Difference Between Winners and Losers

I don’t know much about Tony Robbins. I have heard a few of his talks and I generally like the guy and I think he’s genuine. This particular talk did catch my attention. In this talk he describes the difference between winners and losers – and what real leadership looks like. Here’s the kicker: we can all be winners – we just have to learn what winners do that is uniquely different than what losers do. Check out Anthony Robbins video below – you’ll be inspired. I was.

PS: I don’t personally like the word loser – but it is descriptive and makes a good point – at leas in his speech.

Video Transcript

Moderator: I took a golfer swing, but I never play this game, old man’s game, never do it but my kids play, so I want to play with them. So I go out and I do really well. I go out this one day and I out-power by my instructor. I’m feeling really proud. The next day, I’m not feeling so proud. I keep putting the ball in the water. I’m so frustrated. Put down another one, put down another one, I don’t care. I don’t care what my score is. Let’s do it. And finally, as I was getting frustrated, he’s going things like, “Ain’t it a bitch? This is golf.” And I’m going, “Bull.” I said, “This is you’re a terrible instructor.” I said, “Because I should at least be consistent at whatever shitty level I can achieve.”

I said, “I know I’m not Tiger Woods but I should be consistent and you’re telling me that’s difficult. Telling me it’s difficult is not helping. Tell me what to do.” He said, “Actually, you’re only a little bit off.” I said, “You could have fooled me.” He said, “No, you’re about a millimeter or two off.” I said, “You’re joking.” He said, “Watch this, I didn’t teach you this yet.” He said, “When you approach the ball like this,” he said, “if you change the angle that you’re attacking, that’s just one or two millimeters, in the very beginning, do you see how that changes the ark? This one, instead of being on the green, by one millimeter, now, you’re in the water. One millimeter over here, you’re in the sand.” He said, “Also, you’re hitting the ground by one millimeter, sometimes. You’re not stroking it, just one millimeter.”

I thought, what a great belief system that, when all hell is breaking loose and nothing’s working, that you’re only one millimeter off because most people think it’s impossible, so they give up. Isn’t that true? In real life, it’s true. Two days later, I’m going to see one of my clients. I do a lot of coaching. I manage the top plastic surgeon in the world. He’s going through some tough times in aspects of his life. This is a guy that gets paid by the Sultan of Brunei a million dollars to fly over and do three people’s faces. He is the number one plastic surgeon in the world. He can make anyone who is ugly look spectacular and beautiful.

He showed me a picture of a woman who is 84 years old. He made her look 40 and gorgeous, no exaggeration. But you know what? I’m waiting for him in his office and he’s still in surgery. He’s got a new book he’s creating to teach other surgeons around the world. I’m going through it and it’s got pictures of the top 100 of supposedly the most beautiful women in the world’s faces and then men. I wasn’t paying attention to that one. I just kept turning the pages, but I noticed something. He’s got all these measurement. He has mathematically calculated what it takes to make someone look gorgeous, man or woman and it’s a few millimeters, interesting.

For example, on a woman, the distance between the top part of your lip and your nose, this little distance, the measurement of that, if you’re beautiful, gorgeous, it’s the same size as your eye. If it’s one millimeter more, you have an average face. If it’s two millimeters more, you are butt ugly. Between butt ugly and gorgeous is two millimeters. He’s got a dozen of these little one or two millimeters changes he makes and it’s a different person. It is unbelievable.

A very powerful belief to leave with today is nothing’s working, I’m one millimeter away. What little thing will I’ll change and when I do, it changes everything? Because I’m heading in this direction, I make this little shift, you take that up, an hour from now, a day from now, a week from now, a month from now, you’re in a totally different destination from that direction. But the one millimeter change, I’ll show you one of them, right now. Check this out. Stay in the state of certainty. Somebody lost it. Intensify it, whatever it takes. Intensify it. Make your move, come on. Make your move! Say yes!

Audience: Yes!

Moderator: Say yes!

Audience: Yes!

Moderator: Say yes!

Audience: Yes!

Moderator: Say yes!

Audience: Yes!

Moderator: Now, feel that in your body, don’t let go of it. Now, watch. Here’s the difference between being certain and being uncertain. Did you see that? Certain, uncertain. See if you can find that little spot between the two where you drop just a little bit of your chest and you feel a drop and you come back up. Drop. How many of you can feel that difference change, where you really feel it? Now, intensify it. Now we dropped it. Is it a tiny difference, yes or no?

Audience: Yes.

Moderator: Now, could you condition yourself to feel great mistake, yes or no?

Audience: Yes.

Moderator: So what I want you to do is give yourself that opportunity. So the way we’re going to do is very simple. We’re going to go into peak state and then we’re going to train ourselves, because guess what, if you’re in the state of certainty and all hell is breaking loose in your life, people can’t figure it out. Move! I’ll handle it. People go, “He’s so lucky, he’s so confident.” No, here’s what I’ve created for my life and anyone I know who succeeded. I’m a 17-year-old kid from Azusa, California, with no real education other than self-education, with no background, with parents that did their best, all of them, with no money, but I did one thing.

I love people and I had an enormous demand I made upon myself and I sculpted my mind and my emotions to get me to do whatever it would take me to achieve and to contribute, but to do that, I did it by using my body and changing my focus. I did it by putting myself in a peak physiology and using what I call incantations. Can you train yourself to believe something, yes or no?

Audience: Yes.

Moderator: Absolutely. How many of you have ever made the fatal mistake of going to Disneyland or Disney World, and while you’re there, made the fatal mistake of going to a ride called, “It’s a Small World After All?” What happens for about a week after you’re out of that damn place? You’re still singing this thing in your head in 24 languages, right? Let me tell you something. How many of you have things, when you want to go achieve them, and then there’s a part of your voice goes, “Ugh, it’s not going to happen, forget it.” How many got a voice that sometimes interrupts that good pattern? Say I.

Audience: I!

Moderator: What you want to do is train a new one. So starting when I was 17, I started doing incantations, not affirmations. Affirmations you go, “I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy.” What’s the problem? You haven’t changed your what, your what? Physiology. If you don’t change your physiology, you won’t get anything. So an incantation is not only you speak it, but you embody what you’re saying with all the intensity you can and you do it with enough repetitions that it sticks in your head. Like it’s a small world, now the conversation in your head is always the same and it gives you what you want. So use your body and your voice.

So 17 years ago, I started doing things. I was working for Jim Rohn, the speaker, and I was 17 years old. I had long hair, minestrone suit, acne on my face and I was trying to call on Bear Stearns type of people and convince them why they should go to this man’s seminar and be more successful. I was driving a 1968 Volkswagon that I earned at $40 a week as a janitor. The only way I did it was park far from the building and then go in and then I [inaudible 00:06:33] I believe, and then I put myself in a state, and I was able to influence people that were far more successful than I was at the time.

I would do something that I still do backstage and I’ve done for 23 years, because I don’t hope I’m going to be in good state, I demand it. So I do an incantation. Using my whole body, I’d say, “I now command my subconscious mind to direct me in helping as many people as possible alive today to better their lives by giving me the strength, the emotion, the persuasion, the humor, the bubbly, whatever it takes to show these people and get these people to change their lives now!” And I would do that, literally driving in my Volkswagen to a meeting in LA on a freeway for 40 minutes.

People are looking at me. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. They’re going, “I know he’s a serial killer. I know he is.” But by the time I entered that room, when two people meet, if there’s rapport, the person who’s most certain will always influence the other person. And I was totally certain and they were trying to get revved up to certainty. Do you agree with this, yes or no?

Audience: Yes.

Moderator: I do another one, because I was poor. I changed my mindset. I kept doing things, but I never got beyond it. I’d say, “God’s wealth is circulating in my life as wealth flows to me in avalanches of abundance. All my needs, desires and goals are met instantaneously by infinite intelligence. I am one with God and God is everything.” And I would imagine the abundance in my life and I would feel so grateful. A year later, I went from making $35,000 a year to making $1 million a year in one year because successful people do what failures won’t. You follow me on this?