My Tony Gaskins’ live event review.

Today I attended The Balanced Life Conference hosted by Tony A Gaskins, Jr. I’m a big fan of Tony’s work. Check out my favorite Tony Gaskins’ quotes. As always I like to recap some of my key takeaways when I attend various events and seminars. When I learn, you learn. The structure of the conference was split into three areas so I’ll follow that same format with this recap.

Life

You are the CEO of your life. You get to say who in your life gets promoted, demoted or terminated. Don’t keep the wrong people in your life. Think of it like a balance sheet. You have assets and you have liabilities. Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left hand side write “Assets.” One the left hand side write “Liabilities.” Now think of ALL the people in your life and put them in a category. Where do they fall?

I would even encourage you to take this a step further and think of everything in your life beyond just people. What about your spending habits? What foods do you eat? What TV shows do you watch? What does your home library look like? What do you do with your spare time? These things can also be assets or liabilities for you.

Once you have your balance sheet completed you need to assess it. Protect your space. Tony says, “Anything in my space has to elevate me. It has to bring me peace.” Are there some things in your space that do not elevate you or bring you peace? It’s time to promote, demote, or terminate some people AND things in your life.

“You are on a climb everyday of your life. You cannot get to the top with dead weight.” – Tony A Gaskins, Jr.

You can’t get to the top with dead weight. You can’t get to the top with people who do not want to climb. You cannot get to the top with people, things, attitudes, etc. that pull you down. Are you going to go up or stay down with everyone who doesn’t want to climb?

Everything you do in life is sowing a seed. EVERYTHING. This includes what you say, how you spend your time and money, how you feed your mind and body. Every single day we are all sowing seeds into our futures. Either you are sowing on good ground or you are sowing on stony ground. Stony ground doesn’t produce a harvest.

This was an interesting story. Tony was talking about how his mother called him saying that her lights were about to get cut off. Mind you, Tony gives her a monthly stipend so she doesn’t have to work. Yet she blows through it every month and asks for more money, Tony Gaskins generally obliges and gives his mother hundreds or even thousands more than her agreed upon monthly stipend.

“Some people don’t want a hand up. They want a hand out.” – Tony A Gaskins, Jr.

Eventually he’s like, “I can’t keep doing this.” He was sowing seeds on stony ground. People never appreciate what they don’t have to work for. He could have been investing his extra money in stocks or real estate or his kids’ education. Anyway, his mom then calls a neighbor and tells him that her lights are about to get cut off. The neighbor replies, “If the Lord let’s your lights get cut off He must have something he wants to tell you in the dark.” ?

Love

It’s important to love yourself. Tony says that “if you don’t know how to love yourself someone will come into your life and show you how to hate yourself.” Amen! I think we’ve all seen this happen to someone close to us. Perhaps we are the ones it happened to. I know I’ve been in a relationship that made me question who I was. When you don’t know who you are anyone can make you what they want you to be for them. I can’t stress it enough. You have to know who you are and love who you are.

Tony Gaskins’ definition of loving yourself means “working on yourself, improving yourself, and setting standards.” At the same time, don’t confuse preferences with standards. It’s a delicate balance we have to play when it comes to love. You don’t want to miss out on a potentially great partner by making preferences standards. You also don’t want to compromise to the point that you lose yourself.

Someone in the audience asked a question about attracting who you are. Tony clarified and said, “Who you settle for is a reflection of who you are.” It’s not attracting the person that represents who you are. We can all have random drug dealers, robbers, or whomever attracted to us. It’s who we settle for that reflects upon who we are and what we believe about ourselves. That’s why personal growth is so important. If you have settled for a partner that doesn’t meet your needs or who doesn’t treat you how you want to be treated you have to look at yourself. Take a good, long look at yourself and be honest about what you see. What part of you is reflected in your partner? What part of you attracted and settled for them?

“Love changed my life.” – Tony A Gaskins Jr.

Love the way the other person needs to be loved. Seek to understand then to be understood. Hear each other out. Then take action. Don’t just have these heart felt conversation about your needs and wants and then do nothing. Act on what you learn about your partner’s needs.

Tony says to prepare for war in a time of peace. This means to bring things up when things are good not in the midst of a heated argument about something totally different. If your partner isn’t meeting your needs in some way have a genuine conversation with them in a peaceful environment. Start with “I feel” statements. Not “you don’t” statements.

Tony used this great analogy of people being trees. We’re all trees. When you cut your partner (especially a man) down you are making them weaker. You are stunting their growth. Don’t cut each other down. Build each other up so you can grow and stand tall.

“Any man I meet that I’m more successful than it’s because I love (honor, respect) my wife more.” – Tony A Gaskins, Jr.

What is recognized and reinforced will be repeated. In addition to talking it out with your spouse recognize the times that they do meet your needs and reinforce it so that it will be repeated.

If you are confident in your skin it doesn’t matter how long or short your hair is. You don’t have to do anything other than be yourself to attract and keep a man. You don’t need butt implants and lip injections. Look in the mirror and fall in love with that person. Fall in love with who you really are.

Business

Here are Tony Gaskins’ tips on business and branding:

Take the time to identify your natural gifts. What can you do that no one around you can do as well? If you can’t think of anything what are you passionate about?

You can expand everything you do. You can write a book about it. You can consult on it. You can speak about it. You can expand everything you do. I think he said he has 30-40 income streams.

If it doesn’t feel right to you don’t do it. It doesn’t matter if a coach told you to do it. It doesn’t matter if someone more successful told you to do it. If it doesn’t feel right to you, don’t do it.

Build your own blueprint. This aligns with the statement above. Build what feels right and makes sense to you. Think logically.

Whatever you do, add purpose to it.

Create balance by putting everything on the calendar. Tony puts things like, “Rub [wife’s] feet” and “Run [wife’s] bath water” on his calendar. He also blocks off his kids’ birthdays and will turn down any events that fall on those days.

“It does you no good to have the most successful business and lose your wife or family.” – Tony A Gaskins, Jr.

A part of business is just taking those steps. You have to just keeping taking steps.

Tony is a hustler. I asked him how he got his first book to take off. One thing he said is that he pitched to Oprah, Tyra Banks, and CNN every single day for years. He ended up on the Oprah show after the Chris Brown and Rihanna incident because his book spoke about toxic relationships (the book wasn’t mentioned on the show) and he had experience and knowledge in that area.

Again, it’s just taking those steps day after day for years.

Don’t ever feel inadequate.

“I will be for who I’m for. I’m not for everyone but I will help who I was called to help.” – Tony A Gaskins, Jr.

All in all it was a great event and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who wants to grow in their life, relationship or business. Tony said so many great things about life, love and marriage, and business. I can’t capture it all here, but if you have a chance to go to one of his events you should go. It’s a little on CP (Colored People) time if I can be honest. I’m a very on time person so I definitely notice things like that. Other than that it was great. Tony Gaskins is a really good man. He is so personable and down to earth. He is very transparent. He cares about the work that he is doing. I loved that about him. As I was walking up to check in he was walking out of the event room. I said, “Hi!” and he stopped to chat with me and shake my hand. He’s the real deal. He’s genuine.

To read about other personal growth events I’ve attended check out the links below:

Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within

Mary Morrissey’s DreamBuilder

Jack Canfield’s One Day to Greatness

To learn more about how you can create a balanced life of your own apply for a complimentary Transform Your Life clarity session at www.transformwithcharlene.com.