Picture 6,000 people dancing like lunatics, high-fiving each other, shouting “YES!” and “I OWN YOU” at the top of their lungs. Add personal breakthroughs, hilarious storytelling, group massages, moaning, nose picking, a Jumbotron, coarse language, and a fire-walk across hot coals—there you have the Tony Robbins experience. It’s a unique blend of convention meets summer camp, therapy meets rock concert, motivation meets techno party mega church.
Tony Robbins, the business and life strategist who has advised everyone from Nelson Mandela to Bill Clinton to Oprah over the past 30 years, is a magnetic speaker with a larger-than-life stage presence and contagious energy. This past weekend, I spent four days fully immersed in a live Tony Robbins event called “Unleash the Power Within,” held at the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Participants traveled from all around the world for a chance to learn Tony’s formula to achieving more happiness, love, passion, success, and fulfillment in life. Skeptics are quick to judge and I certainly came to the event with a healthy dose of doubt, but having just experienced a Tony Robbins event for myself, I have to admit…it was fabulous! It’s a very special experience that promotes self-reflection, gratitude, self-empowerment, connection with others, and design-your-own destiny. The event is a fascinating exercise in personal growth, optimizing your potential and, at the very least, it’s just plain fun.
Among many things, you’ll learn effective strategies for achieving your desired goals by replacing limiting beliefs with positive ones. You’ll learn the skills of rapport, the 12 principles of a vital life, and you’ll break free from unconscious fears that have been holding you back. But this kind of personal progress does require active participation. Standing in the riotous crowd, I quickly realized that the harder you play, the sillier you get, the more you open yourself up, let yourself go and be honest with yourself, the more you’ll get out of the experience. So I threw up my hands, shouted “I FREAK’N ROCK,” hugged a stranger, and unleashed my power within.
For a list of Tony Robbins’ upcoming speaking engagements, held all around the world from Chicago to Fiji, check out: http://www.tonyrobbins.com/events/