Last Friday TrainingZONE member Graham Frost was one of 10,000 people to enter into the latest Anthony Robbins experience. Fresh from the intensive four-day seminar, Graham gives his review of whether "Unleash the Power Within" lived up to the hype.
When I arrived at the ExCel centre in Docklands last Friday, I was a little sceptical, but enthusiastic. I had signed up for the four-day ‘Unleash The Power Within’ seminar with Anthony Robbins, the 45-year old billionaire American personal development guru. He once made $400m in one day from taking one of his many companies public, and boy, did he remind us of that a few times over the weekend!
The weekend started simply enough, with energetic dancing. Imagine 10,000 sober people dancing to a huge sound system on Friday lunchtime. I am nearly 49, and had almost forgotten how much I love dancing, so that was a big ‘plus’ for me. By 8.45am on the Sunday, I was standing on my seat and dancing with all my heart and soul – a great way to start the day!
Tony Robbins’ seminars are not for the faint-hearted or politically correct. Those plucky souls who volunteered to bare their souls to the audience were not treated with kid gloves. Robbins obviously believes that there is no gain without pain, although it is almost impossible to dislike such a disarming character.
We spent Friday afternoon and early evening building up to the famous ‘fire walk’, which was a little anti-climactic for me. Having gone from being scared to confident and back again a few times, when I actually did the fire walk my immediate feeling was ‘is that it?’
The greatest benefit for me was being in the same room as 10,000 other people who are passionate about self-development. I met (and hugged) some fantastic people last weekend, and I will never forget them.
I felt that the Robbins sales machine was far too evident too often. For example, on Sunday evening, there was a break for people to sign up for the next level of seminars, which resulted in the session not ending until 1.45am, causing transport problems for many delegates. Satisfied customers are great salespeople; it was excessive to hand out referral forms on the Friday evening, before we had done more than dip our toes in the water.
Some of the NLP techniques did not work for me, but they obviously did for many of the other delegates. My expectations were exceeded, all in all, and I have taken away many great ideas to improve my life and my business. For example, I got up at 06.50 this morning and immediately went for a 15- minute walk. The challenge will be keeping that level of enthusiasm going.
My lasting memory will be of the energy generated by 10,000 delegates from 53 countries who all want to be better and happier people. I also discovered that the motivating force in my life is love!
* Last year TrainingZONE community manager Dawn-Marie Dart and other members of the Sift team decided to walk over hot coals with Anthony Robbins. Read their reviews
