How to Change Your Life in 2025 (With Tony Robbins)
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The most powerful force that can change anybody's life is the change of identity. What is identity? We all have a way of defining ourselves. And the problem is we probably defined it a long time ago. If someone said, oh, I can't do that, I'm not one of those. But they're really saying that doesn't match my identity. But when did you come up with your definition of yourself? What's up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

Talking about all the things going on in your life, your relationships, challenges with your family, your kids, your mental and emotional health, whatever you got going on. For the last two decades plus, I've been sitting with people when the wheels have fallen off in their life. I'm just trying to figure out what's the next right move. And so this show is real people calling from all over the planet. And occasionally I have a guest on. And today's show, I'm pretty excited about, man. This is like the OG goat. The OG goat.

The great Tony Robbins joins me to talk about hope, what comes next, the cycles of how the world turns, and ways each and every one of us can look in the mirror and demand and decide and transform our lives from the inside out. The thing I've loved about Tony forever is he refuses to let people know

defined by their labels. He just refuses. He sees so much potential in every single person and he's got a gift and he's been doing it for 40 plus years. He's got a gift for bringing that out of people. And so I'm excited to sit down with him, man. He's, uh, he's kind of been on my bucket list for a long time and we have a great conversation here. So check out my conversation with the one and only Mr. Tony Robbins.

I want to start there in a culture obsessed with categorizing, labeling, and telling people what they can or can't do based on some sort of status, right? They have a snapshot of diagnostics. They experienced some trauma growing up. They've been through some hard challenges. Or maybe it's that nowadays it's fun to even beat up those who have been quote-unquote successful, right? Like you've got a high net worth, so you have no problems. Quit whining about anything, right? Yeah.

You don't care about anybody. No, you don't care about anybody. You hate people just because you have money. Your whole career has been what I – man, tell me if I'm wrong.

is almost the opposite of much of the, um, what I call the mental health cultural zeitgeist, which is there's something wrong with you. We're going to pat you on the head, go and sit in the corner and we'll advocate for you. You've been teaching people how to advocate and empower themselves forever. So how do you teach somebody who's trying to build a small family, an entrepreneur just starting out? Um, I've got elderly parents now who are beginning to be reflective over their life. Like, did, did we have any value here? Um,

How do you teach somebody how to develop a path forward in spite of not just park it and call it because I've got some label attached to me?

I think the most important thing is to get rid of the labels because labels become the story. And once you have a story, you live the narrative, right? So the most powerful force that can change anybody's life is the change of identity. What is identity? We all have a way of defining ourselves. And the problem is we probably defined it a long time ago. If someone said, oh, I can't do that, I'm not one of those. What they're really saying is that doesn't match my identity. But when did you come up with your definition of yourself?

And the power of identity is so powerful. Like if you, for example, let's say, you know, have a big goal and you start to go for it. The last minute you get fearful and you put it off, you procrastinate. And then you go for it again. And the last minute you get fearful and procrastinate. You have four or five times, right?

After a while, you don't want to feel bad about yourself, so you develop an identity. I'm a procrastinator. And now, by the way, you won't be disappointed. You'll do it on a regular basis. You won't achieve your dreams, but you'll be comfortable. You follow me? Absolutely. Or another example might be, because of your background, John, as a doc, is like, okay, a person is clinically depressed. Do you think a clinically depressed person ever has happy moments? What would you say? Yes or no? Of course they do.

Of course they do. But if you catch them when they go, I'm not really happy. It just looked like I was happy because our need to stay consistent with our definition is so high. When someone's having an identity crisis, right? Somebody says they're going through that. They're questioning everything. They don't know who they are, what they're about, what they really want. So we come up with a definition of ourself and it starts to control who we are. If you, if you go to somebody that used to smoke cigarettes and they don't smoke anymore, they haven't smoked in 10 years.

And you walk up and would you walk up and say, would you like a cigarette? We're not going to say what brand is it? They're going to say, oh, I'm not one of those. I'm not a smoker. I'm not one of those. That's not my identity. That's how powerful identity is. It works on both sides, though. Let's say metaphorically, you set a thermostat at 68 degrees. That's the temperature we want. That's your comfort zone, not your goals, not your absolute ideals, but what you're used to.

So imagine 68 degrees as a metaphor for how much money you're comfortable with having. You want more, but that's what you're used to. Or 68 degrees is how much intimacy, how close you are to people or your connection with God. It's a measure, not what you want. It's what you're used to. Well, if all of a sudden things aren't as good as they should be, the 68 degrees drops down to 60.

I'm sure you've experienced this in your life. I know I have in mine. Most people have. Suddenly something happens. Your brain goes, hey, you're supposed to be up here. You're down here. And you get this push. The heaters kick on to bring the temperature up again. You feel this push to get yourself back to where you want to be. Most people listening have had that experience, but they don't realize it happens on the other side, too.

If you get momentum, you start to do some great things. I don't know if you've ever done this, Sean, in your life. And you start doing really well, like better than you expect. And you go from 68, metaphorically, to 75, to 78, to 80. You get about 90 degrees and all of a sudden your brain goes, hey, what the hell are you doing up here? You're a 68 degree-er. And then all of a sudden the heaters stop. You lose your drive.

And if that's not the air conditioners come on, you start to self-sabotage to get back to where you think you need to be. So my life has really been about showing people lasting change only happens when there's an identity change, when it's no longer a fight in you to try to do something. It's like, this is who I am. So there's two types of motivations. I'm sure, you know, push and pull.

Push is I'm trying to make it happen. I got a lot of willpower and obviously you do too, John, but you know, there's only so much willpower. Willpower will never last long-term. What lasts is pull something that you want more than who you are, something that you care about more than yourself. That's what everyone needs. If you can find something like that, that you're going for, then your identity will expand. I mean, I'll tell you how I changed my identity. One version of it

When I was, I had four different fathers growing up. My mom was an interesting character. She's quite a handful. And, and all my fathers were broke and we always had pain and no money for food sometimes. But I remember specifically there was a Christmas time. She kicked out my fourth father and I really loved him. And then she thought I was on his side. So Christmas, she kicked me out of the house.

And she kept my 1960 Volkswagen and earned 40 bucks a week as a janitor. And I was in high school, still traveling to this place in Pasadena about, you know, if I was driving there about 40 minutes away each way and working all night in the middle of the night, finishing at two in the morning, coming back, sleeping on five hours sleep and getting up and going to school. Well, one day I finished cleaning. Oh, she keeps my car. So now I'm taking buses. So now it's not a 45 minute process. It's 90 minutes, sometimes two hours each way.

but I get to have been paid for results. If I could do two banks and I did a great job, it wasn't by the hour. So I could make enough money to support myself and come home. I come out to catch the bus at two in the morning, no bus, two 15, no bus, two 30, no bus around two 35 or somewhere in that range. A car pulls up, rolls his window down and goes, Hey buddy, didn't you see there's a bus strike. There's no buses. And he drives off and I'm like,

I have no one to call. I don't have any way to do this. And I'm 17 miles from home. And I'm like, that's the straightest arrow to get home. What the hell am I going to do? And I literally, John, true story, ran. I never run three miles. I ran 16 miles. Last mile I walked, but 16 straight miles. And how did I do it?

I literally conditioned my brain and that day changed my identity. It started with anger, to be honest with you. I'll show her, I'll show her, but you don't go very long in anger. You run out of fuel really quick, right? So I read these books like The Magic of Believing by Claude M. Bristol, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by, you know, Dr. Joseph. And so I read these books and so I was like, okay, I'm going to condition my mind

Not with affirmations, I'm happy, I'm happy, but where I'm going to engage my body, my focus, my language over and over with such repetition, I'm going to condition my mind with every step I take. So I started doing it every day and every way. I'm getting stronger and stronger every day and every time I'm trying, I'll be yelling it. I do that for like five minutes and then I go every day, healthy and healthy, happier and happier. I did that.

All the way for 16 miles. And it was like two hours plus. I had shin sprints, of course. I wasn't prepared for this or anything else. But I found a part of myself that I use to this day.

I found that part of myself that will not give up. That's where I shape my identity that day. And I've used that energy anytime I faced a challenge ever since. And so I think people can train themselves to discover who they really are. But the best way to do that is do something you don't think is consistent with your identity. In other words, a belief is a poor substitute for an experience.

You can tell me what China's like in your belief system, but if I take you to China, you're going to have an experience. Experience is more powerful. So I try to give people experiences in my events that violate their limitations. That's why I've done skydiving and firewalking and all that stuff too, is because when you do something you thought was difficult or impossible, your brain goes, well, what else can I do that I thought was so impossible and so easy? And I'm one of those now. I'm a person who does these things. That shift is the most important shift for anyone to go to the next level of their life.

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Can a person do that while remaining comfortable? Or is comfort, is that our cancer of the 21st century? And I say that jokingly, but my wife is an author and she writes about the Dust Bowl. And I don't want to live in that time period, right? The Great Depression, all that. But gosh, we've made the most comfortable society in human history ever, ever, ever. And what you're talking about is profoundly uncomfortable.

Yes. Well, when we're comfortable, we rarely change. Everybody wants a better life. No one wants to change. Right. I want to be in great shape. I just want to work out. Right. Exactly right. That's how it works. But here's what I can tell you about history. You know, I'm a student of patterns. You know, like when people go like, what's the future going to be like? Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Well, I'm not just an optimist to be an optimist. I believe in intelligence. I believe in seeing things as they are. Not worse than it is, though.

And then I believe seeing it better than it is because without a vision, people perish, you know, it says in a very good book. Right, right, right. And then you got to make it that way. You got to have the strategies to make it that way. So that's kind of my mindset with it. But part of what makes me confident is studying history. Right.

It's like I tell one day, I remember I have five kids and five grandkids and I have my three and a half year old daughter, my 50 year old daughter. I mean, it's quite a ring. I complain. I have a 14 year old and a six year old and I complain and I'm done complaining effective immediately because that's a gap, brother. That's a gap. That's a gap. But I have more skills today. But I think of my grandkids and my daughter, my youngest daughter today, and I go, I'm

We all know that with AI, with robotics, with nanotechnology, there's going to be more change in the next 10 years than the previous 1,000. The tempo is going to explode. It's already exploding, but we're at the base of that growth pattern, right?

So 40% of the jobs we have right now are going to be gone. Well, that's not a problem. We all used to be farmers, you know, 150 years ago, you know, 85% of America was farmers. Now it's 3%. We feed the whole world. Right. But there was time to make those changes. So,

This is going to happen so fast. So it's like, what needs to be done? Everyone needs to learn three skills. If you want to have your kids do well, if you want to do well, number one, you have to be good at pattern recognition. You're good at that genre. You couldn't do what you do, right? You recognize patterns that takes away fear.

So when people look at things like, oh, it's the worst it's ever been, you haven't studied history. You study a thousand years of Roman history, 500 years of Anglo-American history, and you see there is a cycle, almost like seasons, that happens every 18 to 20 years where there's a primary emotion.

just like a season. And it controls how the majority of people think, not everybody. It's how people react to things. The same events are reacted to differently based on the season. And so when you recognize patterns, you're not fearful. Second step, though, is when you learn to use a pattern, you have power. Mm-hmm.

So if you look at anybody that's a good dancer, good singer, a great, someone who's run multiple businesses successfully, someone who's a great investor, which I spend my time studying those people, you'll discover that they don't recognize the patterns. They know how to use them. And then the third level is when you really began to be a person who creates patterns.

So it's like, if you want to play the piano, most of us first learn by playing someone else's pattern. Someone who was really good that figured it out, right? We look at their pattern and we study their pattern. Then we learn to use it, their pattern. Eventually, if you played enough other people's music, you create your own. That's what's happened in my life with all the skills I have. I'm standing on the shoulders, just like I'm sure you are, of all these great thinkers before us. But also then you bring your own music to it at that stage, right? When you start creating patterns, you have a tremendous amount of freedom in your life.

So when I look at life and say, how is life and how people are going to do, I don't get overreactive to what happens in a single business. I have 114 companies. Now we do $8 billion in business. I had no business background, but I studied patterns and they're easy to study patterns in business and patterns of people. What happens is there's no fear when you recognize this, but look at humanity even just for a second. When did humanity go from living in fear for survival to

to being able to stay in one place and build a community and live the way we live today with communities and cities and states and countries. Well, it came from one pattern recognition that we figured out to use, and it was the seasons. Before that, we were hunter-gatherers running around trying, hoping we could find enough food and chasing the next place to go. That all changed when we realized there is the right time to plant.

If you plant in the winter, I don't care how hard you work, you're not going to reap. It's not going to work. There's one season and this is how it works. And then you got to defend it during the summer. And then you got to reap in the fall. You got to save some of it for the winter, right? Well, when we learned that humanity exploded, now we run the planet for good or bad, we run the planet. Well, similarly, there's a pattern in people's life. So all those listening right now are watching. They're in one of the seasons. If you're zero to 21, you're in springtime.

I'm making these numbers general, right? Everybody's slightly different. But what happens in that stage of life? Well, it's like if you start a business in an optimistic springtime, you think you're a genius because everybody's well in business in springtime. Everybody's optimistic. Money's available. It goes really well. Well, similarly, when you're a child, you're protected. Now, someone's had to go to work at seven and eight years old, but still you're overall protected. Someone looked out for you. If there's a war, you didn't go fight the war. You're being fed information. You're being taken care of to some extent.

And you're learning. It's a learning process. Now, 22 to 42 is the summertime. That's the testing time. That's when you think you're invincible and you think you're going to be president of the United States, a multi-billionaire, and have 100 relationships simultaneously and everyone's going to be happy. And you discover you can't even run one relationship by the time you're 30 or 35. And you discover you're not the president of the United States. And so now you realize you're not invincible. That range is you're the soldier of society.

You're going to take what you learn and say, I don't know if I believe this. I'm going to test what I believe. I'm going to see what I try. I'm going to create my model of the world, right? You might duplicate what you learned. You might come up with something new, but it's a testing period. If we have a war, you're the ones that go to war, 22 to 42. That's who goes to war, right? So you're the soldier of business. You're the soldier of society. You're learning. You're growing. It's also the period of time where all studies show people are most unhappy.

Because they're trying to prove themselves, trying to figure out who they are. They haven't figured out relationship yet. They haven't figured out their career yet, so forth. But if you keep growing through spring and summer,

You get to the reaping time called fall, and that's 43 to 63. That 20-year period overall is when you'll earn the most because if you grew during spring and summer, by this point, you know more people. You have more relationships. I'm sure, John, you can do more with your pinky now than you used to do working 20 hours a day. You might still work 20 hours a day, but you just do that much more. You can accomplish that much more. So you're

You are the leaders of society. You're the engine of society. That's the power time. That's when you're going to have the greatest rewards potentially. But the ultimate rewards, and I can tell you because I'm there now, is 64 to 84 to 104 to 120. The oldest humans lived to 120. That's the winter time, but that's elderhood. That's where you really get to lead, where your leadership is because you're not trying to prove yourself.

to yourself or anybody else. You know that no matter who you are, I mean, if you're Jesus, you know, people are still going to try and not be happy with you. There's no one you're going to please everybody, right? If you don't have holes in your hand, you're not going to please everybody. So after a while, you realize, you know, it's not that you don't care, right?

It's just that you don't care. You're here to serve. You know, if people don't get it, it's okay. You don't, I don't have to have everybody understand. And so there's a different level of comfort in yourself and you have relationships that are 20, 30, 40 years long and you know who you are. And so now you feel like if you've taken care of your health, at least you're

And you've done well in terms of your life. You have unlimited freedoms to do, share, create whatever you want. And it's like life is the greatest gift possible. So those are the stages. But there's also seasons of history. So think about it. We go through 20-year periods. So imagine...

I'll just give you this one final metaphor. Imagine you're born in 1910 and you don't have to be a great historian to remember, okay, if I'm going to go the first season of spring, it's going to be 1910, 20 years roughly to 1930. Well, when those people were growing up, they were protected during World War I, looked out for, they didn't have to go through the war.

The elders did. And then we have this great economic surge, right? The roaring twenties, new technology, airplanes, cars, TVs, rigged all at one time. People were partying like crazy. And that generation was originally called flappers because all they did was party. They didn't do squat. They were incredibly weak. You'll see where I'm going from where you started this question long way from it, but returning to it now. And what happened is, uh,

When they hit 1929, they thought, 19 years old, I'm going to get a car. I'm going to party. I'm going to go out and have the time of my life. And what happened? Stock market drop, people jumping out of buildings, the middle of the, you know, the Dust Bowl in the Midwest, people standing in line for bread, people trying to figure out how to survive. So a generation that was incredibly weak.

became strong because the times demanded it. That's what makes us strong. Going back to your original point. And then guess what? They went through 10 years of depression. Now, depression wasn't every moment. There were moments it was positive, 31, 32, and then it went back negative again. So it's wintertime. There can be sunny days. It's the overall theme is fear and concern. But guess what? When they made it through all that, they made it to 29 years old and it's 1939. And

And now World War II breaks out, and it looks like none of us were alive back then, but those that were, look, Hitler was winning everywhere. In days, he was taking over countries. He's bombing London. I mean, it looked like the whole country, the whole world's going to hell. And the stock market drops through the floor, and these people volunteered, they went to war, and won.

They fought and they won. They became known as the greatest generation. And when they came home, the season changed. Winter was over. They made it through 20 years. They're incredibly powerful. And good times were here. Think about how different the 50s were and the early 60s up until Kennedy was shot.

was a time of tremendous optimism in this country. And people like, if you came back from the war, you were honored. If you came back from the war, you got the veteran loan, and you went out and you got a home in the suburbs. And new technology made it easier to be home. And then guess what? After about 18 years, we get exhausted with the optimism. And we go through the summertime that tests us. Kennedy gets killed.

Bobby Kennedy gets killed, senior. Martin Luther King gets killed. And generationally, and this happens every 80 years like clockwork, that generation goes, I'm not going to war. Why should I go to war? That generation that was protected

Right. By their parents that grew so much by pain. And so what they do, they went to college and they had love ins and they said, you're all mean people and you think you're so great, but you don't treat black people. You don't treat white people or women well, which is also true, by the way. But they saw what's missing because they were well fed. They didn't have to go to war. Right. They raised their children differently. They weren't there for their kids. They're off doing their thing. Their kids were latchkey kids, X generation.

They came home and let themselves in the house and watch TV and figure out how to be independent. They developed a different mindset. So think of the 60s and 70s versus the 80s, 90s, 2000s. Completely different way of being. One way to measure it is in college they asked for 60 years. What's more important? A philosophy of life that makes you feel happy or the skills that make you financially independent?

When they asked us 60s and 70s, 82% said, what would you guess? Philosophy or the skills? It was like the philosophy. It was like, I want to live a good life, right? That's right.

In the 80s, 90s, 2000s, guess what the answer is? I want to make money. How do I make money? Yes. That's right. Because they were raised differently. What about me? That's right. And now we're turning back to winter where people are fearful all the time, where the same events are interpreted like it could be the end of the world, but it isn't the end. It's just...

a change, a transformation. So these things have gone on forever. And when you see them, you start to realize that no war lasts forever. No pandemic lasts forever. No winter lasts forever. And by the way, some people freeze to death in winter. Other people get really strong. They learn to ski and snowboard, have a good time. They build their business. They build their family. And we're overall in a winter right now. But spring is coming.

And how far are we in the winter? If you study historians, they think we might be three quarters the way through it. There's still some winter to go through. There's still some economic challenges. There'll probably be some form of war, maybe cyber war with China or someone. But on the other side of that, people get tired of feeling that way and they want that new springtime again.

Those seasons are part of life. That is what people need to understand is how to take advantage of the season they're in and not think that problems, most people's biggest problem is they think they shouldn't have any when problems make us grow. So here's the last thing I'll say on that long tirade. That was great, man. Thank you. But here's the history of the world in four sentences. And it comes back to what you started this conversation, this question with good times, create weak people.

They don't mean to be weak. They just don't know. They've never been tested. If you live in Florida, you think cold is 68 degrees, right? If you live in Minnesota, cold is minus 30. So you have no perspective here, right? So when you have good times, you don't get strong. By the way, if good times create weak people, weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people. And strong people create great times. And then a cycle returns. That's the history of the world.

So can we be optimistic about the future? Yes. And by the way, the X generation, excuse me, the, the millennial generation, the Z generations that are looked down by Xers and baby boomers, like they're so weak and all that stuff. I have no worries about them. Yes. Right now, some of them react like I have to have a trigger warning before you can talk about something, but that's not the majority of them. And again,

because of winter, they will be tested. And when they're tested, they will grow and they will, they have great tools, great technology tools, great intelligence, great caring. They're going to be the next heroes of our generation of the next generations. Can you opt out of the cycle to create your own safe? And I don't mean that in a, uh, the way it's been politicized, but create a thriving place inside of a cycle like that, or do you have to just ride it out?

No, you look at winter. Like I just said, winter in Florida is different than winter in Minnesota. So yeah, that's a great, I grew up in Texas. Yeah. So winter is 58 degrees. That's it. Yeah. So yeah. So the truth of the matter is, you know, I have a home in Fiji. I bought it. So of all hells breaking this, the world, they're on a different cycle.

But we're so connected as a world, it still affects everybody. But your level of cycle will be different. But the best answer is not to hope you get yourself in a good place. The best answers get so strong that when winter comes, you're not complaining about it. You take advantage of it. If you look at

The top 1,000 companies in the United States, the Fortune 1,000 in the world, I should say, 60% of them, they could be born in one of four seasons, but 60% of them were born in winter, meaning they came to life during the middle of a recession or depression. It's mind-boggling, the biggest names. Why? Because if you do well in that season, you'll do well in every other season. So my lesson for people is, look, I know it seems really difficult right now. You need to create a compelling future. Anyone can deal with the difficult today if we have a compelling tomorrow.

It's the new year. It's my favorite time of the year. Everyone starts thinking of new routines, building better habits, stopping things that aren't that helpful. And overall, people are thinking about building a better life. And we all know that most new go-get-em goals are a waste of time because we don't put in the systems to make them sustainable.

So how about this year? Let's focus on fewer, more sustainable goals and better systems. And let's start by curating a system and a goal that's good for your heart and your soul. Let's start this year with our spiritual lives and let's start off 2025 by focusing on prayer and meditation.

To do this, I recommend Hallow, the number one prayer app in the world. I use it and I love it. Hallow offers over 10,000 guided prayers and meditations to help you grow closer to God, answer hard questions, and find peace. Hallow has some amazing daily prayers that are perfect to start your day with. And one of Hallow's most popular features is the daily reflection with Jonathan Rumi from the show The Chosen.

You can also check out the daily scripture readings, the nightly sleep prayers. And if you don't have much time, there's even something called the daily minute. Hallow makes it easy to build a system and a routine by making a schedule, adding reminders, and even fostering a community for accountability. Start the year off right by putting your relationship with God first with the help of Hallow. Right now they're offering three months for free when you join at hallow.com slash Deloney.

That's hallow.com slash Deloney for three months of hallow to get your year started absolutely free. Go check them out. You told one of my favorite stories you've ever told, and I'd love it if you'd share it here. You talked about this sense that at some level, you know, we always hear the comparison is a thief of joy, but you're the first person I ever heard say, but comparisons wired into us. We're social creatures. That's like, it's normal to look to the left and the right and see where we are.

And you gave one of the most compelling, and Tony, it was so quick that I heard it and it still stuck with me all these years later, a great conversation about

You can be a builder or somebody that tears something down. But when you look to your right and your left and you see, I'm not where I want to be relative to those around me, or I have these dreams of being up. Yes. You can tear everybody down. Can you talk about that? Cause I want my listeners to hear that cause it's just stuck with me so long. Um, and it's so powerful, especially in a world that has told us if somebody has something, if they have a great business, they've got a great marriage, um,

They had some hack. They had some privilege. They had something you didn't have. And so it's not fair that they have it. And so I'd love for you to talk about that. I don't know exactly which one story you're talking about example, but here's what I'd say. Maybe I can orient you towards my own evolution in this area. So when I was growing up, we had no money for food at times. On Thanksgiving, when I was 11 years old, we had no money for food. Now we had saltine crackers and peanut butter, so we weren't going to starve.

But, you know, it's Thanksgiving. Everybody else is having a feast. And it was pretty emotional. And my forefather and my mother were screaming at each other, saying things that once you say, you can't take back. I have a younger brother, five years younger, younger sister, seven years younger. I'm trying to make sure they don't hear the conversation. And my whole life changed because there's a knock on the door and they open the door.

And there's this man standing there with two giant bags of groceries and an uncooked turkey on the ground. And he goes, is your father here? Well, long story short, I got my dad the front door. I thought he was going to be so happy. He was not happy. He's like, we don't accept charity. And he went to slam the door on the guy. And the guy had been leaning slightly in. So it hit his shoulder and bounced out.

He said, sir, I'm just the delivery man. Someone knows you're having a difficult time. You know, it's like, you know, please, you just accept this gift. And, you know, they just want you to have a great Thanksgiving. And my dad went to close it again. And this guy hit the guy's foot. My dad's really starting to get mad. The guy looks over and sees me. And he says to my father, I'll never forget. He says,

uh, sir, don't let your ego get in the way of taking care of your family. Wow. The veins on the side of my dad's face were just blowing out. I mean, he was so angry and, but then he took the food and slammed it down. I thought he was going to punch the guy. And I remember I left that going like, why is he not happy? And a few weeks later he left our family. It was the worst. I felt the worst moment of my life at that point because I loved him. Um, but he focused on three things, three things control your life.

What you focus on, because every moment you're deciding what to focus on, the decisions you make about what to focus on, the decisions you make about what it means and decisions make of what to do. So that day he focused on the unfit his family. I know because he said it constantly. The meaning was the worst part. He said he was worthless because he'd not take care of his family. And he decided to leave. I focused on, wow, there's food here. What a concept. You know, this is pretty amazing. And then I started looking around and saying, you know, the thing that changed my whole life was, wow.

Someone cared enough for my family. They don't even want credit. My father always said, strangers don't care about you. Some stranger cares about our family. So if strangers care about me and my family, I want to care about strangers.

And so that set me on this path that set me forward to say, my God, I've got to figure out how to do well because I want to pass this forward. So I fed two families and then four and then eight. And then gradually I had a small company. I got my people involved and then 2 million people. Then 4 million a year were 2 million from my foundation, 2 million from me. And then now in the last 10 years, I said I was going to field a billion meals. And we did in eight years with Feeding America as my partner. And now I'm doing a hundred billion meal project.

Right. And we're 30 billion meals into it in the first two years, which no one thought was even close to possible. It's because so many people are dying around the world because the war in Ukraine, which is the breadbasket for Africa. So I tell you that because in order to figure that out, I remember I went to my teacher, original teacher, a man named Jim Rohn. He's the personal development speaker. And I said to him, I wonder if you can tell me I've had forefathers. We've always been broke. We haven't had much food. I said, I want a different life for my family in the future. Right.

what are they doing wrong? And Jim was so brilliant. He said, Tony, let me ask you a question. He said, he goes, your, your, your fathers were good men. He said, there's no question about that. He said, but they picked a profession where obviously they weren't either able to do well or they did well, but they weren't in control of their own future. And he said, think of it this way. Could a person make twice as much money in the same amount of time? Is that possible?

And I said, well, obviously people do that. He goes, what about five times as much money? What about 10? What about a hundred times as much money in the same amount of time? I said, yeah. He goes, how do they do that? I said, I don't know. He said, the way they do it is they understand something. We're all equals as souls on this planet, but we're not equal in the marketplace.

He said, if you want a different experience for your family than your father, then here's all you need to remember. You have to figure out how to do more for others than anybody else in the marketplace over and over again. And you will build a brand and you will dominate and you will never have to worry about economics. If you can do more for other people than anybody else, if you can add more value, not the value you want to add, the value they need. He said the whole game changes.

And so I got obsessed. And he said, by the way, Tony, because I was saying, well, it's not fair that, you know, a teacher makes, I think back then it was like $30,000 a year or something like that. And this billionaire guy made his runs a hedge fund, just made a billion eight last year. And he said, well, Tony, let's just use McDonald's as an example. He goes, McDonald's is a great company, helps a lot of people have a first job. If you go to McDonald's, you get minimum wage, minimum wage back there. I forget what the number was, but it was tiny.

He goes, it's not meant to be your ultimate job, your ultimate to grow and to expand. But the reason you make so little is there's so little added value. Today, it's getting replaced by robots, right? Most of the fast food places. But it's like, you can go today and learn that job in an hour. They even have pictures. You can't speak English to do it, right? There's not a lot of added value. But he said, that guy that you complain about, the teacher, he goes, some teachers are good, some not so good. But they're not willing to put themselves on the line.

They want to be paid the same amount and they want a pension, whether they teach well or not, whether the students learn or not. I said, but I had some great teachers. He goes, I did too. But how many? Well, they changed my life. He goes, well, that's great. But they pick something safe. He goes, the guy that you're talking about, he got people a return of an average of 34% last year. That was when people were trying to get 5% returns.

He said, Tony, he does that for foundations. He does that for businesses. Those people just got to jump. They made more and are growing their university educations for the kids, whatever it is, like tenfold almost. So he deserves. He made people more than $50 billion, so he deserves a billion.

He added more value. So stop your judgment based on economics and what you think is spiritual or not. And ask yourself this question. If I could be smarter, should I? If I could be more giving, should I? If I go financially, should I?

He said, only limitation is you're not adding in a value. So that became my obsession. And that's how I built all my companies all across all these different industries. I'm in so many different industries and every one of them, every one of my teams obsessed, like how do we do more for people than anybody else in that industry? And that's how you get there. So it's a combination of understanding these patterns,

but also understanding the most important pattern in life and in business is do more for others than anybody else. Then you emotionally prosper, but you can also, if you work it out in a business, financially prosper as well. Well, one of the things we had that conversation about here with callers is,

If you do choose to add value sitting next to somebody who's dying, right? You're a hospice nurse. Yes. And there's going to be a financial cap or like you, I had my life changed by a few teachers. There comes with an owning reality. My wife started out as a teacher before she became a professor and moved on. But I remember her meeting her and being so perplexed at how, and this is young, arrogant, idiotic, John, right?

She was so thrilled with her Toyota Corolla. Yes. And I remember her saying like, no, I'm a teacher. This is what we make. That means my life...

I can't sit here dreaming of the Tahoe's because I chose a $40,000 life, which means I have to choose this car and my house will look like this. And this is me owning reality and finding peace in this world that I've asked for. It's the mismatch, right? It's the, but I want this and it's not fair. So I got to knock instead of saying, no, this is, this is the path I'm choosing. Right. And I'm going to take ownership of this path, which I just love. Yeah.

And I think people that do that are the happiest people in the world. They've found a path. They know what they've chosen and they feel great about it. It isn't about economics. I'm just trying to show people that your level of choice expands with the level of contribution that you make. And these people aren't lucky because what I learned from Jim Rohn was success leaves clues.

That if someone is successful, not for a day or a week or even a year, but decade after decade, if they've lost weight and kept it off 30 pounds for 15 years, if they've been in a relationship 25 years and they're passionate for each other, they're not just hanging out. If they've started with nothing, anybody can make money. Anybody can get lucky.

but they're financially free 20 years later still and are able to do beautiful things, they're not lucky. They're doing something different than you. So if you don't like where you are, instead of complaining, study them because you can try and take 10 or 20 years to figure it out or you can take someone who took 20 years to figure it out, find out what they learned in a few days or a few weeks or a few months, get yourself on the path to get there and half the time, 10% of the time. So my whole life became about how do I compress decades into days?

And so I love wickedly smart people. So most of my books have been me. Like I want to help people financially after 2008, I was so angry because I work with Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 financial traders in history. And you know, these guys are, they're the Kings of the mountain. And I looked around and saw what was happening, but a few people almost destroyed the entire world economy. It's like,

I want to show people how to take care of themselves in this area. I wasn't known for finance. I taught finance before, but not known for it. It's like, I don't care. I'm going to write a book. I haven't written a book in 20 years. I didn't like writing books. I went to Simon & Schuster and said, I'm going to write this book. And they said, Tony, you haven't written a book in 20 years. We'll give you a million dollars more not to write a financial book. That's it.

Literally offered me a million dollars more, they said, because that's been picked over. It's a vulture. There's nothing there. I said, there's nothing there because it's all the same BS. I said, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to go to the very best in the world and find out what they do, what they do best, and then teach that. Something like billionaire clients could use, but something just beginning the journey can use, right? And of course, you know, wrote three number one New York Times bestsellers in that category, but it was all extracting the patterns for them.

You don't have to be a billionaire to see there are certain patterns around risk, for example. The most successful people don't take massive risks. Multibillionaires don't do that. If they do, they don't stay multibillionaires. They do something called asymmetrical risk reward. There you go. Right? So in the teachings that you do and your partners in crime have, who have done a lot of great work for people, like managing their debt load is great.

These guys will go out and make an investment where they have no downside. That's right. And we have upside. And most people don't think that's even possible or they have very limited downside with huge upside. I have a friend that took, uh, what he took $40 million and turned into 2 billion in one year. And he did it in 2008. Wow.

And he did it because everybody thought real estate is going to go up forever. And he figured a way to do investments where his risk was he could be wrong 16 times and still make money. He wasn't wrong 16 times. That's how he made $2 billion, right? And I asked him, I asked him one time, his name's Kyle Bass. And I said, Kyle, I said, how would you teach this to like a child? He goes, Tony, I can't believe you asked me this. He said, I was just thinking, how can I teach it to my kids about six months ago? And I found the answer.

And I said, what's the answer? He goes, asymmetrical risk reward is the least amount of risk, most amount of upside. So I kept asking the question, what's an investment I can make that has no downside? I cannot lose and only upside. And I said, I don't think, I can't think of one. He goes, most people won't even ask the question. But he said, I asked it for six months till I got the answer. And he goes, the answer was nickels. I said, nickels? He said, yeah, if you invest in a nickel, it never goes down. It's always worth a nickel. But he said, it costs nine cents to make a nickel. That's how our government works.

He said, it won't last forever. He said, they used to do that with pennies. Pennies used to be made of copper. Now there's almost no copper. It's mostly tin in pennies. But here's what you need to know. Those pennies that were the old ones were twice as much, three times as much just because of the content. He goes, just the content itself, it costs nine cents to make it. But the actual, if you were to melt that smell value of that five cents, it's really seven and a half cents.

So he says, I can make a 25 to 30% return on day one. I go, but you can't melt the money. He goes, no, no, no, no, you can. He goes, but you don't need to, because he said, like I said, when they change the game, the numbers will go up. So he called the Fed.

and bought all the nickels. He bought 20 million nickels, truckloads of the nickels, had his kids carry all the nickels, put them in there. He said, if I could push a button right now and buy all nickels, I'd make my entire thing that. He goes, because I'm up 25 to 30% instantly. And he goes, there's no downside. So that mindset is what can shift people. They don't have to live this small little world, but they have to be willing to understand that four-letter word that most people avoid at all costs. It's called risk.

It's not about not taking risks. It's about taking intelligent asymmetrical risks. Those are the people that win at the highest level. And that's true with your family. It's your emotional risks, right?

Right. You know, the downside is so little compared to the upside of you stepping up and telling the truth or breaking through in that relationship or going after your kid and not letting this stuff continue. But most people, especially after COVID, don't want to risk of anything. You don't want to. I mean, I remember I was telling people the six foot thing. There's no science behind it. I was telling people that in 2020 and people were on online slamming me and everything else. And like four months ago, Fauci admitted under oath.

That the six foot thing had no science behind it. He didn't know how it kind of appeared. And people walking around like lemmings freaking out if someone was within four feet of them. We have to take risks to have life. Can you imagine the people that settled this country and what they had to do to cross the oceans to come here to deal with this world? The risks they took so we could have this. They would be so embarrassed by us.

Right? It's like, we're not going to take any risks for anything. Time to take some intelligent risks. That's how your life changes. Well, and what I love about you is you... It's the gift you have is...

And I say this with all due respect. You don't care where a person's been. It's almost like you're blinded by the light of how bright it could be wherever they could end up, but they don't see it. And there's a relentless chasing after people that you do that is so infectious because you just won't let people settle or quit on themselves. And I freaking love it, dude.

If they raise their hand, I don't just walk on the street and stop people. I used to do that. I've learned that the hard way, dude. Now I only, man, I ruined many a party being like, well, actually that's the wrong diet. I don't know more. No more. If you ask me, I'll tell you that other than that amount. Yes. But my twenties, I did that stuff. But, but today if someone raised their hand, they're willing or they get dragged there by somebody else.

But what I do is I create an environment where I don't have to tell them that. Again, I give them an experience where their energy is lifted so much. I mean, people won't sit for a three-hour movie and we go 12 hours a day for four straight days and nights. And, you know, we just went for 19,000 people in New York. But by the way, we have since COVID, we have about half the people usually or a third of the people are experiencing it online.

You know, we start here at 10 a.m. and we go 12 hours, right? Sometimes 13 to 11 p.m. And guess what? The people in Sydney, Australia are starting at midnight. They're going from midnight to 1 in the afternoon for four straight days and we lose 2% of the people. I love it, dude. Because we make it that compelling. So when the experience is that compelling, it's not words. It's the experience. When your energy is that high, right?

What seemed impossible becomes not only possible, but you find yourself taking action. But most people since COVID,

They don't even realize how low their energy has dropped because everybody has. People work at home. Their tempo is different. Their energy is different. And it's like we're fishing water. We don't notice. But you got to imagine you got a couple that totally love each other. I mean, they adore each other and they're both in peak energy states. They take care of their body and they deal with challenges. And you know what kind of relationship they're going to have. They love each other and they got lots of energy. It's going to be an awesome relationship. You get two people that are worn down.

my daily life. So many soccer practices, ballet practices, financial stress in the new business or my job or something else, someone sick in the family. And they're like, you know, doing okay. They love each other just as much, but it is not the same relationship. You know it as well as I do. And if you get people that are burnt into the ground who love each other, they'll say stuff and do things that

will really hurt the relationship. So the level of your energy, as simplistic as that sounds, is where it starts. And it doesn't matter how much sleep you have. It doesn't matter how much food you've eaten. What matters is the psychological habit of energy.

And so one of the things we do in three or four days is people condition their nervous system at a higher level of energy. And then everything changes when you're in a peak state of mind. I mean, have you ever done this? You ever been in a lousy state where you can't remember your own cell number, how to spell a difficult word like the, you know, you know the answer, but you,

What the hell? And yet there's other times when you get on the flow, when you're in a peak state where you do something or say something goes perfectly. I don't even know how I did that, but I'm impressed. I like that. I want to do that again. It's all state driven. So we show people how to change their state, right?

Because most people say to me, well, I just don't feel like it. Well, if I waited until I felt like it, I couldn't have done 90% of what I've done. I've learned how to change how I feel so I can do it. And that's one of the most important skills of life that almost, no, we certainly don't get taught in school or just about anywhere else. But when we get people in an environment like that, they come out saying it's the greatest experience of their life because they experienced themselves at their best. Dude, I love it. All right. So January 30th, tell us about the Time to Rise Summit that you're putting together.

Well, you know, during, as I mentioned, you know, during COVID, we had to figure out how to adapt because all the giant, you know, structures in the world, all the stadiums were shut down. And I was like, I got lots of other businesses, but this is my, this is my mission. So I got a way to help people. So I built the studio, but 50 foot high ceilings, 20 foot high LED screens, 50 feet around. And then I went to the founder of Zoom, Eric Zahn. And I said, look, he's a fan of mine. I said, I can't have a thousand, need 25,000.

And then I created some software. So instead of clapping, you shake your phone and it sends electrical signal. If one person does it, you don't hear it. But when 25,000 people do it, it's like thunder. So now people at home are experiencing something like they're there.

And so we decided I'm going to eliminate all the things that stop people. It's money, it's travel, it's time. So I said, let's do an event to help people right now. They need it desperately. Let's charge nothing. Let's do it so they can do it from their home or their office, wherever they are. We'll do it on Zoom. And let's make it so that it's not too long, but not an hour of some pump up.

but about three hours for three days in a row, enough to give them the skills to go from where they are to where they want to be. And we've done it every year for the last four years. I'm doing one final one this year, and I'm real excited about it. So as you said, it's January 30th, 31st, February 1st. It's called the Time to Rise Summit. And you can come with your family, your friends from your house or from your coworkers at the office.

And what it'll do is give you a path. It's like everybody knows New Year is a great possibility, right? We get excited. New year, new life. It's totally artificial, but it feels good. And people are willing to start working out or something, but then they don't have a real plan. So what happens? You know, they could do it for a few weeks and make their news resolutions, and then they're gone by the end of the month, right? This is figuring out what you really want for 2025. What's been holding you back? How

How are we going to shift it? What are the strategies? Put together the plan literally in three days. So imagine like going to a three-hour movie for three days in a row, but this one changes your life. And there's zero cost. It's not partially free. It's totally free. So if they go to timetorise.com or time, excuse me, timetorisesummit.com.

Time to run summit.com. You can register yourself for it and it's coming up, but get yourself registered. Last year, we had 1.1 million people from 193 countries, every country in the world that participated. That's amazing. And I love, I think the timing of this event is genius because it's when everyone starts running out of gas. And so it's like that guy that's about to stop running.

And then somebody runs up next to him and goes, hey, let's keep going. And in fact, we're going to pick it up. And then all of a sudden you find yourself at the end of that workout. You ran further and faster than you ever thought you could go. So that's amazing, man. Hey, it's been, this is a bucket list thing for me, Mr. Robinson. I'm really grateful for your time. I know it's the most precious resource you got. Well, you too, John. I really appreciate it. Please keep doing the great work you're doing. I know nothing's going to stop you here as driven as I am in that area. I really salute the work you're doing.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey folks, we all have stories. We have the family and cultural stories we were born into. We have the stories about the good and the challenging things that have happened to us. And we have the stories that we are constantly telling ourselves. The stories of our past and the stories we have yet to write about futures that are powerful. And while you can't go back and change any of your old stories, the world is waiting to see what story you're going to write next.

As we enter into 2025, I want to encourage you to examine and even heal your old stories and be intentional about the new ones that you're writing. And I'm not talking about goals that will be long gone by February. I'm talking about writing new stories that will change your life forever for the better.

If you're like me, therapy can be a great place to explore the old stories and begin to write new ones. Maybe think of your therapist as your editorial partner, helping you write new, better stories. And if you're considering therapy, I want you to consider BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, and you can talk with your therapist when it works for your schedule. Get online and fill out a short survey, and you'll get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost.

Start writing a new story this month with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, so that was my conversation with the great and powerful Tony Robbins. And as you probably heard on the show, he's got...

I don't know, about a thousand number one bestselling New York Times bestsellers. He sells out his events all over the planet and he's got this free event coming up that I want you all to check out. Everything's going to be linked in the show notes. Everybody go out and find a quiet moment for yourself and look in a mirror and ask yourself, what do I actually want? And then start crafting a plan to go make it happen. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon. Love you guys. Bye.

Hey, what's up, folks? Big news. The Dr. John Deloney Show is now available a full week early in the Ramsey Network app. That's right. You can catch all the real talk of mental health, relationships, emotional health before anyone else. And the best part, it's completely free. Just click the link in the show notes to download the Ramsey Network app and start watching early today.

All right, it's the new year and it's a perfect time to begin focusing on your most important relationship, your marriage. Every marriage needs intentional time and energy so that both of you can be aligned in co-creating the life that you both want. That's why my friend Rachel Cruz and I have teamed up to offer our amazing money and marriage getaway retreat in Nashville, Tennessee, this time over Valentine's Day weekend.

You and your spouse will head to Nashville for three days of laughter, hard conversations, maybe a few tears, intentional time together, and lots of practical teaching. At Money in Marriage, we don't shy away from anything. We have sessions on sex and intimacy, communication, how to fight, money, building a new future together, and more.

This is my favorite live event that I'm ever a part of, and I hope you'll grab one of the few remaining tickets. You are worth an extraordinary marriage. Prices start at $799 per couple. That's for the whole weekend. And like I said, there's only a few left, and Valentine's Day will be here before you know it. Get your tickets at ramsaysolutions.com slash getaway.