Amplify Your Strengths | Tony Robbins Podcast
this episode of the Tony Robbins podcast is brought to you by Tony Robbins results coaching are you ready to experience an extraordinary quality of life or maybe you’re already doing well but you know you can take your life to a whole new level to do that you have to set yourself up to win you need a process a way to consistently grow and produce the results that you need that’s what a Tony Robbins results coach can do for you whatever area in your life you want to change your relationship your health your career your business coaching is one of the most valuable tools you can have it’s an investment in yourself and it can yield some of the highest returns 20 Robbins results coaches are hand selected and trained by the master of coaching Tony Robbins himself to have the skills that will empower you with supreme focus powerful insight and the accountability needed to achieve everything you’ve ever dreamed to help you get started Tony is offering podcast listeners a free results coaching strategy session with one of his top coaches it’s a $200 value and you’re getting it for free visit tony robbins comm slash results schedule that free session today think about the last time you spoke in public how did you feel confident eloquent or did your nerves get the best of you and end up dampening the efficacy of your message what about a pitch you gave to a potential investor how did that go maybe it was a presentation to your colleagues during an all-hands meeting was it what you’d hoped it would be or more importantly did it achieve the results on them that you wanted it to there are so many instances in situations we find ourselves in that could potentially be great opportunities for growth and expansion but we end up fumbling and not living up to our potential why is that and what could we do to execute when it matters the most today I’m sitting down with performance coach and advisor Todd Herman who has worked with Olympic athletes business executives and billionaires helping them to find the tools and skills they need to reach new levels of greatness Todd and I are going to dig into the power of alter egos or what he refers to as secret identities and how they allow us to magnify certain parts of our personality when we needed the most because we do have the capacity to create who we want to be in any situation and we have the potential to reach any and all of our goals as long as we learn how to get out of our own way hey Todd welcome to the podcast thank you so much for having me so I wanted to start with a fascinating concept you talk about alter egos and secret identities and how there’s something that everybody has or should have and how important they are to both our personal and professional lives can you talk a little bit about that yeah sure so my background in sports what my very first business that I started was working with athletes on the mental game into a sports science research and over the course of the first couple of years of working with athletes and then you know slowly just like kind of any maybe person who is dedicating their their you know professional life to something you start to rise up through the ranks and you get closer and closer to working with either pro or love the GAF leads and I happen to get there really rapidly and a trend it started to develop in those very private conversations that have you have having the people and again I wasn’t doing you know group type workshop type stuff typically with teams I was starting out really with one-on-one work and throughout that course of working with people like I said there was a trend those developing and in those conversations it just people weren’t necessarily mentioning the word alter-ego or secret identity but there was this other version a lot of times that’s not they would say this other version of themselves that they would step into and a the pattern was developing was the people that were really performing at the highest level and when I say performance level not just people that were at in the pros but we’re also the ones who are maximizing every single ounce of capabilities and skills that they had well great many of them had this older version this alter ego this secret identity they would step into and then when I started reflecting back on my sport background and my experience I was used I used the exact same thing when I played sport I had essentially two because I was a college football player and I had this trifecta of different alter egos that I was stepping into and one was this amazing defensive player Ronnie Lott another one was Walter Payton and then this third one which kind of combined them all together was actually I was channeling I was a real Native American nerd and what I was channeling like this warrior mentality so those were my alter egos and I was stepping into and then and then I kind of connected the two I thought I was really doing it out of just sheer imagination and creativity but after speaking with these top performers I realized it’s actually a very natural part that human beings will a very natural part of the human experience that we will use in order to get ourselves out of our own way because many of us carry around insecurities and judgments and and and things that cause us to maybe play small in life like if I took the normal version of Todd onto the football field I would not perform to the level that I need to in order to you know win the game and compete and so over the course of time of talking about it with everyone I started to formulate this basically five-step process that you walk through in order to a create your alter-ego and then the second one is actually step into it consistent so is the idea with alter-ego is then to have a certain personality type or being that you are that is designed 100% to help you achieve the goal that you have in mind is it to block out the other distracting parts of yourself that might prevent you from reaching that goal yeah it’s it’s it’s there for many things one is and it’s not so much really goring it it’s really field of play or stage it’s it’s it’s there for that field of play that you’re going into and that field of play demands a certain amount a certain performance and skill that sometimes might conflict with the real kind of the quote unquote real version of you so if your I’ll give you a great example so one of my athletes that I worked with she’s pretty well known tennis player and exceptionally good at what she does I mean you have to be if you’re gonna be playing at the pro level um be ranked and she but in her just normal everyday experience she’s an extremely nice person and fairness is a really important value to her so when she can go out on the tennis court she would go and sometimes right off the bat she would start dominating someone but then over the course of you know multiple games or sets she would get up quite a bit and then because fairness is a big part of our value system it bothered her yes she would actually start to quote-unquote sabotage herself and she would allow that person to you know get back get back into the game and sometimes as we know in sport momentum is everything and despite the fact that she’s quite a bit better than this other player she would other person has momentum and confidence and now they end up beating her and she didn’t figure that out and it wasn’t until we started working together where I said no like you need to keep that person that version of yourself on the sidelines and you need to be stepping into a different version of yourself because on the field of play really in competition fairness doesn’t matter not not in not in the context like fairness in that yes you can have sportsmanship and things like that but fairness in that you need to allow that person to get a certain amount of points so that they are not humiliated that that has no placing in real sport and competition yeah that is a quality that on another field of play is extremely important it’s really important exactly and so crafting this other version of herself so that she could go in truly performed her capabilities started to allow her to really get the results that she knew deep down she had the capacity to create but internally she was stopping herself because of this you know really understanding the field of way that you’re going on and what is needed to compete or to win at it or to do well in it or perform she was sort of counteracting it with some of her pace values so what is you know how do we find our secret identity do you start by identifying first those fields of play what’s a little bit of the process yeah so so I mean I’ll run through the kind of the five steps just really really kind of quickly for people but the first one is the first step is what I call like the personal limiter analysis and this is just a process where you’re taking a good hard diagnostic look at yourself you’re saying where do I limit myself you know and and how in the way that I’m limiting myself in my profession so if my profession is getting out and getting in front of people and I avoid doing you know if you’re in sales boy doing cold calls or I avoid going out to networking events that is limiting you from getting your value out to the world so it’s just that’s just like one quick example like well what are all those ways that you’re limiting yourself how are you hiding possibly all your field of play and so we just create a list of those things and then the next step is what I call them the talent magnifier okay so when you take a look at the people that you really respect possibly and in your field what are their qualities that you respect about them or what are the what are the talents or the qualities that are needed in order for you to be successful at what it is that you’re going out to do so a basketball players talents and skills would look different than a hockey players just like it would be if you are a you know a venture capitalist here in New York City would look different than someone who is a real estate professional in San Diego so what are all those talents and skills that are needed in order for you to be successful at that and just again listing those up and then also seeing if you can find them in other people you know all of us have sometimes I mean I did maybe I don’t wanna love everyone else into my world but I think a lot of people have imaginary mentors or you know people that you read about in books and you kind of I mean I did I had these imaginary conversations with those people is to you know what would they kind of say to me if they were coaching the year you know how would they advise me on some sort of decision that I had and anyways I were having those conversations with those people because we respect them and we’re you know we’re in some ways would like to be them so identifying and finding this house and then also finding the talents within yourself because a big part of the alter ego isn’t about being fake this is not about being fake at all because the reality is and I asked I asked you this question too you know before we were on air when you think about Clark Kent and Superman who is the alter ego who is the secret identity you know I’ve asked this question to like large audiences the people and a lot of people will say well Superman is and it’s true Clark Kent is the alter ego Clark Kent is the secret identity the real version of Khalil is Superman the guy who goes out there and saves the world and stops the speeding train from hitting the car and you know the plane from plummeting to earth and all that kind of stuff and so but and my argument in life is that most of us are Superman or super women but we walk around in these disguises of Clark Kent’s so that we’re accepted because the only reason he’s Clark Kent is so that he would accepted by society so that he wouldn’t be ostracized so that he could walk among the mere mortals sure well I think something that with Superman is that he can surface because he’s needed right so if there’s a sense of urgency that that that self has to be present then then he’ll come out but a lot of people don’t have the sense of urgency or this idea that that they need to be that person yeah well I would argue that they they do they might not have the clear sense of urgency but I think they have a rotting sense of urgency yeah there’s there’s this there’s these parts of themselves that are really eating away a great many people’s self-esteem and self-confidence and I’m not talking about just like just average people I mean I’ve worked with some of the top performers on the planet like a lot of Tony’s clients are very similar to my clients you know multi millionaires or billionaires or it’s pro athletes and Olympic athletes they’re ambitious people and they come to us because they just they’re looking for that what’s that one extra little percentage point and so they’re they’re they’re dealing in very small percentage points the average person is dealing in big percentage points but they’re still stopping themselves and it’s slowly rotting away and I think that’s a more painful experience then you know you know what is it the the death of a thousand paper cuts is kind of most people’s experience on life and and so this yeah while Superman has this sense of urgency I think other people have it as well and I think in the sense of urgency that we can all frame it in is that you know when you think of all it is that you do inside of your career or inside of your business not everything is about you getting out onto a field of play or standing on a stage but there are a core select skills or core moments where you really do need to perform in order to move that Neill forward in your business or as much more and that could be speaking on a stage that could be you know going through a negotiation that could be doing a presentation that could be even creating product or service or something like that those aren’t those don’t take up your entire day but they are critical moments in in a day or in a week that if you did have a you know more magnified version of your talents come out you are gonna get a way better result and I know I’ve just done this for coming up on 16 years working with the alter ego concept just I just people transform in a day it’s it’s truly amazing when you embrace a concept and you run with it yes what’s one of the I love to hear one of those examples of somebody who just had a really dramatic change in a very short period of time yeah sure so well if I go back you know I’ll just round it off with the tennis player so after we even had our first conversation around this there was something that clicked in her head and and it does for a lot of people that I’ve talked to that I don’t even work with one I haven’t even worked with one on one two walked into this process but even in presentations that have done and it’s that we don’t forget that when we were children we were naturally doing this we had phenomenal imaginations and an ability to step in to these fantasy worlds in our head and play out a role and and not do it without worry and do it without the worry of judgment and criticism and what this does is it taps back into the playful nature that all of us truly do have and for her that’s exactly what it what it was and then when we sort of walked through and you know talked about the rest of the process she found her you know quote unquote origin profile which is the third step you know what her backstory what the kind of alter egos backs are just like Khalil or Superman has a backstory you know adding some depth and some color to the alter ego and where it came from is an extremely healthy part of it and even from a neuroscience perspective when you think of bits and bytes and data and you know features and features and advantages on a product that’s all just almost bullet pointed information people are moved by emotion so putting a backstory because you already had it backstory like Anna hasn’t you have a backstory you carried around with you every single day sure we all do yeah and so why don’t we create a powerful backstory to that alter ego as well and just flush it out like where did this come from and why why do why do you step on the court with just this absolutely laser-like focus in performing to the absolute maximum ability that you have and you know how do you move when you’re on the court do you move on the court slightly differently when you are this person altered version of yourself and sort of just really fleshing it out anyways for her to make a long story short her next tournament she didn’t win it’ll be great story too but for the first time she actually made it to a finals when she kind of the perennial really good player who never made it past the third round and it was she came off of that out of that finals experience with such a phenomenal level of confidence and just tremendous just self belief and satisfaction because she finally conquered the one thing that always stopped her herself not the other player not the court not the weather conditions not the umpire herself and she’s had you know this work of her I was like nine years ago and she ended up retiring and having a really great career in tes so and then on the on the on the business side of things because this isn’t just for sport I don’t want people to sit there and think well this this sounds right this sounds like it’s something that could be for entertainers or athletes but for the business professional what about you know that well one of my clients here in New York City who was starting to build up a large investment company and was getting to the point where his leadership capabilities were starting to be challenged where he really didn’t see himself a leader like he was technically excellent at what it was that he did which was finding deals and negotiations and things like that but now he was running a large group of people but he was getting in his own way because he wasn’t perceiving himself as a strong leader and then that would start to affect his team as well and he just was turning into an angry angry individual and and through the process of just sort of walking through this his his core origin profile who he got inspired by was his grandma who was an immigrant who came over with kind of the classic immigrant story of very no money too very little money she didn’t have a husband because he had died in World War two and she had nine children and she brought that entire family over on her back raised nine amazing children one of them his father all to be successful in their own rights and he just saw her as this like iron rod up her back who would just not allow any circumstance to dissuade her from the vision that she had for her family and so when we were just walking through this process for him he has a photo of his grandmother on his desk and every single day he connects with that sort of spirit which he knows lives inside of himself and anytime he’s going into and making a leadership type decision he just takes a moment to connect with that and then steps into it with that as his sort of emotional Arsenal to kind of get past his own you know shortcomings that he had and now and just like I say with all people that use an alter ego there comes a point in time where you don’t need it anymore it helped you get past that point where you were typically the one that was getting in your way and then you don’t eat it anymore which drink is you’ve now embodied it it’s a very natural part of who you are hmm is that part of the fourth steps for putting it back when you’re done with it or is there something different well I mean I don’t actually have it my steps where the step is you know you don’t need it anymore yeah I sort of leave that in the individuals hands because you know when you know when that moment happens sure and honestly you don’t even know when the moment is it there comes a point in time where you’ve been doing it so naturally for about six months or a year or several years in your life oh I don’t need this thing anymore and and there’s a reason why I say this because the fourth step is using something that I call the artifact enhancer and that is using something that you either wear for me actually use a pair of glasses it could be a ring that you probably could be embraced like Wonder Woman has a bracelet that she puts on you know superheroes they use you know masks Batman wears a mask so it’s something physical that you can put on or it can be something that’s just on your you know on your person type of thing I know I’ve got a client of mine who has a polished rock that he has had for a long time that he carries around in his pocket that was that is from his grandparents farm and ranch where he went to it and again another person who was extremely connected to his grandparents because of the type of people that they were but he carries around that as a reminder and as a trigger that he uses or there’s something in your physical environment you know some athletes it’s being triggered by when you go and step on your field like on the court so what other stuff that you wear something you have with you or something that you have in your environment that’s going to allow you to step into this alter ego and yours are your glasses what did they do for you because I tell people this and this is actually this is there’s a nuance to this you don’t go around and share with other people that you’ve got alter-ego this is a very private personal you know and so I’m gonna pull back the curtains on myself because I’m the person who talks about this which is you know and I’m fine with doing it but my glasses that I wear in business they’re fake glasses they I’ve got 2015 vision I’ve got like perfect eyesight started out in you know business when I started my my sports performance company when I was 22 I I look like I was 13 and I was had this massive insecurity about I’m 22 and I’m getting in front of people talking about you know peak performance and getting into the like building the triune athlete that mentally emotionally and physically top athlete and yet you know I look like I should still be in grade 9 or something and so I had this insecurity around whether people would even listen to me but I you know because I had already worked with alter egos or in sport I started to think about how I could leverage that in in business as well and when I was growing up in my small little rural town in western Canada in the farm community that I was in my in my grade was this guy mark and he was brilliant he’s super smart and he opened up glasses and my sister’s great who’s a year behind me she had someone in her grade who was also exceptionally smart James and he had glasses so I started to adopt and we all do this I started to adopt at a young age that people who wear glasses are smart right or they look smart and all that stuff that comes with it was like well if I just look smart maybe people need me so I used it as a tool right and and so I went out to a eyewear shop and I bought a pair of fake glasses and I remember going in there because nowadays people wearing glasses as a fashion you know accessory is very common not sure I know one so when I went into the LensCrafters shop and I bought the glasses and they said well what’s your and what’s your prescription I said oh I don’t have a prescription they looked at me like I was crazy yep I can imagine you know contact look sorry I’m way more popular and people are trying to stop wearing glasses and Here I am coming in and putting them on and so anyways when I but when I put those on I put them on in a very deliberate way and they meant something to me there was meaning behind why I was putting that thing on just like when Clark Kent takes off of his glasses I was using the reverse I was stepping into a version of myself that gave me power just like his Clark Kent glasses when he took them off he became Superman I was just reversing that the fields essentially but it was all those things that I knew that I didn’t quite have at the time I didn’t have a lot of confidence I wasn’t very decisive and I wasn’t really articulate with my mind messaging well when I put on those glasses I was stepping into a person that was confident decisive and articulate and I would sit there and I practice that practice that over and over and over again getting the feeling of what it’s like to be confident and I would borrow that confidence from the other things that I knew I was already confident in and and that truly helped me get past myself in my own insecurities so that I could get on onto the quote-unquote field of play and share the insights that I had around you know becoming a better athlete yeah no that makes perfect sense so yeah that was tough or and then I kind of joined up with step 5 step 5 is what I call the immersion experience which is really goes hand-in-hand with step 4 is like you know when you when you do have that artifact and I am putting on those glasses you know I know that Tony talks about that altered state that you’re stepping into mm-hmm the experience is very much a similar thing when you’re putting on those glasses or when you’re putting on that ring I’ve got a an equestrian client that she has a Wonder Woman bracelets and when she puts that on it’s it’s you being extremely intentional about the person that is showing up in that moment and so that you can get the results that you’re looking for and that is really really key with all this I think most people going into fields of play and a field of play just so I don’t confuse people it could be your home like where your family is that is a field of play like my two little girls and I’ve got a little boy that’s on the way they don’t really need dad to be confident to celebrate articulate right things I’m gonna be playful and patient and fun so when I go into that field of play I’m trying to be very intentional but who is showing up in that on that stage and so that I can get the best result which is you know having children that are you know calm and confident and you know you’re just allowing their personalities sure so if you talk about immersion and these different experiences I mean I think of it in terms of temperature in a sense right we’re all very comfortable at temperature but going from cold plunge for instance to a hot tub that’s a big shift so if you’re going you’re shifting from one sort of identity that you need to be in a particular field of play say from the workplace and then you go home and you’re in your home and you have your children you’re walking in through that door that’s a definitive moment where you’re going from one to another is it hard to identify other shifts right because people have to be flexible to be able to go from one to another but sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference so how do you tell your clients how to understand those different fields of play and how to shift from one to another in a seamless way and something that doesn’t feel uncomfortable like they’re literally going from being one person to another well I would love to stay that it’s easy to do it but the reality is you’re supposed to be uncomfortable yeah you’re tired yeah I mean it would be you know complete I don’t want to swear but it would be bullcrap for me to sit here and say oh no there’s totally ways where I can make it more comfortable for you know it’s not like you’re learning something new in and it’s something you’re learning something new you’re experiencing something that you forgot more than anything else and because you you you’ve already done it we’ve all already done it we’ve already pretended to be something that we’re not and the reality is most people are pretending to be someone that they’re not by the way that they’re going around their days and not taking the action that they know they want to take because they have just a pile of stuff that they’ve accumulated over time whether it’s other people’s ideas or other people’s beliefs or just the the worry and stress over whether or not they’re going to be ostracized in their little tribes like you know a lot of this stuff that why why we act as human beings the way that we do goes back to just simple human evolution I mean when you think about 10,000 years ago the way the human beings lived we needed to live inside of tribes and because that was there for safety from just the elements and the dangers that were out there in the world and inside of those tribes we didn’t want to you know upset the applecart we didn’t want to be the the weird one because we would be ostracized and then that meant death essentially so most people still carry around a lot of that in the way that we behave for fear of being ostracized and yet the world is far more nuanced now now there’s like these small little tribes where being weird is completely celebrated I mean I tell people all the time when they come to our workshops or events and you know Tony’s would be no different that you know like I hope you guys all recognize your freaking weird people yeah but you’re right it’s only been recently that that’s been embraced yes exactly only recently and so in I mean I remember I think it was the the front page of a Time magazine article back in maybe the early 2000s around how weirdness and being a nerd was now cool again the software industry and things like that but sorry kind of going a little bit off tangent to back to your point no like it is about being uncomfortable but over the course of time you’re gonna start to get the results that you truly want like I want to step into a stage that is my family life where there is a ton of laughter and there is just a lot of fun that’s happening and I get to witness and see a lot of like growth and exploration and new experiences for my kids and I want to dominate them though you know and yeah personally and the way that I am in business would end up dominating them I don’t need to be a dominating father I see this a lot because I don’t want to work with Navy SEALs Army Rangers and whatnot where where they typically come off of their field of play and they carry that into the home you know how many stories have you heard from people say oh I grew up my dad was a you know a captain in the army and it was everything was like you know strict rules this is this this and this and there’s a lot of value in having a lot of structure in all but you don’t need a drill sergeant to come home and be a drill sergeant with the kids right like it’s understanding that there are nuances to your life and then designing the version of yourself that you want to be showing up in each of them this this is this is one of the great things that makes us humans we have the capacity to design things we have a capacity to create who it is that we want I want to create a new wants to dividual because I am nuanced and you’re already like people are already showing up in different ways when you went home for the holidays I bet it was a different Anna then is around her friends when you go and have a drink or go bowling or whatever the case is right sure aren’t we we don’t take parts of ourselves and in certain situations we start to magnify a part of our personality that’s what this alter-ego effect or secret identity philosophy is about it’s just you you already are doing it now let’s just be way more intentional about the person that we’re creating so that we can truly get the results that we’re looking for yep yeah and I love the fact that you bring up the idea that a lot of your clients are using artifacts from the past that are tied to you know their childhood or people they admired when they were younger because that’s something that we’re so transient nowadays right and we shift so quickly from our hometown to university to our first job second job we’re just moving around constantly and a lot of people have you know I’ve been to weddings for instance where nobody knows each other because the bride and groom have been through so many different stages of life and they’ve lived all over the place and so they have friends and identities from each of those time periods and it’s interesting that a lot of people are choosing to go back way back to their childhood to find these artifacts that are parts of who they need to be in those different fields of play I think that’s really fascinating yeah and I mean – do you point to there’s also other areas that we can leverage for the artisan so yes for the artifact people totally leverage that a lot like a lot of clients use inspiration from their past like way in their past more than probably any other era but then also when it comes to like understanding and forming and shaping your origin profile you know leverage fiction I mean I’ve got a client here in New York City she’s a young little racquetball superstar trying to come up but she was very similar to the lady who was in tennis who was just she’s just a great kid she’s just super nice and she was taking too much of that onto the court she wasn’t really having that killer instinct and so our first conversation around this I was you know like who do you think has a killer instinct and she immediately went to now she’s a she’s a young Jewish girl she really resonates with this characters Eva Dawid who is in found good to be is an actress or is a as a character in it’s not it’s not CSI but it’s one of those kind of crime shows mhm yep certain New York City anyways Ziva Devine is a like a badass former Israeli operative who knows Krav Maga is just no bull she’s a powerful strong woman and that’s who she steps into that’s who her alter ego really is is actually he’s even even that’s what she calls herself on the court that’s interesting so um I want to have a question about the you know how does this translate over into the business world and I know there are a lot of ways that we’ve talked about your the identity that you step into in the business field of play and how that helps you right but is there a parallel right so if you have different identities to different people in different fields of play because you necessarily have to on the business side so let’s say if a business were a person alright there’s been so much emphasis around building a business and a brand identity and how important it is to be consistent to every single one of your customers every single touch point you want to be consistent and you want to be very clear about who you are as a brand do you think that there’s a possibility that businesses themselves need to be adaptable adaptable to meet the needs of their various consumers in the same way that individuals do and if so how I mean how would you go about doing that okay so question right short no should should have a business I don’t you know a similar identity for for themselves despite the fact that sometimes they need to be flexible with how they’re showing up yeah exactly I mean so we do it now when you look at businesses that go into other countries right so there’s a certain level of localization and customization that you need to adapt in order to fit into a different culture but is there something even on a micro level that you’ve seen businesses do or you think businesses should be doing in order to be adaptable and be flexible instead of being stuck to their brand guidelines or the way that they communicate with their customers or the products that they have currently yeah you know what you bring up an excellent point and that is people have always that just because of the background working with athletes and talking about mental toughness and you know one of the first questions people ask is you know what would you define mental toughness as and this is going to loop back around to the question itself and I would say well mental toughness is your ability to be flexible and adaptable despite what the circumstances around you and situations are giving you if you’re firm and fixed you go into a if you go into a game and you’re so firm and fixed on this is how the game is gonna play out this is I’m gonna perform and I’m gonna get a goal in the first period or I’m gonna you know score 15 points in the first quarter or whatever the case is and then it doesn’t start happening that way because there’s there’s an ebb and flow to matches and games then most people will start to respond emotionally in that moment that’s mental weakness that’s the pity of someone who’s mentally weak you’re not able to be flexible and adaptable despite what’s happening in the game so that you can continue to perform at your peak yeah similar to conversations or business meetings right there are people who you know you start a business meeting things aren’t going your way and the definition in that case of mental toughness is adapting and shifting the conversation so that it does have a positive result who has maybe the most experienced the person who has the most skills the person who knows multiple ways to get to the agreement that they’re looking for will find a way to be flexible they just they just have more skills that they’re disposable to mix as possible at their disposal to make that happen so to your point I think a brand identity as being not something that is firm and fixed as soon as you think that you are one thing as if it’s a goal like a goal you are Firmin fixed if my goal is to climb Mount Everest I’m gonna be firm and fixed on it that is my goal but I’m gonna be sure as heck flexible and adapt learn how that happens because sometimes a weather you know pattern comes over top of Everest and sits there for six months and no one can climb to the top well mental weakness will be breaking down on the hill and throwing a tantrum and saying I’m gonna climb up anyway than you and I’m on the hill right that’s Stan’s mental this you know so the same thing goes with our our brands and take a look at Kodak as an example Kodak was not flexible and adaptable they created the digital cameras for crying out loud they created digital imaging and yet they didn’t become flexible and adaptable in the marketplace they stayed firm and fixed on know this is who Kodak is we aren’t the film company or you know whatever they were saying in their meetings and then they ended up becoming a dinosaur in their industry shershow I mean there’s so many businesses right there’s a whole graveyard of businesses who didn’t adopt and Tony actually has a whole map it’s the 7 triggers of a business crisis and it talks about change in technology change in customer lifestyle change in culture change in and even you know your own employees life stage so there’s definitely ways that you can and should be anticipating and reacting remaining flexible yeah and so into that point then when you take a look at your brand identity yeah you’re right look when you go into a new market there are some eccentricities there’s some rules that operate inside of that culture I mean I’ve worked in 82 countries around the world I know that I can’t take the same version of myself that’s in America where in America it’s ok to go into a meeting and just start talking about business or when you first start meeting someone you can start talking business you go in Saudi Arabia are you going to the Middle East you’re gonna have tea with someone for 90 minutes you’re gonna get to know that person find out about their family it’s not that’s not the culture and in fact it would put someone off in that culture if you try to operate that way right there’s a nuance to this stuff so yeah to your point I think the people in the business sense can absolutely adopt this but then make sure that there is flexible yeah so Todd I wanted to ask you because you mention you’ve been in 82 different countries and you definitely have a full plate between clients and public speaking where do you get not the energy to do the work you do because that’s like physical thing but what’s where what’s your what drives you right what’s your purpose what really as Tony would say what lights you up what’s your purpose for all the work that you do a good question so I actually think that a lot of what motivates me or I get so much mental and emotional energy that’s that’s probably more readable portunity physical stuff is because you know even you know interviews like this I mean you get to meet and talk about interesting things and meet interesting people so I’m motivated very much by two things one is my family name my family has a very thorough what’s called a family Bible we have our history traced back almost a thousand years and on that’s on my mom’s side that’s about all I think it’s no it’s 11:56 and I’m just fascinated by where my family has come from and what carries me for it is the idea of legacy I want to whatever impact I can make on the family name make it something that’s better than what a what it was before so some people say you know I want to leave the world you know slightly better than when I came here type of thing I make it a little more personal because the world is a really big concept and I’d happen to be one of those people who’s very fortunate to have a great family so I want to make our family name more memorable and that could be in someone has one interaction with me and they you know maybe they don’t forget that interaction and it leaves an indelible impression on them that’s what motivates me to you know be better every single day than I was the day before and then the second thing that motivates me tremendously is just people in general I love finding out more about how people tick you know what causes them to do what it is that they do in a special those and actually at the polar ends of the the equation those that have really struggled what is it that they’re doing that’s causing them to struggle you know what’s in their past those types of things and then those people who are succeeding whether they’re doing it naturally you’re unnaturally you know what is it that makes them tick as well I’m just fascinated by that experience is there anybody this is a bit of a bizarre question but you did mention your family goes back pretty far so I’m thinking about you know past eras and the world we live in today is full of very ambitious people who have access to people like you to podcast information and they can really you know even if they’re high achievers they can like you said make incremental changes to achieve even more is there anybody from like history or from the past or different eras that you think you know a former version of yourself or if you could go back and and help that person you think would make a huge impact it’s such a cliche interview question right but you just got me thinking because you’re talking about your family yeah yeah challenges you know what so my my like grandfather my mama he was one of the first athletes in the 1920s to ever be drafted into the NHL and Major League Baseball Wow so back in the day when people didn’t focus on one sport since they can walk yeah yeah so he was just a really amazing athlete and he was he packed up his bags and he was coming to I think he was coming to New York for the tryouts with the Yankees and this is coming from Canada and he got to this he walked out the front door and he got to the sidewalk and then he looked back and he just married my my Nana and he looked back and he walked straight back put down his bag and said I can’t leave you and he didn’t pursue the sports or the baseball they mean they had fun long story made never married for 75 plus years and so going back and just talking to him about that experience would be amazing because someone who’s so good at what it is they do support wise yeah willing to give it up because of you know something else that they’re even more passionate about would be interesting I don’t know if I would I would be changing anything with him I don’t think I wouldn’t convince him otherwise but yeah I think that would probably yeah I don’t know if anyone in history I could really yeah I mean he is history and he’s your history I think that’s a great answer and I think that’s a challenge to that so many people face now is making a choice between two things that they are passionate about and they know they can be successful in and that’s a very dramatic example but this is something you know you make decisions every day about you know your relationship and your family and your business what are you going to pay attention to because you just don’t have enough time or energy or focus during the day to to you know do everything so I think that’s a really challenging one I you it’s it’s such an interesting conversation too because you know it’s something that I experience all the time I’m a massively ambitious individual and I am constantly being confronted up against just my other responsibilities and I have another I’ve got other ambitions that go get our business and the mission is wrapped around just being a phenomenal you know father to my my kids and you know just that in and of itself is a you know a battle that you know I struggle with almost daily with it too so yeah and I wouldn’t be going back and saying that oh he made I wasn’t even saying it in the context that oh yeah what if he could have been the most amazing to sport athlete ever because oh yeah of course that the other side of it was that they had this phenomenal marriage and they were just two just completely outstanding upstanding citizens that would take people in during the Depression and during World War two and you know husbands were away or when people just didn’t have jobs and they would take them in and people would live with them my mama taught stories of people living with them for you know sometimes up to a year because they didn’t have a place to go and they would give up their master bedroom for these people and they would sleep on the couch like they’re just it doesn’t take very much to motivate me when I think about just those sacrifices that they would make and the types of person to make me want to bring that same level of you know attitude or value into the businesses that I have to because my businesses are just an extension of Who I am sure right so yeah that’s great I don’t know about my audience but I have massive goosebumps I think there’s just something about stories like that that yeah it’s it’s like a level of like you said self-sacrifice and and love and generosity that you just can’t help but be inspired by and in your case you know it’s wanting to be at that level and then even raising it a bit right so making it even better so it’s interesting well it’s hot this has been a wonderful interview and thank you so much is there a place where our audience can go to and learn a little bit more about your method or to maybe contact you for speaking or for coaching sure so I know so they can go to simply talk Herrmann dot me and you know that’s where they can have links to other podcasts that I have and just other information and you know reach out there wonderful well thanks so much Todd thank you very much appreciate it the Tony Robbins podcast is directed by Tony Robbins and hosted by a New York Kerry song is our executive producer Taylor Culbertson is our Associate Producer Jamie Carvajal and Adriel de la tarde our digital editors special thanks to Diane Adcock and Mary buchheit for their creative review copyright Robins Research International
