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“Breakthrough With Tony Robbins”: Robbins needs a little self-help

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:40:00 +0000

"Whatever you think your biggest problem is, I personally guarantee, most of the planet would love to have your horrific problem." Motivational guru Tony Robbins is reminding me and 452 other video chat participants that we Americans are soft and spoiled and have a bad habit of overreacting to our tiny little troubles with stress and depression and panic attacks. I can only assume that the sorts of lethargic, self-hating ovens (myself included) who tune in for an interactive kick-in-the-ass from Robbins via the Huffington Post might agree.

But Robbins is the first to say that he understands completely. You see, years ago, Robbins was living in a 400-square-foot bachelor apartment in Venice, Calif. He was broke and he was exactly 38 pounds overweight and he was sitting around watching Luke and Laura on "General Hospital" when – Knock! Knock! – someone knocked on the door of his apartment. When he opened the door, there stood an old friend he hadn't seen in years. Robbins was so humiliated that this person saw what a worthless, dumpy human parasite he had become (albeit one who, despite his depressed state, likely knew his exact fat-to-muscle ratio) that he immediately went on a long run on the beach. "I was making this radical change in my physical biochemistry," Robbins half-shouts at us, making his impromptu jog sound roughly akin to teleporting or spontaneous combustion or time travel.

Self-help nation

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:25:00 +0000

Self-help, in all its ever-proliferating forms -- books, seminars, video, audio and digital -- is a multibillion-dollar industry. That much, at least, we know for sure. And most of us would agree that the lingo, theories and attitudes of the self-help industry have soaked into every corner of American life. A coworker jokes that he's in denial about the fact that he needs to buy a new computer; a friend blames another friend's obnoxious behavior on low self-esteem. Even people who claim to hate self-help find themselves using its buzzwords and echoing its clichis. But do we really understand how much the industry has affected -- or infected -- our world?

Not according to Steve Salerno, author of "SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless." "You may think Dr. Phil is the greatest thing since sliced bread," he writes, "or you may chortle at his braggadocio and his sagebrush sagacity. But almost no one worries about Dr. Phil. Like the rest of SHAM [Salerno's acronym for the "Self-Help and Actualization Movement"], he slips under the radar."

It’s the dream life

Mon, 19 Jun 2000 18:00:00 +0000

Peter Lund doesn't sound like he has left television for the wild, wild Web. When I spoke to the former CEO of CBS Inc., he was captivated by the "amazing" ratings of his former employer's new hit "Survivor." Needless to say, this was off-topic, but then again, the show -- in which 16 people are marooned on an island and must regularly vote to kick someone off -- is beginning to look like a pretty good metaphor for the online habitat that Lund recently entered. Indeed, each week we watch as one Internet company is challenged to eat grubs in public while backing out of its IPO and another is booted right out of the new economy.

Yet, with optimism appropriate to his task, Lund is bullish about his new company, Dreamlife, the self-help portal founded by personal improvement coach and infomercial star Anthony (Tony) Robbins. The site offers chats with spiritual celebs like Shirley MacLaine, courses on everything from "Fitness for Absolute Beginners" to how to "Sell Your Screenplay the Hollywood Way" and member discussions with suggested topics like "How to Be a Better Lover." Several dozen "experts" help run subsites devoted to subjects like "Money & Finance" or "Creativity & Fun." And Dreamlife has partnered with other personal development organizations like the Learning Channel to expand its offerings. In short, the site has something for everyone who wants to learn how to become his or her best self.

The 49th Annual Miss Universe Pageant

Wed, 17 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000

The Miss Universe Pageant, the annual wank parade of inflato-chested international hose bags, once again infected our TV screens Friday night, live from the tourist-starved isle of Cyprus -- "the island where beauty was invented!" -- of all Godforsaken places.

It was hosted by loudmouthed diphthong Sinbad. Frankly, I can't think of a more suitable fate for that intolerable, polka-dotted blowhard than to be the hapless horny bastard making mildly sexist, semi-illiterate commentary at a lowbrow T&A beauty pageant extravaganza.

"Athenus [sic] was the goddess of wisdom, and let's hope she gave the judges a good dose of it," slurred Sinbad, displaying his Big Gulp-size grip on ancient mythology.

In between ads for supermarket shampoos and CBS's "Jesus" miniseries, we were introduced to the 10 finalists who made it past the arduous tit weigh-in the week before. We got to meet these "movers and shakers in the new millennium," in all of their plastic glory, while listening to moronic commentary from two Maria Shrivers-in-training displaying midriffs and shouting unlikely comments like, "Half of these ladies are doctors and lawyers, and they're only 18!"

The power of positive pinking

Thu, 23 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Several years ago, I paid my bills doing management consulting research in lieu of figuring out what I really wanted to do with my life. As it turned out, one of those research gigs -- going undercover to investigate Mary Kay -- unexpectedly helped me figure it out. What started as a three-month assignment ballooned into a three-year obsession with the ladies in pink. Much to my horror, I learned I had more in common with them than I'd ever imagined.

Normally, my job consisted of browsing copies of Dun & Bradstreet publications, scouring piles of annual reports and interviewing dozens of people about their companies' policies, practices and profits -- all so that my clients could keep ahead of their competition.

This time, however, I was asked to actually infiltrate the ranks of several multilevel sales companies. These companies, namely Amway, NuSkin, Avon and Mary Kay, use the term multilevel sales (instead of the more common term "pyramid scheme") in reference to the voluntary, non-salaried sales force that hawks their wares. My first assignment was to penetrate the towering powerhouse of positive pink thinking, Mary Kay Cosmetics. My client wanted to know what the recruits were getting, financially or otherwise, to maintain their high degree of loyalty and service (which resulted in considerable financial returns) to a company that didn't employ them.