Tony Robbins - what's your opinion?

So you recently bought Tim Ferrisss's book "Tools of Titans"?

It's ok, that is what changed my mind about him, recently, as a matter of fact. Although I prefer to follow people who have succeeded in one arena of life as opposed to just "guru", his stuff can be pretty good.

Quite frankly I'm jealous of him. Never have I seen someone make so much money telling people simple principles that their parents/grandparents should have taught them and then telling them that they have "potential".

I am not a fan of his but I heard how he helped those who are in need using his profits from selling his books plus his personal donation to Feeding America. I think that's remarkable.

His story about giving money to a random kid so he can feed his mother just doesn't add up. How come after all these years of fame nobody came forward to thank him for that act of kindness.

He, Guy Kawasaki are in the same boat. They are marketing geniuses.

Master public speaking, persuasion and you can do a lot of damage in this world.

Watch the netflix piece on him and make up an opinion. I think he's very salesy but he seems to have a positive impact on those who buy into his stuff, so it's not a scam, it's just not for me. Going to a shrink cult on steroids.

You are looking at Tony? Go to the source. Dan Pena is way more personally successful, was a finance/oil bro, and quite frankly is a much scary motherfucker. The dude was a private military contractor for the CIA who was leading the CIAs project of starting a war with Cuba until the plug was pulled. He claims to have killed a bear with a pistol and knife. He was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, give it a listen if you want.

AndyLouis not a fan at all. Guys like him and others such as Gerry V (whatever his name is...he's all over Facebook) offer very little in terms of actionable advice and most of it is crap we know but don't seem to understand until we fork over $$$$.

The reason they're successful is they made a business around "teaching" others how to be successful. Just short of a pyramid scheme in encouraging others to get into the "self-help" market.

Before you do anymore searching, you should watch his netflix video. I've never given him a $.01 & I think the content he creates is very valuable

I sort of equate him to Dave Ramsey. They both can say with certainty that their work has helped others but personally I find both FOS and have made their money off weaker minded people.

Tony fan here.

When I'm burnt out on music or my usual podcasts, I'm occasionally inclined to throw on some Tony. Hour of Power, Awaken the Giant, etc... It's positive, it's uplifting, it's inspirational and to top it all off, the dudes got a voice straight from the gods. It's essentially self-help books distilled and synthesized with some great public speaking syntactical-sugar sprinkled on top that makes for an easy listen.

A lot of Tony's content is available on YouTube. The guy makes money off selling his brand -- who cares? Respect the man's hustle.

The guy's delivery of self-help content via audio does it for me. That said, I've read MONEY master the game which was very long-winded and sales-y.

Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here. It’s fun to drive up here in the Hollywood hills. But you know what I like more than materialistic things? Knowledge. In fact, I’m a lot more proud of these seven new bookshelves that I had to get installed to hold two thousand new books that I bought. It’s like the billionaire Warren Buffett says, “the more you learn, the more you earn.”

I interned at a commercial bank last summer, lots of great people. One day we get called into this meeting with "a motivational speaker". We walk in and sit down, in comes this tall Indian version of BJ Novak wearing a black v-neck showing off noob gains from the gym, and black trousers. He begins by pepping us up, and informs us that our employer brought him in today to help optimize our performance. He claims to have worked on wall street but gave it up after meeting Tony Robbins and becoming one of his "associates". He gets us to do things like jumping up and giving ourselves high-fives, getting people to address their short-comings at work, and makes us fill-out a "life-wheel" that shows how we think we're performing in various aspects of our lives. Its stuff we all think about regardless, but I guess it was nice to write it down. Then at the very end, he told us that he would give us a special deal for our office. Anyone who came to see Tony during his scheduled weekend appearance would only have to pay $800 instead of $1000. Mind you, these were for the nosebleed seats in the auditorium. All the non SVP-level employees walked out of there thinking "yeah... no thanks", but this one SVP who carried himself like a philosophical out-of-the-box thinker was not only completely sold, but made it mandatory for all AVP's and SVP's to go with him and I think they paid out of pocket. Apparently it was like a 3-day pep rally where he spewed common tropes about always doing the best you can and being persistent. The news covered how 20 or so people went to the hospital for walking on coals lol.

My cat watched one of his videos I had playing on my laptop which was sitting on my couch, and now he's a lion.

Honestly, I like the guy's stuff. Obviously it is pretty basic, but he breaks it down to a science and I have seen results in my life from his books.

My opinion is that Tony Robbins is not for everyone. For the few that do like him understand his core principles and feel they can implement them yielding measurable results. Others think he's another BS motivational scam artists.

One thing you have to realize about Tony Robbins is his track record. That, I put a lot of value in. He coached Bill Clinton the day he was supposed to get impeached, Andre Agassi, Paul Tudor Jones (still is, gets a piece of his performance fee - I think), and the list goes on. In an interview, I watched he told the interviewer that all of his companies combined generate 5b a year with thousands of employees nationally and internationally. With no degree, growing up in an abusive home, homeless, broke, surviving in SoCal to now being one of the leading performance coaches today I think there are a few things you can learn from him.

Personally, some of his NLP and chanting stuff is a little weird, but I look for what I think can be applicable in my life and use that. For example, He often preaches about knowing why you want X in life and then consistently going after it. Most of you on this forum probably already know that, but I occasionally come across posts of "I have 3.0 GPA senior year em I fu@#ked"? Stuff like this could help when life kicks you in the balls. Just have to filter through what doesn't resonate with you.

I also volunteered with Basket Brigade a few years back, the company he owns and feeds the homeless through. I can tell you it was pretty life changing. Seeing homeless and low-income people get excited about a $30 worth of food to feed their entire family when I might spend that on drinks and appetizers here in NY put things in an uncomfortable but unique perspective.

I'll leave this here...

He is very "salesey" and while from time to time he comes up with something good I usually just avoid him and his type. Having said that, I don't wish him ill or anything. A man has to eat and he found an easy way to make a living by convincing folks to pay top dollar for what he has to say. Great racket if you can get into it. :)

Many years ago I read part of one of his books. here was some useful information in it. the thing i remember most was based on nutrition. certain combinations of food groups kill your energy, other enhance it. great for avoiding food coma in key meetings....

At least he's the real deal. So I guess there's some value, since people are willing to pay.

What drives me up the fucking wall are all the unknown get-rich-quick motivational speakers. You know the type: You've never heard of them before, but they're all "Best selling authors", "Retired before 20", "TED X Speaker", and whatnot. You google them, and the only things you can find are their articles on business insider, entrepreneur, and sites like that.

Then you check out their books on Amazon, and they have like 32 reviews combined. You trawl through google for their startups or successful businesses, but nope. Nothing to find there.

Their articles are usually just regurgitated/condensed lists with info they've lifted from the most famous self-help books. And they love, love, LOVE to make the same "XX ways rich people think differently". The more I see of these people, the more cynical I get about the whole motivational and self-help industry.

I get that some people need external motivation or inspiration to get going, but the wast majority of that business seems like a sham. Mostly schemes to sell shitty e-books and seminars.