"Your Emotions Lose Money" - Tony Robbins Explains Why Investors PANIC and Sell
Valuetainment
September 26, 2026
Christopher Zook and Tony Robbins explain how to invest at every level, from $10,000 at age 30 to $10 million at age 60, and why smart investors think in percentages, not dollars.
Speakers Patrick Bet-David, Christopher Zook, Tony Robbins
TopicsBusiness
SPEAKER_1 (0:00)
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Patrick Bet-David (0:30)
Let's talk investments. Question. So you know, you said something, you said $2,500 earlier, right? Nowadays, when they change it, it can go all the way down to $2,500. I remember when it used to be... $2,500. I'm sorry, $2,500. $2,500 was a number where 10, 15 years ago, we were talking like, my God, I talked to... Who was the former Comptroller General of the US? David Walker, I think was his name. And he was working with this one man who was running a portfolio. He can put $30,000 and that was a big deal. So $2,500.
Walk me through levels, okay? I only have $10,000.
I'm making $80,000 a year, I only have $10,000. Go to $100,000, go to $1 million, go to $10 million. Does it change at all on what you would consider me doing? And the age I will choose, for the $10,000, put me at 30
For the $100,000, put me at 40 For the $1 million, put me at 50 For $10 million, put me at 60 What do you do with your investment?
Christopher Zook (1:28)
The answer is, it absolutely should change over time if somebody gets closer to retirement. It should be based on the amount of time they have to be invested in something. You don't invest in a professional sports team or Anderl or something like that for a couple of weeks. You just don't do that. That's trading. You can trade Bitcoin if you want to, but you don't invest long term for that. So what I tell everybody all the time is don't think dollars, right? Don't think dollars at all because it's all not relevant. The only thing that matters is percentages. So for the $10,000 portfolio investing 5%, you are going to invest 500 bucks.
Obviously at 100 million, you're going to be doing $5 million.
The key is to not get tripped up by the dollar amount being what's driving somebody. Because what happens to that same person, like I remember when I had 10 grand. So 10 grand is a whole lot of money to me. Well, if you got 100 million, 10 grand is not going to move your portfolio one iota. So you need to make sure that you think in percentages. And that also removes the emotion from the equation. What happens to so many investors is they get stuck with the emotion. Like, oh, I bought NVIDIA, it went up a little bit, I got to sell it. Or it went down a little bit, I got to get out. Whatever it may be, that's a bad decision to make. They need to understand why they own something, size it correctly, and that allows them to stay with it over time. So that $10,000 investor, you absolutely have room in your portfolio for a lot of things. I wouldn't probably suggest $2,500 of the 10 to go into something that's not totally liquid. Simply because you might need it.
Once you get to $100,000, absolutely you should have alternate investments in your portfolio. Again, assuming the age that you gave of 40 And then as you get more and more wealth, you should have a larger and larger percentage because you don't need as much liquidity. I'll tell you a story. I had a gentleman that literally started with me in 1992 as an investor.
He's now worth well over $500 million.
When I started working with him, he was worth like $500 million.
Patrick Bet-David (3:25)
What a great testimony.
Christopher Zook (3:27)
Obviously, I didn't make all that money. I understand.
Patrick Bet-David (3:28)
But was he holding paper? How did he make his money?
Christopher Zook (3:31)
From business and obviously compounding wealth over time. We have done a very good job.
Patrick Bet-David (3:35)
Can I stop you right here? Sure. Can you do me a favor? Because he said something. He said 10 years ago, he was worth $400 million and he had access, but not as much as he's got access today. Sometimes when you're a good earner, you're not a good investor.
And I had to shift that mindset and realize, look, I know how to make money. I don't want to make money. Now, this can really grow. Of the half a billion net worth that he has today, how much of it came from his exit? How much of it came from the investment compounding?
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