Are Anthony Robbins' methods bases on fear?

[Andrew Brunelle]

Tony Robbins, a force in the self-help industry, and revered by many. I personally don't like him. I've seen him speak on TED Talks or whatever that website is called and I found him to be terribly arrogant and full of himself. He reminds me of Tom Cruise's character from Magnolia. And researching him thoroughly revealed that he was a terrible womanizer at all the seminars he held and that he manipulated people's emotional states in order to get them to sign up for Mastery University or whatever other thousands of dollars seminar he currently was holding.

I think he himself has a lot of fear, probably from childhood. If I recall, he grew up poor and that fear of never having enough is sticking with him. The guy has more than enough money to be someone who has to con others into getting more. But greed can affect anyone. At least Steve is honest about even his seminar he's holding this weekend. He gives characteristics and mindsets that would NOT benefit from his seminar as well. He's one of the few honest people in self-help today. At least we have a few.

[Lioness]

The pain / pleasure model is a very crude and black / white way of looking at the world.

I don't look at the world this way, but I do look at human behavior this way. It may be crude, but it's accurate. It's also clear and simple enough to be of great use in Personal Development.

you could also say, everything we do is to get less negative emotions and more positive emotions, you know? It's a bit obvious and not totally insightful

You're way smarter than me I did not find it obvious until I saw it in writing. IMO it is a mistake to dismiss or minimize the importance of this core truth about our human nature. For successful Personal Development, it's crucial to know what drives our behavior on the most basic level so we can use this information to our advantage.

In light of the pain/pleasure principle, I think successful PD boils down to 2 things.

1) Find techniques to overcome the desire to avoid pain/discomfort.

2) Find methods to increase the drive for pleasure in achieving goals.

[brendannz]

Originally Posted by Lioness

You're way smarter than me I did not find it obvious until I saw it in writing. IMO it is a mistake to dismiss or minimize the importance of this core truth about our human nature. For successful Personal Development, it's crucial to know what drives our behavior on the most basic level so we can use this information to our advantage.

Maybe I use too strong language in my forum posts sometimes I think what I was saying is it's not really deep philosophy, but more a model that everyone can use. As I've said I've found the tools effective myself.

I'm not sure if you've seen White Men Can't Jump, but there's that line "sometimes when you win, you actually lose and sometimes when you lose you actually win" etc.etc. I think winning and losing can be very subjective, and so is pain and pleasure. Sometimes things are painful just because you intepret them that way..

I find the most valuable life lessons come out of the most painful experiences. Is this because of our desires to get out of pain and into pleasure? I think it's that a sense of clarity comes from the lessons.

Just some thoughts..

[MidasGirl]

Originally Posted by Lioness

It may be crude, but it's accurate. It's also clear and simple enough to be of great use in Personal Development.



.

I think the reason Tony Robbins' teachings appeal to a broad range of people is precisely this. He teaches simple techniques that make sense to all people. When something is either too intellectually complex or too mystical, it puts a lot of people off. The reason some people object to LOA isn't because it's hard to use, but that it sounds too mystical for them. Yet you look at some of Tony's (or general NLP) techniques such as incantations, and that is LOA right there. Just not taught in a mystical way...........

[lifetimelearner]

I once tried one of Tony Robins methods
there is a part in his book where a man addicted to chocolate was told to eat nothing but chocolate all day and drink water and nothing else
well the man did this and got sick and supposedly from that moment on he never ate chocolate again

I did that one day and got sick
but 2 days later I was eating chocolate again

I have seen diabetics lose limbs and continue to eat sweets
I have seen people drink themselves to death -literally
I have seen people smoking even though they just came into remission from lung cancer



I have done drugs in the past myself
and I quit when I became pregnant with my first child

that was my reason for quitting !

not the pain/pleasure model
because trust me I really enjoyed my high (pleasure) and I also knew what I was doing to my health (pain)
and then there was the grief I was causing my family (pain)

but ---

it wasn't until I realized that I was going to be responsible for another person's health and life that motivated me to quit

now one could say that that fits into the pain model but no I believe it comes from somewhere else
somewhere deeper then just the archaic emotion of pain


perhaps the soul ...

[Lioness]

Originally Posted by lifetimelearner

I once tried one of Tony Robins methods
there is a part in his book where a man addicted to chocolate was told to eat nothing but chocolate all day and drink water and nothing else
well the man did this and got sick and supposedly from that moment on he never ate chocolate again

I did that one day and got sick
but 2 days later I was eating chocolate again

Everyone has different levels of tolerance for pain and different things they associate with pain. Therefore, some techniques of behavior modifcation will work better on some than others, you have to find the one(s) that work for you.

That man got sick enough to associate more pain with eating chocalate than it was worth to him.

2 days after you got sick, you craved chocolate again and you knew if you ate it in moderation, you wouldn't get sick. The man started associating chocolate with pain. You only associated massive overeating of chocolate with pain. If eating chocolate made you violently ill everytime, I think you'd quit in short order. The guaranteed pain would outweigh the temporary pleasure.

I have seen diabetics lose limbs and continue to eat sweets
I have seen people drink themselves to death -literally
I have seen people smoking even though they just came into remission from lung cancer

Because these people still get such immediate gratification from their habit of choice, the pain of quitting is still greater than the potential pain of the consequences. After all, once you've lost limbs or are terminally alcoholic, the addiction may intensify because you feel so hopeless. Some people just give up. It's easier/less painful.

As for quitting drugs for the sake of your baby, it was more painful to you to risk the health of your child than to quit. The mother/child relationship is of a higher order in your mind than your role in other family relationships. Your mind experienced extreme pain at the possibility of harming your child. Some addicts don't have these strong associations, and it is more painful for them to quit (though they may try) than to take a chance of harming the baby. BTW, it still must have taken a tremendous amount of strength and integrity to do what you did, so kudos to you.

[lifetimelearner]

I can see what you are saying Lioness but I still envision the pain/pleasure module as crude

and the path I chose for my child as one coming from a deeper less primitive
place

[MidasGirl]

I can kinda see where people would get hung up regarding pain/pleasure. It's probably more the use of the words -- pain and pleasure aren't very spiritual words. I don't care for the use of the word pleasure in this way, I think it's misleading. I would re-word it to: People are motivated by either Love or Fear. But the concept would still hold true no matter the words I choose to use, but love and fear work better for me.

[brendannz]

Originally Posted by MidasGirl

People are motivated by either Love or Fear. But the concept would still hold true no matter the words I choose to use, but love and fear work better for me.

Not sure if you've seen Donnie Darko, LOL

YouTube - Fear vs. Love

[MidasGirl]

I hadn't ever seen that. Pretty good actually........resistance to understanding the lesson would have a line very close to fear

On a serious note, I don't think it's a linear thing.....I don't think there is a spectrum with two ends, or even two sides of the same coin. Fear and love energies are constantly interacting..........

[Lioness]

Originally Posted by lifetimelearner

I still envision the pain/pleasure module as crude

It is crude because at our core we are animals. Highly developed, intelligent ones, but still animals. I don't mean that we are savages, but we are mammals and pain/pleasure are the stimuli we respond to. You see this illustrated most clearly in the behavior of children. They have to undergo years of training and reinforcement to break them of the natural drive to seek only their own personal pleasure of the moment.

I'm dealing with the real nitty-gritty truth in order to get where I want to go in life. I get that people don't want to think of themselves in this way and they have found concepts that work better for them. The P/P concept has been powerful for me, because helps me find the most effective ways I can overcome my basic instincts when they conflict with realizing my goals.

People are motivated by either Love or Fear. But the concept would still hold true no matter the words I choose to use, but love and fear work better for me.

Exactly. For me, if Love/Fear is 6/8, Pleasure/Pain is 3/4. I just find it more effective to deal with the pure reduction.

[brendannz]

Originally Posted by MidasGirl

I hadn't ever seen that. Pretty good actually........resistance to understanding the lesson would have a line very close to fear

On a serious note, I don't think it's a linear thing.....I don't think there is a spectrum with two ends, or even two sides of the same coin. Fear and love energies are constantly interacting..........

That movies pretty hilarious actually, there's this real cheesy fear / love motivational speaker in it, and Donnie Darko really rips him apart.. Lots of stuff happens in the movie really, it's got quite a lot going on..