CosmoPhilosopher posts 5/29/03 to Rick Ross: He has always had weird dietary advice. Years ago, he sold the “fit for life” idea, and I was credulous enough to follow that, until one day I saw some good nutritionists, and they let me have it! So I did some research, and saw how erroneous that entire “diet” is. Obviously, diet is a very complex area.
BUT, Tony Robbins these days has a whole new dietary thing going! He gives a big unscientific talk about “acid-alkaline” in his recent program, and does this big build-up, as only he the Master Salesman can. Then at the end of the CD, a toll-free number for….GREENS…which is going to do everything for you. When I heard that, I laughed out loud. All I thought was one thing. Super-High-Margin Product. Just think, you sell a small can of mulched up “grass” product for like $70.00 US. That is for ONE MONTH!!!!
This is the guy he was in cross-partnership with. Robert Young. [www.greenandlean.com]
And Tony Robbins has these new “cleansing” retreats, where people do this “alkalizing” thing, and then look at their blood under microscopes, and a bunch of other weird stuff.
This is what I mean by “culty”. He always has Food Control, Thought Control, Emotional Control, Behavior Control, etc. He uses all the same “culty” techniques….
First, Tony Robbins was one of the first people to take NLP and SELL it! He studied under Bandler and Grinder the founders of NLP, and then and went and SOLD it, and used it in the Marketplace to make a bunch of CASH! I think he was actually the guy who STARTED all this NLP for the masses stuff! Richard Bandler told me he still gets royalty checks from Robbins. TR was known as the BEST NLPer out there! He called himself one of NLP’s “top experts”. Funny eh? 😀
Also, about TRANCE. Again 100% correct. 10-15% of people are highly suggestible to hypnosis. These folks Tony Robbins can deeply influence. Around 10% of people cannot go into a Trance, so perhaps these are the people TR can’t touch, but he gets to them in other ways. (I see TR as being a master of hypnosis as well. But he is so good, he does it without you even knowing it, all the while telling you he is “unhypnotizing” you!). (I am NOT joking when i say that).
Onto the “brainwashing” link!
From that list I see Robbins using: Pavlovian Conditioning, Voice Anchoring, building emotional excitement, Pain and Pleasure – “The Dickens Pattern”, Anecdotal Testimony, talk of “Instant Change-winning lotteries” (Miracles), powerful Music, Sound, and Lighting, seminars from 9am until after midnight, endless offers of follow-up courses and “coaching”, using special Jargon, TR claims to have worked with the Marines, less than normal amounts of sleep in seminar weekends, programmed confusion-overwhelm, Thought stopping to the extreme!, Visualization, Chanting of slogans and incantations, the place is FULL OF TRUE BELIEVERS who are working for FREE or attending the seminar, YES SET big-time!, Embedded Commands, EVERY NLP technique on earth, Interspersal Technique+, Shock and Awe techniques, TR SELLS subliminal tapes, so he might be using subliminals, etc.
James Randi, the worlds most renowned Skeptic/Debunker has drawn his conclusion about the Qlink. Randi states:
“I hardly think that Tony Robbins has been “misled.” He’s smart enough to know that his nonsense about the mind controlling the human body so that the fire-walk is possible, is fictional. I’m sure he also knows that this Qlink thing is just another piece of quackery.”
The Guru of Product Potential
By BETSY STREISAND, NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 31, 2003
If it seems the world can’t get enough of Anthony Robbins, the high priest of human potential, the feeling is mutual. Although he has built an empowerment empire estimated to be worth at least $80 million by selling nothing but himself, Mr. Robbins is no longer content just to influence the emotional and financial lives of his devotees.
“My driving force is to create a deep impact,” he said last week during a phone conversation from Fiji between seminar sessions for business leaders. “I want to change the quality of people’s lives.” To that end, he aims to be in his followers’ kitchen cupboards, medicine chests and gym bags, as well as their heads, coaching them to peak performance, 24/7.
Mr. Robbins and other titans in the field may preach self-reliance, but the self-help industry thrives on repeat business. That means selling the faithful a steady stream of products and services that promise to teach them to take control of their lives and to realize their full potential.
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But no one is going after the much larger business known as “wellness,” a broad term for the multibillion-dollar arena that includes things like vitamins and Pilates exercises, with quite the fervor of Mr. Robbins.
“I want to own it,” Mr. Robbins said.
Mr. Robbins, 43, is positioning himself to be right there with the goods. He is a principal and a vice chairman of IdeaSphere Inc., which manufactures natural and organic food and health products. IdeaSphere also has a controlling stake in Rebus Publishing, which prints health newsletters for Johns Hopkins University and the University of California at Berkeley.
Next month, according to Mr. Robbins, the company is set to join forces with one of the nation’s largest athletic shoe and apparel makers, as well as a national chain of health food stores. He declined to identify the companies.
The sports deal will involve products including athletic wear, energy drinks and motivational tools, like what Mr. Robbins calls a “digital life trainer,” an MP3 player that arrives loaded with a 30-day supply of life-changing motivation, he said.
The partnership will also be used to promote Mr. Robbins’s personal development book, “Emotional Fitness,” due in April, as well as “Pure Energy,” also to be published in 2004. Mr. Robbins said the health food chain would sell Idea- Sphere’s nutritional supplements and nutraceuticals, which are foods or drinks with added vitamins, herbs or nutrients.
“Consumers are looking for a partner, someone they can trust to tell them what to do on a daily basis,” said Mark A. Fox, the president of IdeaSphere. “Tony is here to make the emotional connection between the consumer and those products.”
And nobody does emotion quite like Mr. Robbins, who stands 6 feet 7 inches tall and routinely takes the stage for hours at a time during his seminars, stirring up a motivational frenzy and reducing crowds of thousands to tears one minute and laughter the next.
“You’ve got to train your mind, your body and your emotions,” Mr. Robbins said in an interview, using his characteristic mile-a-minute motivational speaking style. “Most people who are committed to making their life better may train their body, and diet and exercise, but they aren’t happy. They have a two-legged stool. I’m going to give them the third: emotional fitness.”
His growing arsenal of products makes it clear that he considers helping people pursue happiness to be a full-time job. And if he pulls off all the deals he says he has in the works, he will be with his followers every step of the way. Here is a possible day in an all-Tony, all-the-time life:
• You wake up, put on your athletic shoes — the ones soon to be available with Mr. Robbins’s endorsement — and fire up your MP3 player preloaded with Mr. Robbins’s motivational programs.
• Are you thirsty? He has an energy drink with your name on it (and probably his name, too). Hungry? Try the energy bar. Then pop a day’s worth of vitamins and supplements, courtesy of Twinlab, before heading to work.
On the way, slip a Robbins disc — “Hour of Power” if it’s a long commute, “Fifteen Minutes to Fulfillment” if it’s not — into the CD player to prepare you for a day of reaching your maximum potential.
• When you arrive at the office, manage your time with the Robbins R.P.M. (Rapid Planning Method), conveniently downloaded into your hand-held computer. If you are having problems with a co-worker, refer quickly to Mr. Robbins’s “Emotional Fitness,” which reminds you that no one “comes to work intending to screw up” and tells you “to take a more understanding approach to the problem.”
• For lunch, you can enjoy a Pure Energy protein drink. Afterward, you can have a quick conversation with your personal coach. (An hour a week with Mr. Robbins will run you $1 million a year, but there are several less-expensive options in the Yellow Pages.)
And when you call it a day, get back in your car, pop in the disc on “The Power of Relationships” and prepare to greet your ideal mate, open to possibility.
