Applying Tony Robbins to an entrepreneur's life

Salesforce's Marc Benioff manages his company using Robbins' leadership model

I recently went to the Salesforce.com conference and one of the speakers there was Tony Robbins. 

Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce said that he owed a lot of his success in life to Tony Robbins and had worked with him for over 20 years. I am not a Tony Robbins zealot but I have listened to some of his stuff before. Some of the messages/material in the conference rang true.

So I thought I'd share my perspective. It was particularly interesting to think about how his message applies to the life of an entrepreneur.  The entrepreneurial mindset is one of striving for success while at the same time trying to manage some balance in all aspects of life.  I found some of the thoughts below particularly applicable to making decisions to achieve the growth you want in one's professional as well as personal life. As a note, he typically does 50 hour sessions so he admitted getting some key messages into four hours is a bit challenging. I'll paraphrase my takeaways as effectively as I can: 

* Happiness equals meeting life expectations

* Life expectations are defined by your personal life(happiness) blueprint

* As long as progress/learning is being made toward your life blueprint, you get growth.  Growth is what delivers long lasting happiness not the achievement of an objective  

* If you are unhappy or unsatisfied with your life, you have 3 choices: 

    1. Blame others/resources/what you don’t have - negative 

    2. Change your life conditions - positive 

    3. Change your blueprint - harder to do but possible and necessary sometimes 

* People consider suicide when they believe they will never achieve their life blueprint because they believe living is worse than dying.  The key is to change that perception which requires changing the blueprint and changing the perception that living is worse than dying  

* In order to change your life conditions(positive), 3 decisions you must make:

   1. What will you focus on? 

   2. What does it mean to you? 

   3. What should you go do now?  

* Not meeting your blueprint or not having life success is actually a good thing for it builds "Hunger to Change" your life conditions and creates desire  

* Most people know what they need to change so it isn't the decision that takes time. It is the time they take to actually make the decision.  

* Crisis' creates wisdom and hunger to do what you need to do faster. If you want to get to the island faster, burn the boats so you have no choice but to swim there  

* Once you've decided to change your life conditions, there is a methodology you can employ that you control: 

  1.) Develop your strategy (What do you need to do?) 

  2.) Write your story and share as appropriate (Why you are doing what you are doing?)

  3.) Change your state(action/behavior):  Your body is a gift and it must be in vibration (this is deeper to explain but we control our energy and the emotional energy we give other human beings (think dancing, singing, laughing like a baby, feeling alive, change your purpose of interaction to all you love/care about). It is impossible to feel negative when you are in a positive emotional state.    

* You Feel what you Focus On

* Certainty of Life Breeds Happiness.  The person who is more certain in an encounter will always influence the other one. 

* The only thing we can really control in life is what we focus on. If we bring a new physical state to our being we affect the human condition and those all around us. We vibrate.  Our emotional energy is a gift that we share. We can either meekly/negatively interact with the world or with purpose/ positively.  This physical change of state affects our mental state and makes focus/feeling more symbiotic with the world.  It inspires growth and imprints positive thinking.   

* In order to have a great relationship with another human being, they must know your blueprint and you must know theirs.  

* If you are not making progress, change the question in your head. Can you ask yourself a better question?  

* You should treat your partner the same at the beginning of a relationship as you do at the end of one. If you do that at the end of the relationship, the relationship will never end.  

* You can decide to focus on what you do have vs. what you don't have. When you focus on what you do have, you will feel appreciation and the world will appreciate you.    

* We are so ashamed to feel proud in our society and if we do not allow ourself to feel pride, then we have lost the ability to be proud of ourselves. There is nothing wrong with sharing real ego and real pride vs false ego.  Practice focusing on what you are proud of and you will rediscover how to feel proud of yourself.   

* Singing, Dancing, Screaming, Jumping - they all immediately change your state so do it frequently and do it together.  Use this state when you are imprinting new focus and feeling in your body memory and when you are working on changing your life conditions.   

* If you don't know what to focus on to improve your life conditions start by thinking of one thing that makes you happy and think about why?  do the opposite and think about one thing that doesn't make you happy and think about why?....................based on that……. what will you decide to focus on, what will you do, and when?  

Food for thought for all entrepreneurs as we grapple with the necessity to change effectively in order to deal with life’s condition. Balancing professional pursuits with a purposeful meaningful personal life requires investment and we control the change we want to be.   

As a side note, Marc Benioff mentioned that he manages salesforce with the Tony Robbins leadership model.

(Image source: zimbio.com)