May 16, 2017 ▸ People

Episode 197: Tony Robbins: Conman or Compassionate?

Subscribe: TuneIn | RSS

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the self-improvement mogul, Tony Robbins. He’s the six foot seven inch motivational speaker who is worth $480 million dollars and holds seminars that cost between two and eight thousand dollars. Tony Robbins was born Anthony J. Mahavoric on February 29, 1960. His father left them, and his mother was abusive to point of chasing him around the house with a kitchen knife, so at age 17, he set out on his own and was such an amazing salesperson that he was in his own apartment and living a better life than he did with his mom in a matter of months.

Robbins was an amazingly driven teen, becoming a sports writer by sheer force of will and quickly becoming a top salesperson for another motivational speaker. By the time he was an adult, he had studied psychology and hypnotism (never formally educated), and he started his own motivational industry. His companies are now worth over $5 billion, and he was the king of the late night infomercial during the 1990s.

So what makes Tony Robbins worthy of discussion? We set out on our research to talk about this guy who we all thought was the ultimate scam artist, taking the savings of retirees and scamming them with bad real estate investments. But that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. We honestly ruled him to be a passionate and compassionate man, driven by helping the lives of others more than driven by his wealth (though it astounding).

How did the documentary called I Am Not Your Guru change our minds? How do you know he didn’t hypnotize us? How did he get Oprah Winfrey to walk across hot coals? What does he do to get a woman to break up with her boyfriend in front of 2500 people? Listen, laugh, learn.

Oprah Walks on Hot Coals with Tony Robbins: http://www.oprah.com/own-oprahs-next-chapter/oprah-walks-on-fire-video

Bizarre video of Tony and DJ Khaleed: http://www.complex.com/music/dj-khaled-tony-robbins-interview-2016-cover-story