What Are You Looking For?

I watched an interview with Tony Robbins a few weeks back. During the interview, he gave the interviewer a test. He asked him to look around the room and to notice any brown that he saw. 

“Look around this room right now, and notice everything you can see that’s brown. Okay, everything you can find. It’s a test. Look all around, around both sides of you, anything that you see that’s brown. People at home, look all around you. Notice anything that’s brown.” 

Then he asked the interviewer to close his eyes.

When his eyes were closed, Robbins said to him, “Okay, tell me everything you saw that was red?” 

The interviewer smiled. Then he began laughing. With his eyes still closed, Robbins said, “Now, obviously, you saw a lot more brown.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Why?” Robbins asked, rhetorically, before answering his own question. “Because you were looking for it.”  

Then Robbins instructed the interviewer to open his eyes.

“Now look for red. Look for red anywhere you can find red. Any place you can find red.” 

“Okay.” 

“Did you find more red this time?” 

“Uh huh.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I was looking for red.” 

“Once you develop a belief, you find what supports it,” Robbins said. “Now watch this. You’ll find stuff that’s not even there in order to be successful. I bet you saw some beige s**t and called it brown just to be successful. Did you?” 

“Right over there,” the interviewer said, pointing past the camera. 

“I bet you saw some things that were burgundy and called them red just to feel successful.” 

The interviewer agreed. 

“If you think you’re screwed up or messed up you’re going to color yourself that way. Whether it’s true or not, it’s going to be true for you. You found what you were looking for.” 

How true is this? 

If we’re looking for things to be grateful for - well, that’s what we’ll see. 

If we’re looking for reasons the deck is stacked against us - that’s what we’ll see. 

Looking for reinforcement that we work with a bunch of no good morons, or that our spouse is ungrateful, or that we’re too old to do the thing we really want to do? We’ll find all those things. 

What are you looking for?

Remember, you'll see what you're looking for. So make sure you're looking for the right stuff.