Leverage is I empower you.
If I’m leverage, I’m still part of that and I’m gonna make sure you succeed.
I’m gonna follow up, I’m gonna make sure before the deadline I touch base with you,
I’m gonna make sure you have the resources to succeed.
But what I do is empower people to go here’s the outcome, here’s the why.
I get you and I aligned with the outcome and the why.
You figure out how you wanna do it, I’m open.
You want to brainstorm with me, I’ll do it.
You’ll probably come up with better ideas than I do.
And when you empower people to come up with their own how and they know what and why,
you can get the job done 100 times faster, especially if you’ve got a group of people.
I’m a big believer that… early in my life I thought I was just such a smart person.
I’m gonna solve all this stuff.
Part of it was being responsible and part of it is ego that we all have inside of ourselves
if we’ve succeeded to a certain extent.
I said, this is bullshit.
You know what?
Instead of one person solving 12 problems, I want 12 people to solve one problem.
And I developed that practice and I began to find that people that many people thought
weren’t gonna contribute had insights nobody else had.
I really got it from Steve Wynn.
Steve Wynn is a dear friend of mine and he’s built, you know, rebuilt Las Vegas, he’s
one of the most brilliant men I know, a multi billionaire, and Steve really learns the most
from the bellmen, from the people that would never make it into the C suite.
He learns what customers are feeling, what they’re experiencing, how to have an impact,
what needs to be changed.
These people are on the front lines.
So I’m a big believer that you need leverage.
And if you’re just starting out in business, I know a lot of people that will probably
be watching your shows are watching you because you’re a successful businesswoman who’s
built your own entrepreneurship, you’ve done so many great things.
I think in the very beginning the hard thing is you think you can only do it yourself and
then there’s only so many hours and you’ve got kids and family and friends and how do
I do it all?
The answer is you hire someone.
You trade with someone.
You trade them for 2 hours.
That’s what I did in the beginning.
Because I remember, I remember, I’ll never forget, I was just really young in my career,
very in the early days, and I was running to get to the dry cleaners so I could get
my only 2 suits because if I didn't get them, you know, then the place closes and I can’t
get on the plane.
And I was running to the airport sweating like crazy, and I’m a sweater anyway.
You and me both.
Sweating like this, trying to get in the door, and it was like, what is wrong with this picture?
I could be doing something that’s so productive and I’m standing in line at the dry cleaning
place.
This is just nuts.
And so I was really…
I was like 17, 18, 19, I don't know what I was, and I said, “I’m gonna hire somebody.”
Two hours a day, that’s what I need to start with.
And then it was 4 hours.
And so my view is I don't do anything that someone else can do better, and I don't do
anything that isn’t the highest and best use of my time.
Now, when I say that, that’s gross generalization.
There are things I still do.
But for the most part, by finding people and getting clear on outcomes on the why, what
I call RPM.
You’ve gotta know the result, you’ve gotta know the purpose, and then you’ve got to
have a massive action plan.
And the plan can change, but that RPM, the stronger the RPMs the faster that car is gonna
move.
And I try to do that not just through myself but through other people.
Beautiful.
So last thing I wanna talk about before we dive into the monster book, which I can’t
wait to get to, is this idea of slumps.
I know a lot of times you’re called in when someone’s, you know, either hit a plateau
or they’re having a tough time.
So two questions.
A lot of folks that write in, they’ll ask me questions or they’ll just comment on
the blog, and they find themselves in a tough spot.
Maybe they’ve experienced a certain level of success and, like you said with your friend
Peter, it’s just like I don't want this anymore.
I don't know what I want next.
Any common patterns or things that you can share about slumps and how we can support
ourselves to get out of them?
Well, most people hit plateaus and the most important thing when you hit a plateau is
not to be pissed off and stressed out about it because stress won't make it better.
It’s also not to take it lightly and go, “Oh my God, this doesn't matter.”
It’s that delicate balance where you say, “Ok, how do I get from where I am to where
I really wanna be?”
And if you don't put the emotional charge on it it’s easier, but that’s hard…
easier to say and harder to do.
The pattern that I see in slumps, whether it be an athlete or, you know, a financial
trader or an actor, any of that nature it is, number one thing that causes a slump usually
is you get too comfortable.
When you start doing something and you’re really successful, a lot of people lose their
hunger.
If you ask me what is the single most important element of any human being that separates
their level of success from the rest of the world, it’s hunger.
It isn’t intelligence, as valuable as that is.
There are people that are incredibly intelligent that can’t fight their way out of a paper
bag.
You show me somebody that’s not only hungry but doesn't lose their hunger, they will dominate
everything.
And you see that in the greatest sports stars, in the greatest entertainers, the ones that
just… it’s… they’re insatiable.
And because of that, you like being around them because there’s this energy about them,
this passion about them, and very few people maintain that.
And you lose your hunger, you go into a slump.
You get overconfident.
Another pattern that happens that gives people a slump is when something changes in their
world that they’re not prepared for like, you know, I’ve been doing this forever and,
oh my God, now my relationship is messed up.
Or, you know, I’ve been working hard at being a lawyer and now my wife’s upset or
husband is upset with me.
What do I got to do here?
And what it does is it throws people off their rhythm.
And so I try to figure out what’s happening in their environment and show them how they
can win in both categories simultaneously.
A third one is when people do something where they get mad at themselves, kinda like a Tiger
Woods, and then they… he’s got all the skill in the world.
Nothing changed in his skill.
But for that year and a half or whatever it was, I mean, he was beating himself up.
You know?
And in that state, it’s kind of a self sabotage.
And so depending on what form I find I enter in and I make the changes and they’re almost
always changes, again, in the psychology of that person, the emotion of that person, because
we’re all… we all… we have these great minds.
Everybody’s got a great mind, or at least available of a great mind.
But we’re emotional creatures and we forget that because we live in a society that tries
to value thought much more than emotion because emotion is scary for us.
Emotion can come really fast.
And so some people try to avoid it at all costs, other people overwhelm by it.
My view is that emotional intelligence is a wonderful thing but I much prefer emotional
fitness.
Intelligence is a capability.
Fitness is a state of readiness.
And what I do is I train myself to always be ready, and that makes you execute.
And I think too many people settle for I know this as opposed to I’m doing this, and I
try to train myself and others to be in that state of readiness all the time because that’s
where life is really fulfilled at the highest level, I think.
I do too.
Agree 100%.
So let’s move on to this monster book, which it is a monster in the best way.
It’s the most beautiful thing.
So do we have a copy that we can kind of bring in?
I just wanna hold this thing up because it is so awesome.
So, Tony, I got the galley from your team, which it’s like… alright, y’all.
You’re seeing it right here.
We’re gonna talk about this right now.
I truly believe in my heart of hearts that every human being needs to get this book,
they need to read it for their family, for their friends, and, most importantly, the
last couple of chapters about service, I was in tears.
I loved every bit of it.
My copy is highlighted cover to cover, I’ve already taken action on a lot that’s in
the book.
Yes.
This is your first book in 20 years.
Yes.
Why this topic?
Why now?
And what makes it different than all the other money books that are out there?
Well, one of the reasons I haven’t written a book is I hate writing.
Just being honest.
I, you know, I’m on a plane about every 4 or 5 days, I go to 15 countries, I see a
quarter of a million people a year.
I love the live event, I love the spontaneity, you know, you get to do something new constantly,
you get to see what’s really going on with a human being.
And writing is an isolated, by yourself process that God bless the people that do that stuff.
But I got pushed over the edge because there’s only a few subjects in life that really affect
the quality of your life.
Right?
There’s your body, there’s clearly your relationships, your emotions, and money is
one of those places.
And I’ve shared with people a lot about this and I grew up with a… in a very tough
environment financially.
We had no money.
There were times, you know, our car was repossessed, there were times we had no food.
So… and it didn't last, but it was one of those places where you had that uncertainty
all the time.
And so when 2008 happened, that’s what pushed me over the edge.
Because when I started seeing so many people losing their homes, losing half of what they’d,
you know, saved for their whole life, and then I kept thinking, well, the government
is gonna do something because this is… this is a raw, horrific situation that’s been
brought about by a small number of people.
By 2010 when nothing had been done I was mad and I was…
I was reading every article, I was watching every documentary, and the final one that
just pushed me over the edge was called Inside Job, I don't know if you saw it.
I have it ordered on Netflix.
Ok, yeah.
It’s a… it’s…
Academy Award…
it won the Academy Award.
Matt Damon did the voiceover.
But what’s amazing is they systematically showed who specifically virtually destroyed
the world economy and then showed that the punishment they got is not only all of us
bailing them out, but they’re put in charge of turning the economy back around and giving
more money to them again.
So at the end of this film, you understand what happened but you have one of two emotional
responses depending upon your personality.
Either you wanna kill somebody you’re so angry, or you’re depressed because there
wasn’t one solution in the whole thing.
It was a beautiful documentary, but not one solution.
And I’m a solution guy so I was like something’s gotta be done.
I know I’m not the only solution, but I have a unique gift.
I have access.
Because most people don't know, they think of me as the motivational, positive thinking
guy, and it’s never what I’ve been.
I’ve been a strategist my whole life and Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 traders
in the history of the world, has been my client for 21 years.
Literally every single day he emails me, I [inaudible] him a variety of things, I see
him face to face.
I’ve been with him side by side from the tech crash in 2000, in 9/11, you know, when
we went through the subprime crisis, 2008, the fall in gold, and he’s made money every
single year for 21 years.
And even beyond me, his firm has made money for 28 years, so it isn’t just me.
It’s Paul.
And I’ve learned from him so much over those decades and I just thought if I didn't just
interview him, what if I interviewed 50 of the most brilliant financial minds that…
in the history of the world.
They’re all alive today.
Let me interview them, let me find out can the average person really still win?
And, if so, how?
Let me get… not some talking head on television telling you the same BS about go put your
money in some 12% [inaudible] mutual fund that’s never existed for 10, 15 years, but
the truth.
And so I began this four year journey and, I mean, I was blown away.
My average interview is scheduled for 45 minutes.
They went 3 hours, some of them 3 and a half hours, one four hours.
And people became incredibly generous in what they shared, and they shared things that they’ve
never shared before and I’ve put them into a 7 step process so that whether you’re
a millennial that just got out of college and you’ve got a bunch of college debt saying,
“How will I ever get around this?”
I’ll show you how to get financially free.
You’re, you know, a baby boomer and you lost a bunch of money in 2008 and you didn't
get back in the market, I’ll show you what you can do.
You’re a very sophisticated investor and you wanna know what [inaudible] does that’s
never been revealed about him?
I’ll show you what he does.
And so I’m real proud of it and, you know, you’ve seen the level of diversement I have
from the highest level of people in finances on the earth.
It’s really pretty extraordinary, it’s because it’s really their work.
It’s not mine.
It’s…
I had so much fun reading it, and honestly I was intimidated by a 600 plus book because
I knew we were doing this interview and I prepare as much as I humanly…
I’m like, alright, I’m gonna speed read but digest everything.
And one of the things in the beginning when you start breaking down the myths.
Yes.
I just kept getting sicker and sicker and sicker…
I know, me too.
...with how much the general public, how much people don't know and how they’re taken
advantage of.
So I wanted to ask you, was there one in particular that just totally pissed you off?
There was a ton.
I know there’s 9 myths in the book.
There’s…
I put the 9 most abusive ones.
Yeah.
I mean, they’re there.
Here’s what I’d say, I want to mention one of the myths though to start with, not
a myth but a step.
I want everybody who’s watching to remember one thing.
The biggest myth you have, not that’s been sold to you, that hurts you is the average
person thinks finance is so complex because, frankly, the industry tries to make it sound
complex.
They use words that you don't know so you don't know what to do.
You know, what does this mean?
And so what happens is we just give them our money and say, “Deal with it,” and we
don't realize that system has been set up.
It’s not an evil system.
It’s set up by corporations that are looking to maximize profit for those corporations.
They’re not looking out for the investor because this investor is second.
And we think we’re first, and we’re not.
So the first piece is you’ve got to know that you’ve got to… you can’t wait until
you have a ton of money to start investing and think, “I’m not an investor.”
What you’ve got to do is say, “Rather than my Apple phone, let me own Apple stock.
Let me own a piece of all of the best companies, not just Apple.
I’ve got to become an owner or I’ll always be in scarcity.”
If you can invest in business, even a small amount, you can grow.
And I don't care how small it is, but you’ve got to automate it.
There’s a gentleman named Theodore Johnson who, he’s amazing, he worked for UPS, started
as a driver, never made more than 14 thousand total in a year.
That was his highest salary in a year.
In his old age he’s worth 70 million dollars.
And how did he do it?
All he did is what I teach you is the first step, is you’ve gotta take a percentage
of what you earn and pretend it’s a tax.
You’re never gonna see that money again, you automate it, it goes straight to the investment
account, and you never see it as money you can spend.
He did that with 20%.
He said, “I can’t save 5.”
Somebody in his family said, “If there was a tax you’d pay it,” and he made it 20%.
When you save 20% and you compound it, numbers are incredible.
So I show people how to do that.
But then the problem is if you do that first step but you don't do the second step, which
is you become an insider.
Yes.
And understand the rules of the game.
Then the old adage is a person with money meets a person with experience, the person
with experience ends up with your money.
That’s how it works.
So what’re…
I’ll give you 2 or 3 of the myths real fast.
One, this myth that someone says, “Give me your money and I’m gonna beat the market.”
It is… it’s just a lie.
Warren Buffett made it clear it’s a lie, Ray Dalio, one of the greatest investors in
history, David Swenson who has taken Yale’s money, a billion dollars, and converted it
into 24 billion in two decades, the greatest institutional investor in the world.
They’ve all said it.
Warren Buffett flat out said today, he said, “Listen, in my will 90% of my money, all
of that money does not go with any mutual fund.
It goes straight into the index.”
What the index is, you get a piece of all of the largest companies in the world but
it costs almost nothing to get in because over any 10 year period of time, 96% of mutual
funds will not even match the market.
Now, you’re paying for a mutual fund.
What this means is you hire someone because you say, “I have a family, I have a business,
I have a life.
I’m not an investor.
I’m gonna hire someone who’s a professional.
It makes sense.
They would do better than me.”
Unfortunately that’s wrong.
Because what happens is 4% of them will beat the market, but it’s not the same 4%.
So your chances of finding the right one… have you ever played Blackjack?
Yes.
So if you play Blackjack, everybody knows, you play for 21.
If you go above 21 you’re gone.
If you get 2 face cards and they’re sitting in front of you and you’ve got a 20 out
of 21, you have the chance to stay or say, “Hit me.”
If they hit you, there’s only one card that’ll get you there, it’s an Ace.
If your inner idiot says, “Hit me,” you have an 8% chance of winning.
You have a 4% chance of finding the right mutual fund.
It’s not gonna happen.
So what happens for people is they think, they’ve been sold, we’re gonna do better,
and they might for a year or two, but what matters you live off the long term.
You don't live off the year or two.
And they just don't do it.
Warren Buffett has a bet right now with Protege Partners, which is a group that does hedge
funds, and he said you can pick 5 hedge funds.
You can mold the best of them together.
I’m gonna own the market, which costs me next to nothing.
You’re gonna get the hedge funds, which cost a lot.
10 year bet, who’s gonna win?
Put up a million bucks.
Right now they’re 6 years into it, Warren Buffett is at 42%, they’re at 12%.
It’s just crazy.
So the second thing is after getting terrible performance, people say, “Well, fees don't
really matter,” or they’ll tell you, “It’s only 1%.”
And I…
I ask people all the time, “How much are you paying?”
And they go, “Uh, I don't know,” or they’ll say 1%.
One percent is called the expense ratio.
That’s like the edge of the sticker price.
If you read that 50 page perspectives in your mutual fund, even one of them is 50 pages,
which you won’t, you’d have a hard time with a PhD figuring it out.
In fact, there’s a man named Hilton Smith I quote in the book who spent two weeks and
he’s got a doctorate as an economist, it took him 2 weeks to go through them all and
figure out there’s 17 different fees and Forbes says the average fee is 3.12.
Now, if you’re watching right now, I’m sure I have lost your brain with all of these
numbers.
Let me make it real for you.
One percent versus 3 percent, big difference.
Huge.
Right?
Here’s the difference.
Just like you grow by compounding, like Theodore Johnson did, your fees also compound.
And people don't know that when they hear that little number.
So if you had 3 people and one gets one percent in fees, two percent, the other three percent,
they all get the same return.
They start out with 100 thousand dollars at 35.
For 30 years they accumulate to 65 years old, 7 percent compounded.
They all get 7 percent.
The only difference is the fees.
And when they go to retire, the person at 1% in fees is gonna have 574 thousand dollars.
100 thousand to 574, not bad.
If they added not another dime, it’d be amazing.
The person at 3% in fees will have 224 thousand dollars.
77% less money.
If you wanna win a race and you have a 100 pound jockey on the back of your horse or
do you want a 300 pound jockey on the back of your horse?
Fees at 3 percent are that.
If I said to you, here’s a deal.
Let’s do an investment and here’s how I want it to work.
You give me the money.
You put up all the money, you put up all the risk.
I’ll put up no money, I’ll put up no risk.
If you lose, I win and if you win, I win.
And if you win, over the life of the time.
I’ll get 60% of what you earn, you’d say, “I’ll never do that in a million years.”
That’s a mutual fund with 3%.
It’s one of the only industries on earth where they’ve confused us enough that we
don't understand overpaying by thousands of percent.
You could own the stock market, the SMP 500, you can own a piece of all 500 big companies,
they’re like the Vanguard 500, and you get the best of all the business.
Apple, Exxon, all these companies.
And it costs you .17.
That means less than 2 tenths of a percent.
If you went with a normal mutual fund you might own the same companies for 3.17.
That’s like buying a Honda Accord for 20 thousand or 350 thousand for the same car.
If you paid 350 thousand and you’re looking at the person next door paid 20 thousand,
you’d go crazy.
That happens every day with finances because people don't know how to look at this.
So when they read the book, that’ll never happen to them again.
Yeah, and this is…
I mean, there’s so much.
I could talk to you forever, and I know your team is like, “Oh my God, we’ve gotta
get him out of here,” but a couple of things before we wrap up.
First, what we discover with the All Season strategy and what you were able to inspire
Ray, one of the… the leader of what, the largest head fund… hedge fund in the world.
It’s absolutely incredible.
He’s an amazing man.
Let me just give it to you really quick.
Ray Dalio is his name.
Ray heads Bridgewater, which is the largest hedge fund in the world.
A hedge fund is where wealthy people often put their money because they can bet up on
the market or down, and be able to do a lot of things as a hedge fund.
And a large hedge fund, a good sized one, might be 15 billion.
Ray’s 160 billion, so he’s 10 times the size.
To give money to Ray 10 years ago you had to have a 5 billion dollar net worth and a
minimum of 100 million on the first day or he wouldn’t even talk to you.
That was 10 years ago.
Now no matter how much money you have he won't do it because he manages money for China,
for countries, for giant pension funds.
So I get a chance to meet Ray and I did 15 hours of prep for that.
You know, just like every…
I wanna be able to pitch and catch with him.
I was very fortunate to find out that he’d listened to my tapes and was a fan of my work
from years before, and so our 45 minutes went close to that 3 hour mark again.
And at the end I said to him, we’re back and forth, back and forth, and he really enjoyed
it and I enjoyed it, obviously.
I learned so much.
I said, “Ray,” I asked this to all these people.
“If you could never give any of your money to your children and all you could give them
was a strategy, a plan, you know, a portfolio that they could not only succeed with but
they wouldn’t have all of the ups and downs that make people get out of the market and
lose.”
I said, “What would it be?”
And he said, “My all weather portfolio.
I’ve already designed it, all of my money is in it, my kids money, all of the money
that I have for contribution to society is in it,” and I said… and he said, “Because
I know I’m not gonna be here forever and I need something that’s gonna work in any
market.”
And he said, “I’ve worked it all the way back to 1925, I’ve tested it, and it makes
money,” and he said, “I did it for myself for years and now I do it for my clients.”
I said, “Explain it to me.”
So he explained it to me and I’d done my homework, I knew a lot about it already.
But at the end I said, “Ok, Ray.
You’ve really explained this brilliant.
You’re showing me why in 2008 people that had half their money in stocks and they thought
they were safe, half of their money in bonds, like everybody tells you a balanced portfolio.
They’ve both lost money.”
He explained why.
He explained how you can avoid that.
But I said, “Ray, you told me everything but the percentages.”
So it’s like bake this perfect chocolate cake and he says, “Bring some chocolate,
bring some sugar, you know, use some dairy products,” but you’re not telling me the
amounts.
I said, “That’s…” he said, “Tony, that’s my secret sauce,” and he gave me
the whole 5 billion, 100 million.
I go, “I know, I know, but you said you haven't taken money in 10 years.
You’re not gonna take any money.
You know the average person can’t do it on their own.
Help the average guy out!”
And I was teasing him, pushing him, and he goes, “Well, it’s complex.”
I said…
“But I’ll simplify.”
He goes, “Well, there’s nothing.”
I said, “Write… design one without leverage.
The average person can do 15 minutes a year.”
He goes, “Well, it wouldn’t be perfect.”
I said, “Your idea of not perfect would be better than anybody else on earth.”
Totally.
So he sits there and he starts scratching this thing out for me, and I’m like feeling
this vibration in my body, it was just incredible.
At the end, it was incredibly generous, we went and tested it, back tested it, so that
means you compare it year by year what it did.
Reality, not hoping what it’d do, but, you know, back testing something for a year or
2 years or 5 years is one thing.
We back tested it 75 years.
The worst and the most volatile times in our history and, interestingly enough, it’s
right 85% of the time it made money and the few times it didn't the average loss was 1.6%.
The largest loss in 75 years was less than 4%.
Minus 3.5.
And that was 2008 when the market from top to bottom was down 51%.
And that’s the most in loss in 75 years and the average return is just under 10%.
And this is something… a bunch of my friends were like, “Bake this into a business, dude.
This is, like, incredible.”
And I was like, “You know what?
I’d love to do that, but this was given in the spirit of free to anybody.”
Yes.
So it’s there.
Somebody can go to the library and get my book and they can just copy the thing down.
But it’s… it's available to any human being and anybody can put it there.
Now, that’s not the only strategy there.
I have David Winston's strategies, I have all the best.
Tons.
But his strategy is the smoothest ride.
Because the biggest challenge, if you look at the last 30 years or 20 years, 1993 to
2003, the average investor in mutual funds…
well, the market did 9.2% per year, really nice, on average.
The average mutual fund investor did 2.5%, and that’s before taxes.
You’re gonna double your money every 36 years doing something like that.
It’s just…
Getting killed.
...it's not gonna happen.
No.
You’re getting killed.
Ok.
As we wrap.
So you’re not earning a dime off of this book.
No.
So tell us all about your passion for making a difference and what happens each and every
time someone purchases a copy of this incredible thing, which everyone needs to get.
Thank you.
I'm really proud.
It didn't start out that great, frankly, but I was writing the book and as I mentioned,
you know, I was a kid, we had Thanksgiving, no money and no food and somebody came to
the door, knocked on the door, delivered this food, and it was life changing for me because
it wasn’t the food, it was that my father had always said, “Nobody cares about anybody
else.”
You know, he built that belief system into us.
And then I saw that strangers really care.
And so I swore some day I’d do something to give back, so when I was 17 I fed two families.
The next year 4 families, the next 8, and I didn't tell anybody but after the third,
4th year I was like, “I could use some help.”
So I got my friends involved and my companies, and then it built to a million people and
then 2 million people.
In the last 4 or 5 years I’ve been matching the 2 million my foundation does personally
with another 2 million, so we feed 4 million people a year.
But while I was writing this, Congress last year passed a new budget that nobody seemed
to pay attention to where they cut food stamps… they don't call it food stamps anymore, but
it’s food stamps, by 8.7 billion.
Basically limiting 2 million people from having food.
And so I work with all these nonprofit organizations that are already struggling, and I… it just
made me crazy and I thought, “Ok, what if I…”
I’m working my ass off with this book but, you know what, I can…
I can donate all the profits.
Not a percentage.
And then I thought, “What if I donate it all in advance?
Whether I make money on the book, it doesn't matter.
I’m gonna do it in advance.
How many people could I feed?” and it was 10 million.
And I was like, “Wow.”
That excited me.
And it just grew a life of its own.
As time went by I started thinking, “How can I really get people’s attention about
it?”
And so I finally decided that I’m gonna feed 50 million, I’m writing the check,
actually, next week.
Personally I’m gonna feed 50 million people upfront and in addition to that I’m working
with Feeding America, they’re the best hunger relief organization in the United States.
And they’re gonna partner with me to get matching funds so we can feed 100 million
people.
And it’s just exciting.
I’ve fed 42 million people in my life, I’m gonna feed more people this year, and… so
for anybody who gets a book, you know, if I sell a million books, 50 meals for every
person that’s there.
If I sell 100 books it’ll be 500 thousand meals.
But it doesn't matter, I’ve done it up front.
And I’m…
I’m…
I’m not doing it because I’m a good guy, I’m just paying it forward.
I… people forget what a little bit of caring can do for, you know, to inspire or to move
somebody.
And I don't even know to this day who fed my family that day, but if they're out there,
if they’re still alive, I hope they see and hear this story and know what’s going
on.
My guess is they’ve passed because I’ve shared this story many times and no one’s
volunteered to share what it is.
But that person made a giant difference.
It wasn’t just feeding, it was caring, and that’s what I think changes people’s lives.
I think that’s the thing that I so admire about you.
I’ve been to so many of your events, I will continue to be a supporter, a fan, a friend.
Thank you.
I think you’re one of the most incredible human beings in the world and your heart and
your soul shows through in everything that you do.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for being here.
I appreciate it.
And for everybody, you have got to get your hands on this book.
We’re gonna have links below, we’re gonna be tweeting and sharing about it.
It will change your life, the life of your family, and, like I said, at the end there’s
a beautiful piece about why it’s so important for all of us to make a difference.
Tony, thank you so much.
I love you.
Thank you for having me on, it’s so beautiful to see you again.
Thank you.
Now Tony and I would love to hear from you.
What’s the single biggest insight that you’re taking away from today’s episode?
And, more importantly, what’s the biggest action you’re gonna take as a result of
all of this goodness?
Now, as always, the best conversations happen after the episode over at MarieForleo.com,
so go there and leave a comment now.
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