All right. What’s going on, everybody? Gregg Sugerman with you here from GreggSugerman.com and host of the 15 Minute Mindset Podcast.
I’m having kind of a nice, relaxing, lazyish day around my apartment here in New York City. It’s a beautiful fall day outside.
And inside, what I’ve been doing here is I’ve been thinking about one of my main men, one of my main mentors, and that’s Tony Robbins.
Tony Robbins has meant a hell of a lot to me as I’ve gone through and continue to go through my personal development journey.
I can confidently say that since I started learning from Tony Robbins many years ago I am a happier person, a more emotionally balanced person.
I’m a person that has better relationships. I’m a wealthier person. I don’t know. I’m just an all around what I consider a much better person in a much better place than when I found Tony Robbins.
He’s opened up a whole lot in my world. It’s one of the reasons I’m on this coaching journey is because of my experiences with Tony Robbins, whether that be through a bunch of the seminars that I’ve gone to, reading his books, just consuming this content anyway I can.
So I put together a list for you guys here. It is the top 11 things I’ve learned from Tony Robins.
Now, why 11 things? Why not 5 things or 10 things? I have no idea. Don’t know. Put together a list and 11 was what we came up with, so 11 it is.
And here we go….
Number one. And by the way, this is not in any particular order, okay? So number one, he taught me what we are not, okay?
What we are not, as in we are not our bad habits. We are not our patterns.
I think one of the most mind-blowing things to me was that we are not our thoughts.
Now, he didn’t invent any of these concepts, but he’s kind of introduced me to them.
So just think about how powerful, how liberating that is when you can separate yourself from that chatter, that mental kind of craziness that goes on inside your head sometimes just to know that you are not your thoughts.
Number two, what keeps us stuck is 80% psychology and 20% mechanics, meaning mindset, okay?
Mindset, mindset, mindset, your psychology.
Oftentimes, when we’re stuck, we blame it on a lack of resources when in reality it’s very rarely that.
Much more often, it is a lack of resourcefulness.
So if you find yourself stuck, it is not your current situation or the world putting roadblocks in front of you.
It’s not this. It’s not that. It’s right there, okay? Right there.
Number three, you can either let disappointment destroy you or you can use it to drive you.
Now, I would add a couple of other things to that list other than disappointment. It can be anger. It can be a … Disappointment is what he said.
Disappointment, anger, whatever it may be, okay?
You can those emotions to drive you to further push you along. Use them as fuel to get you where you need to go, right?
So something happens in your life, you can allow yourself to stay in a place disappointed about what that event was or you can use that disappointment.
It’s really powerful.
Use that disappointment. If you don’t like your situation, if you don’t like where you are currently, let that disappointment turn to anger.
Let that anger be fuel, and let that drive you to get where you want to go in your life. Very powerful.
Let’s see.
Number four, again, in no particular order. I love this one.
Whatever it is that you want in your life, it is not the thing that you are after, but the feeling that you’re going to get once you have that thing.
So it’s not the thing you’re after, it’s the feeling that you’re going to have when you get that thing, when you achieve that goal.
So it is not money that you want. I get that that sounds really crazy. It’s not money you want, it’s the feeling that she will get when you have that money, okay?
It is not 40 pounds, or 50 pounds, or whatever it is that you want to lose. It is the feeling that you will have once you have lost that weight.
So try to put yourself in that space. Visualize. Allow yourself to feel what it would be like when you’ve achieved that goal no matter what that goal is.
It can be better relationships. It can be more money. It can be lose weight. It can be to start your own business.
Whatever it is, spend some time feeling into what it would feel like when you have that thing.
And when you can tap into that, you are going to get whatever it is you want in your life much faster, okay?
So remember, it is not the thing that you’re actually after, it’s the feeling that you will get once you have that thing.
Where are we on this list? I feel kind of like a game show host. It’s very exciting.
Number five.
Drum roll please.
Number five, emotion is the ultimate resource, okay?
Ultimate resource.
When you feel good, just think about it, when you feel good, when you feel powerful, when you feel strong, when you feel empowered, when you feel in love, when you feel happy, when you feel joyous, isn’t life just easy or much easier at least, right?
Of course it is.
When you’re feeling lousy, when you’re feeling disempowered, when you’re in a low energy place, and we’ll get to energy in just a minute, makes everything in your life just so much more difficult.
So learning to master your emotions, to cultivate your emotions, it’s one of the most critical skills you can ever learn in your life.
I don’t care if you’re a doctor, or a soldier, or a fireman, or a professional athlete, or a teacher, or a scuba diver, whatever, okay?
Learning to master and cultivate your emotions is one of the biggest things you could learn to do in your life, and I have a feeling you already knew that.
Let’s see.
Number six, energy. Energy is everything.
Energy is everything.
That’s kind of very similar to what I just spoke about with emotions, right?
Because when you are full of energy, when you are just raring to go, you can do anything, right?
You can conquer the world. But when you’re in those low energy states, when you’re tired, when you’re not rested, you are in a bad, negative energy kind of place.
Again, you know what’s harder to do in your life?
Everything.
So this, another critically important life skill is learning how to cultivate that energy, okay?
Learning how to cultivate that energy.
Now, how do you do that?
How many hours at night are you sleeping?
What’s your diet like?
What’s your exercise routine like?
Do you do things like breath work in the middle of the day if you’re feeling tired or are you relying on coffee, and sugary drinks, and snacks, and all that kind of stuff?
By the way, full disclosure, I love coffee. So anyhow…
Because there are things that you can learn to do. You can learn to condition yourself for more energy on tap whenever you need it. It’s possible. I do it.
There’s a million ways to do that.
Number eight.
The two most important decisions that you can make in your life is,
one, what you focus on and, two, the meaning that you assign events in your life.
So that number one, what you focus on, that is something that is an always has been and always will be in your control.
What are you focusing on on a day-in-day-out basis, on an hour-by-hour basis?
What are you focusing in on right now?
Hopefully you’re just riveted and locked in this video.
But for real, what you focus on is something that you can control. Even though I know it feels oftentimes like you can’t, but you can.
So what are you focusing on?
Are you focusing in on your goals, your dreams, what you’re going to achieve or are you focused on lack, what you don’t have, what’s missing, what your problems are, your issues?
Because if you spend time focusing there, you’re not focusing on all the good things that you already have in your life, and all of us have something good going on in our lives way more than some thing.
There’s a lot that we have that we can feel good about.
So where you focus, what you focus on at any given time, that’s completely up to you.
And the second part of that, what was that? Right, the meaning that you assign events in your life, again, entirely up to your control.
Somebody loses a job, you can assign meaning, something like, “This is the worst thing that ever happened to me. The universe is against me. I’m fucked.” Excuse me, I’m screwed, right?
“How am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to do this? What’s going to become of me? I’m in big trouble,”
versus, “Okay, this happened. How can I use this to my benefit?”
Maybe this was the universe giving me something I need. I now have the opportunity to pursue something different, something better.
Now, I understand that losing a job is a terrible thing, obviously, okay?
I’m just saying the meaning that you assign anything that happens in your life is critically important.
And that meaning that you assign to something, that’s up to you, in your control.
Always has been, always will be.
Where are we?
Ah, number nine, you cannot think your way to a new emotion.
You cannot think your way to a new emotion if you’re in a place, in a headspace or a feel space, a heart space that you don’t like, if you’re experiencing emotions that you don’t like, a place that you don’t want to be.
Getting yourself trapped in your own head, the expression is “stay in your head”, you’re dead.
You’re not going to think your way out of that place.
The way out of that place, the fastest way out of that place is to change your physiology, which I probably should have added to that list, the importance of being able to change your physiology, but too late now.
Changing your physiology.
Using your body will get you out of that place, okay?
Radical shifts in your physiology. Jumping up and down, doing jumping jacks, doing breathing exercises, doing pushups, whatever it is, that is the way you get yourself to a new emotion.
When you start to do that, when you feel differently, you will think differently.
When you think differently, you will have different emotions.
So you cannot think your way to a new emotion.
I’m pretty sure I screwed up this, the numbers, but that’s okay. Who cares?
Ah, number whatever this is.
Emotions do not happen to you, you DO emotions.
So you don’t get pissed off, you DO pissed off.
You don’t GET depressed, you DO depressed.
Same way you don’t get happy, you DO happy.
You do every emotion that you feel.
Now, what does that mean? You do depression? You do whatever it is? What did I say, the first one that I started with? You don’t do pissed off.
Any emotion that you have, what precedes that emotion is what you do with your body, right?
So you could recognize somebody depressed just by looking at their body. Shoulders forward, head down, talking slow, talking low, all of these, okay?
When you are pissed off, you are holding your body in a certain way. Now, it actually precedes the emotion.
You’re doing all of this out of habit. You’ve been doing it since you were a little kid.
So something happens, you hold your body a certain way, and then you experience that emotion.
And this all happens in the blink of an eye. But you’re actually doing that with your body first.
Try being pissed off. If you’re feeling pissed off, try to stay pissed off by standing in a powerful pose, shoulders back, chest up, and smiling. Big smile for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds.
See what happens to that feeling.
You won’t stay pissed off for long.
So you actually DO your emotions.
If you’re not familiar with this kind of stuff, it’s a little bit tricky to wrap your head around it.
But when you do, phew, shit will change for you because you will realize you have so much more control over all this stuff than you thought.
And this dovetails into the next point, which was recipes.
Now, I don’t know how to kind of phrase this in a way like I learned this and that from Tony Robbins, but recipes, okay?
Recipes meaning that what you do with your body, like I said before that emotions don’t happen to you, you do them, you have certain recipes for every emotion you feel.
You have recipes for pride, for joy, for being horny, for feeling proud, for feeling upset, for feeling pissed off, for feeling impatient.
There are certain ways that you hold your body when you’re feeling all of those things, okay?
And by knowing that, by understanding that, what I do, I actually keep track. I write down what I’m doing with my body when I’m feeling those things.
So if you’re feeling joy, if you’re really feeling just this beautiful feeling of joy, note where your shoulders are, how far apart your feet are, which direction your feet are pointing.
Where are you looking? Are you looking out on the horizon? Are you’re looking kind of up over people’s heads? Are you looking down? Are you looking left? Are you looking right?
Where are your shoulders?
Where is your chest?
Are you holding more weight on one foot versus the other?
How are you holding your arms, your hands?
How are you breathing? Super important. I should’ve led with that. How are you breathing?
Are you breathing deep in through your belly? Are you kind of shallow breathing? Are you breathing this way or that way?
So those are your recipes.
And when you start to keep track of them, here’s where it gets cool. If you’re feeling pissed off, if you’re feeling upset, if you’re feeling just yucky, something that you don’t want to feel, when you go back to your recipes and say, “Hey, what do I do with my body when I feel joy?”
It’s your recipe for joy, guys.
So hold your body in that way for a minute, for two minutes, and you will be shocked, shocked, and how quickly you find yourself out of that negative emotion that you wanted to get rid of it and into this positive, joyous feeling.
So, those are recipes.
Ah, last but not least, I don’t know if this is 9, or 10, or 11, whatever it is, but trade your expectations for appreciation and watch your life changed instantly.
Trade your expectations for appreciation.
We expect things to go a certain way in our life, don’t we?
We expect things will happen. I want things to happen this way and that way.
Why does this happen that way?
I want this, and it should be like that.
What if when you found yourself in that place you just took a couple of minutes to just appreciate the shit in your life you already have?
Appreciate your health.
Appreciate the fact that you can walk.
Appreciate your family.
Appreciate your loved ones.
Appreciate all the good things that have happened to you today, right now.
Just appreciate all of that good stuff.
It’s a much better place to be in than expecting things to go a certain way and feeling let down, or pissed off, or upset when they don’t go the way you think they should go.
So, that was my list. I hope you guys enjoyed it. And yeah, that’s it for now. I’ll see you guys soon.
Enjoy the rest of your Saturday, even though I know it’s probably not Saturday when you’re listening to this video. But whatever day it is, enjoy that day. That’s a much better way to say it. See you later.