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- [Presenter] Lesson one, decisions determine your destiny,
not your conditions.
Decisions are a tool that can change your life.
The minute you make a new decision you set in motion
a new course, effect, direction,
and destination for your life.
You literally begin to change you life
the moment you make a new decision.
But remember, if there is no action,
then you haven't truly decided.
The quality of our lives is based on our decisions.
So let's learn how to make them.
The five elements that make up a decision are
beliefs, rules, values, references, and emotional states.
We're going to talk about these now.
This brings us to lesson two.
Beliefs of events shape our lives,
not the events themselves.
Beliefs are a feeling of certainty about something.
If I get my dream job it's my belief about it
that will shape my life, not the job itself.
A dream job means nothing without the belief
that it enables me to support myself by doing what I love.
Most of our beliefs are generalisations about our past
based on our interpretations of painful
and pleasurable experiences.
To change a belief, link pain to the old one,
and pleasure to the new one.
To help you understand this, let's look at an example.
Tony doesn't drink alcohol.
He believes alcohol brings him more pain than pleasure.
He reinforced this belief by drinking so much
that he felt horribly sick and vomited everywhere.
He hasn't drank since.
I can resonate with Tony's story.
It is very rare that I drink enough
to the point of feeling sick,
because I have linked massive pain with this
through past experiences of drinking too much.
I find it much more pleasurable having a few drinks
than feeling sick, having your friends clean up your vomit,
and suffering from a hangover next morning.
So if you want to give up alcohol,
for legal reasons I'm not going to suggest
that you get blind drunk until you feel like dying,
but it's something to think about.
Alternative ways to link pain to drinking
is to go to a seminar and learn about
the negative effects of alcohol consumption.
You should also link pleasure to giving up alcohol
by keeping track of the money you save,
and embracing your family and friends
positive response to giving up.
The more experiences you have,
the more potential there is for changing beliefs.
But if you want to believe you can become a millionaire,
how do you gain those experiences in the first place?
Well, Tony Robins advise is you read books,
and learn from the experiences of mentors.
Although your own experiences will have
a bigger impact on your beliefs,
reading about someone else's experiences
that led them to become a millionaire
will reinforce the belief that you too
can become a millionaire.
Lesson number three, create rules that make it easy
for you to feel pleasure and hard to feel pain.
A rule is a type of belief that describes
what has to happen in order for us to feel good.
We all have rules.
For example, I have a rule that I'll only
feel productive on a day if I've read a book,
watched an educational YouTube video,
or put effort into creating these videos.
Now that we know what rules are,
how do we take advantage of them?
The key is to create rules for ourselves
that will make us feel great,
and aren't determined by events outside of our control.
Having rules that are reliant on being fulfilled
by external influences will set you up for disappointment.
In my opinion, a bad rule is to expect appreciation
to allow you to feel good every time you help someone.
The reality is that not everyone
will thank you for your efforts.
It's human nature.
A much more empowering rule would be to expect
to feel good by knowing you've helped someone out,
even if they don't thank you.
If you donate blood and nobody thanks you
create a rule that allows you to feel great
about the fact that you've saved three lives,
rather than only allowing yourself
to feel good after being appreciated.
If you're longing for happiness what are your rules
for what has to happen to make you feel good?
Tony's big claim is that nothing has to happen
for you to feel happy.
You could feel happy right now for absolutely no reason.
Think about it.
If you make a million dollars,
the million dollars doesn't give you any pleasure.
It's your rule that says when I hit this mark,
then I'll give myself permission to feel good.
So just change your rules.
The moment you decide to feel good
you send a message to your brain
to change your responses in the muscles of your face,
chest, and body to change your breathing,
and to change your biochemistry within your nervous system
that causes you to feel the sensations you call pleasure.
This rule doesn't rely on outside events,
just changing your own thoughts,
which makes it a rule where it's easy to feel pleasure
and hard to feel pain.
Create more of these rules,
and you'll make massive improvements in your life.
The fourth lesson is your values determine
the quality of your decisions.
The direction of our lives is controlled by our values.
For long-term happiness we must live by our highest ideals.
We can't do this if we don't know what our values are.
Every decision is guided by our values.
So if you don't know what they are, prepare for pain.
Anytime you have difficulty making an important decision
it's because you are not clear about your values.
Let's have a look at how Jolie's values
affected her big decision
to become a performer at Disneyland.
Initially, she was thrilled to be working at Disneyland.
Her schedule, however, was extremely demanding.
It required hourly commutes in rush hour traffic,
several hours of rehearsals,
and she had to get up very early.
This became tiring.
The worst part is it cut into her personal life
and prevented her from spending time
with her family and friends.
She began to cry and complain.
One morning, she'd had enough.
Disneyland became painful for her.
Why?
She could no longer spend time
with all those she loved most.
She also felt being a trainer,
which she was before she went to Disneyland,
helped her to grow more than anything else in her life.
She didn't feel like she was growing at Disney.
So Tony asked her what her values were.
She said they were love,
health,
growth,
and accomplishment.
He then asked her what's important about
working at Disneyland?
She said she was originally excited
and saw it as an opportunity to make new friends,
receive recognition for her work, have fun,
and experience a sense of accomplishment.
At this point, she said she wasn't feeling accomplished,
healthy, or like she was growing anymore.
Tony said, "If you left Disneyland, spent time at home,
"and then went to Hawaii, what would that give you?"
She immediately brightened up.
"I could have some time with my boyfriend.
"I'd feel free again.
"I could start exercising and get my body back in shape.
"I could find other ways to grow and achieve.
"I'd be so happy."
Before she started working at Disney
she was fulfilling her top three values.
Love, health, and growth.
By going to Disney she aimed to work
on her fourth value, accomplishment.
However, by in so doing, she missed out
on fulfilling her top three values.
This is a common experience
where you'll have to realise that we must
accomplish our highest values first.
So identify your values.
Ask yourself what is most important to you in life.
Write down 10 values and order them by their importance.
Some examples are passion, freedom,
family, and friends.
You can also have 10 values you want to avoid.
They could be emotions like humiliation,
frustration, depression, and anger.
List these in order of which ones
you'd like to avoid most.
So for ultimate success make sure to live by your values
everyday no matter what.
There are two more important elements you need to know
and how you can use your master system
to make great decisions.
You can learn more in part two of this video.
I'll see you there.
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