MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom (86 page)

Let’s look at how these first two decisions, focus and meaning, often combine to create one of modern society’s biggest afflictions: depression. I’m sure you must wonder how it’s possible that so many people who are “rich” and famous—with every resource you could ever desire—could ever be depressed. How is it that so many of those who were beloved by millions of people, and have tens of millions of dollars or more, have even taken their own lives? We’ve seen it over and over again with extraordinarily intelligent individuals, from businessmen to entertainers to comedians. How is this possible, especially with all of the modern treatments and medications available today?

In my seminars,
I always ask, “How many of you know someone who is on antidepressants and is still depressed?” Everywhere around the world, in rooms of 5,000 to 10,000 people, I’ll see about 85% to 90% of the room raise their hands. How is that possible?
After all, you’re giving them a drug that should make them better.

Well, these antidepressants do come with labels warning that suicidal thoughts are a possible side effect. But perhaps the real challenge is, no matter how much you drug yourself, if you focus constantly on what you can’t control in your life and what’s missing, it’s not hard to find yourself
in despair. If you add to that a meaning like “life is not worth living,” you have an emotional cocktail that no antidepressant will be able to overcome consistently.

But I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that if that same person can come up with a new meaning—a reason to live or a belief that all of this was meant to be—then he will be stronger than anything that has ever happened to him. If she can focus consistently on who needs her, wants her, loves her, what she still wants to give to this world, then anyone can be shifted. How do I know? Because in 38 years of working with people, I’ve never lost one to suicide out of the thousands I’ve dealt with. And knock on wood—there are no guarantees—hopefully I never will. But when you can get people to shift their habitual focus and meanings, there’s no longer a limit on what a person’s life can become.
²⁵

A change of focus and a change in meaning can literally change your biochemistry in a matter of minutes. Learning to master this becomes an emotional game changer.
How else can you explain the power and beauty of people like the great therapist and thinker Victor Frankl and so many others who made it through the horrors of Auschwitz? They found meaning even in their extreme suffering. It was a higher meaning, a deeper meaning that kept them going—not only to survive but also to save the lives of so many others in the future by saying, “This will never happen again.” We can all find meaning, even in our pain. And when we do, we may still experience pain, but the suffering is gone.

So take control, and always remember:
meaning equals emotion, and emotion equals life.
Choose consciously and wisely. Find the empowering meaning in anything, and wealth in its deepest sense will be yours today.

DECISION 3:
WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?

Once we create a meaning in our minds, it creates an emotion, and that emotion leads to a state in which we make our third decision:
What am I going to do?
The actions we take are powerfully shaped by the emotional states we’re in. If we’re angry, we’re going to behave quite differently than if we’re feeling playful or outrageous.

If you want to shape your actions, the fastest way is to change what you focus on and change the meanings to something more empowering. But even two people who get in an angry state will behave differently. Some will pull back when they’re angry; others push through. Some people express anger quietly or loudly or violently. Some suppress it only to look for a passive-aggressive opportunity to regain the upper hand, or even exact revenge. Some people confront their anger by going to the gym and working out.

Where do these patterns come from? We tend to model our behavior on the people in our lives whom we respect, enjoy, and love. The people who frustrated or angered us? We often reject their approaches, but far too often find ourselves falling back into the pattern that we witnessed over and over again and were so displeased by in our youth.

It’s very useful to become aware of what your patterns are when you get frustrated or angry or sad or feel lonely—because you can’t change your pattern if you’re not aware of it. In addition, now that you’re aware of the power of these three decisions, you might start looking for role models who are experiencing what you want out of life. I promise you, those who have passionate relationships have a totally different focus and come up with totally different meanings for challenges in the relationship than people who are constantly bickering or fighting. Or those who judge each other constantly. It’s not rocket science. If you become aware of the differences in how people make these three decisions, you’ll have a pathway that can help you create a permanent positive change in any area of your life.

At the age of 18, I made up my mind to never have another bad day in my life. I dove into an endless sea of gratitude from which I’ve never emerged.

—DR. PATCH ADAMS

How can you use these three decisions to enhance the quality of your life? It turns out that what we focus on, what emotional states we tend to live in, and what we do can all be conditioned, or “primed,” into our lives with a
simple routine. After all, you don’t want to merely hope that positive emotions just show up; you want to condition yourself to live in them. It’s like an athlete developing a muscle. You must train yourself if you want to have an extraordinary quality of fulfillment, enjoyment, happiness, and achievement in your personal, professional, and intimate lives. You must train yourself to focus, feel, and find the most empowering meanings.

This practice is rooted in a concept in psychology called
priming,
in which words, ideas, and sensory experiences color our perceptions of the world and affect our emotions, motivations, and actions.

What if you were to discover that many of the thoughts that you think are
your
thoughts are simply conditioned by environmental triggers, or in some cases manipulated consciously by others who understand the power of priming? Let me give you an example.

Two psychologists conducted a study
²⁶
in which a stranger handed the subjects either a mug of hot coffee or a cup of iced coffee. The subjects were asked to read about a hypothetical character and asked to describe the character’s true nature. The results were astonishing! Those who were given the hot coffee described the character as “warm” and “generous,” while the iced-coffee holders described him as “cold” and “selfish.”

In another study at the University of Washington, women of Asian descent were given a mathematics test. Before the test, they took a brief questionnaire. If they were asked to list their ethnicity, the women scored 20% higher on the math test. But for those who were asked to fill in gender instead of ethnicity, the simple act of writing that they were female produced significantly lower scores. That’s the power of priming in the form of cultural conditioning. It affects our unconscious patterns—shrinking or unleashing our true potential.

We can make use of this phenomenon by developing a simple ten-minute daily practice to prime our minds and hearts for gratitude—the emotion that eliminates anger and fear. Remember, if you’re grateful, you can’t be angry simultaneously. You can’t be fearful and grateful simultaneously. It’s impossible!

I begin every day with a minimum of ten minutes. I stop, close my eyes, and for approximately three minutes reflect on what I’m grateful for: the wind on my face, the love in my life, the opportunities and the blessings I experience. I don’t focus just on big things; I make a point not only to notice, but also to deeply feel an appreciation for the little things that make life rich. For the next three minutes, I ask for health and blessings for all those I love, know, and have the privilege to touch: my family, friends, clients, and the stranger I may meet today. Sending love, blessings, gratitude, and wishes for abundance to all people. As corny as it sounds, it’s the real circle of life.

I spend the remaining time on what I call my “Three to Thrive”: three things that I want to accomplish. I envision them as if they were already achieved and feel a sense of celebration and gratitude for them. Priming is an important gift to yourself—if you did it for ten days, you’d be hooked. (Here’s a link to get you started:
www.tonyrobbins.com
.)

This simple practice is important because a lot of people say they’re grateful, but they don’t take time to
be
grateful. It’s so easy in life to lose track of the beauty and grace of what we already have! If we don’t consciously do something each day to plant the right seeds in our mind, then the “weeds of life”—frustration, anger, stress, loneliness—tend to creep in. You don’t have to plant weeds; they grow automatically. My teacher Jim Rohn taught me a simple principle: every day, stand guard at the door of your mind, and you alone decide what thoughts and beliefs you let into your life. For they will shape whether you feel rich or poor, cursed or blessed.

In the end, if we’re going to truly be happy, we have to get outside of ourselves.

The human mind is an amazing thing. It’s a survival mechanism, so it tends to look for what’s wrong, what to avoid, what to look out for. You may have evolved, but your brain is still a 2-million-year-old structure, and if you want to be fulfilled and happy, that’s not its first priority. You have to take control of it.
And the fastest way to do that—besides priming—is to step into the highest of the 6 Human Needs, the two spiritual needs that fulfill human beings: Growth and Contribution.

The core reason that I believe we all have a desire to grow is because when we do, we have something to give. That’s where life has its deepest
meaning. “Getting” might make you feel good for a moment, but nothing beats the nirvana of having something to give that you know deeply touches someone or something beyond yourself.

Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.

—DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

If it’s really true that giving is what makes us feel fully alive, then perhaps the ultimate test of this theory is what life is like for those willing to give their lives for something they believe in. One of my greatest heroes of the last century was civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Recently his eldest son and namesake, Martin Luther King III, was in Fiji for my Date with Destiny event. I had the opportunity of sharing with him how much his dad inspired me because he lived his life on pure passion—he knew what he was made for. Even as a child, I remember hearing his words:
“A man who has not found something he will die for is not fit to live.”

Real wealth is unleashed in your life the moment you find something you care so deeply for you will give it your all—even your life, if necessary. This is the moment in which you will have truly escaped the tyranny of your own mind, your own fears, your own sense of limitation. A big order, I know. But I also know that most of us would give our lives for our children, our parents, or our spouses. Those who have found a mission that possesses them have discovered a wealth of energy and meaning that has no match.

THE WEALTH OF PASSION

You’ve probably heard of the Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai. She was shot in the head by Taliban terrorists because she had the audacity to insist that girls have the right to go to school. A bullet pierced her eye socket and bounced around her skull, nearly killing her. Miraculously it missed her brain. Malala survived her horrific injuries and has become an international activist for the empowerment of girls and women. The man who shot her remains free, and the Taliban still threatens to kill her. But she openly defies them. In a speech before the United Nations on her 16th birthday, Malala said she has no fear. “They thought that the bullet would silence us, but they failed. And out of this silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists
thought that they would change my aim and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life, except this:
weakness, fear, and hopelessness died. Strength, fervor, and courage was born.
”

In an interview with Malala, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour asked the young woman if she feared for her life. Malala replied, “The thing is, they can kill me. They can only kill Malala. But it does not mean that they can kill my cause as well; my cause of education, my cause of peace, and my cause of human rights. My cause of equality will still be surviving . . .
They only can shoot a body, but they cannot shoot my dreams.
”

This 16-year-old young woman has mastered those three decisions. She’s focused on what matters. She’s found a mission beyond herself that gives her life meaning. And her actions are fearless.

While we might not be called to put our lives on the line like Malala, we can all choose to live fearlessly, passionately, and with boundless gratitude. So let’s turn the page and finish our wealth-building journey together with the most important lesson of all: the final secret.

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. If you’d like, you can go online to
www.tonyrobbins.com
and see some of these interventions. We’ve even followed people three and five years later to show that the changes lasted. It will give you an idea of how you can master the meaning in your own life.

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. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, and coauthored by John A. Bargh (Yale) and Lawrence Williams (University of Colorado).

CHAPTER 7.3

THE FINAL SECRET