Tony Robbins & Firewalking

While I covered TED a few months ago, including the Al Gore talk, Bruno Giussani also does a recap, highlighting the moment where Tony Robbins takes Gore on face-to-face from the center stage.

I was sitting in the second row behind Al and Tipper Gore for a large chunk of the day, including Al's speech, which centered around Global Warming. Says Bruno about the moment when Tony Robbins intervened, which I thought was an extremely accurate summary from where I sat:

"At one point during his speech, motivational speaker Tony Robbins asks the audience to raise their hand if they have ever failed to achieve something significant in their lives. All hands go up. So Robbins asks: why did you fail? And starts listing the answers: not enough knowledge; lack of time; not enough money; lack of other resources; wrong boss. "The Supreme Court", says a voice from front row, and it's Al Gore's. The whole room laughs. Robbins too, and walks towards Gore to shake his hand.

But then he becomes serious again: "You may not have enough money, you may not have the Supreme Court. But that's not the defining factor. The defining factor is never resources: it's resourcefulness". The audience goes silent, sensing that something is gonna happen.

'If you have emotion, something that I have experienced very strongly from you the other night [during your first speech] at a level that's as profound as I ever experienced, and if you had communicated with that emotion, I believe you would have ... won!.' Easy to guess what goes to many minds in the audience at that moment: Wow! Has Tony Robbins just flatly told Gore the other inconvenient truth?"

My only issue with the description is that Tony Robbins really isn't a motivational speaker. His presence on and off-stage certainly is intoxicating and moving. He inspires, he motivates and he calls you to stand up and act.

I've done a number of his seminars and think he's one of the best 'personal' coaches worldwide. Period. After walking on fire with him a number of times, including this past weekend in San Jose, I'm always reminded how powerful our minds are and whatever we focus on (with intensity) is where we end up -- in this moment and in our lives.

More on firewalking here, and here.

Walking on fire at his basic level event (Unleasing the Power Within) is 'not about overcoming the fear of walking on fire,' as much as it about destroying the notion that whatever you think is impossible to achieve, is possible. The firewalk is a technique for turning fear into power. Overcoming this fear is presented as a step in restructuring one's mind.

More on Tony and his techniques and ideas in a later post. Ken Wilber writes about Tony Robbins here.

Tag: Tony Robbins
Tag: firewalking
Tag: Al Gore