How Tony Robbins Rewired His Mind at 17

She kicked me out. She wasn't going to stab me and kill me. I wasn't worried about dying, but I wasn't going back in that house. And so I I did sleep on the hill. And then it rained. I finally just went in. I knocked on the door of a friend. It was a girl, not a girlfriend. And um but her family really cared about me. And I said, you know, can I sleep in your laundry room? So that's where I was. So I had $12 to my name and $13, whatever. And I just took a little bit of money, got on a bus. And so I remembered this bookstore. So I went there and I just was guided to this book, The Magic of Believing. All it really taught was the power of belief. Belief controls everything. Everything you do is based on your belief. But it showed how to program your beliefs by conditioning them. If you use your body and your voice and every ounce of you is congruently speaking that over and over again, it basically hypnotizes you into owning that experience. And so, um, I used to write on the mirror in the laundry room, you know, only a loser is depressed, which is not true, but I knew I wasn't a loser. So, I used that as the leverage. I'm not going to be depressed cuz I was so depressed, Billy. And I had all these, you know, affirmations I would do and I go on runs and I do, you know, every day and every way I'm getting stronger and stronger and I would just program this nervous system of mine until I could really be in a position where I felt like I could succeed and it worked. It produced tremendous change in me. And reading was my escape, but it was also my uh transformation. I escaped the world as I entered Emerson's essays. And I've read a lot of autobiographies especially because when you read an autobiography, you're reading the words of that incredible human being. So you're thinking their thoughts and if you do that for days or weeks or whatever the case may be, you start to take that on. It's like if if you want to play the piano and you you can mess around on your own, but if you're smart, you learn other people's music and all of a sudden you do some amazing things. But after a while, you play it enough, you learn enough patterns that now you become the creator. Now you start to create your own patterns. And that's pretty much what happened for me with these books. And then also events. I went to seminar after seminar. I had no money. I wouldn't I didn't have money for my rent, but I go invest in a seminar because I'll never be able to pay for this until I change what's going on in me. And I was obsessed with using what I learned cuz I had to cuz I'd given up all the money I had to do it. When you were 17 years old, you're working at Gendora High School as a janitor. Yes. help me move people on the weekends and there was a friend of your families who was a landlord and very awkward conversation ensued where he said my parents said hey you're such a loser how are you so successful so tell us about Jim Ran and the influence you had on your life and the question that you asked a landlord and he said no [ __ ] way I'm not doing that you do it yourself well my uh you know I had to help support my family enough money for food so I'm going to school and I kept two different jobs as a janitor because I could work in the middle of the night and they didn't charge would pay you by the hour, they paid you by the result. So I could do two banks in the middle of night, do a great job and take the buses home and contribute. And then on the weekends, I would try to find something to do also because you didn't have to do the banks then. And my mom and dad knew this man who, as my dad's words were, used to be such a loser, now he's so successful. And I wonder what happened to him. And all he was was he was buying properties, fixing them up and flipping them in Orange County, California in the 1970s, like 70 1977. And the market was exploding. So he was doing very well. So he needed to be he was very efficient in his workforce to move pigs and so he always hired like a high school student and I've been 5'1 in my sophomore year and I got a tumor in my brain. No one knew that's why and I grew 10 inches in a year. So I was like get that big strapping guy. We'll do this. So I come and I I'm a hard worker and after two days of working my guts out he's like you're the hardest working guy I've ever met. He goes I'm really impressed. Let me take you to lunch. So he takes me to lunch and and he starts asking questions. I said I want to ask you some questions. I said, you know, my dad and I I wasn't saying trying to be harsh or funny. He just when you're a kid, you just don't realize. I said, my dad said, "You should be such a loser. Now you're so successful. Like, how'd you do that?" He was taken back obviously. He said, "J said, what?" And he goes, "Well," he goes, "It's probably pretty accurate about me." I said, "But what changed you?" And he said, "I went to a seminar." And I never even heard the word seminar before. I said, "What's a seminar?" He sits where a man who has become incredibly successful over decades takes all he's learned in the decades and tries to compress it into a few hours or a few days and save you all that trial and error learning. So how long is somebody goes it's three and a half hours? I said how much is it? He said $35. It' be like $250 in today's dollars, right? Inflation and I was making $40 a week. So I said wow that's expensive. I said can you get me in? And he's like yeah but he was in anymore. I said, "Well, will you?" And he said, "No." And I said, "Well, why not?" And he said, "Well, because you won't value it if you don't pay for it." I said, "No, no, no. I'm on my own. I've been sleeping on my car. I'm working as a janitor." Tell him the whole story, right? He goes, "I don't hear the story." He said, "If you're really committed, you'll go there." Or, he said, "Learn on your own experience and take 10 or 20 or 30 years or maybe never figure it out." So, I remember I like sweat and bullets with this decision. Do I do a week's pay for this one three-hour thing, right? And I was like, "Oh my god." And then I went down there. I had graduated to a 1968 Volkswagen since this my mom had got the other one in Baja Vug. I pulled up in front of the the nice hotel in Orange County, California. I was wearing a blue uh leisure suit, which is what people wore in those days that I got in the thrift store. Fake gold chain, but I was ready to rock and roll, baby. And I went in, talked my way, and a guy had set this thing up so I could get in and I sat in that seminar and I'd read so many books that when Naron was speaking, I would finish some of his phrases. And you're at a round table. I was somewhat disruptive without meaning to be, but I was so enthusiastic. And then during a break, I went up to Jim Ran and told him the story about, you know, how I'd been doing all this stuff and I wanted to come to work for him. And he's like, "Uh, young man, if you want to come work for me, you have to go through all my programs." And so, I didn't have that kind of money. I'm sleeping in my car in an old trench coat. I got the thrift store. And I said, I tried to tell him my story. And he said, "No, no, no. I don't want to hear all that." He said, "I'm not your banker." cuz I said, "You could loan me the money and then I'll go get these great results and I'll tell everybody that you help me do this." He goes, "No, no, no. I'm not your banker." He goes, "You know what? If you want to come to work with me, you have to have the money by Saturday." And he said, "Everybody gets what they have to have. Some people have to survive. Some people have to succeed. Decide which one you are." And he walked away. And I was pissed off. I was like, "He's an [ __ ] I mean, I'm struggling. He's rich. I I'm willing to pay for it. I just want him to finance it." You know, another part of my brain started going, "He's right. He's right. He's right. He's like, "He's right." White, he's right. You've always got what you had to have. And so I was like, "Okay." So I went to banks thinking banks will loan you money when you need it, which of course is, I'm sure, you know, they only loan you money if you don't need it, you know? So I went to four banks in a row, turned down, turned down, turned down, and I'm running out of time. So I finally I'm outside the Bank of America, West Cabina, California, a place called Citrus Avenue. And I'm I didn't know what I was doing, but I was getting myself like pumped up physiologically. I know I know what I was doing now, but I was getting in this really strong state. So, I go in there and convince somebody. I walked in. I looked for somebody looked persuadable. And there's this kind looking woman, kind eyes. I thought she'll understand. So, I walked up to her with all the energy I had. Shook her hand. Probably shook it off and said, "I'm Tony Robbins. I'm here today to borrow $1,200. I don't want that money for like to repair something. I don't want to for a vacation. I want it so I can attend a seminar." and she had this weird look on her face like I'm not getting through to her and she said, "Okay, young man. Well, let me see your application. Settle down." And she goes, "I appreciate your intensity and passion." And so she's reading it. And she sees my address is on Citrus Avenue. It's a commercial street that goes through four cities. There's no apartments on it. So she says, "Citrus Avenue?" She said, "Where where's your apartment on Citrus Avenue?" I said, "Well, I don't really have an apartment. I have kind of a mobile home." And she said, "A mobile home?" So, I told her the truth. I'm sleeping in my car at 24 hours between Denny's and 7-Eleven. They don't make me move. I talk to the mailman. He gives me my mail because he understands what I'm going through. So, if you send it there, I'll get it. And her eyes are getting like this. And then she says, "So, you want the bank to loan you money and we'll send the bill to the 7-Eleven and you'll be in your mobile car sleeping?" She goes, "And then she goes, and and you're you're 17 years old." I said, "What does that matter?" She goes, "You can't sign a contract till you're 18." I said, "I'll be 18 soon." She said, "How soon?" I said, "I assume you have to be 18." I said, "I'll be 18 in two weeks." She goes, "Well, you probably fig I just don't think the bank's going to loan it to you." And I was like, "No, no, you understand. I got to do this." I got even more passionate. She said, "Listen." And she looked at me and she said, "You're serious about this, aren't you?" I said, "As serious as a heart attack, I'm going to use everything I learned. I'm going to do all these things." And she said, "I've never met anybody quite like you." She said, 'If you look me in the eye and swear to me I will never have to come looking for you because I'm not going to 7-Eleven or Denny's, I will do everything I can to get the bank to help you, but if they won't, I'll loan you the money, but you better take this seriously." And I like jumped across the desk, kissed her. She wasn't ready for that stuff. And I said, "I always tell people you gave my start." And that's why I've always told the story. And um her name was Mrs. Williams. And she got the loan with the money though. She didn't have to do it. I don't know how she did. Maybe she cosigned. I don't know. But uh I took $1,200, which is makes me emotionally, but now I'm remembering it. And all the money in the world was more expensive than the car I was sleeping in, right? You know, and I went to Jim Ran seminar and I met a man there named Mike Keys who's still my friend today, 45 plus years later. And um and he had just a little bit more money than me. And he said, "Look, stay in my hotel. You don't have to stay in your car." And we were both pretty broke and a lot of very wealthy people were there learning from him. But because of that, like I said, it's like we were writing every word. I had to go to the bathroom and everything. But at one point I figured out every word was worth like three cents or some ridiculous thing. But I was so committed. And then Jim Ran years later I spoke at his funeral. He's a beautiful man. Um he would start his seminars and say you know every time I get up there I want to do a good job because you never knows in your audience. And he'd tell the story about this kid who was in a kid who sitting in his room and shouting out answers and he go you know it was Tony Robbins and today there's people all around the world. And then he also would tell the story about Mike. the two guys that were the most broke cuz we probably applied it as much or more than most people would.