Tony Robbins, born as Anthony Mahavorick, in North Hollywood, California is a motivational speaker, self-help books author and as he likes to call himself, “a peak performance coach”. While his birth parents divorced when he was only 7, he was adopted by one of his stepdads, Jim Robbins, a minor league baseball player, when Tony was 12. Since his father could not provide for the family, he left them and Tony became the primary caregiver, being the eldest of 3 siblings. His mom developed an alcohol and substance abuse problem which made his personal home life quite ugly and chaotic. While he did attend high school, and was elected class president, he was chased out of his home by his mom with a knife in her hand, and he never returned since, which forced him to fend for himself. He had to take up a job as a janitor and could not attend college.

After a series of small odd jobs, Robbins trained with the Neuro-linguistic programming co- founder, John Grinder and began working as a self-help coach who mainly taught NLP and Ericksonian Hypnosis. He went on to promote himself as a “peak performance coach” through his TV infomercials produced by GuthyRenker and his books.

Robbins has written a series of 5 books out of which 3 of his main best sellers are “Ultimate Power”, “Awaken the Giant Within” and “Money: Master the Game”. While “Ultimate Power was about overcoming fears, health and energy and persuasive communication, “Awaken the Giant Within” was his personal strategies of self-empowerment compiled into a book.

Robbins also learnt the “fire-walk” from Tolly Burkan, and today it is one of the highlights of his seminars.  It requires people to actually walk on hot burning coal pieces. The idea behind including the fire-walk, skydiving and board breaking in his talks is to compel people to overcome their fears and look beyond them to achieve what they want to.

Anthony-Robbins

One of Robbins’ most famous seminars is the 6-day long “Date with Destiny” seminar that he is highly paid for. Apart from this Robbins’ also charges 7 figure fees for personal one on one coaching. At a young age of 24, he had already become a millionaire due to his bestselling self-help books. Today his estimated value is around $440 million and he also owns the Namale Resort and Spa in Fiji and a Los Angeles Football Club with Mia Hamm and Magic Johnson. Robbins’ himself resides in Palm Beach, Florida with a sea view facing apartment as he considers himself to be a freak for the ocean. He also travels exclusively by his private jet and says that it has changed his productivity more than anything on this earth.

Robbins’ has coached some of the most famous names around the world including Bill Clinton, Serena Williams, Andre Agassi, Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, Leonardo DiCaprio and even Nelson Mandela.

Despite his high power status today and his lavish lifestyle, Tony hasn’t forgotten his humble beginnings and contributes greatly to the upliftment of the society and the empowerment of the underprivileged. The Anthony Robbins foundation feeds more than 4 million people around the holidays each year through their international “Basket Brigade”, since he missed out on his thanksgiving and Christmas means as a kid. The foundation also provides fresh water to over one lakh people a day in India where water borne diseases are very common.

He also donates generously to foundations helping the homeless and the hungry.

This high energy 6 foot 7-inch tall speaker enjoys a powerful celebrity status today but has a heart of gold.

More from my site