After a full year of the Tony Robbins experience, I wanted to take a moment to recap all the incredible adventures I’ve had, highlight the most important wisdom I’ve learned and urge you to make the three most important decisions in your life.
If you’ve kept up with the more than 150 articles I published in 2015, then you know I am a Raving Fan of Tony Robbins. I can honestly say that I have learned more from him and his team than any other person I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with (and there have been many incredible mentors in my life).
After a full year of the Tony Robbins experience, I wanted to take a moment to recap all the incredible adventures I’ve had, highlight the most important wisdom I’ve learned, and urge you to make the three most important decisions in your life.
Thank you, Tony Robbins!
To begin, let me start by saying thank you to one of the most incredible business leaders of our time. I started drafting a thank-you note, but then stopped myself because I realized this was not a private affair–so many people can benefit from the incredible wisdom this man has shared with me, that I want to express my gratitude in public and provide specific examples of how my life will never be the same again now that I’ve gone through these experiences.
So, Tony, let me start by saying thank you for your incredible generosity. I know of no other multibillionaire who has done more for humanity. While I respect the hell out of giving icons such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and what they have contributed in financial terms, there is no one on the planet who has deeply touched more lives than you have, my friend.
It all started with Unleash the Power Within (UPW).
I can’t even believe that my journey started less than a year ago, in March of 2015, with my fellow Inc. Owners Council CEOs. I documented my personal transformationat this event, so I won’t detail it here. What I will say is that the rock concert style and incredible energy is unlike any event in any industry (and I’ve attended and/or spoken at hundreds of events globally). I now understand why many Tony Robbins fans refer to UPW lovingly as “the gateway drug.” It’s what sets you on a course for total transformation. (I later invited my entire company and ultimately shared this experience with several of my Trepoint colleagues in Chicago in June).
Business mastery transforms my business.
Having had an incredible personal transformation at UPW, I got on a plane and flew to London to experience Business Mastery (Part 2). Yes, I’m an overachiever so I decided that to get all of this done inside a year, I needed to take the Business Mastery courses out of order. And I’m so glad I did. I met a global network of entrepreneurs who I’m still working with more than six months later. There’s no question that I received more than $1 million dollars in business value in the five days I spent there (as promised and personally guaranteed by the Anthony Robbins organization).
Life mastery transforms my body.
Two weeks after London, I flew to Fiji. That, by itself, was an incredible experience. But what the tropical island did was put me in the right frame of mind, with a deep desire to get back to nature. After a deep cleansing with no hunger, I discovered all the strategies I needed to live life with health and vitality. By the end of 2015, I had already lost 35 pounds, and I’m now on track to lose another 30 in the next five months. Having been on many yo-yo diets, I can’t tell you how powerful it feels to drop what will be 65 pounds in less than two years. Sure, the knowledge was helpful, but the psychology shift was the key to not just taking the weight off, but keeping it off for life. Besides, what good is business success if you don’t have your health to enjoy the fruits of your labor?
Wealth mastery transforms my finance.
During the same week as Life Mastery in Fiji, I continued with another 3.5 days to focus on my personal finance with Wealth Mastery. I had already finished Tony Robbins’ latest book Money: Master the Game and was familiar with some of the most important concepts (including two of the three most important decisions in your life) and the importance of asymmetric risk. Coming out of this conference, I understood the importance of having a fiduciary (vs. just a financial advisor), what it takes to create total financial freedom for my family, and strategies to avoid the psychological and emotional roller coaster of the stock market.
Date with destiny ties it all together.
And finally I attended Tony Robbins’ personal favorite event, Date with Destiny. For those who have attended UPW, this is the 10x version of what most people experienced earlier. This is where you go deep into your life’s purpose. Here, I was able to clearly articulate that “the purpose of my life is to be an inspirational leader who enjoys solving problems and creating breakthroughs in myself and others.” Having struggled with my personal mission statement for quite some time, you can imagine the gigantic sense of relief that breakthrough gave me.
While I have an incredible 15-year marriage, I was taught all sorts of strategies to help keep my wife blissfully happy. Which, it turns out, will be incredibly important as my two boys near their teenage years. At the end of this week, I felt incredibly happy and empowered. Although my breakthroughs are never done, I felt a calm in my life that I hadn’t before experienced.
Reinforcing what I learned at Business Mastery (Part 1).
Most recently, in January, I shared my Business Mastery experience with my EVP of content marketing, Molly Reynolds. I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting some of the concepts I had learned some eight months previously in London, and hearing from some of the great entrepreneurs of our time, including John Paul DeJoria, Jay Abraham, Keith Cunningham, David Meerman Scott, Ajay Gupta, and futurist Scott Klosoky. “Repetition is the mother of skill,” says Tony Robbins, and I can assure you that going back to this event I got even more value than the first time, as I was able to absorb even more material and brainstorm with one of my Trepoint colleagues.
What’s next?
I share all of this with you because I have received an incredible amount of insights, value, and breakthroughs in less than 12 months. I know that not everyone is a fan of Tony Robbins and I respect the “different strokes for different folks” philosophy. What is important to me, however, is that you are constantly educating and training yourself. The minute your business stops growing is the minute it starts dying. To continue to grow massively, find the people and the tools you need to get outside of your comfort zone and truly stretch yourself and your organization.
Through my experiences this past year, I walked on fire, climbed and jumped form a 50-foot telephone pole, lost 35 pounds and kept it off, got my financial house in order, rediscovered the purpose of my life, exchanged my to-do list for a life plan, discovered several ways to add $3 million dollars of growth to my business, and gave tens of thousands of dollars to charities I believe in. I am filled with gratitude like never before in my life. Tony Robbins didn’t do this for me. I did it for myself. However, Tony Robbins made it really, really easy for me to accomplish the kinds of things I had previously been putting off. For that, I am eternally grateful and will forevermore be a raving fan of Tony Robbins.
What’s next? Leadership Mastery in October in San Diego. Because I don’t just want to receive these kinds of breakthroughs, I want to be empowered to give them and to serve anyone who wants to learn them from me. At the end of the day, life is not about certainty and significance (as I once valued). Life is about growth and contribution, and I have done a ton of that in 2015 and look forward to continuing on this path for the rest of my life.
