Can the path to success and financial freedom be boiled down to just three steps or keys? Obviously not. But if we start from three basic principles that keep coming up in the advice of people who have already made it, we will always end up back at those same principles. Once that foundation is clear, we can add much more on top.
Since we’ve already covered these topics at length, this time we’ll steer clear of the concepts of frugality, saving, investing, goals, objectives and planning. I think those ideas, like them or not, are necessary and already more than clear. Our previous articles on financial education cover everything you need on that front.
This time we’ll focus on the three things Tony Robbins considers most important when asked:
What is the secret of abundance, wealth and financial freedom?
This is the answer he gave in an interview with Eric Schurenberg for Inc. magazine.
Tony Robbins clearly starts from a premise that should be a personal commandment for everyone: the first step to financial success is knowing that you can achieve it. We often forget that most of the limits we imagine don’t exist. What exists are the limitations we impose on ourselves because of our beliefs.
1. Set up a side business with no employees
In other words, have a second source of income. Whether you’re a business owner or an employee, you need to start working towards a second income stream.
You can do this by creating an asset of any kind. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about selling online or buying shares that pay you dividends. You don’t have to be Warren Buffett to make money. You just have to start putting your money to work now. Whatever amount you have, start now.
If you have no investing experience or not much money, there are various more or less safe ways to invest without taking risks. If you still don’t feel up to it, turn to a low-cost index fund, where you can start with small amounts, even €100 (but this has to be with a long-term mindset).
See also: How to invest when you have no money
Just know that plenty of flesh-and-blood people do it, and you are no more and no less than they are. An asset can be a portfolio of shares or selling T-shirts online, as well as selling online courses on something you know well, selling books or owning patents.
Remember that the health of your personal finances is directly related to the amount of passive income you receive each month or year, that is, the passive income generated by your assets.
Like other multimillionaires, Tony Robbins says you shouldn’t wait until you have large sums of cash: start working with what you have.
Most people think that the more money they have, the easier it will be to find more profitable investments, when in fact history shows that this is exactly how people have lost large sums of money. Start with the little you have now, and that way you’ll unlock the power of compound interest, the first pillar of the secret to wealth.
Robbins tells the story of a UPS employee who never earned more than $14,000 a year but retired with a fortune of $70 million without inheriting a single dollar. It happened because a friend of his (Theodore Johnson, to be precise) told him he was going to take 20% of his salary every month and invest it.
Over the years, compound interest, combined with sound, moderate-risk investment decisions, built that small (or large) fortune.
2. Add value and help the people around you
No entrepreneur has ever got rich overnight, and every multimillionaire out there (as long as we’re talking about honest wealth) has made their fortune by helping others. This may sound very spiritual, but by helping we also mean selling something another person needs, filling a gap someone else has. And that is exactly what entrepreneurs do: they provide something and make money from it.
I’ve often heard people say that Tony Robbins is a charlatan who takes advantage of people by selling hot air and profiting from book sales and tickets to his seminars.
See also: If you want to succeed, there are 10 things you need to be very clear about
Before the age of 29, Robbins had read more than 700 books on neuroscience, happiness, psychology… He doesn’t come cheap when it comes to personally teaching a country’s president or a sports star how to control their emotions (there is talk of up to $6,000 an hour). But if someone like that pays such sums to hear what he has to say, I suppose his message must carry some value.
Speaking personally, having read his books and watched a few seminars, all I can say is that I like what he has to say, and I understand that Robbins’ business lies in helping others (literally).
In Robbins’ own account, when his first child was born he was making only $38,000 a year. The following year he was making more than $1 million a year. That jump in income, he says, wasn’t the result of a new set of skills suddenly emerging in him; it was a psychological need to produce more money.
Tony Robbins’ mentor, Jim Rohn, gave him a very valuable piece of advice on how to use his talent and resources to succeed: find your passion, find a way to use it to do more for others than anyone else does, and add value.
And as I said in a previous article, Tony Robbins has managed to give a spectacular twist to what used to be called self-help.
Being close to the right people also helps
Robbins has said that he built more wealth once he started spending more time with investment bankers. He says he had them in his circle of friends for two years. He learned a lot about money from them, but he didn’t get any richer because of it, until one day one of those relationships made him 400 million in a single day, something that could never have happened if he hadn’t been close to people who understood that industry.
The truth is that nobody grows personally and professionally on their own. Everyone needs help to grow. Whatever you want to do (make more money, start your own business, or help the hungry) you’ll do it much better and with fewer stumbles if you’re surrounded by people who know more than you about the things you need.
That’s why it matters to surround yourself with capable people who bring something to your life
Robbins says his own growth has always been a constant challenge to himself to stay close to people who play the game of life at a higher level. To stay on the court with them, you have to raise your game, and that is a constant challenge to grow.
As we always say, the moment you’re the smartest person in your circle, your growth is over. That’s why, while many people feel comfortable in meetings where they can show off their wisdom as the smartest in the room, I personally feel right at home when I consider myself the dumbest person in a meeting. It means I’m absorbing knowledge from people smarter than me, which should logically make me smarter.
3. Always stay hungry
We’re not talking about the hunger of being on a diet. Robbins has already explained that hunger is the most important ingredient for success. You have to be hungry, and never lose that hunger.
Hunger to grow, hunger to thrive, hunger to give, to contribute, to help, to create, to do…
Hunger matters more than intelligence, because nothing stops a hungry person.
Robbins says that one piece of advice he would give any young person is to develop that hunger, because hunger is what separates someone who succeeds after failing from someone who throws in the towel as soon as they lose their job and see no way out.
The opposite of being hungry is being satisfied. And unfortunately, being completely satisfied means there’s nothing left to learn and nothing left to do; demotivation sets in and we fall over the famous falls of life that Robbins himself has talked about.
Tony Robbins is the author of Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within.
Featured image: An Errant Knight, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
