 In this video, we will be putting the spotlight on Tony Robbins. We'll question his methods, his expertise, and take a closer look at some of the controversies that are surrounding him. Hey critical thinkers, for those of you who do not know me, my name is Rokas. For almost 10 years I used to be a self-help guru, spiritual teacher, yoga instructor, meditation teacher. I was all of those things, but the fact is now that I look back is that I was not a very credible or good teacher. People believed me. People liked me. I used to lead workshops for hundreds of people. But now that I look back, I was really a case of a lack of critical thinking. Many of the things I taught others was passed on information from my self-help guru, which was not tested, but I trusted it, so I passed it on. And I had a lack of critical thinking. Many of my methodologies were flawed, but back in the day, I thought I'm doing good. I was inspired to help people, to support them, and I was doing the best I can. But it doesn't mean I was doing the right thing. So eventually I became disillusioned with that whole thing. But the fact is that so many people are still on that same path which I used to be. There are plenty of self-help gurus who are not really experts in any field or their information is outdated. Much of the information that they present is not tested, is not based on cumulative science, scientific experiments, and they're basically doing the same thing which I used to do just on a much grander scale. And so in this video, I wanted to invite you to take a look together at Tony Robbins, the self-help guru of the self-help gurus, and to kind of talk about him in a very open, free-flowing conversation where I will share what relationship I used to have with his teachings, how I used to trust it, how I believed it, and eventually I became disillusioned by it. And also about many of the controversies that surround Tony Robbins, which there's a lot of, and a lot of it is really disturbing if you did not know and most people unfortunately don't know, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to make this video, so I would bring more attention to it. And also just to invite you to take a critical thinking look at him like as an expert at his methods, just kind of a quick glimpse and to introduce to you how my mind works and how I quickly do my best to assess whether someone is really worth following through and listening to or whether you see those red flags which should tell you, you know, you should be careful with believing in this person. So if you're interested to put Tony Robbins, I keep saying Robbins, that's Tony Robbins on the spotlight, I invite you to grab a cup of your preferred beverage and let's get started. So there's the very first thing that I wanted to share with you in this video is my own story of how I used to follow Tony Robbins teachings and soon enough became disillusioned by them. So the story goes that in my early teens, I guess as it's normal and usual for teens to feel lost and confused, that's exactly how I felt. I felt lost, confused and I was searching for answers and I kind of do want to be honest and point out that there was another key factor which played an important role in my life. And that was my dad who had a stroke when I was 13. I witnessed it with my own eyes and my coaching therapist helped me kind of to discover and realize that fairly recently. But I realized it's true and how impactful that was that I kind of lost that sense of safety. And I realized that life is fragile. And beforehand, I always had this knack to want to help people to want to be there for others kind of, you know, to want to be a superhero. But I think witnessing that event where my dad he survived but you know, barely at that day at that moment that made me that made me kind of want to help others and protect others much more probably as a desire to create a more sense of safety in my life. But one way or another, you know, I really wanted to be out there for people as much as I wanted to not be confused myself. So I naturally went to search for answers in books. Internet was there was developing already, but I don't think that there was as much information there as it's as now there is. So I went to look at books and in the bookstores at that moment there were a lot a lot of self built self-held books. I think it's still the case, but it was funny because it was like the psychology section and the bookstore. But most of those books were self-help, self-help stuff. Most of it now I look back as nonsense, esoteric stuff, untested stuff. And obviously, Tony Robbins was, you know, his books were there as well. And he was also suggested to me by my friend who was a young businessman and he spoke highly about him. And I like to make a point here that that's kind of what also sold it to me. The fact that my friend said Tony is awesome, Tony is great. And I also heard those stories where Tony would go on live TV and bring in a mental patient and apparently fix them up in a matter of minutes or like an hour. And that really made an impression on me because I thought, oh my goodness, if I could learn what he knows, and I could heal mental patients in hours, then I definitely could also help regular people. So I was really like hyped about getting to know how he works. So I would be the savior of others too. And so his whole image really appealed to me. And I am the type of person where if I do something, I do it like hardcore. So I mean, like I'm an all or nothing person. So if I read books about something, I read all of them. If I listen to audiobooks, I listen to all of them. And that's what I did with Tony Robbins' material. I started reading all of his books. I started listening to all of his audiobooks. And at the beginning, everything seemed great. It sounded like, oh my god, this person knows so much. And it's such good information. But that was the issue. You know, it was it was feel good. But it did not really make any difference in my life. It seemed like it does. But I soon enough like in a few months, I started to notice, I feel as lost and confused as I used to, even maybe more. And and there there was nothing really that I was changing or working based on his advice. It just seemed good, but didn't worry basically. And and I know some of you could say, Well, you know, maybe you should have taken more years. But I don't think that's the case. You know, no matter how much I tried what he offered, nothing really felt the gave a sense of working in the long run. And again, you could say that maybe that's my subjective experience. But if you investigate the self help world, usually that's like almost always the case. The methods the self help groups provide are usually not really tested, not really based on science, not based on long term results. It's just kind of ideas that pop to their minds. And they, they use a bit of science to kind of create a sense of credibility, but it's usually not not really hardcore science, not really like, credible, long time research, like Tony Robbins himself. If you look at his sources of knowledge, one of the pet peeves I have with him is, you know, there's this book which he calls the science of something. So actually, let's let's do this, you know, I'm going to turn to my computer and show you it as an example. All right, there we go. It's the unlimited power, the new science of personal achievement. I have a sense that he's using the word science kind of very freely. And what I mean by that is that when you look at it deeper, there's nothing really written here about research or, or credible sources. So basically, if you look at through the whole text, there's nothing really anymore about science. It's just a word to kind of make you feel good about the text and make you feel like it's, it's really based on something, well, and it's not really based on anything. I think usually at best case scenario, what these people do, what these, you know, self help gurus do is they take some kind of a research, small time research they do on their own. And I think Tony Robbins, that's one of the things he did, he like interviewed 50 financially successful people. And then he kind of draws his own observation and ideas as the truth of this is what works for others. But the thing is what works for one person or even 50 people doesn't 50 specific people doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for others. You cannot call it science until you tested it with hundreds and thousands of people under really specific conditions. And, and you, you proved that on the majority of people it works. But instead, again, they take liberties and, and they throw around the word science freely by trying to sound credible. But now the other issue is that when you look at the credit credibility of them, that credibility is also pretty much non existent. Like if you look at Tony Robbins, that's one of the pet peeves. Again, I have is I looked up his education. So magic of editing, you're seeing what I'm seeing on the screen. And there's pretty much nothing said about his education that said that he finished high school. He has no formal education. He was hanging out with, you know, one of the experts, I think creators of NLP. But but that's it. And so I guess he could have taken something from him. But that's like decades ago. That's like 1980s. Obviously, the information has changed. Even NLP itself had had a pretty bad reputation for a while, as far as I know, until they started to really include science and test what works, what doesn't work. So he got like outdated information. And usually he does not put any stress or energy into showing to you what are his sources of knowledge, what makes him credible, what makes it what makes whatever he's teaching true. But what he does, if you look at all of his description, if you go to his website, if you go to whatever description you can find of him, he always starts off with, I've taught millions of people, I taught in a hundred of countries, I teach celebrities. So what he does is he's appealing to authority. And that means because psychologically, what's conditioned in us as a society is to trust authority that that's kind of programmed in us. It's part of our society works. And we really strongly feel encouraged. We feel a strong urge to trust authority. If somebody says, this person is an expert, we trust that usually very easily. And the infamous example of that is the actor who's dressed as a scientist with a white robe. And there's an actor who pretends to be electrified. And a regular person is told to keep electrifying that person when he does a mistake. And because there's a supposed doctor who's not really a doctor, he keeps that real person keeps pressing that button and electrocute that person, that actor to a degree where he in reality, he would die. Luckily, he's an actor, so nobody dies. But that experiment, so look it up online, it's a really interesting experiment. But that experiment shows how addicted, how easily we are trusting authority. But that's clearly what Tony Robbins and most self-heal gurus know. And instead of giving credentials, instead of doing formal studies belonging to some really well known and really trustworthy organization, which tests him and instead of him kind of functioning through well known and trusted sources, organizations, he does none of that. He takes himself as the authority and he makes you feel that he's good just because millions of people follow him. But the fact is, basically the fact that millions of people follow you does not mean anything. I mean, sorry for an extreme example, but take Hitler, right? Hitler was followed by thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people, you know, Nazis were following him. Did that make him correct? That make his actions right? The fact that people trust you and follow you doesn't mean anything. John Jones, John Jones, how's that guy? You know, the cult guy who got people to drink Kool-Aid and kill themselves. If you don't know about that, subscribe to this channel. I'm going to make a video about that later. Jim Jones, anyway, so you're seeing, if you're editing magic, you're seeing his real name, which stuck in my mind. But basically there was this cult guy who convinced hundreds of people to commit suicide. They loved him. They trusted him. Did that make his actions correct? No, and this is just like we're looking at a broader scale. A lot of celebrities don't have critical thinking either. And the fact that celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, trusts Tony Robbins. Sorry, but that does not mean anything. But again, if you look at his articles, if you look at his website, if you look at his descriptions of him as an author, he doesn't put the effort into saying, oh, I finished this degree and I take my information from here. I did this in that test. Like, if you take any credible researcher, credible person, so for example, I love Carol Dweck, who spent most of her life studying, like, really intensely what she calls the growth mindset. And her life is all about that, all about the single subject which she keeps testing and testing and revising. Or Eric Sanderson, who's the, unfortunately, he died a couple years ago, but, but he's the authority for talent. He examined talented people and he did a lot of scientific experiments to see what talented people are about, like how do they work? And he did it for decades and kept revising that information. If you look at their profiles, the first things you will see is you will see they have a PhD, they belong to some organization, they, they show their sources, the, the, the term research and what kind of research was done is highly emphasized. But if you look at Tony Robbins, the main things that you see is, oh, so many people are following me, so many people were, were taught by me and, and these celebrities. Trust me, that means I'm good. It's an appeal to authority and it's not trustworthy. That's, that's not how you should define a trustworthy person or not. So I think that we deserve a drink of our beverage before we continue. So coming back to my personal story, again, I, as I mentioned, I was hooked on Tony Robbins' material and, but, but nothing really changed. And, and there's one significant moment at that moment where I was like, damn, I'm not feeling any change. And the civil culture, one of the troubles is it usually tries to blame you. It usually tries to say, oh, these methods work. But if it doesn't work, it's your fault. And, you know, that's also very shady. Because if something really works and you're practicing it, it should work for you. But if something that you're suggested and you keep practicing it and it does not work continuously, most likely the methodology is incorrect. It's false. And so that, that's what was happening with, with Tony Robbins for me. And I started to develop that internal intuitive doubt that something is off here. But as again, when I was listening to one of his audio tapes, he told a story where he was standing on the stage and doing a workshop seminar with hundreds and thousands of people. And he felt like he felt like a rock star. And then he went to the bathroom and washed his face and suddenly he realized that he's not happy. And in a way I can appreciate, okay, wow, he shared an intimate story. He opened up and, and, and told the truth that actually, despite as he expressed living his dream and, and quote-unquote helping thousands of people, he did not feel happy. And at that moment already that, that caught my attention. I was like, damn, because I was already, I was so, his story was so appealing to me. I, I could imagine myself doing what he did. I thought that's my dream at the time. But I was like, damn, if he doesn't feel happy doing that, what's the likelihood I will feel happy doing the same thing? There, there must be something false. That was my intuitive feeling. And I think I was right. But what he continued to do then, in that book, he continued to explain and say, well, that then he decided to create a new formula for happiness. And it's like a six-step program for happiness. And, but basically the thing is, I don't even remember, first of all, what he said, which probably means it wasn't really good or significant. But what I already perceived was that he was kind of pulling this stuff out of his ass. He was just making ideas of, oh, that sounds good. And, and this would be a good idea. This would probably, this will probably make me feel happy. And that's how he designed that program. He did not go to the scientists because, you know, there's, there's a whole science of happiness, if you did not know, of well-being. And Mikhail Chik sent me high as one of the, kind of the patriarchs, the, the forerunners of that. And then, so there's a whole science of, of scientists studying what really makes people happy. That's not the path where he went. He just kind of looked at his own life and thought what might make him feel, make him feel happy. And he started teaching others probably without even really diligent testing and pressure testing. Like, does this really work for others? The cumulative tests of, of seeing, does this work on thousands of people? Does it work on different cultures? None of that. I give you 99%. If I'm wrong, just, you know, correct me in the comments. I'd be highly surprised, but if you will, I will make a video about that. But I, I give you 99% of a chance that he didn't do that. At least he did not say anything about that in the book. He just came up with these ideas and started teaching it as the path to happiness. And I think intuitively, I already, uh, luckily was smart enough to, to realize you know what? This is not good. He didn't feel happy and instead of really restructuring his whole life and deeply questioning himself, he just created a new method on top, which I like to use this method, this type of methodology, as putting a new wallpaper on a rotting wall. You know, the, the, the wallpaper is gonna look great, but the rot is gonna come through sooner or later because the problem is the rotting. It's not putting something nice on top. And I feel like that gave me a glimpse that, that his methodology, the methodologies are just not trustworthy and they're too superficial and untested. Unfortunately, that was not enough for me to, to get disillusioned by the whole self-help culture. I, I then kept invest, investing into other teachers and then I became a student of a self-help guru. And so there's a whole story, you know, I went through. Uh, but already that, that gave me some red flags, uh, which stuck with me, especially when questioning Tony Robbins himself. And then I also learned about the controversies, which there are plenty of. And, and actually that's what I want to do with you. So I want to open up an article with you and to kind of scan through it, pick out some details and, and, and see what stands out there. So, so let's do it. It's probably the most well-known, uh, controversial article about Tony Robbins is made by Buzzfeed. And they seem like they put a lot of energy into it. There's a lot of, uh, sources which they quote who said what. And so they really went the way to, to show a sense of credibility in their article. And, and yes, of course. So, so do let's make a disclaimer. All of this could be a lie, which I don't think so much information could be as a lie. And also too, if you check Tony Robbins controversy on, uh, you know, the web, you will find quite a few articles about that. So it's not just one shady website which said something and suddenly everyone is upset, but, but there's, there's quite a lot of stuff to make you suspicious. So let's say, you know, let's keep a critical mind and let's suspect that some of this may not be true per se, but, but I do also want to look at what's said and to evaluate it and consider that, you know, this could be a legit stuff and this could be a red flag which should make you concerned. So, some of the things which stand out, so actually well first of all, uh, the title is leaked records reveal Tony Robbins created abused victims and former followers accusing of sexual advances. And, and one of the things which would be really difficult to falsify, it's an actual record, recording of what he does and what he says in one of his courses. So, so let's take a listen. She likes the color. Emotional abuse. What the fuck is emotional abuse? Are we that fucking weak that someone can't tell you a passion, what they fucking feel without them up to using you? Tell me about that. What led to that? What role did you play? I'm not suggesting there's any excuse for hitting moments. You'll hear me, but I also want you to know that people don't just act a certain fucking way. But what I find when I usually dig in, and I take the time, what they call abuse, is a relabeling of, they didn't like what the person said or did. Because he loved you, because he looked after you, he put up with you been a crazy bitch, have you ever been a crazy bitch, ever? Probably. Soon this guy'd be out and strung up and shot, the way you described it, certainly should. And I would normally join you without it knowing you were lying. Not that you're lying, that he is not behaving with it a grave all the time, or even harsh, but just I know by your body that you're lying. I know by the words, I know by the context that you're lying, because nobody is evil in every moment. You wouldn't have been there for seven years. So you know, this is honestly really upsetting to me, myself, and hopefully to you as well, because this is like, you cannot do this. This, whatever he said, is really bad. He's taking a victim, and he's making fun of her for the entire public. He's claiming that she's lying, that she knows that she's lying, and he's basically making her look like a fool. And you know, I'm not like a therapeutic expert or something, but I have enough common sense to say that this is wrong. And in this article, I'll point out to you a few great quotes where therapists do analyze what he said, and they make some really good points how toxic that kind of talk is. So first of all, this is a really great point. It says that licensed professionals who treat mental health issues must undergo extensive training and follow strict ethical guidelines governing their relations with their clients. Self-help coaching requires no such qualifications or standards, which I think is very true. So it's a huge problem, but it creates a potent recipe for the abuse of power, setting its leading lights up as godlike figures with answers to life's most painful questions and placing the supplicants who seek their wisdom in their frail. So I think this is a really important idea to consider. I personally agree with it. So there it is. Several leading national experts on domestic and sexual violence who review transcripts of Robin's private event said berating traumatized women and blaming them for their reactions to abuse is dangerous strategy. Quote, it's not only secondary trauma, but a secondary assault, said Ruth Glenn, president of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. This behavior from a self-tauted self-help expert is just beyond egregious. I think that's the way I pronounced the word. We're alarmed that he's using his platform to ridical victims privately and publicly, said Jodim or an executive at the rape and abuse and incest national network. And if you look further in this article, there's a lot of stuff about Tony Robbins that he was using very similar methods or seeing very similar inappropriate things. And this is just one more example. Robbins did face some rare public criticism last spring after a leak video emerged of him calling the Me Too movement an excuse for some women to try and get significance by attacking and destroying someone else. He apologized after a widespread backlash professing profound admiration for Me Too and promising to examine his own behavior to ensure he was staying true to those ideals. So basically a half-ass answer. So this is just one of the many details in the article and probably will take just a look at a couple more. But I wanted to stop here and just to say already the significance is such a huge red flag. Because I mean Tony Robbins presents himself as you know kind of the perfect guy, as the person who's aiming to be the best possible version of the self and to make you into that. But that person should have a really huge high level of integrity. But what he said to that woman and how irresponsible he was with that power, that's unfair. That's not what an integral person with integrity does. And if you're going to take a look at the article further, there's a lot of quotes and leads on him being sexually inappropriate to his staff, to the women and the events he does, stories of him inviting women to sleep with him after the events. And that's super inappropriate too because again as the article said very correctly that a professional, a therapist professional, they are committed to follow ethical guidelines because there's a power dynamic structure. Because the therapist is in a power relationship where they hold the power, they protect the victim. And in that relationship it's very easy to abuse the power. In a way I know that because I used to be this yoga instructor for example, a martial arts instructor. And I know that some women would be interested in me primarily because I was the top dog there. But that's not a fair way to get women into your bed. First of all, especially in events like what Tony Robbins leads, those people and including those women they're looking up to him for help and he's abusing their trust in him by using them sexually. And again if you'll read the article you'll see that some of the women did not want to go there but he kept pushing for it which is which is mental. You know this is this is way too far. So it's quite clear definitely based on this article that he's abusing his power. So one more thing that stood out for me is the description of how Tony leads his longer workshops. And it says that Robbins intensive multi multi-day events are often held in rooms kept deliberately cold and run from early in the morning to well past midnight. With few breaks for food and water, followers are encouraged to run across hot coals. Internal company emails reveal concerns about and suffering mental breakdowns after days of emotional exhaustion as well as sleep deprivation and dehydration. In this intense atmosphere some audience members become disoriented as the days went by said Todd Spenly a former logistic contractor for the organization. So what actually really stands out for me here is related to my investigation into cults and mind control. And specifically the work of Steven Hasson who is the leading expert of cult mentality and how cults manipulate people. And one of the things that I learned from him is that usually cults tend to do very similar strategies. They deprive people from sleep, from food, so that they would become weaker and their critical thinking would start to dim down that they wouldn't have the same brain capacity to realize and to say holy crap this is not good. I don't like what's happening here and then people become much more prone to manipulation. And so for me reading that Tony does that these dangerous methods in his workshops that's again a really red flag. First of all you do not know who comes to your seminars maybe some people are mentally ill. So maybe some people most likely some people are mentally ill who come to these workshops. Some people maybe may have health problems and you're basically just creating conditions to either create very dangerous circumstances for certain people or just manipulate everyone. So it's kind of like a cult action. So how is that cool? How is that good? Glenn Lechtansky who was a registered emergency nurse during more than a decade spent volunteering for Robbins including as director of medical operations for his life events told BuzzFeed news that he too had witnessed participants becoming mentally unstable due to lack of sleep, water and food. Lechtansky also recalled reading dozens of participants with second-degree burns from a 2012 San Jose fire walk. He's been taking risks with everyone's health and safety he said. So I will leave the links to this article and a couple more so you could do some more investigating on Tony and of course again you know that we could go bizarre and say well maybe all of this is not real maybe there he's just trying to be some people many people are trying to defame him because he's so famous and powerful and rich but but usually if there's so much controversy usually there's something behind it and and also it's a fact you know we listen to the audio tape of him saying dark and unfair stuff and we are you know there's no denying that like that's already that already for me is a red flag and as I like to say in life that that usually you know the devil lies in in the details if somebody is letting themselves do small terrible things occasionally probably that's a sign that they're allowing themselves to do more terrible things when nobody sees and again I cannot make this as a complete 100% true statement but I truly believe that this is already enough enough of many red flags everything that I said previously and everything that's written in this and many other articles to question whether you really want to trust this guy you know he has very little credibility he's mainly telling that his stuff works just because people love him which again I'm saying it's not a great statement it's not a good reason to trust someone and and and top of that you again you have those controversies so all of that put together I personally am not interested to read any of the books of Tony Robbins and that they are much more trustworthy people to listen to their scientists their researchers who wrote incredible great books based on cumulative and enormous amounts of researchers and questioning and they don't present their ideas as truths which usually self-help gurus do they tell you this works this is the best thing and I will save you people with integrity people with expert real expertise they will never tell you this will 100% work they they will probably tell you okay well it worked on 60% of the people so it may work on you you know but be careful you'll never hear self-help gurus say that especially Tony Robbins so so I really hope that these considerations that I'm presenting to you will allow you to look at him add a bit of a different light and put more questioning on top of him and to again ask yourself do you really want to trust this person and is he worth your trust now if you want more critical thinking videos on the self-help culture including my own story how I was a self-help guru and became disillusioned click on this playlist right here also let me know in the comments what do you think about this video do you think I was fair in my assessment do you think there was enough critical thinking in this video and and yeah was it useful to you I'm really curious to know because it's a new kind of format that I'm trying out this is all I got to say for this video but more will come and as always let's keep on creating a culture of critical thinking together