Inspiration Of The Day: Self Help
Whether you believe in the Self Help industry or not, it's hard to deny Tony Robbins.
The problem that most people have with the Self Help Industry, minus the already glowing suspicion of fraud, is that we keep coming back to the same question: If this Guru has all the answers to make me be more successful, then why is said Guru not independently successful outside of their self help gig?
And I think this is a valid concern. The main reason Self Help Guru's make so much money is for two reasons. One, human beings love to hear a sales pitch, but hate doing the actually work. Two, life is not static, it's always evolving and new conflicts will always arise. What these reasons really do is allow the GURU to make you feel good and confident knowing most people won't actually do the necessary work, continuing the discomfort of your problems and urging you to go back to the Guru who provided you with your confidence fix like a hamster on one. It's the fault of both parties involved. The Person is at fault for laziness and stupidity and the Guru is at fault for the manipulation and greed. I'm not saying all Self Help Gurus are this way; it's simply the current temperature of the water.
Not Tony.
Nobody is more critical or harsh on this industry than me. Inspiration is not meant to be used for personal gain. The product of inspiration is the responsibility of the Inspiring. This isn't a popular idea screened against free speech rights and shouts of individuals reaction controls, but if you think I'm wrong ask Salinger why he never published a novel after Catcher. Inspirational products should be so true the reactions productivity should be automatic, whether it's to inspire people to laugh, produce, or succeed. The only guy, I have come across, coming out clean is Tony Robbins.
Here's the layout:
Tony was ranked in the Top 50 in the world for Business Intellectuals. He has achieved success outside of Self Help and continues to grow other businesses. He was asked to speak at Harvard Business School, and they're the snootiest of the snootiest, maybe Yale haha; they do their homework.
Tony's style of inspiration has ACTUALLY helped people grow their businesses. You can plow over the bleeding heart testimonials yourself, but major corporations are paying a lot of money to use his knowledge and I don't know of any corporation that doesn't have to answer to their CFO about why they are spending a grip of cash to have a Single Person come in and just talk. Do you?
Tony evolves. He does the work to stay relevant in our time and grow his own businesses to be more successful in the changing sceneries. Like a year ago, the guy re-designed how his own business ran because he ran a test company through his seminar and it failed. This shows the consumer that the business owner cares about the products they are selling.
Tony is extremely generous. Besides his standard charities, run through his businesses, Tony's employees try to do everything they can to help poorer people get to the seminars. Most companies do that because they want your money, yes I know that. But here's the kicker. Tony has hundreds of videos on YouTube. They aren't product selling videos with snip-its or half ideas; FULL hour long seminars, FULL stories, FULL interviews. Tony makes it so that anybody can learn from his ideas.
I didn't want to like Tony Robbins. I wanted to crush his Andre The Giant voice like Hulk Hogan in WrestleMania 1. I was 13 when introduced to his material by my father and purposely neglected the message out of teenage spite, typical. I ran into some real trouble in my life around 22 due to an angry athletic drug and alcohol consuming personality haha. After the initial blow passed, I was left on my parents couch with nothing, no car, no money, no school, no electronics (that was the tough one haha). Along with other stuff I had to do to get out of the hole, I began reading and watching (once I got my cpu back) Tony's stuff because I had nothing to lose. I hated Self Help people and after the first video, I stopped and wrote my first novel in 30 days. A month later, by some grace of God, it was in the hands of a publisher. Six months later it was at Barnes & Noble.
The book did okay for the reach it had, but not monetary success. Six years later, I now live in California and due to standard layoffs, I find myself back in the position I started, no job, no money and wondering. Still hating Self Help, I go back to the Tony videos and besides the good feeling fix it delivers, it reminds you to stay diligent in your craft.
Probably why this blog exists.
Tony gets a Self Help pass in my book.
-Jesse Mattson
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