People ask me all the time, what does it take to be happy? And I always tell them, it’s really simple. One word, progress. Progress = Happiness. If you keep growing, you’re going to feel alive and if you keep growing, you’re going to have more to give. And when you’re growing and giving is when life is magnificent. I have a philosophy I teach everybody, all my teams, I have 105 companies now, it’s mindboggling, in all these dramatically different industries.
We’re now doing almost $7 billion in business, I have no business background. But it’s a certain core philosophy that allows you to grow anything. But it starts with the people themselves. And my whole thing is one choice is no choice, two choices is the dilemma, there’s always three choices. Like you said, they may not like the choices but it’s there. But more importantly, I think it’s getting people to see that what they thought was impossible is possible.
The more you can give people an experience, like talk’s cheap. But I’ve done enough things in my life with enough people at this stage, I’ve got a track record where it’s like I said it’s going to happen, most people say “it’s probably true, it’s probably likely he’s going to pull it off, maybe I should jump on board.” But the mindset has to be: destroy any limitation and move forward, move forward, move forward… And I think, if you watch this it’s like taking off on a plane from, I’m in Texas right now, if I flew from Dallas here to go to Hawaii, you’re off course about 90% of the time, I’m a pilot, and what if every time we’re off course, “oh my God, I’m off course…” I should freak out! “Oh my God, I’m of course again!”
But you just tack back and forth and you land exactly where you want to be, three, four, five thousand miles away. And I think that’s how we often navigate. But most of us, and especially during these COVID times, most of us have been conditioned not to take a risk. People ask me all the time, what does it take to be happy? And I always tell them, it’s really simple. One word, progress. Progress = Happiness. If you keep growing, you’re going to feel alive and if you keep growing, you’re going to have more to give.
And when you’re growing and giving is when life is magnificent. It doesn’t matter how many statues, Oscars they give you, or Emmys, or how much money you have in the bank. We’ve all seen people have all those things and I get the phone call because they’re depressed or somebody commits suicide in that area. So, it’s really an inner game. And I think that’s what’s missing for us today. Everybody’s focusing on the outside world, and hell there’s a lot of things in the outside world you’ll never be able to control, you can influence, but you can’t control it.
This, your mind, your emotions, your body, you have 100% control over what you do with these things. And that’s where the game is won. You win the inner game, then you win the outer game. But a lot of people spend their life trying to win the outer game, they won and they’re miserable. So to me, success without fulfilment is the ultimate failure. And so many people are focused on success still, which to me is like there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s like success is getting what you want.
Fulfilment is living what you’re made for. And it’s like fulfillment and success, they’re not even the same universe. There’s nothing wrong with going for success but you’ve really got to figure out what you’re made for and nobody knows in the beginning. So you start where you are and you do what’s in front of you, you do what’s next, and you keep growing until you start to discover “hey this is my real passion!” “This is my real hunger and drive!” And it can change, people go for five, six, seven years and then they usually question.
Their business, their career, their body, their relationships. And then one of two things happens. They change direction and feel renewed, or they go “No! I’ve got a great deal here, what the hell is wrong with me?” And they recommit and they get stronger. But that’s life. And if you don’t grow, I don’t give a damn how much you’ve got going for you, you’re going to be miserable.
Tony Robbins
