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Hi, thanks for listening to the Tony Robbins podcast.
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This is just a quick note about this episode in case you d rather watch and see the video of this conversation, which includes behind the scenes footage with Tony, Sage and me, Mary B. Go ahead and click on the expand your identity video that s on Tony s YouTube channel.
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And that s found at youtube.com backslash Tony Robbins live.
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You d like to listen.
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You re in the right place.
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Okay.
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Here s Tony.
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Hello, Tone.
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Tony Robbins.
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Come on in.
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Uh-oh.
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Halo.
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Hi, honey.
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How are ya?
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Hey everybody, it s Tony Robbins.
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Welcome to Tony Robbins podcast.
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I get to be here in person for a little bit.
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Listen, I am really excited about the subject that we have today and also the guests that we have.
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The subject is the most important subject I know of to controlling human behavior.
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If you ve ever asked yourself, why did I try to make a change and try and try and not really succeed?
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You re going to understand the answer by the end of this.
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And more importantly, if you want to create lasting change, the tool that we re going to talk about today is the tool that creates lasting change.
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And if it s used improperly, it also gets you stuck.
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And the term or the tool we re talking about is the power of identity.
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Now, what is identity?
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Well, we all identify ourselves in different ways.
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Who are you?
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Are you a conservative person, an aggressive person?
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Are you quiet?
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Are you outgoing?
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There s so many ways that we define ourselves.
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And identity is just the culmination of the beliefs you have about who you are.
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But those beliefs control how you think, how you feel, what you perceive, how you interact with people, what you re willing to do, not willing to do.
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In fact, I d submit to you that after 45 years of working with people in 195 countries all over this planet, from the most successful to the most challenged, the single most important element if I want to understand what s driving that person is to understand how they define themselves.
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Because, hear me now, the most powerful force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves.
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And, you know, if you think of someone who s having, quote, an identity crisis, what is that?
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They turn a certain age and they quickly question everything they had accepted.
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A belief is something you feel absolutely certain about.
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You don t believe something if you start to question it.
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You produce doubt.
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And so sometimes there are certain stages of life where someone suddenly goes out and has this identity crisis, and they buy a sports car or whatever the case may be, and they change their hair, and they do everything else.
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But what s really happening is they re trying to redefine themselves, having defined themselves a long time ago.
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And we all have these ways of defining ourselves.
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But let me give you an example of just how powerful it is.
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So I ll give you a simplistic example.
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I don t know if you ever smoked cigarettes or know someone who did, but if you go to someone who smokes cigarettes and no longer does, and you said to them, would you like a cigarette?
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They wouldn t say to you, what brand is it?
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What would they say to you?
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No, I m not a smoker.
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I m not one of those.
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And that s really important because we define ourselves by what we are and by what we re not.
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And it s not effortful when you re not a smoker.
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It s not effortful if you say, I m a health nut, to not smoke.
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It s just not part of your world.
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You don t even consider it.
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Because that need to stay consistent with how you define yourself is the basis of a human being s basic personality making decisions.
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Now, the downside of this, of course, is you can create a negative identity for yourself.
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You re going to have an identity that says, let s say you ve put things off a lot, and you re about to go do something, and then you get fearful.
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Everybody has the fear of failure, the fear of something, of the unknown.
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And the last minute, you don t do it.
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And then you say, I m really going to do this.
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And you do it again and again.
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After a while, you don t want to disappoint yourself.
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So you might develop a new identity and say, I m a procrastinator.
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Well, once that s who you are, that behavior is going to be consistent.
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It is that powerful a control system on how we function as human beings.
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So anything you attach the words I am to over and over again, consistency with your language, with your emotion and with an emotional intensity, you ll eventually become it because it becomes a belief and a belief is self-fulfilling.
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Whether you think you can, whether you think you can t, you re right.
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So I think this subject, being able to differentiate between having a certain feeling or acting a certain way and being that kind of person is huge.
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You can use this tool when I m working with somebody, I m looking to create a lasting change.
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I m looking to help that person shift how they perceive who they are permanently, not just what they were doing.
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But I want you to know that today we re going to introduce it to two brilliant people, my two favorite people, my wife Sage and my right arm and our chosen family Mary.
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I think a lot of men see identity as this is who I am, this is how I am.
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But for women, identity can often be a burden because there s so many.
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Now, I don t see it that way within myself, but some people, you know, it used to be easy.
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I m a farmer, you know, I m a mother.
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But today you re the farmer, you re the mother, you re the community activist, right?
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You re the athlete, you re, you know, you re everything.
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There s so many pieces.
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And my hope, and the reason I m having these two ladies take this over with you, is that when you re done with this, you ll start to question some of your old identities, some of the limitations those might bring.
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You know, so often people say, I m not that kind of person.
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What kind of person?
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And when did you define yourself?
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A year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years, 30 years ago?
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Mostly it was a long time ago.
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And maybe at the end of this conversation, it s time to update your sense of identity.
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Maybe it s time to expand it.
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Maybe it s time to take some of the labels off that might limit you.
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Maybe it s time to look at some that you want to define yourself by as you move for the next five or 10 years of your life of growth and expansion.
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But I think it s important to understand how powerful this piece is.
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It can be used as a weapon to separate people.
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You re one of those.
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That s often what happens politically in the world we re in today.
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No matter what right, left, center, it doesn t matter.
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I m more of an independent myself, so it s a little bit easier to see.
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But even that, I see myself as independent.
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I want to be able to see both sides.
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Not everybody has that feeling.
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Some people think someone who has a different point of view is evil these days.
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But the point is, why would we use words to limit us when we can expand our spirits, our hearts, and our souls by expanding our identity, not limiting ourselves in some way?
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And I want you to know most people define themselves by how they ve behaved.
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And here s what I want you to consider.
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Whatever people do, they re doing the best they can with the resources they have in that moment.
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Are there smart people who do stupid things?
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My bet is you re a smart person.
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You ve probably done stupid things.
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I sure have.
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Are there people that are not seemingly high intelligence who do some really bright things?
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Of course they do.
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Is it possible for a really mean person you consider mean to be really nice?
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Yeah, when they re in a really nice state, they will be.
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Is it possible for a really nice person to be mean?
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Of course.
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Everybody s done it in some time.
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But the difference is your identity.
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So our identity is more powerful than even the truth.
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Your beliefs about people shape your relationships with them.
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And then your beliefs, of course, about yourself are the most powerful of all.
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And that s why I think this subject is so critical.
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But here s what I want you to realize.
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People are not their behaviors.
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You are not their behaviors.
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We ve all done dumb things.
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Doesn t mean you re dumb.
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We ve all done smart things.
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Doesn t mean you re absolutely smart.
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Right?
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It s not that black and white.
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It s not that simple.
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But that s the way the mind tries to reduce things.
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That s the reductionism of the mind.
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Not your heart, not your soul, not your spirit, but the mind.
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It s trying to keep things this or that.
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It s chopping it down.
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It s reductionism.
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You don t want to fall for that.
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But I want you to know you can also expand your identity, not by telling yourself, I m great, I m great, I m great, but by doing something.
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It s like self-esteem.
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I hear so many parents talk about, I want my kids to have so much self-esteem.
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And I think it s one of the biggest mistakes, and I m not the only one who believes this, Dr. Beck from Stanford.
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Carolyn Dweck, I remember reading her books, and she s talking about how we ve raised our children and told them they re great all the time, and they re wonderful, and they re perfect.
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And what it really does is mess them up, and the research shows it.
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Because then they go in the real world, and they aren t perfect.
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They aren t all the things their parents told them, or they ve been told their whole life.
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And now they re scared to try something where they re not who they thought they were, because their identity was larger than who they were, as opposed to rewarding your child for effort.
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That s an amazing effort.
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Boy, if you keep doing that, you ll achieve whatever you want.
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That s a true statement.
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They can grow and expand out of that.
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So I just want you to understand there are situations where people get in a
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certain emotional state.
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They re scared, they re angry, they re afraid, they re whatever, and they behave a certain way.
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But if they do that several times, they might say, that s the kind of person I am.
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And once you do, it s self-fulfilling.
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Or worse, you know somebody, and they were mean to you sometime, and they re such a mean, harsh person.
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Well, I bet they re different with their child.
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I bet they re different when they re not in distress.
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So when we give somebody an identity, we limit our ability to actually reach that soul or that spirit.
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And we limit our own world.
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And we put ourselves in a place of judgment of others.
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And we re judging others.
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Who s the first person we re going to judge?
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Ourselves.
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So this is an area that deserves taking the time to think.
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Really looking at all the consequences of identity and also understanding it s the controlling force in your life.
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So it s controlling decision-making.
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It s controlling your perceptions of yourself.
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It s controlling perceptions of others.
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And here s one more thing.
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It controls how far you grow or fall.
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So I ll give you a metaphor I like to share with people.
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Think of it this way.
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If you set a thermostat on the wall and you set that thing at 68 degrees,
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And let s use 68 degrees as the metaphor, not for your goals in life, but your comfort zone, which is your identity, right?
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You might have these huge goals.
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I want to be this, but if you ever like said, I m going to go do this.
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And then some voice inside your head says, who are you kidding?
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Right?
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Who are you kidding?
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Is that s a big reach beyond who you are in the mind, in your mind at that time.
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So say 68 degrees represents where you re comfortable financially, not where you want to be, but what you re used to your current identity.
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You might say, I want to be financially free, but you re financially struggling, and that s your identity inside your head.
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You want financially free, but you re financially struggling.
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You can do the same thing for your body.
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It s not your ideal.
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It s what you ve gotten used to.
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It s your identity.
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It s who I am.
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I remember I used to say, I m big boned.
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That s why I m overweight.
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That was my excuse and reason.
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That was my identity for a long time.
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So I broke that pattern and kept it out.
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So what happens if you set it 68 degrees, and we re using that as a temperature metaphor, and things get less than you think they should be?
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Not your goals, but less than your identity.
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Like all of a sudden you gain 15 pounds during COVID or 20.
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or something happens in your body or your relationship that really is uncomfortable, or your finances drop to a certain level, there s a point where it goes 68, 65, 63, somewhere around 60 degrees, maybe 59, something s gonna go on in that computer, and it s gonna go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing here at 59?
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You re a 68 degree-er.
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Have you ever felt that?
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Have you ever felt like things got so below your own standard that something in you kicked on and said, this is changing now.
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Now, the minute, not an hour, I m doing this now.
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I m sure you have.
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And what happens is the heaters kick on, the drive to get back to where you think your basic identity is.
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And people do that.
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They get enough drive, and suddenly they re pushed, and they find the way, and they usually get there.
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They adjust to a lower identity, and that s what some people do over and over throughout their life, and that s why they re so disappointed.
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And they have a reason, because somebody betrayed them, because this happened, because something happened in the economy, and all those things probably really did happen.
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But it was really the drop in identity, because once it s your identity, you find the way.
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But think of it this way.
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If things get bad enough, you get this drive to get back to your identity.
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Not your goals, your identity, right?
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Your musts.
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Your must is who you think you are.
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If all of a sudden you start doing better than you dreamed of, you work harder, you get some breakthroughs, you get some insights, and now, emotionally, psychologically, financially, physically, your career, whatever, goes from 68 degrees to 78, to 88, to 90, 99 degrees.
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Around 99 degrees, the same happens to your brain.
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It goes, hey, hey, what are you doing?
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You re a 68 degree-er.
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What are you doing here at 99?
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You don t belong here.
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And then what happens?
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The heaters of drive stop.
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And if that s not enough, the air conditioners kick in and you start saying things that mess up the relationship.
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You start sabotaging things in the business.
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You start sleeping in until you get right back to where you need to be.
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So I want to just set up for you how important identity is.
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And throughout your life, my bet is you ve had moments that have redefined you.
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They may have redefined you for greater sense of who you are and what you re capable of, your spirit and your soul and what you re sharing.
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Or they may have created more limitations because it didn t work out or you didn t do the right thing over and over.
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And then finally, you don t want to feel bad about yourself, so you created an identity that was less than.
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I m inviting you in this session to participate with us.
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And to listen to these two people that I love so much and respect so much, and let them give you their perspective instead of mine about the power of identity, about how you can build it by doing some things that build you into a stronger identity, about where we might want to let go of some of the old identities within ourselves and maybe the people around us.
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Because so much of identity today is used to define people s way to separate us.
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And we re all brothers and sisters on the path.
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That s really what it is.
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And so these podcasts, we only do them when we have a subject that we really think is important.
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And I hope that you all find this as important as I found it in my life.
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My goal is really simple.
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Have people discover that who they are is more than they think they are, and have them have experiences that stack that so they know it s true.
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And then from that expanded perspective, more of their heart, their soul, their spirit, their ability comes out.
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And I got a lot of identities too.
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I got father, and husband, and friend, and business owner, and athlete.
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And I mean, I go on and on and on.
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I actually enjoy those.
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I don t feel the pressure from those.
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But I know for not all people, but for some women,
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You know, the demands are different.
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I think it might have to do with moms and the way we re brought up, but rather than me speculate on a woman s perspective, it s made me more sensitized because I have very positive feelings around identity, but I ve also worked very consciously to shape and create it in myself and others.
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but not everybody does.
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And it, again, it s, it can be the greatest tool for your growth, or it can be the greatest weapon for your separation or for weapon against yourself.
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And I think this conversation is one that s really important to have.
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And so that s why I want to drop in and kind of set the tone for this podcast and then pass it on to my dear ones here, my Sage and our Mary.
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Gosh, Tone, that was, uh, thank you, Tony.
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Um, just a second.
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I m catching up with you here.
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Are we back to Tony again?
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Thank you, Tony.
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You never called me Tony.
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Tone, thank you for the introduction, uh, your insight, your perspective, your.
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life experience and you spoke about many identities and hats that you wear.
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Something that I think is such a beautiful inquiry that they use in the East is, who am I beyond the external identities?
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Who s the one that looks through the lens of life?
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Who s the one that sits in that seat of your soul that s unmovable, that s unnameable?
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Uh, that is not your body.
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You re not your body.
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You re not your emotions.
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What are you?
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There s something deeper and more than all of the above deeper, vaster that goes beyond.
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Cause you know, when you mentioned about whether it s men or women, just human beings that can get overwhelmed by identities, uh, from my own experience, I think part of that is, is cause there s unconscious expectations of who we re supposed to be under each of those umbrellas.
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And yet, uh,
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what I m interested in, curious about to share, Mary and Tone, in this conversation, is really an identity that I can t say is larger, but is vaster than all of them.
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More expansive, yes.
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And is that where we all meet in this human experience called life.
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Yes.
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And so, Mary, I can t thank you enough, because I ve thoroughly enjoyed just sharing and exploring and sharing our own life experience.
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with all those listeners out there who ve had the curiosity to join.
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So I can t thank you enough.
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Tony, thank you once again for joining the Tony Robbins podcast.
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We just love the Tony Robbins podcast.
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We do.
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That s what we re trying to say.
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That s great.
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Well, I hope that what comes out of this is a larger, more expansive identity beyond anything you ve limited yourself to be before or that we ve limited ourselves to be before, not only for ourselves, but for others.
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And I can t imagine better hands to pass that to than the two of you.
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So I m going to pass the ball to you.
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Everyone enjoy the podcast.
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We ll look forward to your comments and hearing what you pulled from this for your own life and for your family and for your business and for your community.
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Blessings to you all.
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Well, I want to start like we often do when it s just you and I sitting here at the table.
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I like to start with a little Tony Robbins trivia to all you listeners out there.
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I thought you were going to ask me.
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I might not pass.
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Okay, no, it s an all play.
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You are also involved.
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You re involved.
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But listeners, viewers, I also want to ask you if you have been to
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many either Tony Robbins seminars or if you are a graduate of the audio program or however you re coming to the Tony Robbins podcast today, I might say, what is Tony s teaching on identity?
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People are into quotes.
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Tony has a very famous quote about identity and it is, do you want to play?
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I didn t want to put you on the spot, Mrs. Robbins.
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That s why I was going to open it up to the audience.
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I bet many of you got it right because Tony, this is one of those things that he often says, write this down now.
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The strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves.
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I m not gonna read it again, but think about that again.
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the strongest force and there s so many things that I would argue are very strong invisible forces in this life of ours and for Mr. Tony Robbins to say that the strongest force in our personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves so with our self-concept or our identity
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Like, let s get into that a little bit.
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Unpack that as they say, Sage Robbins.
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What does that mean?
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Gosh.
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Well, just what I m being shown inside my own mind is, you know, the ideal or the projection that
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Gosh, I m good, let s just say.
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I m a good person.
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And by nature, I am a good person.
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We all are a good person.
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But can a good person do something foolish?
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Can a good person be blind?
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Can a good person be unconscious?
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You actually in many ways are saying what Tony teaches and really drives home at something like Date with Destiny or something where he says our behavior is not our entire identity.
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Like people are not their behavior.
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People sometimes have behavior that meets needs of theirs, but it s really not
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anything, it s not their core essential identity, whatever that is.
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So honestly, throughout this podcast, I think we re asking questions.
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This is really open-ended.
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This is so open to interpretation.
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I think that s why it s such an interesting topic to come out with, like you said, curiosity, because it s like, what are we even talking about this concept of self?
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What does that mean?
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It gets mind-blowing to me really fast.
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And that s where I think, you know, identity of a larger perspective is that we re all human.
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You know, we re all human, no matter what.
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We re all human beings having this human experience.
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And, you know, we all, in certain contexts and certain references, may make different choices, you know?
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Does that make us good?
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Does that make us bad?
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No, I think that makes us human.
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You know, I think that makes us human.
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And so, and a lot of times these,
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identities, it s like, gosh, you know, I could...
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I m a mother, I m a daughter, I m a wife, I m, you know, gosh, what are their identities?
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Sister, a friend.
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I mean, all these different identities that we can put on ourselves, but it s like I, you know, those threads represent a portion of me, you know, they represent a fractal of me, but does it represent all of me, you know, does it represent all of you, all the, you know, whether, or I m Christian, I m Catholic,
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you know, I m ex-political party, I m this, I m that, and a lot of times these labels, these words, these descriptions are limiting, never mind to ourself and our own perception of ourself or others, but language deducts, it locks, it s not expansive enough, because the truth is we are, it s like we re human beings, it s like the being part of the human actually makes me most curious.
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You know, who am I?
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And in the Eastern cultures, they ll do inquiry of, or they ll do a process of, you know, meditation.
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It s like, I m not my body.
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I m not my mind.
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And so it s okay.
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If I m not my body, and, you know, I chop off my legs, my arms, maybe completely up to right here, am I still me?
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And who is that me?
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What is that, that essence, that is-ness?
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Who s the one that s looking at me, at you right now through these eyes?
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Who s the one that s perceiving this, that s unmovable within us, that is vaster than all of it, than all the labels we can put on it?
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That makes me really curious.
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All in all, I want people, I m all for self-expression, I want people to be anything they want to be in every moment.
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We get one shot at this vast life experience.
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Why not be all?
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And that s why Tony would argue the best thing that we can do for ourselves is to expand our identity.
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And how do you do that?
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You do something that is inconsistent.
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with your self-image.
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Like Tony always says, do something you would never do.
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And why is that so hard for people?
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Because we have these constraints somehow that get put on us through, I guess, conditioning, through our childhood, through our past, a whole notion of psychobabble, or maybe we just like, we re a reflection of our culture and the times that we live in.
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And so,
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we are, the water that we re swimming in.
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I think that s really what the heart of even personal development and self-help in this industry that has a lot of...
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criticism around what are you really doing all this for?
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It s like, I think, what are we really doing all this for?
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It s to expand our identity while we can and be as much as we can before time runs out.
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Something like that.
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No, I hear you on that, Mary.
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I think that s very accurate and to expand and also to question.
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You know, here s a beautiful example.
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I was raised, you know, Christian, went to church and had that beautiful imprinting and upbringing and still completely and utterly alive within me and I remember maybe about 14 years ago we went to Dubai
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And, you know, I d never been in a Muslim culture.
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Everything that I learned, I don t even, I can t even say, I didn t learn from my experience.
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I d either heard or maybe read.
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And so it was all a projection.
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You know, I hadn t had, and I think this is something so unique and a lot of times that s missed in today s society.
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is that you know we have identities on individuals or groups of people but it s like if you actually met and sat down and had an intimate exchange with somebody from that community or somebody from that religion or somebody from that demographic and you know I had the privilege
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Tony and I met with this group of people and we were doing an event there actually and you know the men and the women they had separate experiences.
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Tony went to the mosque with this group of gentlemen and had a really lovely experience and for myself I was maybe there was about a hundred women everybody was in burqas and so I wore a burqa to be respectful just entering that reality in that culture
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These beautiful women from all ages, they taught me.
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They taught me what they were doing and washing their hands and washing their mouth and washing their feet and gave me the context of the why.
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You know, they held me, they fed me, they prayed with me.
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It was, when I think back to like just spiritually really rich experiences I ve had in my life, that s one of them.
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And why do you think that s so meaningful?
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I think it s so meaningful because, uh, it completely obliterated, uh, possibly everything.
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It s like narratives, you know what I mean?
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It s like.
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the narrative, who is, who is this, you know, who is a Christian, who is a Jewish person, who is a Muslim, you know, individual and we have, and by the way, you can put any of that, any of those individual identities of religions and we all have
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I mean, we all have, but there s preconceived notions or assumptions, projections that, you know, I picked up in the group mind or that we pick up through, you know, media or different sources and so forth.
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And I think it s just so beautiful to pierce that veil and to be open and willing enough to
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have an experience for yourself and that experience it schooled me, it opened me, it rearranged everything I d ever heard like it was one of like there were such beautiful people and they were so in service they you know they wanted to take care of us at every moment.
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I remember leaving there and just being so struck at how I felt ushered through this beautiful culture, how I felt welcomed into this home, into this
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prayer circle of these women, how I felt seen, how I felt accepted, even though I was the only blonde-eyed blue-eyed girl in the room, you know, and nor did I speak the language.
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We spoke the same language of the heart, like, you know, we, there was just, because there was only
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our faces showing, there was something about everything else disappearing.
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And there was just such an intimacy with that.
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And it- That s a really also like, even I hadn t thought about it until you said that, but as I m picturing it in my mind, right, you re in a burka, so all you see are each other s eyes.
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So also to almost make yourself invisible.
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Yes.
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What a unique way to come at identity when you re actually, your physical self is invisible because I think,
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as is human nature.
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A lot of us do get stuck in the physicality of this life.
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Well, we know that there s, like you said, to your point, I could shave my head.
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I could cut off a pinky.
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I could cut off a foot or a whole leg.
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I m still Mary, aren t I?
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So then if you cover your whole self and you re just looking into each other s eyes.
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And when I hear that story for you, I also think it s so beautiful that say there s a little bit of an in-group, out-group happening.
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So you re coming into this group of Muslim women and they are welcoming you.
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Like there s no, that s what s missing to me today.
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It s like, I think it s great if you have your groups.
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And I think as humans, we all want to belong to groups and communities.
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but can we still invite others in?
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Like, are we so deeply immersed?
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I just think that like those women are an awesome example of being like, come see what we re doing.
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Thank you for your willingness.
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Thank you for your curiosity.
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Thank you for your, you know, showing up.
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And now like, let us give you an experience of us.
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I was highly impacted by that and I ve thought about those women and just the entire experience many, many, many times.
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And honestly, it s one of the first things that just came to mind through this whole conversation.
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I ll tell you another context that s different, it s more political.
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We have two dear friends of ours that have a...
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They have a horse rescue that they save horses from slaughter.
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And so they are working passionately.
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They re forces in nature.
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And not only do they help to save the horses, but they re also really actively, proactively working to pass a bill to end horse slaughter here in America.
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And they ve made extraordinary headway.
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And so we, you were there, we all had dinner together, the four of us had dinner one night.
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And what so struck me listening to their conversation was, you know, they had, they probably lean a little bit more left, let s say democratic.
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And so they, you know, that s one side of the perspective.
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But, you know, in order to get a bill passed, you want to have, you know, what s called bipartisan support.
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you know, support on both perspectives.
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And so they were going to meet with the, you know, Republican candidates and so forth.
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And they were sitting at the table and they were like, you know what?
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They were actually really cool.
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Like they were really supportive.
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And in my mind, I m like, what else did you think they would be, you know?
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And yet it struck, it struck me because once again, it s like, who did they believe them to be?
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they believe them to be who possibly they ve heard or they ve read um maybe somebody has spoken about contextually but it s like did they have their own experience and when they had their own experience they were like what they re just really cool people and almost like you know like horses yes why is republicans like horses too
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But that really struck me.
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Yeah, it was a funny moment.
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It s a beautiful moment.
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It was the same moment as, you know, my own flight to Dubai and experiencing such a different contextual religion than what I was brought up in.
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You know, for them it was this world and we can all have this myopic view
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But in that view, there s blinders.
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In our beliefs of words, there s blinders.
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And it gets really narrow.
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And that was a moment where the blinders started to open and let some light in, illumination of experience, of reference points, of who are these individuals.
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And they talked about their humor.
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They talked about their willingness.
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They talked about their open-mindedness.
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And you could feel just almost like the walk.
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I couldn t believe it.
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And I found watching that and observing that, I was like, wow, how beautiful.
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Like this is the human experience.
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I think, you know, that we re willing to, and it doesn t have to be, but I think life will offer it to us out of need that shifted their experience.
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You know what I mean?
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Out of a need and a hunger to push this through in order to save these animals that are so beloved, they put themselves in a context that maybe they wouldn t have associated in.
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Maybe they wouldn t have sought out.
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But because of their love and their passion, they did.
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But by doing so,
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pulling away like the blinders and then having a personal experience and that personal experience surprised them.
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And I remember just, I barely even spoke a word at that dinner.
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I actually was just so interested in observing and then just noticing, gosh, you know, I, I, all the moments and times in my own life when I ve had blind spots.
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And, you know, for those of you who are listening.
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The labels and the identities, the community, whatever the label is, it s like, you know, you had mentioned about, you know, am I married?
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Does that change me being married?
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It s like, are we our name?
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Are we our family s name?
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Are we our religion?
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Are we our political party?
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you know, who are we?
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Who am I?
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I think that s such a profound question to ponder and can also create a lot of confusion at times because it s like, gosh, then we want to, you know, build more identities of who I am.
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Well, I m a lawyer.
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I m a golfer, you know?
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It s like even our daughter the other day, she was
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you know, taking swimming classes and, you know, I caught myself because it s like, oh, she s a swimmer.
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It s like, is she a swimmer or is she actually learning how to swim?
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Because once again, if I put the label on her, she s a swimmer, it s then, oh, this, you know, her little daughter, she feels like, oh, I have to be a swimmer.
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I m, you know what I mean?
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I m Michael Phillips.
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And it s like, no, she s just really enjoying the water.
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She s really enjoying the pool.
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How cool.
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So she s learning how to swim.
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I think the, I am,
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And what we put after I am is something to be mindful of.
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That s really it.
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Something to be mindful of.
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And I think that that I am, that we all are, you know, whatever you call that, that isness, that vastness, our true nature, the essence, what you really can t put a name or label in, and yet we all touch up upon it, there s that.
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like longing inside of ourselves to recognize that, to align with that reality.
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I think that s just a really beautiful question and a really beautiful reality to recognize
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that we are larger than the labels we put on ourselves and we are larger than the labels that we adopt through our conditioning, through our upbringing, through the external society?
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Are we this political party, that political party, this particular race, that particular race, or are we really brothers and sisters on the path?
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All walking each other home.
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You know, like how that feels inclusive.
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You know, like how that feels just automatically benevolent.
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You know what I mean?
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Supportive.
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I, you know, is that a, I don t know that that s a, it s not fair to say higher, lower, cause it s just, it s just another perception to perceive, you know, others rather than, you know, who we, the stickies or the labels that we put on them or on ourselves.
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I don t know if that translates.
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Well, yeah, right.
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Cause I think even saying others, then you re getting into that duality of self and other.
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And as soon as it s self, me, myself, I,
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ego, whatever you want to call it, I don t know.
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Like if you re listening and any part of you has had any like little touch of an experience of oneness, like if you really do, somewhere if you search your soul and your heart of hearts, believe that
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We on this planet, everything living, breathing is one, somehow connected, the connected universe.
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Then it just makes me kind of be like, what are we arguing about right now in 2022?
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It feels to me like we re taking steps
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backwards in our specificity, like Tone teaches about the importance of chunking, right?
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So like if you have to wash an elephant, somebody take the tail, somebody take the leg, somebody take the other leg, you have to break it into chunks.
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But if you over chunk something, then it actually becomes really complex.
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And right now I feel like we re almost over chunking the fact that it s like, we re all humans.
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if we can just like remember that there s at least some sort of umbrella over us all that connects us.
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And identity, it almost seems like this heavy thing that we re like pushing up a hill right now as a collective, because it s just, it feels like people are having a hard time agreeing.
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And I also think it s human nature to want to make sense of the world and where we re all coming from.
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But like, let s use Adrian, for example, our
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brilliant sound tech.
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It s his birthday today.
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And we had a little conversation before we walked in here and sat down and we kind of always like to get the teams, everybody s weighing in at a different time.
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So Adrian at the ripe old age of 25, Adrian, I didn t tell you I d be sharing this, but happy birthday to you.
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He said something like, who are you?
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Who am I?
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What does that question even mean?
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And that s exactly it to me.
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It s like,
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What does that even mean?
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Who are you?
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And then is that different to you than if I said like, what are you?
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Like, what are you?
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Are you a writer, a doctor, a dentist, a school teacher?
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What?
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And then that s somehow different than like, who, what are you even asking me?
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Who am I?
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How would we even choose what things we re gonna let define us?
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It just seems so nuts to me.
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And yet so beautiful that we are all, I think that s where we all meet.
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I think no matter where we come from, that question knocks on all of us to understand, to touch upon.
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And I think life, I mean, I don t think life, I mean, from my own experience, life has almost been like,
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a learning, but an unlearning of who I thought I was, you know, um, who, you know, it s almost like the ideals in, in, um, in society and ideals as a family or, you know, being the woman, the wife, the daughter, the roles, that s the word I m looking for, the roles.
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which are really another form of identity.
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And what s so interesting is, you know, I m the same, not the same, like I have the same love of service or like I m a love, I want to offer that love, I want to extend that love.
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But at this stage of my life, it comes from a different place.
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I feel like in my maybe 20s and 30s, it was
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who I thought I was supposed to be, you know?
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And I even said to Tony one time, I was like, honey, I said like, you know, seeing him as husband, I didn t realize that I had unconscious expectations for that identity.
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You know, he would have had unconscious expectations for me as wife.
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And I felt like through our, I don t know, it s been say 20, 20 some odd years, it was like an unlearning or an unraveling or a removal of all that.
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And then it s just like this beautiful human being that God gave me to love.
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this beautiful human being that God gave me to love.
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If God gave you to love is too much of a stretch.
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It s like if you put someone, if someone s put in front of you in your life path.
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This beautiful individual that, okay, if you don t want to say God, this beautiful individual, if you want to drop that identity, this beautiful universe just blessed me with this individual that I get to share this experience and love.
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That s, that s
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I mean, there s nothing more profound and also to get to know oneself through that meership.
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I think that that s an amazing art and there s a beautiful freedom to move beyond, I ll just speak for myself, to move beyond who I thought I was supposed to be and holding that architecture up with the behavior around that, cumbersome, clunky.
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you know, and then removing that.
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And it s almost like, I ll give you a great example, your mama, Mary, or my mama for that, my parents.
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It s like, you know, sometimes we grow up, we see our parents as you see your mama s mom.
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You know, and many times you ll see- That identity carries a lot of expectation.
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Mm-hmm.
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And many times you ll say to me, like, why, your mom, like, mom just, I ll be talking to Mary s, sorry, I m not giving you context.
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Many times I ll be on the phone with Mary s mom and I ll hang up and I ll share what she shared.
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And she s like, your mom, like, my mom just said that.
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She just talked about that.
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And you re baffled because I don t see your mommy as mom.
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I see her just as this really cool human being, this really cool woman, and speak to her as a friend from that perspective.
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And so sometimes she shares differently with me than she would with you.
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And yet, you know, as I watch you
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experience and get to know and get curious about your mom beyond who you believe she is as a mother.
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Selfishly, who she should be to me, her daughter, like it goes from shocking to what you elicit from my mom to like heartbreaking quickly for me because I realize like I m not drawing that part of her out because of the way that I am limiting
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the totality of her identity by just being like, mom, like what a punk.
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But I see how I do that to my own mom.
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Then I take it out wider and deeper and you see how most kids do that to all moms.
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Most kids do that to their dads.
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There s those identities.
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in previous podcasts, we ve called them archetypes.
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You used the word narratives earlier, which I m so label.
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Okay.
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So in just like, if I stick one word on you, whether it s race, religion, ethnicity, if I just put one word on you, people will have all kinds of things come to mind for that one word.
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And then, so we try to tell a story.
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Like I think our identity is also the story that we tell about our lives, I guess, the story of who I am.
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Narrative, the narrative of who I am.
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I m trying to make sense of it.
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I don t know.
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Well, um, you know, I d have to, I have to ponder that the narrative of who I am, because the narrative would be anything that s collected.
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So that s in the past.
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And so who I am similar to meditation can only be experienced here now.
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And so, yeah, go ahead.
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But, I would say if you re going to, I m going to look up the definition, the dictionary definition of identity, but that s what people would say.
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It s like the collection of your memories.
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I know there s no such thing.
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It s like if we go that far, there s no such thing as past future, there s only now.
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So if I could just start being, it s like if you just like woke up out of something and could create yourself afresh, starting right new, right new right now.
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Beautiful notion, isn t it?
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It d be awesome, but no one would do it.
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Well, is that true?
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Because the strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves.
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You could be totally different from one moment to the next.
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if you want it to be.
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I kind of am.
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Might surprise some people.
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You are.
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A little bit.
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You actually really are.
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Yes.
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I m going to read you a little quote.
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Okay.
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I d love to.
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I have it on my phone this time.
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It is from Albert Einstein in the Einstein Papers.
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Albert says, a human being is part of the whole, called by us universe.
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A part limited in time and space, he experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest.
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A kind of optical delusion of consciousness.
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This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires, to affection for a few persons nearest to you.
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Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. 
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Einstein famously was like, you know, he didn t want to, he wasn t nationalistic.
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He didn t want to be known as a German.
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He was a citizen of the world.
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He was constantly taking his, I mean, most people, if you say who s the brightest mind in history, probably 99% of people say Einstein, right?
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I don t know.
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Pretty smart guy.
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We all agree pretty much on that.
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And here, what is his core belief if we want something to model?
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It s this idea that don t restrict who you are called to love and feel.
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It s this tiny little circle of the people that are around you.
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Keep going.
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Keep going.
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It s really beautiful.
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I love that you discovered that.
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It s really profound and I feel covers oneness, the interconnectedness of all life and a willingness to touch upon that, you know, here now.
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I mean, even the oneness of here we are in this room, you re here, I m here.
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And then all those of you that we have the privilege to share this conversation with that will be tuning in, that interconnectedness of this amazing technology that links us all, that really amazes me.
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And I think it s super cool.
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And I think it s really beautiful in all means that there s all these invisible forces, this web of this existence that weaves this web that connects us and that s the true oneness of one mind, one heart.
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It traverses space and time, which I know we re getting out there.
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That usually is one for me to even try to wrap my head around.
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I know conceptually it s true, but then I m like, it feels really linear and it feels like there s space and time, but we re having a conversation.
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People in this room, Ethan, Adrian, are listening to it in real time, our dog, but then there s people across time that will listen to it today, tomorrow, next week, three months from now.
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It s like, right, like, so what?
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It just, again, there s a lot of just little mind-blowing moments in this conversation of like,
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Who are we?
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Who are we really?
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Tony just finished a business mastery or one business mastery seminar of the year.
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And one of the questions that he asks entrepreneurs and business folks alike is, what business are you in?
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What business are you really in?
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And we can ask that, I think, of ourselves and of our life and of our identity, like, who am I?
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And see what your brain comes up with.
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And like, no, like, who are you really?
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Like, who s 10-year-old Sage, 20-year-old, 50-year-old, 80-year-old, 90-year-old?
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Like, what is the essence of who you are?
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And if you re listening, I hope that
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springs you into a little bit of processing about like, what is the essential part of you?
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What do you want it to be?
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Well, I love that you mentioned about age.
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You know, my grandpa used to always say, my grandpa Bob, he d say, you know, honey, he s like, I look at myself in the mirror and sometimes I forget that I m this age.
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And I ll see like my body and my face.
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He was in his eighties at the time.
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And he s like, who the heck is this guy?
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But that struck me and now, you know, I m in my 40s and it feels different because the isness that we are, the essence that we are, doesn t age.
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It s timeless.
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It s eternal.
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You know, it is.
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And so it s like, what?
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That isness, that
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I don t, there s no words that does it justice, but the consciousness, you know, you could use that word, the awareness that is perceiving through these eyes, that s watching it all, was the same one at 10, is the same one here in my 20s, my 30s, my 40s, and my grandpa in his 80s.
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And I think, you know, does body change?
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Does the external matter shift and change?
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But that s the unmovable,
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reality of us all.
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And I think that that is where we really meet.
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And that is a recognition or a realization that s the exterior changing identities or expressions of who we are.
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That s the part that is unchangeable.
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Right.
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Or time or out of time, or I ve heard, I think it was Joe Goldstein say like, okay, so say, like, say our Adrian here is 25 today.
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I ve heard Joe make the remark like, how old is your breath that s coming out right now?
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How old s your breath?
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Is it 25?
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Is it like right now, like how old, oh, your leg is tingly.
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How old is the sensation in your leg?
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Oh, you re hungry.
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How old is your hunger?
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Is it 25 years old?
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Or is it like, there s things that it s like, I can t make sense of this rationally, logically.
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And identity is one of those things that I just have, it feels, when I start to talk about it, it makes me laugh, because it s just like,
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No, like what are we, how are you ever, how do we even attempt to describe that?
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It just, I don t know.
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We have, and then we have personality tests.
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Like at Robbins Research, we rely on something called the DISC test.
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People may have heard of it, D-I-S-C.
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William Marston was the psychologist who also, fun fact, also invented Wonder Woman.
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Wonder Woman, the comic, he invented the disc test based on these personality defining markers.
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A lot of people are familiar with the big five personalities.
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So, but then is personality the same thing as identity?
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Most people would say, no, it s different, but like, well then what is that?
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from my own experience anyways.
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It s who I think I m supposed to be rather than the essence of who I am.
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So that s the unmovable, unchangeable perspective within us all.
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And then the personality from my own self, the personality a lot of times was another name for it is like cellophane self.
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It s the person that you think you re supposed to be.
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Well, or yeah, because of conditioning, socially familial, so innocent.
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Yeah.
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So it s so innocent.
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And I think it s a beautiful gift of this existence is the shedding or the unlearning or the, you know, the removing the masks so that it s like, Oh, there she is there.
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It is there.
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Um, you know, I can t even name it, uh, male, female, truthfully, cause it s just there.
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That essence, that, you know, when you look in the mirror, it s really beautiful too, you know, I watch our little one as she perceives herself in the mirror and it s so beautiful to watch, just, you know, her look inside her own eyes.
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We forget to do that.
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You know, we look into others eyes but to actually look in the mirror and don t look at, you know, your hair or your face or whether you re shaved or makeup or that but just actually looking in your eyes and see who s looking back.
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I think that s such a profound exercise and I see it every day with our little one and I m reminded by that innocence.
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I m reminded of the awe and the curiosity to discover oneself and that s
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label this external identity.
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Through my travels to India I was just so struck at how they contemplate and ponder that reality of I AM.
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No, I am.
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That I am.
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Touching upon that and observing that I think is a really beautiful question and I can t answer that for anybody.
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I can t answer that for you.
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You can t answer that for me.
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And hopefully through this conversation at least maybe there s been some space created, some
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an opening, an aha, and in that space you can inquire, you can perceive the gorgeous, beautiful self that you are.
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Thank you for joining in.
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Thank you for your own curiosity.
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Thank you for your own inquiry, your own
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hunger.
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It s beautiful.
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It s what s guided us all here.
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And Mary B, I enjoy every one of these conversations with you.
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So thanks for keep kind of continue to come back.
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I do with curiosity every time.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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This episode is brought to you by Date With Destiny.
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Just in case you don t know what Date With Destiny is, it is a six day total immersion program.
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You may have heard of it as Stanford University just published their research on the program as a remarkably effective treatment for feelings of depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, even suicide ideation.
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Date with Destiny was also featured in the Netflix original documentary, Tony Robbins, I Am Not Your Guru.
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It s really where you go to do the inner work of uncovering the invisible forces, those beliefs and rules, the whole blueprint and foundation for every part of our life that controls how we think and feel and behave consciously and unconsciously.
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There s a values realignment process that s really powerful and healing for many people.
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That s my favorite part.
7
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I m excited to tell you that Tony and Sage hosts this Date with Destiny program every year, once a year, and it s coming up fast.
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This year s Date with Destiny is December 2nd through 7th, and there are still tickets available.
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So if you can t come to Palm Beach, you can also attend digitally right from your computer at home and stream in.
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We would love to see you there.
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Check it out.
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The Tony Robbins Podcast is inspired and directed by Tony Robbins and his teachings.
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It s produced by us, Team Tony.
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Copyright Robbins Research International.