Tony Robbins: Six Things That Actually Scale a Business

The largest change for any business, any business person, any owner of a business is to actually become an owner and not just an operator. Because there's a very different thing between being self-employed and owning a business. And there's nothing wrong with being self-employed because it'll still give you several benefits. You control your time, right? You control your hours. You control what you do. You have more flexibility. You get to call the shots. But most people that are self-employed are pretty exhausted because whenever someone tells me in their business and I'm so burnt out, I know that that person is what I would call a business operator. And I know this sounds like just semantics, but it's not. When you're the operator, this is what happens. You start a business. Most of us start a business because we're passionate about something. Maybe you work for somebody else. And one day you want, man, I'm writing this software. I'm the base of this company or I'm the top marketer. I'm the top salesperson or negotiator or I design the fashion materials. I should just do this myself and it sounds really cool and you begin it in the beginning it's okay cuz if someone says I want a green suit you make them a green suit but in order to grow you have to learn how to scale and that's what this session is going to be about. This session is about how do you grow explosively in your business and how do you do that in any financial environment by learning how to truly scale. And scaling is where you're able to do something and keep growing it further and further. Think in terms of the difference between somebody like I don't know the city I grew up in, the little town I grew up in, there's a little burger shop there and you might have had one in your town, Herbs Burgers, right? And it has a it has people standing outside in line bits of the day to get in. It's so popular. It has the best burgers in town. And if I went back to that town, which I did about, you know, 5 years ago, hey, I've been 30 years since I'd been there. And I burgers is still there. And I is a little older and there with his staff doing it. And he still makes some of the best burgers in town. The only problem is there was a guy over here named McDonald's, two brothers who came up with an idea, but what they did is they figured how to scale it. Actually, they didn't. You know, Ray Croc did. Someone else came in was entrepreneurial and said, "You guys are working so hard with this little center here. I think we could take this to another level." But it wouldn't cost we don't have to spend a huge more amount of money. We could take this business and expand it. So, the difference between Herb, by the way, does McDonald's have the best burger? The answer is no. But McDonald's sells more burgers than anybody on earth. And so the difference is they figured how to scale. Now I believe you can do quality and scale. And many people have figured out how to do that. I don't know if McDonald's has, but the scaling is what makes them successful. But the psychological shift that has to happen in you. And I'm hoping this can be the beginning of that shift for you. I mean, I normally spend 5 days with someone day and night to make these shifts and give them every tool and strategy so they're certain. I think I can plant strong enough seeds with you if you really, you know, give to yourself to this to really start this process of being the owner and start this process of scaling. And by the way, and to do it in any environment whatsoever because right now, and a lot of people say, well, it's really uncertain right now. If you heard the Fed chairman just the other day said he doesn't know what to do. I mean, he literally said he doesn't know what to do. He's not sure if the economy is going to grow or shrink, whether they're going to have inflation or not because there's this uncertainty based on the tariffs that the current president has put out. Now, whether you like that president or hate that president or have no feeling about the president doesn't matter. I'm an independent personally, so I voted on both sides of the aisle. But what I think is really important, there's a great lesson right now in what's happening our economy. It's a time of uncertainty. What do most people do when they're uncertain? Nothing. They hold back. They pull back. This happens whenever we have recessions and during that happens most businesses shrink because they're fearful. But when you shrink based on the fear, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and pretty soon you it's hard to get going again. My secret and the reason I'm still here in business and be able to do what I'm doing here. This is my 48th year. I'm well preserved. I started when I was three. You understand, right? Right. But 48 years ago is when I started my first business and here I am still doing it. Right. But I've been able to do that going through every economy you can imagine. And the reason is because I understood very early on. It's not the economy, it's your psychology. The most important key in your business is to become an owner. But also that when people are fearful, that is your opportunity. When people are uncertain, that is your opportunity. You can't allow yourself to stay in fear. It's okay to be fearful. That's called being human. It's okay to be uncertain. But when you feel it, you got to push yourself through it. It's like, you know, the people say when you're going through hell, what do they say? Keep going. That's the secret. And if you keep going, you get to the other side. So there's a certain amount of relentlessness you need to have. And you got to learn really how to be put yourself in a position where you see beyond the moment, right? That's people only see this moment. Usually make mistakes. You need to see beyond the moment because when this all happened, the stock market compressed. People freaked out and a lot of people sold their stock and all across the news they said, "Oh my god, we've lost 13 trillion trillion dollars in value. The president's destroyed the country." Right? And again, I'm not promoting the president. I just want you to think beyond the headlines cuz otherwise you will be suckered into being in fear cuz if it isn't this president, it'll be something else. It'll be co it'll be the environment. There'll be some reason why you can't succeed and you should be fearful and live in this place cuz fear sells. If you're in a position where you're walking by in the old days, I'm old enough to remember newspapers and sure enough you go by and there' be a headline and if the headline said great weather this weekend, you smiled and kept walking. If it said big storm coming, you put your 50 cents in and you got it. Well, today it's in your pocket following you on your phone obviously, but they get paid every time you look, every time you click, and they know for yourselves. That's why in the news business, they've always said, "If it bleeds, it leads." If you're going to be the owner of your business, the owner of your life, if you're going to compete and be strong, you got to manage this and this, your head and heart. You got to learn how to manage your state. You got to learn to really think like an owner, not like an operator that's freaked out. An operator, by the way, is trying to do everything themselves because they go, "I can't hire anybody else. I can't afford them." Or, "I can't hire anybody else because, you know, they won't be as good as me." And all those things probably are true in the beginning, but there's a way around them if you're resourceful and if you're relentless, if you're creative enough. 80% of success is psychology, mindset, the emotion, the beliefs of a person. 20% of determining their success is strategy. And it doesn't matter if it's a tiny business or someone just beginning or a big business. The principles are the same. How many of you know something that you need to change in your life, know how to change it, know you should change it, and still haven't changed it? Make a little noise if you can relate to this in some way. So that's not a howto problem. That's a psychological shift, a shift in beliefs, a shift in emotion. And you have to condition that shift. So I can't do that alone for today for you, but I can plant the seed that if you decide you can consume it and you can go use it and you can immerse yourself. And immersion is how you're going to make these changes. You might have to do a little pain in the short term to have long-term success, but if you were relentless, you will experience it. [Music] Everybody wants to work at home, and it's so nice. It's so convenient, but it misses something. It misses mentorship, right? I remember I I was listening to the CEO, you know, of of u one of the largest banks in the world here who kind of went off and they had an audio recording of it, but he was talking about this whole idea of virtual. He goes, "It sounds nice, but then you're never going to become anybody because you get around somebody you can learn from and absorb from. Just doing a, you know, Zoom every now and then doesn't do it. There's proximity is power. If you get around people that are the best in the world, you're gonna absorb some of it. If you're doing it from a distance, it's okay, but it's not the same. And so he met a man there at Bell Labs who became his mentor, but he was not nice to him. He just said, "Look, kid, we got this problem. Go figure out how to solve it." And so, you know, his parents had told him, "Your job in life is solve problems." So, he went to the library in those days and he didn't know what the words meant of what the problem was. He studied, he figured out. He came back to the guy and he said, "I figured this and this out, but I haven't figured that out." He goes, "Okay, I'm impressed you did that work." And he mentored him. He said, "You look for this, this, and this." And he sent him off again. Well, within 3 weeks, he solved this huge problem for Bell Laboratories at 17 years old. And they said, "This kid's a genius." No, his genius was relentless. His genius was he wouldn't give up. His genius was he was so hungry and driven that he would do whatever it took. But then he kept coming back to this guy. And because he kept coming back to the mentor with hard work and results, the guy took an interest in him. And that's where his entire career started. And to this day, Robert will tell you that same curiosity, that same relentlessness is the secret. Leaders are those that get results. What makes you a leader is not your age. It's not your position. It's your ability to get results, especially when other people aren't getting it. But if leaders are about getting results, the question you have to ask yourself is how do you get results? And the answer is you solve problems. Our job as leaders of our businesses, of our families, of our lives is to solve problems. Now, by the way, I hear people all the time, I tell people, you know, you know, people's biggest problem is, if you got to say, what's people's biggest problem? Most people's biggest problem, I'll tell you what it is. They think they shouldn't have any. Right? Problems are a sign of life. Problems are designed to sculpt our souls. Without problems, we don't grow as much. We don't want them, but they're there for a purpose. They're not there to torture you. Now, if you're in business, you have problems. If you don't, you're not in business or you're ignorant. Right now, you might call them challenges. That feels better. So, if you don't have one or if you don't have some problems, you should get on your knees and beg for some because you're not going to be here very long. Think of it this way. there's a problem and then most people ignore the problem or they blame somebody for the problem or they blame the world or they blame the economy or they blame themselves. Blame never improves anything. The only next step is you have to you have to make a change. [Music]