I saw Tony Robbins for the first time at Dreamforce (Salesforce.com) at Moscone last week and I was blown away.
I didn’t show up with an automatic, dubious and suspicious mind because I’m intrigued by him but I admit, I was a bit judgmental at first when Tony started with the audience participation big-it-up-give-me-an-I type yelling request from us all. A bit Jerry Springer meets Gaga concert type involvement that’s not really my thing.
Then he said something interesting. He said that the people who don’t put up their hand and shout ‘I’ (on his request), are lacking certainty and won’t get the most out of changing their ‘motion’ (I’ll get to this part a bit later). Now I’m the most certain person I know so I refused to let him get the better of me. I immediately screamed ‘I’ and all of the sudden, it felt like I was under hypnosis and adrenaline rushes were coming in typhoons. From being the only one in my seating section spending the first 20 mins with arms crossed, watching and scrutinizing to then being the only person (at the exact 21 minute mark) on her chair yelling for everyone else to scream ‘I,’ was baffling. I am an extreme person, I love that about myself because it’s even a shock to me sometimes but this seminar with Tony was different. The guy is on a higher energy plane than the rest of us but there’s something about him that’s unconditional and unleashed. I can’t place my finger on it. It’s like he’s super human with the most amazing jawline!
This guy isn’t a brainwasher – he’s a motivational speaker and he absolutely motivated 10,000 slightly cynical tech, geek, San Francisco, Silicon Valley & hard core entrepreneurs within 20 minutes…and then held us captive for a further 3.5 hours!
Have you ever seen 10k Bay Area ‘industry’ people screaming and shouting, standing on chairs, racing around the room to pursue tasks that Tony’s set? Have you ever seen successful billionaire entrepreneurs yelling at the top of their voices and hugging random strangers, spewing their worst downfall in a transparent honesty that they usually would never tell their closest friends? I have and I was part of it. I was so busy animatedly fulfilling tasks that Tony set, that the whole 4 hours raced by in the maddest flurry of adrenaline and at the end of the session, I grabbed Tony’s hand and kissed it. I have no idea why, he didn’t either. We both found it amusing. I also was featured on the big screen - thanks to a roving camera grabbing me in full task-chat with a random guy i'd partnered with. Woot!
Tony’s theories to success are based on NLP – neuro linguistic programming. I’ve been to a few NLP sessions and they’re incredible. Think of it like a therapy session without the ‘and how do you feel, how did that make you feel’ type baloney. NLP is based on you stating your problem and your NLP coach giving you the reason behind your actions. Think of the bullying article I wrote recently – because you’re bullied, you believe your own propaganda that you’ll always be bullied, so it makes you (ironically) feel secure about this as it’s a familiar pattern vs not being bullied and being outside your comfort zone. Make sense? That’s a basic way to explain NLP and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Because it’s logical, an eye opener and a no-bull reality check.
I had a few sessions of NLP and it wasn’t expensive. This was around 5 years ago and I paid $100 for 1 hour but we ran over on each occasion by another 90 minutes (I’m a talker!). I wasn’t charged for it. So check here for a list of local NLP Practitioners in the Bay Area. And if you decide you want to be the next Tony Robbins, you can take the NLP Training courses. The next one is 5-7 October.
So a few tips I came away with to help you from Tony’s session: Motivate yourself; Influence yourself with positive vibes; scream ‘YES’ and ‘I’ and mean it; Remember, happy people don’t say or do bad things to harm others so surround yourself with happy people (a brilliant quick answer to find out who’s good & not); Give yourself a huge smile because motion (i.e. facial/body expression) changes your emotion and state of mind like smiling, jumping, clapping; Remember your most excited state of mind (making a great presentation, passing exams etc, first time your puppy learned a new trick) and see how that made you feel. Now use that same euphoria in your whole daily life; You need no excuse or reason to feel good & happy either – just be!
You can switch your life in a moment using these techniques. That’s what Tony says and if the big man says it, you know that SF is giving it high 5’s all the way. Especially since he’s 6’7” and really strong looking – don’t mess with Tony! Want to see some of Tony in action at Dreamforce, check this link & this one!
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