It’s always been a dream of mine to attend one of Tony Robbins’ seminars.
This weekend, he is live in Germany, holding his “Unleash the Power Within” event - which was high on my list, but since my wife is 38 weeks pregnant, I could not take on the risk of not being here for the birth of my son.
So I invited my friend Frederic - also one of the best coaches I know and the most influential person after Robbins on my own coaching philosophy - to my home, and we’re watching it virtually. Wife and another friend joined too, with big screen and speaker, and a dream finally came true.
Why Tony?
Call him the best marketer on earth, he remains a master of human dynamics. He simplifies psychology and makes it action-oriented.
My favorite video of him:
On 9/11, he was holding the same seminar in Hawaii. One participant was a muslim who actually celebrated the terror attack, praising it as retribution.
Since the day was about emotional mastery, Tony kept that day and made everyone understand that our emotions - fear, anger, love, hope - are all patterns triggered at the occurence of certain events.
And that we can overcome it.
So he invites the person on stage, along-side a jew who had connections in the Twin Towers. Over a few hours, he made them go through different exercises of states, beliefs, empathy, and ended up having these two men not only hug and love each other, but creating a foundation for peace for Israel and Palestine.
I can’t watch this video enough. It’s mastery of emotional and human mastery at its finest. Highly recommend:
We’re now 12h into the first day.
And it reminded me of all the truths I had come up for myself long time ago but stopped bringing to my daily consciousness.
Here they are:
Your emotional state dictates your decision.
If you’re in a low state, your decision will be mediocre. If you’re in anger or frustration, you’ll make stronger decisions, but often not beneficial for the long-term. You got to be in a good emotional state: joy, courage, pride, excitement, gratefulness - this will lead you to the highest results in your life (and also remember these moments).
If you want change, make the pain of not changing higher than the pain of changing.
Know where you’re at in life. If you’re still in your thirties or fourteens, you’re still figuring out who you are at your core. There is no point of judging yourself for still not haven’t “figured it out”.
You got to measure your energy levels if you want to change them.
For myself: I’m going to set an hourly reminder to check in on how I feel. If I’m lost in sadness, frustration, anger - it’s time to get out of it.
Wherever your focus goes, your energy flows.
There are three things that influence your emotions: your physical state - which you can change by standing up, putting yourself in a cold shower, jumping, smiling; what you put your focus on - e.g. what you have vs. what you want, what you can vs. can’t control, past vs. present vs. future; and the meaning you give to a situation - is this against you or serving you.
If you want to be in a great energy, you got to train it.
The guy is 67 years old. He got 2h of sleep last night because of body problems. His vocal chords are broken. And yet he stands there for 10 hours, talking non-stop. Why? Because to get this 10/10 energy level, he trained like an athlete, every day: power moves, body-mind associations, pushing his energy levels even when his mind wanted the opposite. And you got to celebrate.
As a leader, your key ability is to influence emotions, thoughts and feelings - of yourself and others.
And it starts by being able to influence your own.
“Stress is the achiever word for fear.”
Loved this one.
Our brain is not here to make us happy. That is our job.
For myself, I already have certain practices in place: gratefulness practice as soon as I wake up and before going to sleep, daily diary, meditation. I will now add a special (custom-made) visualisation meditation and physical move exercises to my routine.
The quality of your life is the quality of your daily emotions.
It’s where you live emotionally. If you experience loneliness, sadness, tiredness, boredom, or anger as your daily emotions, it doesn’t matter what you have in your physical world - your experience of life will be shallow and not a place where you want to be in.
Achievement without fulfillment means nothing.
You can reach all your goals but if none of these journeys give you fulfillment, you’ll remain dead inside.
Pain is part of life but suffering is an option.
You don’t experience life. You experience the life you focus on. Suffering is only happening when you focus on yourself.
These are my key learnings and reminders of today.
And, we finished the day breaking our wood board.
Like karate-kid. Just that we broke through our own beliefs.
It’s been fun. And energizing.
Hope some of it inspires and helps.
Have a great Friday,
Gui