I must admit that I was a wee bit hesitant to attend Tony Robbin’s 10 hour event yesterday. While Tony has millions of fans including presidents and celebrities, he also has a number of critics and detractors.
I was more moderate in my views about him since I do believe in the content of what he says, but not necessarily in his delivery and approach. One thing I was certain about, however, was that I would definitely attend his Dubai event, with an open mind and an open heart, for research purposes at the very least.
And was I ever glad I did! It was such an amazing experience, including seeing H.H. Sheikh Mohammed, VP of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, seated fairly close to us!
While some of his techniques might be a bit much for some, I loved the dancing and the energy of the whole event. Tony was on for the last 4 hours and we were inspired by the other speakers before him as well.
Here are my biggest take-aways from the extravaganza.
SHAKE your stuff
Moataz Mashal, an Arab motivational speaker and serial entrepreneur, kicked us off with his SHAKE strategy.
Smile to increase our attractiveness and to make others smile too.
Hug our loved ones to increase oxytocin (love/cuddle hormone) that increases trust and bonding.
Appreciation for all the good things in our lives by being grateful every day.
Kid as in bring out the childlike creativity, curiousity, and fun-loving side of you!
Exercise our bodies and minds which would be the best preventative medicine.
Nick Vujicic’s 7 Principles of Success
I was so excited to see Nick speak live with his tenacity and wonderful sense of humour. Being born without arms and legs, he is an incredible example of how there is no limits to what we can do if we set our mind to it.
These are his 7 secrets to how he has achieved the unimaginable:
1. I don’t know what I can achieve until I try. He shared a poignant story of how the janitor at his school told him at the age of 17 that he would be a speaker much to his disbelief. “Sometimes others believe in you before you believe in yourself”, he said as some of us choked back tears.
2. When I fail, I will try again. He failed to get a speaking engagement at the 52 schools he called, until the 53rd school launched his speaking career where he has spoken 3,500 times in 70 countries.
3. Obstacles = Opportunities. He took all the “Nos” he received to perfect his elevator pitch.
4. Failure is my classroom. Yes, they can be expensive lessons sometimes as he told of his $110,000 mistake, but nevertheless powerful ones.
5. Dream BIG. What did he imagine when that janitor first encouraged him to speak?
6. Never give up. 52 rejections led to the “Yes” that led to him to speak to 6.5 million people.
7. Have FAITH – Full Assurance In The Heart. We need FAITH when we are overcome by FEAR which is often False Evidence Appearing Real.
The Girl on Fire
Having seen Alicia Keys perform live a few years back, I was no less moved by the stirring performances of her classics with the audience’s loud chants of “This Girl is On Fire” and “Falling” reverberating through the stadium.
This, however, was her first time doing an inspirational talk where she spoke about growing up in the aptly named Hell’s Kitchen, New York, and how her humility might have been one of her great qualities, but was hindering her ability to achieve greatness. One question that helped was asking herself “Do you believe you deserve greatness?”
How many of us hold ourselves back because we don’t think we are good enough, afraid of rejection, and because we don’t truly believe we do deserve greatness?
Another moment of clarity for her came when her friend told her to “Jump and the net would appear”. She realized then that she would be ready for the risks and the rewards of taking that leap. Would you jump if you knew the net would appear?
Setting out the ANTeater
Despite not knowing who Prince EA was before this event, I really enjoyed his talk. What particularly resonated with me was how he put “personal growth before professional growth” because we are people first and foremost before we are doctors, lawyers, parents, teachers, spouses… and if who we are is broken, we can’t help anyone. Only when we “fix the person, can we then fix the world”.
A former rapper, now speaker and filmmaker, his lyrical poetic style was evident in his speech. He talked about how we all have Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) that we should watch like clouds floating by and setting the ANTeater, awareness, to catch those troublesome ANTs.
After all, “doubt is the thief in our minds, stealing and killing our dreams”. Because “everybody dies, but not everybody lives”, his second recommendation was to use death as a hack to motivate us to pursue our dreams.
He also mentioned gratitude as his third action step and re-framing thoughts like “I’ve got to go to work” to “I get to go to work” and “What is this teaching me?” instead of “Why is this happening to me?”
Unleashing Momentum
With a rock star like presence and getting the 8,000+ crowd to scream and cheer as if they were at a concert, Tony Robbins trotted his 6 and a half foot frame amidst the floor seats telling us how beliefs create or destroy destiny. Therefore, we need to change our beliefs and thinking patterns that don’t serve us. In order to “master life, we need to master our emotions. Emotions create war and peace, yet most of us are not emotionally fit” emphasizing the importance of emotional intelligence.
He shared stories such as how Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. See my friend Lucy’s video here of him speaking about it: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6574829719693430784/
In order for change to happen, we need to be in the right state and there are two ways to change our state:
1. Changing the way we use physiology, i.e. how we use our body, because emotions are created by motion. As he did his trademark clap and got us standing up for exercises to illustrate his point, we experienced the difference we felt when our body language exuded a lack of confidence, disinterest compared to when our posture, voice, eye contact indicated the opposite of those emotions.
I’m a firm believer in this myself having shut my office door at the university to dance to Taylor Swift’s “Shake it off” during moments of intense stress before going in to teach in order to change my stressful state to a more energetic and positive one.
2. Changing our focus because what we focus on becomes our feeling. This is about focusing on:
a) what you have vs. what is missing;
b) what you can control vs. what you can’t control; and
c) the future instead of the past or present.
We can change the focus by asking the right questions which is why coaching is so powerful. It is not about “How come I can’t lose weight?”, but asking “How can I lose weight and enjoy the process?” to avoid complaining and focusing on a positive solution and outcome.
We would then of course need to take “Massive Action” to get results and not let the lack of resources stop us because “Failure is never a lack of resources, it is a lack of resourcefulness”. Emotions like creativity, vision, compassionate, and determination, are the ultimate resources.
Finally, Tony talked about the importance of fulfillment, the secret to achieving more without the burden of fear or scarcity. For him, “success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure in life”, recounting stories of unhappy billionaires and the very tragic example of the incredibly talented Robin Williams who achieved amazing successes and made millions of people around the world happy, but not himself.
Tony ended the day with a powerful visualization exercise asking us to imagine what we were grateful for in the past and in the future, a surprisingly emotional exercise. Feeling the palpable energy of 8,000+ people channeling the gratitude they felt was extremely touching and emotional, leaving many of us grabbing for a tissue as the tears flowed freely.
Personally, gratitude and empathy have been life-changing for me, particularly as I navigated the challenging times in my life, and sharing that space of immense thankfulness, fulfillment, and contentment was profoundly moving.
“What if your history is in the making to help someone else? Will we have the power to encourage someone else to unlock their unimaginable world?” ~ Nick Vujicic
#TonyRobbins, #NickVujicic, #AliciaKeys, #PrinceEA, #MoatazMashal, #AchievetheUnimaginable, #Dubai