The Recessing Podcast with Yours Truly. Jeezy is a production of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. This is Jeezy, Grammy nominated Urban philosopher, philanthropists and entrepreneur, and this is my show, The Recessing Podcast. For years, I used my music to highlight the struggles and issues facing this country the economy, politics, protests, mental health and more. And now strong voices are more important than ever before. On this show, I will speak the powerful people from all walks of life to have real conversations about change, perseverance, and hope. In each episode will feature a sample of a song from my new album, The Recession Too. So, without further ado, let's begin The Recessing Podcast. Let's get it. Today's so was a conversation with life and business strategist Tony Robbins, one of my favorites. He's a New York Times best selling author and a personal inspiration to me. The rocks with him. This man came up and found success and started off with literally nothing, rags the richest my type of story. Tony said his success is based on determination, mindset, and faith. All of those ideas were an inspiration in my new song The Kingdom, I gotta give him my heart. I gotta give my soul. You gotta put through the pain, gotta stay in control. And they want me to fold. They want me to bring let me get in the streets nothing. Give me my faith, Timmy, What could I trust? Timmy? What's still I feel? Cann't see him, my cup, cann't see him my tears. Get him into my little little girl on the drums. Know how school diploma they think that I'm doing. Here's our conversation with Tony Robbins. Let's get it the Recessing Podcast. I want to give me a charge. They want to give me a case to call me and figure fight to my face. They call me and then they call me and killer. Welcome to the Recession Podcast. And basically I did this. This is my first episode. This is something to um, you know, put light on the new project that we'll be dropping and uh oh eight. I wrote my first Recession project and it was probably one of my best records to date because I had a lot of the energy to pull from from the people and just what was going on in the world. And and fast forward to the day, it's the same thing, and uh it's just you know, It's just a pleasure to talk to you about these things. So so welcome to the Recession Podcast for sure. For sure. So so my first thing is just without just digging deep off the rip, It's just like I listened to your podcast all the time when I'm in the gym. I read a few your books. Um, you know, I watched a lot of your moves. And you know, my thing is like, how did this Tony Robbins uh mindset? Like how did this start? Like I remember listening to something we talked about. You was going through something and you was um on the highway and I think he was in your car and you pour it over and you started crying, and you just like, you know what I gotta really, you know, bring this together. And I just want to know how to that mindset start because I know how I started for me. But I would love to hear I want to hear yours too afterwards. If you have to give me the time, I'd love to hear. Absolutely, I love this to be exchanged. Listen. I just I've always loved people. Man, I just have this like when when I was a little kid and I was like five years old, I want a little brother more than anything. And we lived in a real poor part of Carson in Central l A, South central, and we moved around a lot, and so I was completely isolated. And there was just like eighty five year old woman next door, and I used to call her every day, a young lady to come over the fence and talk to me. I just love the light people up and I hate suffering. I got enough of my own suffering. I grew up in her pretty tough environment. You know, we were always had no money for food. One of the reasons I feed up. You know, a hundred million meals a year every year in the United States. I've been doing it now for five and a half years, six years, and we had over half a billion people. It's not because I'm a good guys, because I know what it feels like to not have food and so um. The environment was tough. I had four different fathers, um a lot of violence. My mom was a beautiful woman, great soul. I wouldn't be who I'm without her. You know, she since passed. But when she drank and she used the prescription drugs, the mixture made her crazy. And I was a little guy, and she would slam my head against the wall until I bled, or she'd pour a liquid soaked down my throat to make me throw up because she thought I was lying about something I wasn't lying, and kind of messes with your head when the person you loved the most is trying to hurt you. And one night she chased me out of the house with a carving knife, and I knew she wasn't gonna kill me, but I wasn't going back in that house. So I went slept. I wentn't slept on a mountain, and then it rained, and so the next thing I knew is I went to a friend's house and said, could I could I stay in your laundry room. And my my process had already started before this, because when I was seventeen, I worked for a man and just trying to make money going to school. I have trying to help support my family as in high school. And this man was, you know, my mom was familiar with him, and my dad was talking to Scott used to be such a loser and now he's so successful, and he wanted so to come work. He was buying and selling real estate, you know, at the peak in Orange County, California, at the time in the seventies, and so I went to go move stuff, you know, and work my ass off. And he's like, man, you really you got some hustling you man? He goes, yeah, you you can really go someplace. I don't see anybody works that hard. And I said, well, you know, if you mind, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, you know, sitting at you know, just a little break, And I said, I told him, I said, my dad said you used to be such a loser, and you're so successful and can say this ship right. And the guy said your dad said what And I said yeah, and he said, well, he's probably right. I wasn't a bit of a lousion. I said, what what turned you around? He goes, I went to this seminar and I never even heard the word seminar. And he goes, you know a man who spent twenty thirty years of life and he built himself to be really successful. He comes and teaches you in like three or four hours the best nobody's learned in decades, and save your decade. I was like, wow, that sounds interesting. Could you get me in? And he said yeah, And then he just paused and I said, well, will you and he said no, and I said why not? He said, you won't value if you don't pay for it. I said, trust me, man, I'm at forty bucks a week is a janitor. How much is this thing? And he said thirty five dollars to be like you know Twitter Bucks today And I said, thirty five dollars that's a week's hey, brother, I said, I can't do that. It goes Okay, we learn on your own. It'll take you a few decades and maybe you'll never learn fully up to you and he just kind of challenged me. And so I made this decision. I was like, okay, I've been leading already. Like I hated all the pain that I went through. I hated the pain that you know, I saw my friends go through. And so I didn't have any role models of success in business or life. And I was this little fat kid, believe it or not. And so the first thing I did is I wrote these books and how to lose weight and get fit. And I did like, all of a sudden, all these girls are coming to me, and so all my buddies like, that's how my career started. I started right, and then all of a sudden now, but toime home, and I still read all these books, and I'm and I'm really you know, I took a reading speed reading classes. I want read a book a day, and I didn't do that. But over seven years, I read seven hundred books. Hear of human development, psychology, physiology, and what I really tried to do is apply it. So I went to this seminar. I took a week's pay and I listened to this this guys talking. I was like finishing his sentences, and at the end, I said, man, I want to come work for you, and the guys like young man. He goes, uh, he goes, well, why don't you just apply? I said, well, I understand you got to go to all your courses and they're like fift bucks. You know'd be like, you know, ten thousand dollars today. It's in nineteen seventy seven, and I said, I don't have the kind of money. I got kicked out of my house and work as a janitor. I'm still going to high school. But man, loan me the money and then I'll succeed and I'll pay the money back. And then my story man right, And he goes, I'm not your banker brother. He said, you decide, if you're the kind of person who wants to survive, you won't be there. If your person wants to succeed, you'll find a way to get the money. So I went to bank after bank after bank. Jeez, I mean it was just I got so good at no when they're gonna say no. It's like when I walked in the room, right, and I looked young anyway, and I'll never forget. I walked in this room and I see this woman and she looked persuadable. It's my fifth bank I've been turned down by. And I went in and I just convinced her that I was gonna make this thing happen. And she's like, well, you see your application, and she goes, well wait a second. She goes Citrus Avenue. The bank was on this giant avenue, Citrus seven and goes to like five cities. It's outside of the east of l A. And she said, I didn't know there any apartments on Citrus, So have Annyway so I kind of have a mobile home. And not just said, you know, I'm sleeping in my car Denny's or seven eleven, Butter gave you seven eleven and I talked to the mail man, and you'll let me come get the mail as long as i'm there neon each day. And I promise you like freaking out right. And then she you're seventeen years old, and said, well, what does that matter? She goes, well, contract requires you be eighteen right to have a contract. And I said how I said, I said I could be eighteen soon and she said I was in it said a week when now was my first thing. She goes, okay, and then she does, I don't think the bank's go on your money, so you send it to A seven eleven and send you the bill. And I was like, man, you understand I don't want this money I want. I don't want it, so I can, you know, fix my car going to vacable. I want to change people's lives. And she laughed the gail off and that was a good sign. And she finally said listen. She goes, well that kind of intensity, you're dead serious. She goes, I think you're gonna do something good. But she said I wanted to be good, so she said, I'll tell you what I want to do. She said, I'm gonna talk to the bank manager and she said, if you swear to me that I won't have to come find you and you pay these on time. She said, I will coach sign if I have to to get you through. And a woman changed my life so she didn't have to do it. They yeah, a lot of us. I mean it took twelve bucks, which my car was twelve hundred bucks. And I went to those one weekend, some of her for twelve hundred bucks. But like you know, some people there, it was easy. And I met a guy there named Mike Keys is still one of my dearest friends forty plus years later, and you know, he barely had enough money, but he had he let me stay in his room so I didn't sleep in the car. And then, you know, thirty years later I went to well, you know, five years later, three years and I want to work for Jim Ronda became the top guy in this company. And then I broke off and started my own companies and it just grew. But Jeron has is the guy that had the role who had played on me. He was like the role model from me. Brother. He was like, I said, you know, I got four fathers and we can't afford food. You know, we know, have food for Thanksgiving? I said, the good men, how come? And he taught me the most important, one of the most important lessons in my life. He said, you know, Tony, we're all equal as souls, but we're not equal in the marketplace. Both of your brothers have figured out like I did. You gotta find a way to add more value to other people. If you do more for other people and whatever category you wanted than anybody else, and you keep doing that and you keep improving, sooner or later you become the dominant force in anything. He said. Look, and you go to work for McDonald's. There's nothing wrong with that. But he said, Tony, there's not a lot of added value. You can learn the basic job in twenty minutes. And he said, but you look at this Heaps Fund guy, and you say, that guy just made three billion dollars and income and you need You say, that's so unfair. He said, but he gave at return instead of a three percent return. That guy literally doubled the money as the foundations and individuals, So he's worth it. You have to work harder on yourself than your job. You have to become more valuable, and you have to become completely focused and obsessed on adding value. Had change my life. Brother, I had a McDonald's job. By the way, just so you know, Janitor, I got flipped burgers for about a week. I was on fries and I made it to buns and I was like, you know what, I can't I gotta go figure my life out. And there's so many things you have as titles like Life Business Strategies, number one New York's Times best selling author, Entrepreneur, Philanthropists. And when I hit these things, they just excite me. They're they're they're intriguing because I've always been one of those people. Where we come from, it's like we always put in the box you can only be one thing. You can either be a great father, a great brother, uh, you know, a great student, and and that's that. But to see you have such a wide range of things and maintain you know, your integrity about it. And I know that you have to be um spiritual in some way. What I always liked about your your teachings and the way you went about things. You don't really base it on religion, Like you kind of is personable. Is there is there a reason like why you go about it? That way. Well, I see myself really as a trojan horseman. It's like always my thought, it's like, um, I give people what they want, so I get a chance to get what they need, so they may come to make more money. Give them what they want so that I have the privilege to give them what they need. And so for example, they might tell to me, you know, they want to they want to grow their business, they want to increase their income, they want to move up in their business, they want to be in a place where they have a better relationship. They want to lose fifty pounds. Right. People come for different reasons. And if what I learned is if I can deliver what they want and get what they need. What they need is a meaningful life. What they need is a life that's about something more than themselves. You know, markin Luther King said you know a man or you could say today, a person who hasn't found something and they're willing to die for isn't fit to live. It's pretty strong words. But I really believe in my soul that what changes people is when you find something to serve more than yourself. That's where all the energy comes from. That's where the passion. Whether that's when everybody else is gone and you keep going, it's because you know something that's meaningful in your life. And most of us think we're here to get, but really what lights us up is giving. So you know that experience who transforms that. The story you were mentioning was, I was working through this guy, Jim Rohne. I went to work for him, and I did really well in the beginning, and then, you know, like any business, I got comfortable, made some mistakes, and I found myself like completely broke. I'm driving back to this place in Orange County, California, down the fifty seven freeway. It's men, I'm exhausted. I don't have any money for food, and I'm like so frustrated because I was working super hard. But you know, in a business, if you weren't producing enough, if you don't, you don't get paid. And so sure enough, I kept saying, God like, what is this, what's in the way, and I I pulled it on the side of the road. I still have today. I kept these hard down journals. In those days. I wrote a full page that said the secret to living is giving, and I just I stepped and cried and I cried because I realized in the beginning was about giving, but that I was focused on what I wasn't getting, And then I was letting when I wasn't getting, getting the way of my ability to serve. And so I got my ship together for a while and started well, and I made some mistakes again, and then what really finally kicking over the edge was you know, I'm I'm personally a Christian, but I don't tell people what to believe spiritual ever. I think whatever you believe, it should be your gift to do GiB your personal experience with God, not someone else telling you how should be done. And it's like, you know the old story the four blind men coming up to an elephant and the metaphors the elephant is God, and one touches you know, the nostril here, you know, and the guy is like, oh, describes this is God, and the other guy gets the tailor like Got's bigger than what we can describe, probably and just words, right, And so I don't tell people what to do in that or what I try to do is be a model of someone who's loving and kind to me. If if the name for God and all the religions the world where people kill each other because trains that to to love. You know, no one kill each other, right, And so for me, what I looked at is a few A few months later, I know, six months later, I peeked again and dropped. I moved in this corn At Square put bachelor apartment in Venice, California, when Venice was really a terrible place and and I and I went broke. I mean I literally went broke. I came to the point where I had, I know, twenty three bucks in my pocket. I hadn't paid you know, my electric bill, hadn't paid my rent and I so that morning I got up and I was like to have to be pragmatics, like, Okay, I'm gonna go to an all you can eat salad bar and load up for the winter. I need to burn some calories here. And I can't drive my are it's about three miles. I decided to go to a really nice area called Marina del Rey. It's on the water, and there's very familiar. It's one of my So there's an al Tredo that used to be there right on the water, and I thought, I'm gonna go sit there and watch the yachts go by, and think about how I'm gonna create an amazing life. I'm gonna get inspired because I'm so depressed. So I walked in from that far, like three miles, but I didn't want to spend the money on parking, so I go in. I'll never get changed my whole life. I sit down and it was, you know, taco bar. So I'm loading up carbs. I'm like loading for the winter. Door opens, and this beautiful woman walked in. I could not not notice, and so I waited to see. I was a single man, you know, is there a guy whether or not? And sure enough there was. And he was this little tiny guy who wearing a three piece suit, was a child. It's obviously her son. And he held the door for her. And then I'll never forget he like held up the chair, and then when he was in conversation, he was like so with his mom. And I don't know what it was. I don't know, something from my past or something, but it just moved me. And so, uh, you know a lot of people say, you know, you know, yeah, give money when you're rich, you'll be great. But I've always tell people, if you won't give a diame out of a dollar. You're not gonna give ten million out of a hundred million, or hun a million out of a billion. It just doesn't work that way. If you do it now, your life will change. So you know, at that time, I'm thinking, I look at this boy, and and so I go pay the bill, and I don't have like nineteen dollars and some change left over after pans like five bucks for the meal, and I have no plan. And I walked by this kid, and I decided to introduce myself. I didn't look at the woman. It wasn't about that. I shook his hand. I said, sir, I said, I said, you're a class act. I said, I saw you hold the door for your lady. I saw you pulled out the chair. I saw you've been right here with her completely. I said, that's pretty amazing. He goes, well, she's my mom. I said, well, that's even more cool. And I said, taking her lunch like this, that's very cool of He goes, I'm not taking her lunch and goes, I don't have a job. You know, I'm nine, right, And I said, well, Charles, I said, I don't care. You are taking her lunch and I have any planners. You reached in my pocket. I took all of me out in this world nineteen months. Haven't paid my rent, I haven't paid my electrical and I dumped it all in front of this kid and his eyes got really big, like garbage can't covers. And he looked at me and he goes, I can't accept that. I said, yes you can. He said, I'll come. I said, because I'm bigger than you are. And he laughed. And I didn't even look at the lady. And I walked out and I swart of god, jeezy, I you know they're I realized I didn't have a car out there, right, and I looked like some stupid white guys skipping along. I was so like some idiot, right. And I got back home and I have no money, no food. I went to sleep in the happiest state ever been in my life. I woke up the next morning and those days we have the snail mail, right, not email, and it's all bills, bills, bills, and there's this little note and I had no idea. I'm gonna eat today, I'm gonna pay for anything. I mean, but I'm still happy. I just did it. Was the craziest thing. I'd always lived in scarcity, and there was no scarcity in me. I opened this envelope and it's from the sky. I loaned a thousand dollars to like two years before, when I barely have the money, but I know he needed it. And I've been riding him, calling him for like four months, and he never turned my calls and say he wrote this apology letter and gave me twelve for being so generous with him a tough time, and that twe enough to take care of me for a month then, and so I just I just sat there and cried my eyes out, and I was like, Okay, Lord, why why is this happening? You know, I don't know really why, but I decided that that happened that day because you know, I did what was right. I didn't do it for attention. I didn't do it for stars in the chart. I just did what was right. And when I had nothing, I gave. And I gotta tell you, brother, I haven't had a day since that time. In my life. I've had rough times. I've got seventy four companies, and in the early days I almost went bankrupt with several I fortunately didn't go bankrupt, but almost. And I found the way to turn things around. But I never went back to that place of living in Scarcy. I always tell people, you don't get me on scares, so you gotta start me on it. It's something you do inside your head, inside your heart, and you do it by action. You don't do it by words. You know, to buy reading stuff. So for me not to cut you off, I loved that twelve twelve hundred dollars almost for you to go to the seminar and then you had twelve hundred dollars that you got the change and put your life back on track. You know, So you got You gotta many people I never know, definitely. And my magic, my magic numbers thirty five hundred dollars. So my mother, when you asked my mom story, my mother, she um, we was we was living in this trailer. It was about you know, it's is a one bedroom trailer is out on this this country road. Uh. The trailer was thirty five hundred dollars. I'll never forget. And I went out and I hustled this money up for months and months. And I had a choice because at that time I was kind of hanging out, going to clubs and being with my friends, and I was slight man like it would just make me feel that much better to know my mother can have a good night's sleep. And keep in mind, this is only thirty five hundred dollars um and I gave it to my mom to pay a trail off, and she paid it off, and I just never and I never forget that feeling, because you know, I didn't do all the right things to get the money, but I used the money for the right things. And I remember that was one of the points where I knew what my cause was and and to to help people no matter what. And that sent me on my road to being the man I am today because I always put people first. And I didn't realize it at the time, but it's just like I just had this thing called empathy, and I think that's what you know, we have in common. And when I watched you speak and I watch the things you do, I'm like, he's he empathizes with people, like he sees where he can add value to people. And it's just like myself, Like that twelve hundred, When you say twelve hundred, that's so significant because when I think about thirty days, I'm going, like, man, that that money changed my life. Like I gave that money to my mother, um, and and that was the first home I bought her, and actually after that, I bought her several more homes. But I just remember myself saying, you know, I gotta make sure my mom's good first, and then I just kind of spired over into other people in my family and even friends, you know, even friends and even this, even this Tony, Like, to me, this is so real because like I said, I love you know what you bring, and I love how you add value to people. And and just to be able to give my culture this and left them hear from somebody who had because we all think our struggle was real. Like I thought my yeah, I thought my struggle was real until I went to Jamaica, and I thought my struggle was real in time went to Africa, and I'm like, yo, it's people really in this world that are living in you know, ten houses and in the streets and watching watching their clothes and sewer water, and you think your story is so real. So just to hear somebody else's perspective and and see where they come from, my thing is like, how do you find inner peace and inspiration, imbalance and all these things that are going on in the world today. Well, I think, first of all, I want to just come in what you just said because it's so true. If there's one thing missing today in our country, it's compassion. I mean, the only only good thing that you can call it good. Nothing's good out of it. But George Floyd is seeing people of all colors, all races, all areas come together in tier together. You know, you can just feel when it's real right. It's not it's not positioning, it's not like right and check to somebody, try and cover your ass. It's just like people really feeling. That's the only good that I can see has come out of that situation. And hopefully more good is going to come out of it now. But we need that kind of compassion. But to me, the way that you find pieces like it's putting things in perspective's exactly what you just said. You know, I go to hunt last year, not this year because they shed it really down. But I went to a hundred and sixteen countries last year, right, und sixteen cities, sixteen countries, some two or three times, and so that's a typical year for me. I see a quarter of a million people, and so the I get so much feedback because I've been doing this for forty three years with you know, hundreds of millions of people. That's like I can't walk down the street very much. I'm sure like you. But people come up to me and saying, you change my life. It's the number one thing they say. I was wresting you, I was gotten. You change your life when I'm glad I got health, right, that's what I get, That's what I How can you ever be down or depressed when you feel like the life made a difference. I can wake up with you that now. But then the other part, though, is having a daily set of rituals to keep your head straight because like you know, like COVID right, like I care at a level no bullshit. I mean, you send who I am or you would have called me out of here. But it's like you can't fake that for twelve fourteen hours a day, four or five, six, seven days in a row with an audience a ten a fifteen thousand people that would normally not sit for a three hour movie, right, or you know, maybe a three hour concert at best, and I'm gonna take them twelve fourteen hours a day and have them love it for three or four or five or six or seven days. You can't do that. You can't think you have to give so much that everybody there gets that you're truly there to serve them. You're not there for any purpose but to serve them. So in order to do that, though, you're gotta keep your own heads straight. So like when COVID happened, I give you a perfect example. It's like, I'm human, man. I was like, are you kidding? Somebody called me up and said, like, three days in the beginning of March, I was doing a big event in San Francisco for you know, twelve thousand and five people, and that's gonna be incredible four days and nights, you know, And somebody called me up and says, aren't you gonna cancel it? And what are you talking about? Last year, I had mercury poisoning and they put me in a hospital, I lost a quarter in my blood supply, and I got back on stage in a wheelchair a day later to finish the damn event. And that's how committed I am. Right, And I said there's no way. And then you know, the government canceled us in San Francisco and then in Moscow, and then in London, and then in Amsterdam and then in Sydney, Australia, and I'm like, I need a give right now, but people need this and I'm stuck it. So it's like, okay, we'll move locations. That didn't work. Every everything city or state kept shutting down. And then it was like, okay, I'm gonna do this in movie theaters years ago I do it. I'll do like a hundred movie theaters with you know, five hundred people, six hundred people in each, and do a small one five thousand people. And then they shut movie theaters down. And then I'm gonna do I have a uh, you know, a virtual reality company. I just sold the Apple and I was like, I'll use our virtual reality. But the battery power couldn't do twelve hours a day, you know. And I said, the one thing I'll never do, I'm never gonna do this in people's homes, whether they don't get the crowd, they don't get you know, imagine going to a concert and it's in your home instead of surrounded by tens of thousands of people. But I got there's no choice, and so I went to these stages and I want to acknowledge them for the people at home or listening. Man. We all when we go through loss, whether it's death, loss of a job, loss and the opportunity, loss of a relationship, we all go through stages. And some people get stuck in a stage. And that's why their pain or their hurt or their sadness and the depression or their rage keeps growing. And so the first one is shocked when they tell me this is like a death, like, what are you talking about? You're gonna cancel make what I do for a living illegal, as I only do to ten people. I mean, that's not who I amen. And then it's after the shock, this is impossible. Then there's usually frustration or anger like how could this happen? This is just nuts. We're gonna lock up two thirds of the planet, you know, and tell them to stay at home. It's never happened in history, healthy people staying, oh, this is the nuts. And then and then then then you go to bargaining right like okay, well you know, God, if I do this, will you do that? Or bargaining business people, and then gradually you eventually have to get to a point where you accept things. Not you accept it's right or it's fair, or it's just you just accept that it's there. And acceptance is usually how people complete that feeling of sadness or hurt or loss. But I say, there's a new step you need, you need now create. And so for me, this whole experience came down to me saying there's gonna be a way to do in people' sothing. So here's what I did. I looked around for new references. I try to get around where it's better. And I said, I'm not doing some freaking grandpa's webinar. I gotta make this like a live event, like going like it's like you know, you know, it's people like pat Riley if you're familiar, or you know, one of the owners of Climbing Pass for thirty years. And that came first time the game to videgoes Tony, this is like the seventh game an NBA championship, but it's not two or three hours, it's like twelve, you know. And so I'm gonna create that. So I sat down with this group and I laid it down. I go here's what I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do this in a different way. And I said, we're gonna do forte ceilings and go by building. I'm gonna six ft high by fifty ft wide degree retina screens like your iPhone, and do another hand degrees behind me. And I'm gonna call the guys at Zoom. I'm gonna hire six companies and integrated. I'm gonna do this in nine weeks. They told me to take nine months. I said, in nine weeks, we're gonna do an event for thirty thousand people around the world. First I did one for three for seven days for four thousand people. I'm gonna do that again, by the way, in January, I'm gonna do it for a million people. Anybody who wants to watch all give me an address and then come for seven days and atten virtually. But I built this place so that now I got zoomed to go from a thousand to ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, so I'm able to literally to wrap in people's homes and it's so intimate you see them with their children. And I took this hormful experience and now you know, honestly, I lost almost a hundred million dollars this last year in business. But fortunately I'm doing all right. But I found in spite of all that, how to deliver for people. And now that business is growing again because I figured out how to pivot. I figured how to change things. But that's because I didn't just stay pissed, didn't stay just negotiating. I didn't just settle for acceptances like create. If there's anything I'm about, I think you are too. It's about creating. We create emotions, new experiences. That's what makes life rich. The word the word um if I could use any word for this pandemic. It's made me become more innovative. Yes, it makes you think. That's why we're here. Like I'm just like you. I have to reach more people. I have to understand how to do things that are outside. I had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I had to I had to find other outlets because even for me being a touring artist, being a performers, so many other things that I want to do. Uh, And this gave me time to do it. And it also gave me time to have insight. Like I listened to yourself, John Maxwell, He's different people every day and I'm just like, how you putting connecting these dots and and I'm watching it with the culture as well. A lot of a lot of us are doing things that we've never done before, all because we have the time and we're able to put our minds to it. But that concept you're talking about, I mean, I'm just want to be the first artist to go ahead and say if I can talk to you about on the sidebar about using that for some type of Yeah, I do, I do of mine in Freend of Money. He came by about two weeks ago. He's come by tomorrow because we're gonna do something, Braham. He wants to do it so we can see everybody because he and he watched around. Yes, yes, I definitely want that. I definitely want to be a part of that. So we'll talk together. Um. So, so with all these things going on, like what what haven't you achieved? Did you want to achieve? Because for myself, I want to, you know, create more value at all times, and then I also want to break the molde Like for myself, it's like just coming from where I came from. I just think our our cookie cutter mode is okay, you you become successful. You you you're successful, you become rich, and you become famous, and then you do all these other things that are inside the box. My things are always, you know, push the envelope. My things that always do things that um inspire me, but more so you know that give other people inspiration. And it's not easy sometime because you know, like you said, when you're doing these things, everybody is not gonna believe. Because I remember standing on the block, you know, in my neighborhood growing up, and I was like, yeah, I'm really gonna be something. I'm really gonna and they would look at me be like you're crazy. I'm like, I'm really gonna live here and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna I'm gonna achieve this, and it was just like, there's no way you can do it. And when I go back home to visit and I see these same faces and they just look at me like in disbelief, like I just can't believe you did all the things that you said you was gonna do. And every morning I get up, I still have that same mindset, Like I still have that same mindset to keep achieving, not for the uh, the accoladies that come with with more so for myself because that's who I am. And it was a point in my life where I really realized when I was speaking with my auntie and she always told me I was street smart, and I used to be like, okay, and what does that mean? But then I just started seeing things happen um as I went on a life like say, be times where all the odds were against me. You know, I go through my emotions and I feel the way I feel, and you know, I don't play the victim, but I go through my emotions and and I'm like, you know what, I could do this, And it's like it's like a It's like a muscle once you exercise it and you get it healthy, and it's just like now I don't even ask why me no more? I like try me. You know. With life, it's just like whatever you got, I'm gonna take it because I've been through the worst. And my thing is like how do you keep that mindset? Like how do you how do you like right now with all these companies you've got going on, all these things, and and one would say, give me two of the companies and I'm and I'm good. I mean, by the way, and I didn't lose a hundred million dollars in the pandemic, So I feel for your brother, Like I'm like, you know what I'm saying, Like, damn, I'm not I'm not from I'm not complained. I but I'm like, whoa, it's a long way from the Ford McDonald's. And you know what I committed this year, This is my biggest year of contribution. I committed twenty five million dollars because I do. Uh, you know, you asked me some things that I have not completed. Like I decided that I wanted to feed a billion people in ten years. I decided that five and a half years ago. How do you keep up with those numbers? Well? What it is? It started like I was writing this book and it's like it was a financial book. It's like, I'm lucky enough to not need the money from this book. Let me donate all this money in the book. And I was fed, and I've already done feeding programs, and I'm like, what if I fed? How many people have fed in my life? And this was eight years ago, it's not six years ago. And I've had found out I've fed forty two million people. I was really proud of me, Like what if I fied that Milly in a year? And I was like, what if I fled a hundred million? That was what if I fled a billion people? Because I think what happens for most people. They don't get goals that are big enough to excite them, or they make them so big that it seems impossible. At this stage of my life, a billion meals something I was to get my mind to grow to. And now you know, we're five and a half years and what should hit seven hundred million meals by the end of this year. So I'm gonna we're gonna do it less than ten years. But this same year I committed millions, so ten million of those guys because there's so many people about food right now that they're hurting more than usual. So I doubled up there here. But I do a hundred million people meals a year every year, and then I'm working on a project to feed a billion people sustainably. I've gone on missions to help save kids that are being trafficked and they you know, some of these kids are six seven years old old, like just literally at my house. Um a week ago, I started this group called Underground Railroad and they're all people that they're former CIA, FBI Sealed Team six guys, and they've given up their jobs, gone private and they're going all over the world and busting these pedophiles and helping local governments forgot to do it. So they were just been Haiti. They rescued these eleven girls in Venezuela, who you know, they got socialism there, so they got recruited to go to the Dominican Republic, supposedly working hotels. They drugged them, took them to Haiti, stripped them, raped them, and then daily tied to a bed doing this. So we freed them. And I've been on these trips, so I said, I want to free people. This was just the next ten and then the guy who was supposed to have the plane the police that were corrupted trying to get our guys and the girls back. So I sent my plane in the first place these girls landed, first time they had freedom. These are college kids from Venezuela, all of them, the eleven of them told I guess and came here for their first moments of freedom. So that kind of stuff just like juices me. So they yeah, they came here to meet me first, and then we sent them to Washington seat and then we center to Utah and we're bringing their kids back into the country. But so you know, I went to India. I see kids dying of water born disease is so easy to salce. And now I provide a quarter million people a day with fresh water. So all these things, It's like, I got to a stage of my life and brother, you probably will too where it's like ship, I've I've gone beyond it all. It's not about getting. It's like Jim Rowne used to teach me, Tony, it's not what you get that's gonna make you happy. Who you become that's gonna make you really happy or really sad. So I was like, really, Apple, I've become, But like, what else do I reach for? And then I started saying, I'm gonna do these huge goals. I'm gonna you know, I'm worried about the environment. I'm planning a hundred million trees. I've planted seventy million now and I'm gonna get to land a million. So I have all these goals to push me so it's hard not to be inspired when you're constantly learning and growing just like you are. Right, I got so many dear friends around the world who say I'm their coach, but I'm not dumb enough to just coach them. I'm learning from them. And then on how up in all these people, and I'm getting a feedback, and I got my own family, and then I'm a athlete, and so all those things combined. But what I do believe in everybody needs a daily practice because in the middle of all this crazy stuff, I had to get my own head together, obviously, and you need to do some things that will keep you there. So one of things I do every single day, you know, I pray and I meditate. But I never was a meditating but I built this way of meditating. It's not about trying to make your mind not think of anything. And if any of your anyone your listeners of viewers want to go there, they can go to Tony Robams dot com forwards Last Priming and there's a video and they'll take them through it. It's just ten minutes a day. If you don't got ten minutes for yourself, you don't have a life. And all it is is training your brain to wire itself for gratitude, for contribution, and for action. In other words, most people have a highway to stress in a dirt road to happiness. Like literally, whatever pathway you go on in your brain over and over again, you get wired. You're wired to be piste off or wired to be worried, but you can wire yourself for passionate or growth or contribution or playfulness or whatever you want to do. And so every morning I get up and I do this ten minute process, and it's like three minutes of these things that I'm grateful for that I think and see and feel. Because gratitude, as corny as it sounds, it destroys the two things that f up everybody's life, fear and anger. You can't be grateful and angry simultaneously, it's the solution. And you can't be fearful and grateful simultaneously. They totally and And so now your brain gets wired to be gratefully, wired to appreciate people and things in life. Because because I have a daily practice, I don't wake up saying, oh my god, what a perfect day. I'm doing a seminar this weekend in my stadium in my Zoom stadium, and it's for Europe, so I have to get up at one am. I usually go to bed at four or five. I'm a night person, and I gotta be on stage by four am and then go from four am to six pm, and then come back and go to bed again at eight or nine and do it again for four days in a row. So you better be inspired, you better have a system. So I do this attitude, then I do this creation process, and in ten minutes, my nervous system is ready to rock and roll. And it's not fake and phony. It's not a pump up. It's the real thing. I also believe every day you gotta do something to push yourself. In fact, let me give you a real fast I'll give you five quick things that I did when I was chased out of my house with the knife, and then I did during COVID. I went right back to with the night by your mom. That's right, you know, I told you. I sleep on the mountain and I'm in this person's you know, washroom and im and I'm feeling bad and I'm trying to figure out what to do. And it's Christmas time. Was Christmas seven, which chased me out, so it's pretty rough time. And so I took a little bit of cash out of my pocket again fifteen eighteen bucks in those days, and I got on the bus and I went to this bookstore and I bought a book called The Magic of Believing by Claude in Bristol, and it was all about how to program your mind. And then that started me. Man. I just consuming book after book after book. And then I started doing audio tapes. And I'm old enough remember when there was know YouTube and you gotta buy this ship and it was like six casts was three hundred bucks with a little workbook, and I take four weeks of five weeks of pay and go down and listen and immerse my mind and by feeding it, so I believe you should be five things every day. One you gotta feed and strengthen your mind in the middle of COVID. Baby, this has the time to do it. You're doing it right now, right, that's what you're doing. You're like and and it's so easy today because it's all over the web and it doesn't even costume and you've got six so you gotta but you gotta not feed it with what comes to your phone. You know, we're not talking about clickbait here. We're talking about a book that's gonna cheat your philosophy or strategy, or a skill that's gonna make you better, stronger, or let you help other people. That's what's gonna change your life. And so Jim Rone used to say to me, said, Tony, every day you gotta stand guard at the door of your mind. That's what do you mean. I'll never forget. He paused for a moment. He said, listen. He said, what happens if your worst enemy drop sugar in your coffee? Nothing? I get sweet coffee. He says, what happens you if your best and your mom, your dad, a friend, family member, by accident drops one drop a strict nine in your coffee. I said, I'll be dead because that's right, lifeless sugar and strict nine. So what's your coffee? Because the bash comes in if you're not there, right, He goes, You gotta you gotta pay attention. You gotta drill it. And he said, and the way to do that also is read thirty minutes a day. Missing meal, don't miss reading thirty minutes. And I'm old enough. I used to go to the literally to the library to do this and read autobiographies, because as you read someone else's word, especially in autobiography where they wrote it, you think their thoughts. Do you think their thoughts, you start changing the way you are. I mean, we all know thoughts lead to emotions, emotions that will lead to action or lack their out. And so that's the first thing. Feed and strength in your mind. You gotta challenge it. Second, you gotta feed and strinth in your body every day. I mean, if you don't do that, the mind and body are together. It's like if you ever feel fear, and that's what stops people, all right, we all know it. You're a failure. Fear of rejection, if you're not looking good at all, the fears right, if you're getting hurt. But the trickler matter is fear is physical, Like you know, if you're really fear, if you can hear it in your throat or your gut. Right. But courage and courage doesn't mean there's no fear. It doesn't take courage if you're not afraid. If you're the only way you get courages, you're afraid and you do it anyway. That's what courage is. And it's a habit, and so you learn to train your body do that. So I go on a sprint, or I go lift some weights, or I and all my homes, unfortunately multiple homes around the world. Because I travel so much, I have these cold plunges. And today I'm here in Palm Beach, Florida. It was starving, the wind was going sideways with rain, and I go out there in the first hant in the morning is jumping fifty six degree water. And I don't do that because I like it. I do it. Number you call it cold, cold, cold plunge. Yeah, I'd take I'd take coach house, by the way. That's much. That's a good one. Could you explain, just because because I want them to hear why you take these cold splurges in these coach howers. I want to understand. The reason. I first is it moves loves the blood through every organ in your body. Because you are or every you know that the pure temperature change shoot your limbs. So it's incredibly valuable for help. But the main reason I do it is not just that. The main reason is to train my brain. When I say go, we go, I never walk up and go I'm cold. Maybe in a minute, let me make thirty seconds, let me go tomorrow. That happened in negotiating yourself is why most people failed to achieve their dreams. So I train my brain. You jump, you jump, and I do it every morning. It's the first thing. And there's never been a morning I was like, I can't wait to jump in that freezing water. Never, So that one of the mistakes people make is they go like, I don't feel strong enough. You had, I don't feel good. Screw that ship. Yeah, don't you feel do it? You keep doing it and then you'll feel it. You don't wait till you feel it. Do you wait to feel it? You mean, never feel that way, right, But if you do it, that changes the game. So I have these daily disciplines. Third thing, real fast is you got to find yourself a great role model. And today you may not have access them directly. Because of the web. You can study anybody you want to study. They got blogs, they got backgrounds, they got videos. Right, So in those days it was harder, but I would study people, and so I grew up so poor. I saw I was never gonna have that happen in my family, and I wanted to not just take care of my family, but what I'm doing today take care of families all in the world. And so there was my burning desire. So I got to figure this out. So I looked around at saucer. John Templeton was this man who started with nothing. He was no sir, came the richest, you know, a first billionaire investor, international investor, and he made money when things were the worst, like right now. His whole thing, would you make all your money at times of maximum pessimism. When things are going great, people think it's gonna go great forever, and if you try to buy their stock or their home, they want more than it's worth. But when things are going bad, they think it's gonna go bad forever, and they'll sell it to you really cheap. And so he could give a billionaire by investing twenty thous dollars in the stock market in nine nine when Hitler was taking over the world and everybody's scared. Five years later the markets jumped. Within ten years, he was a billionaire. So I studied him and eventually, believe it or not, I was thirty nine. I interviewed him, and I interviewed in three weeks before he died in two thousand and eight. So he became a role mong for me. Not a perfect role mong, no one's perfect, but he showed me pathways to do well. Fourth gonna wrap this up is you gotta take massive action. People wait till they have a perfect plan. You gotta try something and then iterate, iterate, try something else if it doesn't work. Change. It's like always say to people, how long would you give your average kid to learn how to walk before you shut him off? And what, dude, you're not a walker? Right? You go, you crazy? My kid's gonna keep trying until they get there, right, And so you you you take action, keep changing and then find me give more than you expect to receive. Like when you have nothing, is the time to go get go work, Go give you your broke, go to the homeless shelter and go take a lunch or two in a week and go feed some people, because, like you said, brother, what it does. It's like I hear so many people say America such a crappy place. They haven't been anywhere else. You know, less than fifteen percent of Americans even have a passport, so they don't know what It's like all they hear is what they hear media, the news or at school. But you travel this world and you really start to appreciate what you have. And if even within this country, if you go help somebody that's worse off than you are, suddenly your brain realizes you're lucky and it kicks you in a gear and gives you momentum. So those are five little keys that I do on ongoing basis in my life to just keep getting better and better and better. Well, had I had three, I had three? Or oh so so I'm close. Help me your three. Um, I definitely help where I can about you. I help, I help, I help more, and I just you know, my grandmother she raised me, so it was always do one to others as you want to be done. But I just found myself, um, always going out of my way and by the way, isn't that? Isn't that the beautiful part of religion. Religion can be used to manipulate, and you know people are going to manipulate whatever. People are gonna kill people over the name religion. But it's core. All religions are really about love my brother like myself, right, That's all we did. The game changes, right, that's all that you really needed. And your mom slow, I saw you did the choice for tots in the hood piece. Yeah. Yes, I have Street Dreams Foundation, which I have inner city kids. I've had it h for maybe fifteen years now, and it started before I started music. It started when when I was in the neighborhood and I used to tell the guys out there, like, you know, man, you guys are hanging out late, making noise. You know, all kind of uh things are going on these kids and see, and I'm just like, you know, we're making money, So why don't you give me five hundred, You give me a thousand, you give me this, you give me that. And what I did was took all the money and uh when it got the local gymnasium and when it bought all these toys and you hauls and then called all the parents and have them bring the kids through and grab like bikes and toys and all that stuff. And also it's taught it's off the neighborhood because you know one thing about where we're from. If you're in the position of power, you you consider the leader in in some sense. And I think that just showing these individuals that you can use your the ship in different ways. To me, was you know, empowering for myself because these are things that my grandmother taught me that I was able to teach to the people that we're teaching me things in the streets. But I'm like, but you know you can still be this is your this is your ecosystem. You have to be good to these people because they're gonna protect you and they're gonna mix sure you straight and we all know how the game goes, but you know these are people and we have to take care of them. Listen, man, I like to donate five bikes for Christmas for you. I love it. I love it. That's what I'm talking. Here's my request. Use it as matching funds. Brother, So can you tell me offline here? Just let me know what the cost is. I'll do myself, but matching funds. Everything I try to do, I try to double it up. So I'll still give you the money regardless. But if you can go to your group and say I gotta I got someone who's well, if we do a hundred, he'll match, I'll give you the fardless, but let's do that together. I certainly appreciate in in in the in the city kids will too. So how do you continue? You But I want to hear one of my things. I can interrupt you one of the other two that yeah, yeah, so one is giving back, two is overcoming fear. One thing that I learned, um, and I've been taking these colch hours later, and it was the craziest thing ever because I'm just like holding and I just got so good at it. But coming up, I would always like put myself in positions where there was no retreat. It's almost like you burn you burn the bridge, you burn the boat, and you can't go back. You have to take the island. And yeah. So and I always put myself in those positions. And I'm a thinker, so so I think my way through things. I think, you know, what's the next step, what do I do if this goes left? And I just kind of put fear to the back burner because I always understood that, you know, I don't make good decisions and fear just a feeling. So you don't make good decisions. Um, when you let your mind controct, because it's like when you let fear control you, is you're letting outside things outside of your body control the way that you're you know, thinking of maneuvering. And I learned early not to do so, and to be honest with you, Tony, and kept me out of a lot of bad situations and kept me alive and and and kept me from, you know, even giving up on myself at times where I knew that, you know, this might not work out for me, but I stay strong and I stay solid, and I kept it pushing that that you and I are, so you're not so aligned. It silly. And it's like I always tell people, decision made from fear is always the wrong decision, always always, And you know, it's not everybody's fault. Like, it's not like we're not courageous because all that have something that'll trigger us, right, I don't care how strong you are, but it's what you do when you get triggered that really matters. Man. It's like you all have a two million year old brain. That's how old this thing is, and it's been It's not wired to make you happy, it's wired to make you survive. So it's always looking for what could go wrong so you can fight it or flight from it or freeze and so that's wired in us. But we used to be wired so that, you know, we could deal with a saber tooth said that, yeah, that way social media or how much money we have and all that bullshit. It's not truly survival in those situations, but our emotions respond that way. And when you learn the carker that, brother, that's why you are who you aren't. Yes, you know, coming from where we come from, we didn't know about morning routines and rituals and things to get you on balance. Yeah, so once I once I figured my morning routine out and understand that, I read this book it's called America Morning, and it really, um, it really took it to another level for me. But I always had a morning routine and I get up, I would think I would write things out. And this is as a youngster, and as I got older, I just started to see how that actually helped me and put me um in a position. And even like, because my grandmother raised me a certain way and I was grateful for a lot of things, and I understood how to respect people. Even though you know, I was rough around the edges, I was able to get into a lot of different rooms and get different perspectives on life. So I was able to sit into rooms where you know, people like myself, meaning like just coming straight from the streets. We wouldn't typically invited in those rooms. But my mannerism was so good and I understood how to deal with people that they would volunteer information and then I would take that information and put it either in my music or tell it to my peers or my friends. Which was why I was able to write the first Recession Um because I was in those rooms. I was actually sitting around different politicians, different city officials, just different lawyers and people in the city that made things happen. And I was just like I heard the word recessing, and I'm like, Okay, what is this? And then when I put it, and a lot of people don't even know what the word recessing meant, and I had to go make it make sense and um and and and here we are again. But I learned to be grateful for for for who I am, because I know that if if if God didn't want me to be here, he wouldn't have gave me the opportunities and the chances that I had. Because it's been so many times where it could have been overtoning, like you know, I don't. I don't know when you heard about me, because I know when I heard about you. But you probably wouldn't have heard about me if these things would have happened. And but I'm here and I get up every morning, and I'm just grateful for that, you know, I'm humble for did I have a chance to be great every morning. I have a chance to do better than idea yesterday. And I have all my limbs, and I have people around me, and people actually care about what I have to say. Without gratitude, Man, you could be worth a billion dollars. I did fifty billionaires, uh, you know, start within fifty finely, all self made, right, nobody from the Lucky Sperm club. And it's like Doug in their brains to figure out what they do. I really learned a lot, and I became good friends with a lot of them, like Great Dalio and Walter Jones have been a friend for twenty five years. Some of the top financial traders in the history of the world. Right. But you know, it's interesting, out of the fifty, there's probably five that are happy. And it's don't matter how much money they got. Man, because I say, money doesn't change you, it makes you more of what you are. If you're mean, you've got more to be mean with. If you're loving, I'm more loving with and and some of these people are so incredible success in achievement, but they're not successful inside. And so my whole goal was to make sure that you have both and you got that, but huge role obviously with your grandma. I'm sorry to ask. I'm sorry for my ignorance and no, no, she passed, but but she left me um with a lot like she and she didn't never you know, it's crazy. She used to tell me all the time. She's like, boy, you're gonna go to jail, and you're gonna be in jail and this, that and the other. And I swear to you everything that she told me, I was going to jail about change my life, all the hard times I've been through, all the risk that I took, and I just remember her saying that, Like I was like, I can't let my grandmother down. So everything that I learned, I have to take it and make it a positive, have to take it and make it a plus. And even though I came into game, you know, just on a a page of you know, just ignorance and a lot of different things, because I was coming from a place, you know, as as a as a black man, when you felt like it was just you against the world. And then you get there and you're like, oh, hold on, people actually care what I got to say. And I have some good stuff in me too, so let me just start sprinkling that. And as I got better with that, I just feel like I'm making her proud every day because she didn't get a chance to see and everything that she thought was gonna get me in trouble actually saved my life. Because if I didn't have this, I wouldn't have a story. I couldn't even tell people about any hard times, uh, anything they went through. But what I want to ask you was, how do you because I know what I'm working on and and and it goes through evolution for me just to um keep evolving and evolving my message, But how do you continue to just reiterate your your your message and keep it going after all these years. It's because you know, there's never not a new challenge. It's like, you know, I work in a hundred countries and I see everything. You know, somebody stands up in the middle events. I don't know if any of your viewers have ever seen that. There's a Netflix documentary called Tony Robbins. I'm not your girul, because that's not what I mean. Yes, yes, and you know I even lost the suicide and knock on Wood and you know, thirty by forty years year and never lost one. And I've done thousands and we've been follow up years later. And that film is another example, like four suicides. You know it's been five years, you fall back and see where things are. But the capacity to know how to create and the capacity to deal with new challenges is what makes it happen. Like you're looking at the culture right now and you're saying, how do I bring my music to help people? Right? That's you're You're an inspiring You're not just writing music, right, music it gives you a you know, I always saying, motive does matter. If you're motive, just take care of yourself. There's nothing wrong with that because you're part of life and life supports life, so it's gonna give you insights. I got married when I was twenty four to a woman twelve years my senior been married twice before me kids from both husbands. I adopted them as my own. So you gotta imagine this, Jeezy, I'm twenty four and I got a seventeen year old son and eleven year old five year old. Yeah, at that time, it's like crazy. Man. I'm sixty now and I got a fifty free year old son in a forty three year old son, and you know so, but what that did is it make me had to grow in a different way, Like to help these kids and all these stages, I grew in a different way. It's like, if your goal is to help, you know your community, you're gonna give a different level of insight. If your whole, if you're trying to help humanity and it's not bullshit, it's not what you tell the people your soul, you know what's true, then you're gonna get a different level of insight. So I've had these experiences over the years where I'm standing on stage and somebody stands up and they're suicidal. They're gonna they've tried twice and they got the pill and they're gonna do it now. I gotta do it right now, or then I got a guy that you know, made a half a billion dollars and he's depressed because you know board, you know, and then you got a couple that wants to kill each other. And so how could I not grow when I'm stepping in the middle of insanity all the time, and every time it's different, right, So it's like a piece of art, you know. So I don't need to be inspired that way. And then the other thing is, I'm just inspired by people like yourself. The reason I want to do this is, you know, I made it the same stuff. I was white trash and no one's gonna listen to me or no more for food. But it's like overcome that, not by being an egotistical asshole, but by like learning and growing and serving. And if you keep learning, growing, serving and you serve more and more, you build a brand. You build a brand, you have no difficulty having impact in the world we are today, especially with social media where now you can spread your message around the world. So I'm so happy you're doing these podcasts now, and I'm gratefully let me be part of this. First learn, learning, living, and serving. You got a brother, okay in there, and some growing and some givings, so passionate gracious and really generous giving as well as what really makes it all work. I remember hearing this story that that I was so intrigued by. It was saying that this guy went to this this um event. He went to a seminar and he was there and he said, um, he was there for about twenty minutes. Somebody told him about it. He should have been there. He was just like, all right, I'm gonna check it out. And he said he went and he got there, he started feeling uncomfortable. He wanted to leave, and he said he was talking to individuals, uh called guy taller than him and he's like, hey, man, no, Tony's coming on. He's gonna be great. Man. He's gonna be worth your time and you should stay and and you should, uh, you know, just check this out. And he said he wanted to leave, and he thought about it, and he said, you know what our stay since you said so, and um, he said, Tony would be on in a minute, and he said he went to the stage and sat down, and when it came on, it was you and you was Tony and you had told the stay. It wasn't very famous at that time. Actually, the day I was twenty four years old, and it was the day my first book, Unlimited Power came out, so a few people knew who I was. And his name is Joseph mcclennen. He's my dear friend of this day. In fact, he speaks for me. Now. We wrote, we took I'm Limited Power and wrote rewrote it with black stories twenty years ago, I'm Living Power, Black Choice. He's African Americans and and we wrote wrote that book together so we could change the stories to inspire people because I'm a white guy and we could all be inspired by any story. We've been friends for a thirty since that time and helped people around the world. Set up to Joseph, what would the what would this Tony two? Younger Tony, I would say, um, stress less, enjoy more, because it's all gonna be beautiful. Brother. You know, your level of work ethic, your level of caring, your level of passion, and your unrelenting, fucking commitment to serve will bring such beauty to the world, to your friends, to your family, and to yourself. So I probably would have enjoyed a little more along the way. Today I do enjoy it massively, but I'll be honest. It's like I'm seven days a week twenty for us to day. I gotta save everybody every time, making my poor life exhausted travel on the earth. COVID has had its other gifts too, which is I haven't been in one place like this, you know, for since I was seventeen, you know, and so I've had more time with my family. But I haven't shrunk my reach. I've expanded my reach just using new technology to do it. I just I just want to take this time to tell you tony like, and this is not for nothing, man like. Know. I built my career, I built my family's lives. I built our well being, our generation or wealth off of believing. And and even when I got the times where I tried to do new endeavors and I'm just like, okay, they're not gonna really let me in this. I can't really barge my way in. It's not like the streets. It is not like just hustling and I think, you know, wising up and get smarter and understand strategy and just try other ways. And one thing that I want to say, it just I just remember at times when um I even thought like man like, I'm not gonna be to pull this off. And I can just hear you in my head from those podcasts and try something else, try it again, try to keep trying to. And I just want to tell you, just coming from the person that built this brand in this life off of thug motivation, that you know you you you inspire many of us, brother, and I appreciate you taking the time to be the first guest on the Recessing podcast. And I just can't wait for my people in my coach to get a whiff of what I've been, you know, here to witness you know this, This is the real thing for me. But I'm really grateful that I could share. And I just listen, man, I'm just uh, you strip off the skin and there's no difference from any of us. It's just people's bullshit. It's just in their heads. And we all know you're gonna countries where it's all white or all black, and they set people separate. They're so damn tribal. But that's that's the fear part of us, the spirit part of us, regardless of religion, the soulful part of us knows we're brothers and sisters, man, and just we need that empathy and also calling it tight when it's bullshit, calling it bullshit, but still keeping the empathy. I think that's how we bring things together. It's not gonna be easy, there's lots of work to be done, but I think guys like yourself, you're showing the way. You're showing people what's really possible. And I'm I'm grateful for you. And uh, you know, sometimes I wish it was black so that people could feel them different place. But you know that's what Princy Jones. Princy Jones has got a dear, dear friend of mine, and you know he calls me his ghetto brother and my wife and ghetto sister. One day, sister, he goes Tony, he goes your d N. A man, your DNA, And I said, kid, what are you talking? He goes, damn near Africa. I like that. That's that's what you got. You got some more brothers here than us. Man, were always here for your brother. Anything we could do. Man, let me offer you one last thing if I made just for your audience, If it's okay, I like to one more seed is something that might be helpful. When I had this experience when I was a kid, we had no money for food, and it was Thanksgiving on the eleven. That's what started all this for me and beeding people and so forth. It's like somebody fed my family and my not not to cut you up, I could tell you this story would go ahead. And what I'm saying is I know it. I just want people to know that when I'm eleven and like we're not gonna have any food, we're gonna start we are crackers and buttery and that ship, and we wouldn't have a Thanksgiving dinner. This guy comes to the door with these you know, I knocked, knocks on the door, tall guy bags of food, you know, turkey on the ground, you know, And it goes to your father here and I'm like, no problem. So I've run to get my Daddy's yelling up my mom. My mom's doing him saying stuff you can never take back in a really horrible stuff. And my dad got mad. He's like, we don't take charity, and a long story short, eventually took the food slam the door. Didn't thank the guy. I was stunned because I was like, there's food, and now what a concept. This is really cool? And I couldn't figure it out, and then my father left about two weeks later, never to be seen for another five years. It was the one was dearest to me. The reason I tell you a story is trying to figure that out. I realized one day that there's three decisions we all make, and I just want to share it with your audience because I just think it's simple. You know, you can work for years to try to simplify something so you can act on it. Always tell people complexity is the enemy of execution. The more complex you make it, you make yourself feel smart, but you don't do anything right. There's three decisions we all make, and I just want your audience check see if it's through YouTube. First decision is what are you gonna focus on? Like right now, most of these three decisions are made unconsciously, so you keep doing the same ship, getting the same life. But if you get come conscious of these three things, you can change everything in your life. So the first one is what do you focus on? Because whatever you focus on, you're gonna feel if you focus on this person is taking advantage of you, even if they're not, You're gonna color it, You're gonna see it that way, you're gonna feel that way. You're supposed to meet somebody for dinner at seven and they don't show up. If in the past you focus on your mind you're screwing around with somebody else, you're gonna be pissed. If you think they're in a car accident, you're gonna be, you know, worried about them. So what we focus on is the single most important decision of our life, and most of us we don't focus on. We love machines, do it. What's happening. The way people are being manipulated today is mind boggling, and it starts with your focus. So learning how to control your focus is everything. So the three decisions you've got to decide what to focus on. Are you gonna focus on what's right or what's wrong? Are you gonna focus on the blood that's rushing through your left ear you were thinking about, or your clothing touching your skin, or what you're gonna do for the world. Right, we can't focus on everything at once. We have a limited amount of focus. So once you focus on what matters most, when you start majoring in minor things, you're gonna have a problem. But if you focus on the things that matter most your body, your motions, your relationships, your career, your family, God making a difference, your business. There only so many things. You put focus on those things in it changes. But the minute you focus on something, it starts a pattern. Then the brain makes a second decision, what does this mean? Is this the end of the beginning. If you get the end of a relationship, you're gonna treat that person very differently than if you think at the beginning of relationship. If you think God is punishing you right now with this problem, or God is challenging you, or this problem is a gift from God, or there it's not God at all. I'm a lazy bastard. Whatever you decide to give to a meaning, he's gonna change how you feel. So if you if I think you're disrespecting me versus you're challenging me. The minute you focus on something, you're a couple of the meaning. If the meaning is a negative meaning, you're gonna go to a negative emotion. If the meanings a positive, you're gonna go a positive motion. And that controls your third decision. What are you gonna do? So I want to give your your listeners, not just one quick little distinction starts with focus. Where do you spend more of your focus? And I'm gonna give you three quick distinctions and we're done. One answer this question for yourself if you're listening right now, are watching, And the question is we all have different focuses. Do you tend to focus more on what you have or what's missing from your life? Intended? We both? We do both. Everybody is both. But where do you spend more of your time focusing on what's missing or what you have? Now, when I do this an audience of you know, ten people in the stadium, I deal with him and I am raised their hands. I can see in a mass audience across the world that's made up usually some of ours will usually translate five or six languages. We have people usually forty or fifty country at a time. So I got a real picture of the world. And in my seminars, people are coming their achievers, they want to achieve, they're hungry, they're driven that you know, or they got dragged there, you know what the two and the bottom line is most of those people focus on what's missing. And so you got to think about this for a second. Think of this is software. There's nothing wrong with you or I. But if I'm constantly focusing or what's missing, how can I ever sustain happiness? No matter how many beautiful people in my life, children, family, lovers, no matter how much money a maker, business, it's not gonna happen. You have a billion dollars, and if every day you're piste off and frustrated, the quality of life is piste off and frustrated. Right, you don't have it. So our focus tends to be for most people, what's missing. And the problem is you can build on failure if you focus on what you do have, what you do, you practice attitudes of gratitude. Right. The more you do when your grandmother taught you to do, it gives you an energy, and that energy gives you strength the deal with those challenging times. It's not about being fake and phony. It's about just remembering the truth of what's good, because that's the only place you can go from. Now here's the second one. Do you tend to focus on what you can or can't control? Which gets more of your time? Do you focus more on you can control or can't control? Most people in my seminars focus on what they can control. That's why they came there. They want to take control their finances or their business, or their relationship, for their body or their economics. Right, that's why they go. But most people in the general public focus on what they can't control. So I want you to think about this, just in software. If your brain is always looking for what's missing, seeing what's not good in your life, and focusing on what you can't control, what are you gonna feel most days of your life? I'm gonna feel overwhelmed, stress, hissed off, angry, rageful, depressed, one of those? Right, And then a third pattern is do you tend to focus more on the past, the present, or the future? We do all three? Where do you spend more of your time? And when I doing my seminars, the smallest numbers passed when you go to general public, most of its past, and the past isn't always good and you can't change it. If you want to succeed, you anticipate the future. You're anticipating, so you're not having your react. That's your power. You're anticipating. That's what you've done in your life. That's both of you done. I've done it as well, But you also got to spend time in the present moment, soak it up and enjoy where it is, because otherwise you're always chasing right to watch this, I ask people in seminars all the time, how many of you know somebody that takes end of the pressence and they're still depressed and you get like, room raises their hand eight five nights percent of the room. So how is that possible? Because when you give somebody a drug, all it does is numb them. It doesn't take care of the problem. The problem is you're focused on what's missing all the time, focusing what you can't control. There's so much you can't control, but there's so much you can control. What you focus on. Control your emotion and control the meaning, control what you do. You can't control the economy, you can't control you know, other people's attitudes. You can't control lot of life. So you're focus on what you can and when you make those three changes, where you develop the habit. That's what I teach people to do, to find what's empowering, to see what you really do have and build on the success versus the failure. When you're focused on what you can control and you're focused on building the future, but enjoying the present. He completely changes the quality of people's lives. So I just want to plant that seed. It is like, there are little patterns, don't change your whole life. We think it's like, oh my god, I'm thirty pounds over right. It's usually three or four things you gotta change. But we are so overwhelmed by it, by the emotion of it all, and we've tried so many times. It's never worked. On nothing I'll ever work. We're afraid to fail. But if you can practice a couple of new patterns of just the way you think, it'll change the way you feel, will change what you do, It will change your results, and it will create the quality of life you desire and deserve. Your great Tony Rabbits people and not thank you, m H. Thanks for listening to The Recession Podcast by Jeez, a production of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. For more podcasts, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.