“Who you spend time with, you become” – Tony Robbins, UPW, London
Why should you model someone, you might ask. Well, it’s important to remember that “Who you spend time with, you become”! Most people would say that you are the average of the five people you spend your time with and that your level of income will most likely be within 10% of those friends.
Tony’s tip is to “love your family and choose your friends”. This one is challenging for most but the internet is making it a lot easier as you are able to find groups etc. online and there you can find people all over the world with similar thoughts and ideas as you. I am sure if you look around you’ll most likely find a few close to home as well but do take this point to your heart because it’s so true! If you have not done so already, then I suggest you join the UPW groups on FB as they are quite inspiring!
Tony’s suggestion for mastery is to model someone who is outstanding at what they do (in the specific area you are interested in).
Find that one person who is outstanding at what they do and not only great because the difference in one sense is probably very small but the impact that small difference might have can be significant when you are looking at the result. Let’s say that you are modeling someone extremely successful when it comes to running, if you do, you will become great. Most likely the person that is outstanding at running, has found some small difference (compared to the extremely good runner), which could for example be how they are putting their foot down or moving their arms and that small difference in movement might take you a decade to figure out if you don’t learn from that outstanding person!
Another very important point is that if you are able to become outstanding once in your life, people will most likely remember you for a very long time compared to if you achieved something great (which will most likely will be forgotten relatively shortly after the accomplishment).
When you have found that person to model, immerse yourself totally so that you can absorb as much as you can and do this for 3-4 weeks (21 days Tony mentioned) and then go and practice what you have learned. After say 6 months you should have follow-ups with feedback so that you can fine tune what you have learned (spaced repetition)!
A personal reflection on this is that it is relatively easy at the moment to get ahead of the masses by just using all available resources (online), which will give so much information and value in a short period of time. Though, if you want to find that 2mm difference which will take you from great to outstanding, you will have to learn from that outstanding person directly. By constantly listening to inspiring and informative podcasts, I can consume 1-2 hours of information per day. How much you might want or need probably depends on what kind of people you have around you, the ones who give energy or the ones who suck all your energy… surround yourself with Tony and other great people as much as you can!
On this topic, Tony told two stories linked to modeling and I will try to reproduce them here:
The first story was about energy or physical endurance (energy creates more energy) and that was the main reason why they kept us dancing and moving most of the time during the seminar. When he realized that he was going to spend very long days (+10 hours straight) moving around a lot to energize his audience and himself, he decided to model someone who has lots of energy.
Tony is not spending all his time doing these kind of seminars so he did not want to learn from an athlete, who is exercising all day every day as that is not what he intends to do (he has 31 companies to run…). He wanted to find someone who is extremely successful and has immense endurance BUT who is not exercising on a full-time basis (then it would not be comparable to Tony’s situation).
So he found a guy who was extremely successful in running marathons and had managed to run one marathon per day for several weeks straight (and he was not even a professional athlete!)! He spent time with the guy, immersed himself with knowledge and started to apply it to himself and if you have not seen him on stage, have a look at this clip (this is how he is on stage for hours!!). Seems like he is a living proof of that modeling works (and sorry I am not a better story teller… but the man is brilliant on stage)!
The second story he told us, was when he was with some friends at his resort in Fiji, they were there for a handful of days to relax but also to learn from each other. One of his extremely wealthy friends was ecstatic about horse polo and was going on for hours about it. Tony told us that he was very reluctant to try but in the end he promised he would try it.
As he got back to his home, there was a letter for him from a former client, who was extremely grateful for having met Tony, who had inspired him to change his life completely. The client owned horses and gave Tony four vouchers for POLO lessons, what are the odds?! So Tony called up the polo club the following day and made an appointment and of course the guy knew about Tony Robbins! He went there and when the guy asked about his experiences with horses, Tony said he had none and the guy then was very reluctant to let him try, well you guessed it, Tony persuaded him (maybe using rapport :).
He was then imagining this giant Italian stallion but boy was he in for a disappointment, he got a small horse called Ernie and it was so small that Tony almost had his feet on the ground! For a few minutes, the instructor had to step away and in the far distance he could see a polo match taking place and after a little while, one of the players hit the ball extremely far and it came right at Tony who decided to go for it. Ernie did his best for Tony not to fall off (and so did Tony) and he managed to hit the ball! At that point he decided he was going to learn how to play polo properly. So based on what I have told you before, what do you think he did? He found one of the best players in the whole of the USA and called his secretary and followed his own rules to get what he wanted!
1: He told her what he wanted and who he was, she immediately knew who he was but still said that the person he wanted to be trained by had no availability as he was competing at the highest level.
2: Tony then asked the assistance to leave a message for the player, just saying that if he had any problems whatsoever in his life, Tony would try to help him for free and if he were able to do so, the player would have to train him for 21 days straight! Within minutes after hanging up, he got a call back and they booked a meeting. Tony managed to help the guy in two sessions and then it was Polo time!
3: Total immersion for 21 days and then he was practicing on his own for about six months and then he came back for some fine tuning.
4: In his first year, Tony was awarded the price as the rookie of the year!
Tony clearly walked his own talk! My own reflection to this story is that by being very open to new things he decided to try polo and for some strange reason these synchronicities kept showing up and he took massive action! So if you are open to new things, you will learn (sometimes by failure) and experience so much more than if you are not open to try new things! You should also try to listen to your heart as it normally knows what you truly want and if you are just being open enough, I am sure these synchronicities will show up more in your life!
Key point he made as well is not to be just good at anything, at least be great, it will be so much more rewarding for yourself and for everyone around you! If someone’s relationship is good, you know what that means…. it’s basically going on autopilot, don’t let that happen to you!
Treat your better half as if your relationship was just a month old, if you do, you will both enjoy it so much more!!
Actions to take:
- Read my post on how to Brainwash yourself to become the person you want to become!
- Read my post on how to model with No Extra Time (NET)
- Use the available tools and technology to your advantage
- Learn from the best and their habits
- Use all of the above resources to your advantage now!
Learn from the best – become the best!
– Jakob
Leave a Reply