Gen X's Most Motivating Thinker

In 1987, when I was 21 years old, I became fascinated by half-hour infomercials that began appearing on CNN and other TV channels. Here was a passionate, dynamic, and charismatic young man — just 26 years old, just five years older than me — telling me that I could make positive changes in my life by changing my mindset and developing a few new habits. And in these videos, people who’d changed their lives with this young guy’s approach gave testimonials on its effectiveness.

His name was Tony Robbins, and he sold hundreds of thousands of audiotapes of his self-help program, millions of his books, tens of thousands of his seminars, and thousands of his coaching sessions. He became the world’s most famous advocate for the fulfillment of human potential. Born on the Boomer / Xer cusp, he was taken to heart by us young Xers and became our generation’s answer to the Jazz Generation’s Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale.

And there was the firewalking. Tony Robbins was so cool and hip that he taught tens of thousands of people — after hours of mental training — to walk across burning coals without burning their feet.

I immediately read his book from the year before, Unlimited Power. Here Robbins taught and reinforced in me the importance of knowing my outcome, believing I can achieve it, getting into a passionate energy state to achieve it, developing a strategy to achieve it, engaging in major, focused, and congruent action to achieve it, and then handling resistance and continually solving problems to achieve it.

In 1991, Robbins continued to transform my mindset and my approach to life with his second book. Awaken the Giant Within gave me even more daily intensity – to get into a passionate energy state every day, to link my success to that pleasurable energy state, to raise my standards every day, to believe every day that I can change outcomes, to work every day to interrupt and change my limiting beliefs and patterns and create new, empowering beliefs and patterns, and to keep at the new pattern until it becomes consistent.

It was all inspiring, motivating, and empowering. Tony Robbins’s insights were actionable and they worked. Millions of us learned from Robbins to raise our energy state to a high positive intensity, take control of our mindset, confront our fears and limitations, and make breakthroughs, including rapid breakthroughs. His approach to personal growth, development, and transformation has enabled millions of us to make lasting changes in our lives, reach peak performance, and achieve our goals.

None of this is meant to provide a full endorsement of Tony Robbins as a human being. He’s probably made some mistakes in his personal and professional conduct, as have all of us.

I also share in the concerns that some people with deep-seated neurological and psychiatric problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, might be harmed by Robbins’s one-size-fits-all approach. And I have my doubts that people should confront painful experiences from their lives in front of a large audience.

At the same time, I’ve seen him take on more spiritual wisdom as he’s matured. In his fifties and now his sixties, he has been urging everyone who listens to him to choose their goals in alignment with higher values and ethical concerns and what is best for our fellow human beings. There has been emanating from him more and more empathy, emotional intelligence, and social intelligence.

He’s grown intellectually as well, integrating into his approach the views of great minds like Clare Graves and Ken Wilber. He understands human consciousness and the human soul much more fully than he did in his twenties and thirties, as do most of us midlifers and elders.

Success cannot be our only value, of course, or our main value. Our quest for success should be harnessed to and guided by our highest values. And I think it’s great that Robbins has evolved to that place in his thinking and his message.

Despite any imperfections he may have, I’ve always found myself in the pro-Robbins camp. My impressions of seeing the man on stage and on camera are that he is sincere. And, in my view, he remains as effective as anyone on the planet at coaching us out of our limitations and through our struggles and into making positive changes in our lives.