Personally, I think Tony Robbins is nothing more than a Baptist preacher with a different message. Instead of “Who wants to be saved and live forever?” he preaches “Who here wants to be rich and loved by everyone?”. Instead of begging for money in the collection plate, Tony wants big bucks to hear his message. Somehow, Warren Buffet succeeded without Tony.
I’ve watched about 15 minutes of his “I am not your guru” film on Netflix. He uses the “F” word an awful lot. Why spend a fortune when you can hear his message for free. Of course, you don’t get to spend the day with 2000 others who are silly enough to pay to hear him speak.
So, Tony is going to be in Boston tomorrow. You can attend his one-day seminar for $100 to $500. As an extra, Tom Brady will be there to talk as well.
But wait, there’s more. If you want to meet Tony personally and have your picture taken with him, that’s an extra $1500, but only for the $500 tickets. Who in their right mind is willing to pay $1500 for three minutes with Tony in a crowded room with fifty others.
What can I say, some people obviously get something out of it or at least believe they do. My younger cousin works for Tony Robbins in a high level position and she makes a shit-ton of money from it too. It isn’t for me either but some people really like going to see famous motivation speakers in person. The comparison with Baptist preachers isn’t a bad one but that isn’t a real criticism either. Some people also love going to mega-churches and tent revivals.
His older books are $1 & S&H online if you really want to get his ideas. Or the library will have them.
I like the idea of using psychology (and pharmacology for that matter) for self improvement. To become happier, less anxious, more resilient, more pro-social, etc. However I don’t know to what degree Robbins’ ideas are proven to work.
Despite me not being into that type of thing, I have to acknowledge that is he an unusually talented speaker and his ideas probably won’t hurt anyone. That is at least a couple of positives compared to most cult-like figures and I don’t think he is a true cult leader. Yes, he makes a whole lot of money but he also works harder than just about anyone and seems to truly believe what he says. My cousin adores him and has had good experiences working with him all over the world. From what I can gather, it is just pop psychology in a group format but some people want that just like some people like to take fancy cruises. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you have the money.
Myself and a handful of other managers I worked with received tickets for the “walk on hot coals” weekend as performance rewards back in the late 90s. It was at an Orlando convention center and none of us really wanted to be there.
It was odd being surrounded by people who obviously DID want to be there and spent a lot of money to do so. A lot of them listening to him wide eyed hanging on every word he said and humoring him with extra loud laughter at his jokes.
It was a load of “you just gotta believe in yourself, you can do this, you gotta take care of yourself and eat right, okay now let’s play some music and everyone dance, now let’s turn the lights down low and meditate, now let’s all meet with a stranger and give them a compliment, okay now everybody streeeetch, is everyone feeling good, all right, do you feel good when you succeed, then why not succeed all the time, now turn to the person on your right and give them a shoulder massage” for hours on end.
A lot of time during breaks was spent by his staff signing people up for other conventions around the country for hundreds of dollars.
It ran in two parts, Friday night culminating with the coal walk, and all day Saturday.
One manager left Friday after a couple hours stating in was an insult to his intelligence. I hung around long enough to do the coal walk but never returned Saturday. I think the rest of the managers also took off early.
Whether you hate him or like him there is an important lesson to be learned about human nature. Most of really want to like who we are. Preachers, con artists, jig aloes, motivational speakers, salesman and many others have learned how to create an association between themselves and us feeling good about ourselves. “When we fall in love we fall in love with the way we feel about our self when in the company of that other person” Tony Robbins is another example of this.
Self esteem I think is a healthy combination of accepting who we are and realizing we have to be of some value to others. There are better way to establish self esteem but maybe guys like Tony can get the ball rolling for some.
That Tony Robbins is a son of a bitch! An eight-foot tall, two-ton monster who can palm a medicine ball, is what he is! He showers in grain alcohol and uses his left thigh as an anvil! Each of his testicles has an IQ of 91!
“A lot of people say I’m a fraud, that I’m a con-man, that none of my advice is worth anything. But I ask you, if my message can help one person - just one person - isn’t that worth it? Even if that person is me?”