Tony Robbins TED Talk – Why we do what we do?

Tony Robbins is without a question one of the most inspirational person, or the “why guy” out there, which he proves in the TED Talk back in 2006. However, despite of that many people outside similar circles and interests have never heard of him.

Interested in learning from tony directly? Check out his self-education online course called Project next or Tony Robbin's 2022 online event called the Time to Thrive Challenge that starts August.

If you haven’t seen Tony Robbins’ TED Talk you can do by going to it here. Or watch it below

What Inspires You?

One of the most interesting things that Tony upacks in the first few minutes of the TED talk is that he’s not motivational guy. He doesn’t have time to motivate people, which is an outside force the pulls you toward something.

With that said, there is nothing wrong with motivating others or yourself in matter a fact, quite the opposite. It’s just that people that generally come to Tony too desperate, or too far down, for just motivation. He needs to ask fast, get results now.

He’s a like special that you go to after you can’t longer fix yourself, instead of living your live the way you would not end up where you are now. Both are equally important, just at different times.

That’s why I called him most inspirational person, because even if you’re not close to the edge, or even falling hard, you’re still get huge benefits from him. Either top be inspired and better your own live, or other people live, or why not both?

That’s Tony Robbins is the “why guy” as he likes to call himself. He can dig down and get the true answer why we do what we do.

Resources vs Resourcefulness

One of the big part of the TED talk by Tony Robbins was the ideas of resources vs resourcefulness. It’s not a new idea or revolutionary, but like Tony explains sometimes knowing something intellectually and feeling it are two different things.

It’s this talk that made me realized that’s exactly what I was doing most of my live.

At first, I would tell myself I’m not getting results I need because of resources:

• Time
• Money
• Technology
• Contacts
• Experience
• Management

Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich straighten me out on this one and made me understand those were only obstacles, or worse, excuses.

However, I haven’t discovered the alternative to this. For example, let’s take time. I know these days none of us have “time” but we can make time. After all, despite being a population that seem to have the least amount of time, we are also one that wastes the most time on trivial things. We all know what they are.

Okay, but let’s say you don’t “waste” anytime, so what can you do? Maybe take time out of “me time, sleep, or even family and loved one’s time. Wait, did I just say that?

Now before you go crazy and say that’s the worse advice ever as you already barely see your family, let me clarify. I don’t mean cut out your kids and go party or watch a movie. No, think of how you can take a hour a week, or a day, and focus on learning and growing so you can back 10 hours back for every 1 hour you took away.

One of the greatest gift we humans have is the ability to sacrifices the presents for the future, and we all do it. What does that mean?

Everyday you get up to go to work, which over 50% of us hate doing, you sacrifice your time and energy for better tomorrow or at least not worse. Exercising, eating well, even helping others when you just want watch TV on the coach.

None of that is meaningless, no matter how trivial you or other people think it is. Every little thing counts.

However, not all sacrifices yield the same results.

It’s something to consider.

Okay, so what are the alternatives? Like I said not wasting time is good, but you must fill it with something resourceful. Here are Tony ideas:

• Creativity
• Determination
• Live/caring
• Curiosity
• Passion
• Resolve

As you can see, we all have the above, maybe not all of them in equal measures, but can’t make excuses we don’t. Let’s take creativity, maybe you’re not creative in a way to write fantasy novel, but you use creativity everyday to solve problems, especially if you allow it.
Just think about the did something, like solve a problem with a brilliant solution. Maybe the answer came to you in a flash, or you sat and thought about it for days, in both you used creativity.

These are the driving forces for our lives, but what is it leading to?

3 Decisions of Destiny According to Tony Robbins

Tony believes there are 3 decisions we are making every moment of our lives that shape us

1. What am I going to focus on?
   1. Past, present or future?
   2. Self or others?
2. What does it mean?
   1. Is it the end or the beginning?
   2. Are you being punished or rewarded?
3. What are you going to do?
   1. Give up or move forward?

Now these would take hours to unpack, and I suggest checking out Tony’s TED talk or even events for true immersion.

However, a simple way to understand this is through an example.

Let’s say you want to invest your time and/or money into becoming more successful. At first glance you might think this only effect the future, as you want to be successful in the future. However, it’s going to impact your present as well, right?

Yes, as you will are making decisions to that will impact the presence, often sacrifice parts of it for the future. However, many don’t realize that the past impacts it as well. Maybe you tried before and it didn’t go as well. Or maybe you know someone that tried and had massive success in the past and now it’s your turn.

The same way past impacts the present and the future is the same way we interoperate meaning of it all. Why now? Why is this the perfect time to start a business or peruse your passion? In the beginning fo something new or have I been on this path of a while now?

It’s also the same when there is something in our way, either good or bad. Maybe we get knocked out and think all of it is pointless? Or we succeed quicker or in different way that we set out to?

This takes to the next decision of what you’re going to do. Which is at this point self-explanatory because we all have done it.

What Shapes Us? The Invisible Forces

Finally, Tony talked about the two primary patterns that shape us.

In the moment – the state we are at in any particular moment. This includes physical and emotional. I mean if you’re happy and healthy your outlook at the world will be different than sad and sick.

The same way an athlete will do much better when he’s physically fit and mentally prepared, pumped, than unprepared and doubtful. It makes sense.

Long-term – Tony describes this as our model of the world, the world view and the shaper of meaning, emotion and action. Again, he couldn’t build on this in the short presentation but once again he is spot on.

Things we believe impact as tremendously. Like Tony says it shapes as in more ways than one. With that said it can be both good and bad, limit us and give us strength to move on.

I’ll leave it at that and explore the Tony Robbins 6 human needs for underpost as tony only briefly touched on them in the TED talk.