Robbins redefines wealth not as money but as the capacity to extract maximum joy from any experience — arguing that true abundance is a relationship with aliveness, not a number in a bank account.
Transcript
And what is wealth? Well, the people have a lot of money and are very poor. How many you know somebody has a lot of money who's poor? Poor psychologically, emotionally, they don't have great relationships. They're not close to their kids. Really, poor is the opposite of wealth. Wealth, if you want to give it a definition, is you can extract the maximum joy out of any experience. That's wealth. If you have a ton of money and you don't experience joy out of, if you can't extract the joy, you're not wealthy. You got money. And most of us know money does not change your life. People say if you're not happy with money, you don't know where to shop. I don't think that's totally true. That's useful. But the truth of the matter is I want to make sure that you start being wealthy here whether the numbers hit that or not. And I'm one of you. I I'm one of you. Meaning some of you starting the journey may see where I am now and go, "Oh my god, I remember I was fortunate enough to get myself in proximity of some huge players." And I got there because of my skill set. I was able to help them with something else in their life. I changed their relationship or changed their happiness or their joy or changed their body or helped them shift something in their business. And so early in my life, I got in proximity with some multi-billionaires. But not only just multi-billionaires, cuz a lot of multi-billionaires, as I found when I did Money Master the Game, don't have much of a lifestyle. Some of them are tight as can possibly be. They're not wealthy. They have lots of money. I know one in particular who's actually became a friend of mine in the beginning. be like he'd be screaming at his wife and his kid cuz they spent $2,500 a piece of jewelry and the guy is a multi-billionaire. It's like he would we flew to India. I flew to India and in those days I didn't have my own plane but I chartered cuz the quality of my life was affected by it so much and he has a Gulfream and he chose to go commercial and I was like what is wrong with you? And by the way, this person was like 70 years old. So it's not like there's a lot of time to save up for something, right? He could spend more money than you could ever imagine every day and never go through all his money. But some people never get beyond scarcity no matter how much money they have. So I think it's important that on this first day, we address the psychological part just like we do in business, right? Start out in business. I love to start out with some of the core strategies like optimization because you know how much I love that cuz you can change any business. How many of you have been to business mastery, optimized your business, and grown it significantly? Make some noise if you're out there, ladies. But none of that works if you don't change your psychology first, right? Cuz that is always the barrier. And every one of us in this room has a financial set point, a wealth set point. And that set point is kind of like body weight. You know, people have their goal and then they have where they live. And they might go for their goal for a while, but they usually adjust to that set point. And the goal this week might be for you to expand your set point. Not so you have more money first. Expanding your set point on enjoyment because if you think more money is going to do it, it's not. How many made a lot more money today than 10 years ago? And you have a lot more stress in your life as well. I'm curious. Let me see. Right. People think I have more money less stress. Even stupid things that only we can talk about here cuz outside this context, people go, "Oh, first world problems." And they're right. But if you have multiple homes, it's another job, right? You got multiple people and there's different staffs in different locations and somebody's got a problem and somebody's getting sick and somebody's fighting with somebody else in the organization. Who knows what I'm talking about? It's another freaking business you got to run. Right now, I'm not complaining in any way, shape, or form. But it doesn't go away because you have money. It goes away, meaning scarcity, because you've made a shift in your psychology. It goes away when you start finding wealth in every moment. When you can find the joy even in the stuff that used to piss you off or freak you out, that's when you become really wealthy. When you're 30 or 35 or 40, you think you know where you are or you think you're hit a certain age, but you have no idea that if most of you in this room are under How many are under the age of 40, I should say. How many under the age? Yes. You have no clue. How many are 40 or above? Let's see the room. We kind of split the room here, right? A little more. 40 and on are the highest earning years of your life that will dwarf everything else if you apply the types of things we learn to grow your business. And if you invest, it's ridiculous the growth you can have. But you have to be around the right people. You have to raise your set point if you want to. By the way, the goal is not to have the most money. The goal is to have the most joy with the least amount of money needed. But whatever is going to give you the most joy is it. You're not competing with other people. You're finding what it is that's going to make you feel fulfilled. But the bottom line is during that time, I remember going to Peter and he invited me at this one point to go on his yacht. You're going in the northeast there through all the islands and these are all people in the movie business. And I'll never forget at one point some guys were talking about Peter and they were saying like he made $25 million on that picture. One year. It was really a 5-year project, but all I heard was one year. $25 million. And at that point, it was like the most people made in a film as an executive director, producer, I should say. And I remember thinking, I work 20our days, never less than 18. I work six, seven days a week. I love what I do. I'll never make $25 million in a year. Now I make $20 million while I sleep every year. Not counting anything I do actively to give you an idea. I'm just telling you it seemed impossible. And I remember feeling like depressed. I will never be out like this. I'm not one of them. I'll never be at that level. And I went into this little thing because when you compare yourself to others, you will steal your joy. got it down because you're never fair in your comparison. One is I had negated a notice that Peter was 18 years my senior. He also picked an industry that was much more profitable than the one I was in. I was in a business that had margins of 8 to 10% like a restaurant. You make one mistake or you make no mistakes. The economy changes and you're upside down. I didn't understand the importance of margin. I didn't understand how to maximize a business. I didn't think my business could ever be something of size or scope. But I learned how to make that happen in my core business before I ran off to 10 other businesses, which many of my friends did. And my people around me, it's like, "No, you would not maximize this business." I said, "Trust me, I'm doing more than anybody in the face of the earth in this area." Still, you've not maximized it. Bottom line is don't judge yourself by where you are today. It's an unfair judgment. There's also other elements like are you happy in your relationship? Is your body healthy? You got all the money. You know, most of you read. How many read Life Force? I'm curious. If you haven't, I hope you will and I hope you'll apply it. We'll talk some of those principles this week on one morning as well because you know there I started the book with a quote. The quote was really simple. A person who's healthy has a million dreams. A person who's not has one. Everything else will go away. So we don't always compare fairly. I want you to know where you are is not what matters. I also want you to know where you want to go is what matters and that the tools to get there are here. And in the beginning, some of you may feel a little overwhelmed because there may be language or terms that are used that you're not familiar with. Even if you're sophisticated investors, some of these people may use terms. Some of them are traders and so forth you not be familiar with. Don't let it bother you in any way. They're not smarter than you are. It's like the medical profession. It's like lawyers. They have certain words that give them power. Now, they use words. Now, everybody uses words. So, these people have words. When I first learned to fly a helicopter, I remember it's like you're trying to listen. the sound so loud and the the voice of the guy in the tower is breaking up. I have no idea what he said. Even if I understood it, I wouldn't know what he said. But after a while, you'll learn. Especially after about 5 days of immersion here, you'll things will start to make sense. Just like if I threw you in Italy and didn't give you any language learning and said, "I'll pick you up in 90 days." With no teacher, you'll figure it out because you're in immersion. And the same thing happens after a while. You learn there's only so many patterns, right? There's only so many things the tower can say. So even though a little part of it, you know what it means. You know the rhythm. And that's what will happen with you financially over the next decade if you handle yourself well. And my decade went from I remember trying to figure out my financial plan of how do I get $2 million in income while I'm sleeping, which would have covered my lifestyle cuz I didn't own a $50 million house and all that kind of or a BBJ. I was chartering planes. And so then it's like it grew from that to 20 million a year while I'm sleeping and my best years I made over $100 million to give you an idea. I've got several years $100 million and I got the next three years I'll make over $100 million. So there wasn't a lot of role models like oh you're in the movie business there's a dozen or so huge assets people have built like that area but I so I had to see I had to find I had to find my way. But what did it was getting uncomfortable but still enjoying my life. You find the balance I'm talking about here this week. You're going to get uncomfortable. We're in really interesting times. Some of the most challenging times, very different than anything most of you have experienced in your lifetime. But everybody will experience in their lifetime they live to be at least 80. There's four seasons. Some people experience winter when they're a kid. Some people when they're in the middle ages, you know, 20s to 40, some 40 to 60, some 60 to 80. But if you live, no one escapes winter. But winter is well, if I asked you, wouldn't be the easiest and fastest time, maybe not easiest, what's the fastest time to make money? When can you make the most money in the shortest period of time? What season? It's winter. Why? Cuz everybody's scared. And when they're scared, they change what they value things for. And the way you make money is not by buying things for what they're worth. You're going to buy something for less than it's really worth because of the psychological change. Or something maybe that's worth that now today, but with inflation it's going to grow. That's the way that's the way you make money. Or building a business and growing it and selling it for a multiple. Those are the only ways you get wealthy financially. So if you think about it, this is the best season in the world if you can keep this and this straight. If you can find your courage and your faith and determination and if you can put together a great plan, which if you play with me full out, you've got great, you know, sophistication, but you don't have great execution. And the only thing we're paid for is execution. This week, I want you to play like it's brand new. Even if you've been here, and there's going to be plenty is brand new, cuz the world's brand new. But we live in a culture today where if you're not careful, you'll be infected by it. Where you think I remember I had uh Prime Minister Tony Blair was here one year for us for this program. Some of you were at the program and we interviewed him and we were talking up about Brexit and you know he said, "You know what's really funny is people come to me all the time and I'll tell them my point of view about Brexit and they go, "You're totally wrong." They go on and on and on and he'd say, "Well, I was prime minister for 8 years. I do have some understanding." But today people think if they've read about flying they can fly any plane. Like if they've experienced something once and they understand it they think they know it. That's not how it works. The greatest gift I've got from Jim Ran was repetition. To understand repetition is the mother of mastery. That's repetition is the mother of skill. All skill comes repetition. And so you hear it once you start to understand it. What we're going to share this week is not complex. My job is to make it as simple as I can so it's less complex for you. But you need to hear it and hear it and hear it because each time you hear it with more emotion, more feeling, you apply another part and another part. Who's ever gone to a a movie or read a book you'd read before and you read it another stage of life and it was like a totally different movie or book or I don't remember that being in the movie, right? It's because you're growing cuz there's something new. So every time I make sure I don't say I know this. When I was doing Money Master the Game, I'd spent 23 years coaching Paul Tudtor Jones, one of the 10 most successful financial traders in the history of the world. I've coached him every day for 23 years. He is a genius. He gives me way more credit than I deserve, but I like it. But I've also learned so much from him. So, I knew a lot before I went to go interview these people. But I was more than humbled because I went in with a fresh view that as much as I think I know about working with the best guys on earth, there's so many ways to crack this egg, so to speak. And I learned so many distinctions. That was 10 years ago, 2013, when I was in the middle of writing that book. Where I am now versus I was then because I've applied these tools is beyond imagination. I have a billion dollar net worth in the next 36 months, 5 years. If I don't do anything that has a blowup, just my normal asset at their normal growth at about 6 or 7%. And I never focused on money. It wasn't my focus. I changed to make sure I included money as my focus. But I wasn't somebody saying I'm in, you know, I've got to do this. And being a billionaire will not change my life at all, but it'll be fun. There's only 3,000 of them in the whole planet. So, it's like you're a part of a unique club and it's because I've applied these principles. So, I am so excited. Your goal may not to be a billionaire, and it certainly wasn't mine, but I want you to have the greatest quality of life possible. But to do that, we got to take this thing called money and put it in a context where it doesn't add stress to your life and where you feel a sense of skill and understanding and optimism that even if all hell breaks loose, things go up and down. It's not a straight line. If you think it's a straight line to what you want to achieve, you've not been in business. If you go to nature, show me a straight line in nature. You won't find it. If you find it, a human built it. That's not how things grow. How do they grow? They grow up and they come down a little bit like a stock, right? But if it's successful, the overall arc is up. And over the years, there's a stacking of those effects. So, what I really want to get across to you is I don't give a where you are. Number one, let's start by being wealthy. Because if you can extract as much joy as possible out of every moment from little things, not just the big things, not the astronaut who goes to the moon and they walk on the moon and it's the most unbelievable experience and they come home and they have a ticker tape parade in New York and they shake the president's hand and then what they thought the way to have adventures walk on the moon and they did it.