A Review of
Tony Robbins’ Personal Power 2
Update:
I made a Tony Robbins Page with links to reviews of
his other programs. This review has not been edited since I first completed
the PP2 program.
Like many people in America, I learned of Tony Robbins while searching through the cable channels at 2am. He was very impressive, attractive (not just in looks but as a person), and very charismatic. I was just a poor college student so when the price came up I decided against it. Then many years later, I once again came upon Tony Robbins. But this time I had matured a lot and had even taken an interest in some self-help type books (Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus for example). The self-help books really interest me because I constantly am looking for ways to improve myself. So when I had an opportunity to borrow Tony’s “Personal Power 2” CDs I decided to give it a try. I searched the Internet for reviews and found two reoccurring yet drastically different views: “He’s a crook” or “He changed my life”. Later I found out this is actually a common pattern with self-help type material. You can see this for yourself by searching for your favorite self-help book at Amazon.com and read the reviews, first sorting by highest rating first and then by lowest rating first. Even the Mars & Venus book, which is one of my favorites, has reviews from both ends of the spectrum. If the reviews were all negative, I probably would have passed, but since there were lots of positive reviews I decided to try it out.
So why exactly did I decide to try the PP2 program? Well first let me give a brief introduction to who I am. I consider myself successful. I’ve always had a good job and have always had enough money to be able to buy the things I want and do the things I want to do. I’m a hard worker, for the majority of my working life I’ve worked two jobs at the same time. I’m definitely not materialistic. I’m very optimistic and positive, and am almost never depressed. So there you have it, a successful (by my own definition of course) person without money or relationship problems, relatively happy and content with his life. So why did I decide to try PP2? There are three reasons: The first is I always belief there is room to improve. The second is I was really curious to find out who Anthony Robbins was and if his material was as good as his image. And the third, and possibly the most important reason I decided to try PP2 is that I didn’t have to shell out $200 for the program!
I not only decided to try the program, I decided to do it and to really follow through with it. This was important, because I suspect a lot of people who complain about the program just listen to the tapes and don’t really follow through. In each of the CDs, he gives exercises to do. Often there are exercises during the CD, and for this reason it’s not really possible to listen to the tapes while driving, working, exercising, or any other activity. I also found that if I didn’t pay absolute attention while listening to the CD, I would miss stuff. A couple times I tried listening while doing other things like surfing the Internet, but I couldn’t do it. It really does require total concentration. I took these exercises seriously, which was quite easy to do because Tony is very motivating.
So what did I think? Overall, I really enjoyed the program and was glad I had done it. I won’t say “Tony changed my life” but I will say “I decided to change my life”. I know that sounds fake, or weird, or wacky, whatever you want to call it, but it’s not really. If you’re not ready and willing to change your life, then save yourself some time and money and don’t do the program. It’s that simple. The program is for people who really want to change. And it’s actually not that difficult to do. It’s simple things, like setting goals and actively working on them, following specific steps to solve problems, learning how to better interact with others, etc.
Here are some specific observations:
I think how people react to the program will depend mainly on their eagerness to change. I’ve mentioned some of the ideas to people who weren’t interested in trying anything new. So obviously the program isn’t going to work for them. Tony makes the program very expensive (around $200) so that people will not buy it unless they are really committed. Hey you have to be really committed in order to spend $200 on it! So I feel it is the actual person using the program that will determine whether they are successful and not the program itself. Think of it this way: You can give a “how to draw” book and pencil and paper to several people and get back totally different results. It’s the same with Personal Power 2.
Tony presents a new approach to different subjects each day. As a result, it’s easy to “forget” what he taught the previous day and just focus on the current day. If you do this, however, at the end of the 30 days you won’t get much out of it. You really have to keep using the previous material in addition to the new. This isn’t easy when you have new material every day for several weeks. As a result, I feel I need to do the entire program again to let it “sink in”.
The most important techniques I got out of the program were goal setting and NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) techniques (anchors, associations, etc.) Goal setting is pretty obvious, we must set goals for ourselves, yes everyone does this. But we must also act on our goals every day. For example, how many people would like to learn to play piano? Learn a foreign language? Learn to draw? Go back to school for a degree? Yet put it off as something they’ll do “someday”? Tony is great at motivating you to not only set goals but to act upon them every day. Anchoring is connecting a state (such as feeling really happy) to something physical (an action, some words, etc.) in order to use the action to put yourself back in the state. In other words, how’d you like to just clap your hands and be happy and energized all of a sudden? I know that sounds crazy but it’s possible! And finally, associations can be created (“exercise is fun”) or broken (“smoking is pleasurable”). In fact making and breaking associations was my favorite part of the entire program. Before the program I had no idea this was even possible. Now it’s something I want to continue learning about. Tony didn’t invent NLP, but he is quite good at explaining it and teaching it.
Tony really emphasizes money and places great importance on it. This kind of bothered me. I’m not very materialistic and for me money is not the most important thing in my life. Tony seems to say that if you’re happy with the money you have then something is wrong with you and I don’t agree with this at all. Why would he place so much emphasis on money? Because he has some financial seminars where he teaches people how to make money. He even talks about how in his seminars he teaches people to make 16% returns on very safe investments. This simply doesn’t exist, an anyone who followed his advice with money they couldn’t afford to lose are probably pretty upset with him right now during this major recession. Overall with the money bit, I really felt he was preying on those that don’t have a lot of money. He mentions his helicopter and his castle every chance he gets, and never misses an opportunity to plug his financial seminars. He even says many times “If you can’t afford to come, then you must come!”
Throughout the program Tony constantly promotes his seminars. A little is OK but I really felt like the program was becoming a big long infomercial. Tony starts on a topic and then tells us how we don’t have time in this program to fully cover the topic. He then gives a little teaser and then plugs his seminars. I read in the newsgroup about someone who attended a seminar and in the seminar Tony said they didn’t have enough time for all 6 steps and could only cover the first 3, but the next seminar would contain the rest.
About half of each tape is Tony rambling. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very entertaining and it’s definitely not boring, I really enjoy listening to the guy. But it is a little frustrating when he says he doesn’t have time for something and then plugs a seminar for five minutes, when if he hadn’t rambled on in the first place he’d have plenty of time to fully cover the original topic.
In summary, each tape contains some really useful information, some rambling rambling, and a lot of commercials for seminars. If you can separate the useful information from the rest, you can greatly benefit from it. But like I said, Tony is holding back. He’s giving a little bit of information to entice you to attend a seminar. The information he does give is really good, and if you are determined, you can use it to change your life. I did put his information to use and I did make several changes that I hope will be long lasting. I really enjoyed the program and will probably redo it to pick up the pieces that I forgot or just plain missed. If I have the opportunity to listen to another one of his programs for free, I will definitely do it. Do I think Personal Power 2 is worth the $200 price? If we assume only 1/3 of the information in the program is useful (with the rest being 1/3 being seminar advertisements and 1/3 rambling), that would mean you’d get about 8 hours of useful information (based on a total of 23 hours). $200 for 8 hours is $25/hour, which is half the price of a psychologist. That said, for me personally I’m not sure it would have been worth $200. If it weren’t just a teaser, if it had more information and fewer commercials, then I would definitely without a doubt say yes. Keep in mind that $200 is just the beginning, because after you spend $200 you’ll feel compelled to spend hundreds more to get the rest of the material that he’s holding back. It’s marketed as a complete 30-day program but really it’s just the first part of a long series of programs that cumulates in outrageously expensive week long seminars in Fiji! How many people can afford that? He makes you think that if you follow his programs you’ll be able to afford it. But I’m really skeptical about his whole getting rich stuff. If you don’t have a friend or coworker you can borrow it from, try looking for it at your local library. I’ve heard many libraries carry Tony’s programs and you can use them for free (actually your tax dollars paid for it). Or try splitting the cost with a friend or family member, but just make sure they are really motivated to do the program or else they’ll be angry with you when they it doesn’t work for them!
What’s next for me? I plan to try some other self-help motivational type programs. And then after trying out some others, I play to do another one of Tony’s programs to see what kind of information he held back. But in the meantime I plan to review the material from Personal Power 2 and apply it as I move forward.
I hope this review has helped you. If you are like I was, you’re really interested in Tony Robbins yet skeptical at the same time. Really there is some good information there so if you are determined to make some positive changes in your life then go for it!
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