YouSaid · the spoken record

Jerry Colonna

lines on the record: 100
first: 2024-05-30
most recent: 2024-05-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Well, there's a couple of things come to mind, and I'm going to reference two friends of ours, Seth God and then Sharon Salzberg. The first thing was when I was really struggling with this early on in my career, my adult career, Seth Godin gave me some wonderful advice, which boiled down to this phrase. I wish I could, but I can't. And that became a kind of interesting little fence around my life, a boundary marker. And so the idea was that you would be able to say to someone, someone who reaches out, can you do this favor for me, this thing for me? And you get to say, I wish I could, but I can't. So you just pause around that. The problem is, of course, there's an inauthenticity that can set in, which is, I actually don't wish I go through there.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Partners won't love me, and so therefore I will be unsafe. I will be bereft. I'll be by myself. I'll be alone in the woods, fending for myself. And there are a few things that threaten me more than the threat to belonging. I don't know. Does that resonate with you”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. That's right. So, what I often say is that there are three basic risks that we're all trying to manage all the time. Love, safety, and belonging. We want to love and be loved. We want to feel safe physically, emotionally, spiritually, and we want to feel that we belong. And what I'm hearing, so if you resonate with those at all, the existential threat, and I want to bring your attention to existential, because I think that the threat is to the essence of who you are, or at least the perceived threat. And when someone trash talks you on stage, what they're trash talking is you, the you, not the meat bag, but the essence of you. And so I think that the fear, I know for myself that the fear of disappointing others is a threat to my belonging. I'm not going to be in my family anymore. My children won't love me.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Something about missing something that might be important to you, seeing someone that has been helpful to you in the past or something that's important to you that you might miss something. So that's one fear. Is that right?”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I want to reflect back a couple of things that I'm hearing so that we can just sort of establish it. The first thing I would say is I really admire all the filtering that you've put into your life and the structures that you've put into your life to create boundaries and saying no. And I think that the rules as you define them, and they might be rules for like, hey, every morning I'm going to do X and every afternoon I'm going to do Y or I'm only going to work from hours. Those are all important, but ultimately insufficient for complete relief from some of these feelings. They're really, really helpful. They've reduced your anxiety from overwhelming to small, but 620,000 emails, right? Right. And so I want to bring your attention to two other feelings. One was you said”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Given up feeling anxious about it. And it just like forget it. I'm not going to get to it. So here's the question for you, and you don't have to answer it, but hang out with it. A couple questions. The first might be something like, when did you start feeling overwhelmed? How long have you felt overwhelmed? And while feeling overwhelmed, did you take on more tasks? In your case, Tim, did you sign up for another book in another show or another thing which only produced more stuff? Because that's what I do. If there's a tiny bit of open space in my life, I tend to fill it. And then the magical question is, how familiar is that feeling and how does that feeling serve you?”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think I think it's hugely common. And I think that you asked the question by using a particular descriptive word. You described it as feeling overwhelmed. And if we were to do dream analysis, we might talk about being flooded. That's typically the psychological signal that the system is overwhelmed. So again, we use our construction and we talk about complicitness not necessarily responsibility. I'm going to use you as an example as a high achiever who is incredibly busy and so busy that he has over 600,000 unanswered emails. And we'll just stick on that one for a moment. By the way, you're allowed to declare bankruptcy at that point. Okay, you're done. And what I hear you say is I know you said I don't feel anxiety, just a small piece of it. I would argue that you probably have been so overwhelmed by it that you've actually”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That got you into adulthood, that got you established, that got you to the point where you think you got it all figured out, and then all of a sudden, holy shit, the whole thing starts to collapse. Now, what do I do? And when I see someone who's busy, who's kind of in the early 20s, I see a striver. Trying to establish themselves. But when I see somebody who's busy, who actually doesn't need to be that way, I get really, really curious. What internal need is trying to be met by all that busyness? And that's the place to inquire.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It can feel so amazing internally. It's like, look at all the great stuff I got done. Externally, look at how busy I am. I must be important. That's an interesting statement. Busyness can also serve to distract you from those voices inside that say, hey, I'm not happy. Hey, I'm not happy. Hey, I'm serious. I'm going to throw you down on the ground with some sort of somatic illness, lower back problem, irritable bowel syndrome, migraine headaches. That was my specialty. I'm going to throw you down until you pay attention to me. Okay, you're too busy. Okay, I got you. Okay. Because, you know, here's the thing too. Somewhere around 35 to 50 years old, the systems start to break down. The systems that got you out of childhood.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, once you've established a certain level of trust and relating through empathy and don't necessarily try to step in and fix it, the first question I would start to ask or elicit is how is that being busy serving you? Remember that how have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want? Here's the thing about busyness. Busyness can feel fucking awesome”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I get them if they either have children or hope to have children someday. I will ask them what would they like their children to feel when they're at the same age? Because if they would like them to feel something other than what they're feeling, now's the time to start changing the way they organize their lives”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The truth is, I'm probably too scared to ingest any material inside of my body. But leave that aside for a moment. Forget all that esoteric stuff like that. Here's the simple question. How's it working for you? If it's not working for you, why are you in pain? Why are you doing it? And would you like a little relief? And here, you want to know the secret like nasty little trick that I play?”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where you put your head down at the pillow at night and you go, my God, I don't know if I can do it again tomorrow. Maybe they'll catch me tomorrow. And if that's what you're working with, then there's an opportunity in all that we're talking about. Forget universal suffering, forget about wellsprings, forget about spiders, forget about Burning Man, which I've never been to, by the way, and I don't believe in substances. But that's a whole different issue. Forget about all that stuff.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A is getting A's, and the highest achieving people oftentimes come into me scared because there's a little whispery voice in their ear that says, you are a fucking fraud. You have no idea. And when they figure out that all you're doing is reading the tea leaves and what it takes to get an A, they're going to toss you out of the tribe. They're going to toss you out on your ass. They're going to push you away. Or they say to themselves, because they haven't experienced loss or they haven't experienced failure. They think they haven't experienced failure. They're just waiting. They're just playing a waiting game. They're just waiting for something, for fate to catch up to them. And bang, the hammer's going to come down. Now, if this resonates with you, you might also then recognize the anxiety that comes in.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My job isn't to necessarily convince people that they need help. And so the first thing I say is, and the first thing I would say to anybody who's listening is if everything's working for you, go at it. Have a great time. Go enjoy yourself. Go ahead. But you know, there's a simple little trick. You know, I had this little reputation that I make people cry and all this stuff. You know what I do? I ask them a simple question. How are you? And I often follow it up with like, no, really, don't bullshit me. How are you? How are you really feeling? Because here's the thing. You described this would-be resistant person as a high achiever. Here's the thing about high achievers, in my experience. High achievers early on in their life figure out how to get an A. They figure it out because the whole system is geared towards that grade. And then we take that entire system from our childhood and we move it into work. And it's just getting A's, getting A's getting.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You want to understand wisdom traditions across the world. It's what we're talking about right now. It's like even the best of Christianity, even the best of what Jesus taught. It's like, God, I mean, I just imagine him exasperated sitting there saying, for God's sake, love one another. Just, you know, come on, can you just stop the nonsense and just reach across and just be with each other? Think of it this way, Tim. There's almost like a universal wellspring of pain. that you and I share. And in the similar fashion, there's a universal wellspring of happiness and joy that you and I share. And so if you're in this painful spot, I can tap that universal wellspring of happiness and joy and point it a little bit more at your suffering. And you can do the same for me.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, first of all, to answer your quick question, I have heard of IFS. I have not been trained in IFS, and I know a few of my clients have benefited from it. But broadly speaking, you want to understand Buddhism. That's what we're talking about right now.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hard okay, let's do this together. So I think the call was that, but if I may, I think the call was also to retroactively go back in time and save myself.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It wasn't just the call to begin coaching. This helps me every day. I mean, this is the craziness about the work that I do, about living my vocation like this. Even today, in my worst moments, when I can be with another person's pain, by the way, which is the root etymological meaning of the word compassion to be with someone else's feelings, I magically feel relief from my own unbearable feelings because I think that's the essence of being human together. We get to actually, oh, geez, we look at each other across the campfire. I keep imagining us in sort of pre-civilization going like looking across campfire, and again, must be in Brooklyn and going, dang, it's hard, right? Isn't it hard being human? Yeah, it's really...”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Question What have I not been saying that I need to say? There was that going on for him. So then I said, wait a minute, dude, you can do something about relieving suffering. You're not the mess, and it's not always just your prefrontal cortex that's going to figure everything out. Because I didn't have an answer for him. I didn't say here, here's the job you should do that's perfect for you so that you no longer go to bed at night feeling like crap, wondering whether or not you should wake up in the morning. I just had to listen to my heart. And I did something completely non-intuitive. I reached onto my bookshelf and I gave him a book. And the feeling that I had was poignant pain coupled with the sense of being able to do something. I could be helpful.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A couple of things. I could see relief in his eyes. The first thing I felt was empathy. I knew his feelings because even though the content of the story was different, my experience was so similar. I had been so ruled by fears that I was living in a box. I had lived in a box that was not of my making. It was somebody else's box. It was the wrong box. It was the wrong suit of clothes. It was not me. And I could feel all that. And when I reach for Let Your Life Speak, I was reaching for the very same thing that had gotten me out of the box. And I said, here, here's a path. And there was just relief, relief, not that he had read the book yet, but just relief that somebody actually understood his feelings and had given words to his feelings that he hadn't been able to give to. Remember that?”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was, you know, his father had taught him that if all else fails, at least he could make a living as a lawyer. And the kid was just miserable, just miserable. And so I reached up to the shelf and I pulled down a copy of Let Your Life Speak. And I said, here, read this, and then get back to me. He left the office and I turned around and I said, fuck, I think I need to be a coach. Need to do that more frequently. And so within a few days, I'd signed up for a coach training program.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures, but I have a little sub office within their space and I'm doing a bunch of different things. I'm serving on a bunch of boards of directors, I'm making Little Angel investments here and there, but I'm just sort of hanging around the hoop, if you will. And this young guy comes to see me. He's there to, quote, network. You know, this is the thing everybody is supposed to do. Network is way too new job. You ask about questions. So here's the story. So he comes in and he's a lawyer and he wants to get a job in the startup industry. So he wants to find a way to get some sort of position. And I turn to him, and he's probably in his late 20s. And I said, I'm happy to help you. But just answer a question for me. It's kind of my first coaching question, right? And I said, what made you to become a lawyer in the first place? And he starts crying to me and he starts telling me about pleasing his father and about how”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. And so in reading those books, and those three books were really important because they did lead indirectly to me becoming a coach. Each one of those books presented something different to me. Faith presented this notion of really being honest with myself with what was going on. When things fall apart was the first laying out of Buddhist dharma as a path. But it was let your life speak, which is a brilliant, beautiful short little collection of essays that really shifted to dialogue for me, partially because Parker is so open and honest and authentic about his own struggles and depression. Okay, so to your question, let me fast forward it probably four or five years later, I'm still working my way through all of the issues that I'm carrying at that point and trying to sort myself out. I'm in an office, I'm sharing office space.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So on that plane ride from New York to Arizona to Canyon Ranch, I read three books When Things Fall Apart by Ani Pemachodan, Faith by Sharon Salzburg, and let your life speak by Parker Palmer. And before fully answering your question, I'll give you this. I must have done something really, really good in a past life because I have the benefit of considering all three of those people. Ani Pemma, Sharon Salzberg, and Parker Palmer as my friends. I didn't know them at the time, but I have the good grace and the incredible good fortune to say I'm friends with them. They are my teachers. So what was your question?”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if I have to suffer the consequence of the loss of status, approbation, affirmation, all the external trappings, so be it. It's like my soul basically said, listen, motherfucker. You better sit down and pay attention to your life because the stakes are too high.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What did Emerson say? The vast majority of men Let's update the vast majority of people, lead lives of quiet desperation. So, how did I get out of it? I guess your question implies an agency that I didn't feel at the time, meaning, huh, I wake up one day and I decide I'm going to be different. No, it wasn't that. It was that I ran out of the ability to continue to operate anymore. It was that moment above the lip of ground zero. And that moment where I chose not to leap in front of the subway, but to get into the cab and go to see Dr. Sayers. And it was that moment where I decided to follow her advice and go to Canyon Ranch. It was the series of moments where it was like, okay, I know it's not working. I admit it's not working. I don't know what I'm going to do, but what I have been doing hurts too much.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I knew when I decided not to continue working with Fred Wilson, stupid man that I was, I knew that it was actually the right thing for me to do. But when I agreed to take a job at J.P. Morgan, it wasn't because I wanted to continue doing that work. It's because I was too terrified to do anything other than that. And I certainly didn't want to lose the esteem and the good wishes. I mean, think about your reaction just a few minutes ago when you pointed out that it was a $23 billion fund. And even in that moment, I felt a little bit of that pride mixed with a little bit of the shame because I walked away from that. And I didn't want to lean into that space of like, what if I don't matter anymore? What if nobody calls me?”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It wasn't heard. Yeah. Yeah. Something very, very simple. I wasn't happy that despite all the outward trappings of success, I was empty and hollow inside that I wasn't speaking truthfully, that I wasn't living in integrity, and that I was too afraid of losing the good graces and esteem of everybody around me to actually talk about the fact that I did not want to do what I was doing with my life at that point. Oh, by the way, I didn't know what else I was going to do, but that's a separate issue.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can almost always be rooted back to somebody not saying something that needs to be said. And if there's a little correlated to that and not saying it or not saying it in a way that it can be heard. Because oftentimes we speak without words, but by our actions, and we go unheard.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You got it. Michael, Emma, and her brothers, Michael and Sam, for sure, for sure. God love them. They put up with so much with me. Oh my god, dad, stop coaching me. So before I can answer that question, honestly, what I would say is Dr. Sayers taught me three additional questions. And those questions are what am I not saying that needs to be said? What am I saying that's not being heard? And what's being said that I'm not hearing? So again, what am I not saying that needs to be said? What am I saying that's not being heard? And what's being said that I'm not hearing? And so for me, the way I was complicit. I wasn't speaking. I wasn't saying what I needed to say. And more often than not, Tim, the suffering that I encounter.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And before I even answer your question, I want to say one other thing the discomfort of difficult and powerful questions reminds me of something my daughter Emma likes to say about me, which is that imagine growing up with a man who asks you questions that you'd really rather not answer. So shout out to Emma. So I think that the way I was complicit.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it's helpful to think of ourselves as somehow being served by the challenges that we're going through. The second piece of that is that I say I don't want. And that sort of unpacks that notion even further, which is there's something oftentimes about the way in which we operate and the way we set up the conditions of our lives to be unconscious service to us. The psychological term is secondary gain, but there are ways in which we find ourselves repeating patterns in our life. We always date the same type of person. We are always finding ourselves in the same kind of job. We're always frustrated by the same sorts of situation. And so it's really useful to sort of start to unpack that. So that's that question.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll unpack the question. So, the way I usually ask the question goes like this How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want? And the reason for the language is very, very purposeful. I like to use the word complicit and not responsible. 90% of the time when I first ask that question, people hear the word. For the conditions. Complicitness is important because it's not relieving the person from the burden of feeling responsible for all the shit in their lives because that's not fair to carry that responsibility.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mentioned the suicide attempt. I was 18 and I had on January 2nd, something about the number two, right? January 2nd, I guess 1981, I'm losing track of the time. I had just turned 18 and I tried to kill myself. I cut my wrists and first went to, I was taken to the emergency room, Jamaica Hospital. The Trump pavilion. That's all I'm going to say. And then I was transferred from there to create more state hospital, which is just this side of hell. And then from there, after three days, I Creedmoor was transferred to a hospital that actually is no longer a hospital, Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan, where I was there for three months.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's what I did. I made plans to go down to Arizona. I think it was the Arizona branch of Canyon Ranch. And that moved was the beginning of me being rebuilt.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ranch is a health spa, and it's a very nice place. I loved it. It was really sweet, but it's about as far removed from a psychiatric hospital as you can imagine. Because by the way, I did spend three months in a psychiatric hospital, so I sort of knew what I was asking for, if you will.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As I did all the time. And I remember saying to her, just stick a fork in me. I'm fucking done. Put me in the hospital, throw away the key. And, you know, to be clear, the threat was real because when I was 18, I did try to kill myself. And so no fooling around here, right? I mean, this isn't just some idle ideation going on here. This was like I was in it. I was 38. I was being cooked. and I was declaring that I was done. And Dr. Sayers, who was also from Brooklyn, said the most magical thing possible. She said, what the hell do you want to go to a hospital for? The food sucks. Go to Canyon Ranch. You'll get a massage every day. You'll be so much better.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, Dr. Sayers was a psychoanalyst, and so I very traditionally, almost like a New York cartoon, would lay on the couch. And I can't help but think of that and think of like somehow it's a dog sitting in the therapist chair. So it's like that's some sort of New Yorker thing. Anyway, so I'm laying on the couch staring up the ceiling.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what you're referring to is February 2nd, 2002. I left an Olympic bid committee meeting, which was being held downtown not far from ground zero. And I found myself outside of the stinking smoking. Hole that was the pile as they referred to it of ground zero. And I remember feeling completely overwhelmed and feeling like they were ghosts flying around that area. And I wanted to die. And I was obsessed with the idea of running down to the Wall Street subway station and leaping in front of our subway. And I ended up deciding not to do that, but wisely and thankfully instead called my therapist, Dr. Sayers, who said to me promptly, Get in a cab and come out and see me. And I did just that and saved my life at that point.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're going to make me cry. My city was attacked. The city that I love. You grow up. The city where I grew up, the place that had so much meaning for me was attacked. And I remember the feeling helpless during a fall following the attack. Anyway, around the same time, I had to decide whether or not I was going to accept an offer to join JP Morgan, which had been one of the funders and the funding partners for flat iron partners. And eventually I did that and Fred linked up with Brad Burnham and they launched Union Square Ventures. By the way, worst decision of my life. But anyway, to join GP Morgan and not go to Union Square of Interest. Anyway, so he went off and did that. I joined JP Morgan. And by February 2002, I was a wreck”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a large fund. I mean, but we were very diversified. We did everything from Brazilian railroads to funding the launch of JetBlue Airlines to the latest web-based startup. Anyway. Few months prior, it had been clear that my previous fund, Flatiron Partners, needed to be wound down. And Fred and I needed to make some decisions about what to do. And I was in the midst of trying to sort through what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I did not have the internal capacity to raise a new fund. I know now that I was in the midst of a very profound depression that was exacerbated by the attacks on 9-11. And one of the ways I responded to the attacks on 9-11 was to throw myself into the Olympic bid effort. We were bidding to bring the 2012 Games to New York. And for me, this was a profoundly important effort because”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So February 2002, I was working at JPMorgan at the time. This was after having left Flatiron Partners in, I think, around the middle of 2001.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Meaning I'm often reminded, as I was when you asked and you said, oh, I'm going to ask you about the spider, I'm often reminded. So thank you. For reminding me that the point of that spider's visitation to me was to remember who I am. And I can use that reminder every day because I forget every day. Not only do I forget who I am, but I forget that my kids are all right and that I worry too much.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this little spider comes walking out. It's this Virginia Garden spider. And I look at it and I said, okay, I give up. What the fuck are you here to teach me? Because I have no idea. And the spider says to me, you worry too much. Your children are going to be fine. And I just start shaking because there's no message that I needed to hear more than that. And so I came out of that forest. I came out of there at retreat. And a few weeks later was my 45th birthday thereabout. The actual year doesn't matter so much as the fact that it was my birthday. And on my birthday, I got this spider tattoo above my heart so that I can never forget the fact that I worry too much and that my kids are going to be all right. That's the spider”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All of a sudden, I see on the ground the exact same white long stringy mushrooms. And I'm like freaked out. And I dropped to my knees and I start crying. And I said, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. What were you here to teach me? And they said, the mushroom said to me, you're too afraid. Go into the forest and find your place. And now I'm like freaking out even more. So I just standing up and I'm like stumbling around. And this is a time period in my life where I'm just a freaking wreck. And I'm crying and I'm wandering through the forest and I find this little sort of indentation, this little spot, and I sit down and I'm like sitting on my rump and I've got my hands in my knees and my head and I'm just crying. And I look up and off into my right is this gorgeous spider web. And it actually has little dewdrops glistening on it. And it's like, okay, they look like crystals.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hear from them that you were too afraid to hear. So I left the circle and I started wandering around, and I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm walking around this forest trying to find these mushrooms, and I actually have to have a conversation with these mushrooms. And to be clear, I was not ingesting the mushrooms, because I know who I'm talking to. So I'm walking around and”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In which I danced nearly naked in a drum circle and I'd fallen asleep and I had this dream in which I was going to a house that I owned on Long Island and I got to the house and the house was completely white and I was really terrified. And I went into the house and it was supposed to be my house, but it didn't feel right. And I ended up in the basement. And in the basement floor was covered with this sort of like the floor of a forest. And these mushrooms were sprouting up. And I got very scared and I tore the mushrooms from the ground and I ran out of the house. So the next morning I went into circle again and I shared that dream. And Bill turns to me and he says, go leave. Leave the circle right now. I want you to go into the forest. I want you to find those mushrooms and I want you to apologize to those mushrooms and ask it what it was that you were supposed to do.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have nothing in time. On that retreat, I started to go really deep into some of the important structures of my life. And I had a dream. And it was after a night of ecstatic dancing.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so Spider is a good friend of mine. Spider is my spirit guide. So in 2007, I went on a retreat led by a Jungian ecopsychologist named Bill Plotkin, P-L-O-T-K-I-N. And on that retreat, this is a long story, Tim, you ready for it? Oh, I'm ready.”
2024-05-30 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #742: Tony Robbins and Jerry Colonna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT