This essay is over 5,500 words and contains commentary on Tony Robbins’ “Unleash the Power Within” workshop, along with brief visual references used to illustrate the experience. All content is shared under the Fair Use doctrine for the purpose of advancing a “wisdom commons”—a space where wisdom is made more common. All rights to referenced materials belong to their original creators. Less Foolish is not affiliated with or endorsed by Tony Robbins or Robbins Research International.
Tony Robbins. The man, the myth, the motivator—perhaps the ultimate motivator. But he doesn’t like being called that. Instead, he considers himself a “why guy,” someone who wants to understand the reasons behind the internal forces that drive a person.
He calls his approach “Neuro-Associative Conditioning,” which builds on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a method in which he was trained. Developed in the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, NLP was influenced by Ericksonian hypnosis and is based on the premise that one can identify the neuro-linguistic “patterns” that lead to success or failure—and then “program” a person by adding or removing those patterns. In essence, the idea is to model successful individuals in order to become successful.
Wikipedia lists NLP as a “pseudoscientific approach to communication.” Once touted as a revolutionary modality in psychotherapy during the 1980s, it apparently lacks empirical scientific support. Overall, it has a poor reputation in academic circles, often being considered “folk magic,” “psycho-shamanism,” or a “psycho-religion.”
Among my friends in the personal development scene, it’s well known that NLP coaches often come off as creepy. They tend to exude a phoney vibe, marked by aggressive overconfidence, and can seem outright manipulative. Rather than “holding space”—a therapeutic term for fully understanding where a person is, with openness to what they might need—they aim to “own the frame” (control the conversation) in order to “break patterns,” supposedly removing limiting beliefs that hold a person back from success.
NLP was one of the early influences on the PUA movement, beginning with Ross Jeffries, who claims that Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia was inspired by him. Jeffries used NLP as a form of “speed seduction,” teaching language patterns to help his male students get laid. One of his more infamous techniques is the “Blow Job Pattern,” where you casually say the words “below me” in a context-appropriate way, but pronounce them as “blow me,” subtly priming her to give you a blowjob.
A devastating tool in any Casanova’s toolkit.
While I’ll remain agnostic about the efficacy of the Blow Job Pattern, I do think NLP techniques can work if applied the right way. But can they work with wisdom? I read Robbins’ book when I was younger, during my self-help binge, and I recall it being one of the better books I encountered in the genre.
There was a time I wanted to attend one of his legendary seminars—if only to check it off the bucket list. I never thought I actually would. The pseudoscientific disclaimers and the creepiness of the NLP scene were turn-offs, but the main deterrent was Tony’s cheesiness. Yes, to me, he—the giant man grinning like a Cheshire cat, shouting self-help platitudes to what seemed like his massive coaching cult—was the embodiment of self-help cheesiness.
I even once used him as an avatar of “self-help bypassing” (alongside “spiritual bypassing” and “psychotherapy bypassing”): the phenomenon in which someone engages in self-help for success when they should be focusing on something else—like communing with the people who matter most, deepening their spiritual sight, or gaining greater philosophical coherence.
“I am too philosophically sophisticated for this stuff now,” I thought. All of this aggressive positivity felt uncool to my inner intellectual hipster. Yet, to my surprise, I found myself signing up for Unleash The Power Within: a four-day virtual event that took place March 13–16, 2025.
Before signing up, I promised myself I’d document the experience by writing a review here on Less Foolish about the good, the bad, and... the beautiful, because Tony recommends we get into a “beautiful state.”
The Sell
We were driving to Montreal. Camille was falling asleep. To stay awake, I decided to break my long-standing hate of podcasts and listen to one.
I was curious about one in particular—Jordan Peterson in conversation with Tony Robbins. Interesting. Long-time Less Foolish readers know that Jordan was my therapist for two years before he became culture war famous. I understand why he became controversial, but the core of his non-political “clean your room, bucko” messaging is basically one of self-development. I always saw him as a sophisticated Tony Robbins with some Jung sprinkled in.
I was curious how these two would get along. Mainly, I wanted to know who would out-alpha the other. Jordan is notorious for interrupting people, as seen in his podcast interviews. I was looking forward to revisiting my former therapist and seeing who would win the conversational alpha contest.
It started out evenly. Jordan kept trying to interrupt and divert the conversation to showcase his expertise. Tony held his ground and kept steering it back to what he wanted to express. Then, after the hour mark, Tony completely steamrolled him. The good professor couldn’t keep up—I was amazed. Jordan was outpaced and didn’t have his usual control over the conversational tempo. By the end, he seemed totally pooped.
I was pooped as well.
Listening to Tony can be exhausting. He just goes on and on and on—at the same high level of energy as when he started. I was impressed. My energy levels haven’t been as consistent as I’d like these days. Maybe it’s turning 40. Maybe it’s the Canadian winter. Or maybe I’m not focused on my “potential” as much as I should be.
Being high-energy was one of the themes of the podcast. Jordan was inquiring about how Tony can sustain such high energy on stage—sometimes for 12 hours or more, for multiple days in a row. Tony discussed his techniques and also mentioned recent research conducted by the Snyder Lab of Genetics at Stanford University on one of his seminars.
In the study, the following findings were reported (as framed by Tony’s website):
Date with Destiny is more effective in treating depression than traditionally studied treatments.
Study participants report a +50% increase in positive emotions & a -70% decrease in.
Study participants saw a 38% decrease in anxiety during the pandemic, even 11 months later, while the baseline showed a 28% increase.
Tony Robbins event participants experienced a physiological shift that created a measurable change and lasting effect.
Hm. Maybe those old NLP studies were wrong? Upon researching further, I found that the study was criticized for calculation errors, a tiny sample size, and a questionable selection of participants. Regardless, Tony now has validation from a respectable scientific institution to advertise with, and he was doing exactly that on the podcast for his Unleash the Power Within experience.
Hearing the findings, witnessing Jordan being outpaced, and listening to Tony’s words, I started visualizing my potential as a consistently high-energy man with no qualms about accomplishing the life he’s called to.
The podcast ended as we entered Montreal. Camille awoke, and the promise of tomorrow felt a little brighter.
I think I just got sold…
The Sign Up
I was a 75% yes on signing up. The price helped—it was $695 USD, not bad for a four-day event. Still, I had hesitations. I don’t fancy myself a sucker and hate feeling like I’ve been scammed. Besides, I’m a man of reason, and such men need their reasons sharp. I did some self-inquiry and came up with the following:
Discover “high energy” secrets from Tony
Do market research—maybe I’ll learn something useful for the courses I teach
Check this off the bucket list
Stay open to the possibility that this experience could have a positive transformative effect on my life
All good—but the one premise that made the difference was a recent encounter with someone who hit me with what I call the “life coach fallacy”: a subtle form of shaming for being “underpotentialed,” paired with pressure to follow the coach’s advice. I wanted to immunize myself against this fallacy once and for all, and I figured there was no better place to do that than in the belly of the beast—a Tony Robbins workshop.
The opportunity to test my critical thinking, paired with a commitment to write a play-by-play here on this Substack, inspired me to sign up. I rescheduled a few calls and cleared my calendar for Thursday through Sunday.
Back from Montreal, I visited the website, visualized my therapist pooped, then signed up.
Upon signing up, I got upsold immediately to join Tony’s “Inner Circle.”
Upselling is one thing, but “confirmshaming” is another. Confirmshaming is a manipulative tactic that guilts someone into action (e.g., “No, thanks. I like not saving.”). While Tony’s wasn’t the most egregious confirmshaming I’ve seen, it still didn’t sit right. I clicked “no, thank you,” and on the next page, I got hit with another upsell-confirmshame combo.
Being upsold and confirmshamed twice in a row left a bad taste in my mouth.
I suppose this is just how it goes in the “coach-industrial complex.”
Don’t hate the player, hate the game?
Day 1
A box arrived in the mail a day before the event.
It contained a workbook, a marker, and a wooden board.
Wait, I’m going to break a board?!
I admit, going to bed on Wednesday, I was boyishly excited.
I entered the event with zero expectations of whether it would be good or bad. I had my skepticism, and my critical mind was sharpened, but ultimately I had an openness to the experience. I put down my money. I wanted to go all in.
The day arrived. The Zoom room opened at 10 a.m. Upon entering a room of 300 people, we were greeted by the coaching staff and told that 60,000 people had signed up. Yoooo. That’s 200 full Zoom rooms.
I did the math...
60,000 x $695
=
$41,700,000 USD
🤯
I immediately opened my Substack and made some changes...
The setup was incredible. Tony’s online stage was a 360-degree circle of screens filled with Zoom heads, allowing him to see and interact with thousands of people all over the world.
Here we go. Cue the pump-up songs, because the event started—with dancing. Lots of dancing. I mean, lotsss of dancing. Why was there so much dancing? I was already tired.
Tony finally came on. He looked kind of subdued, hands in his pockets. Maybe it was all the energy I had from dancing, but he seemed somewhat low energy compared to what I was expecting. He talked. Told stories. One was quite moving. He is undoubtedly a master storyteller. It’s his art, honed over 40 years of doing this.
A cool thing about the experience was seeing random Zoom heads getting highlighted, which incentivized people to keep their cameras on—so for five seconds, they could feel like a star. We were over three hours in when I realized there are no breaks in this thing. The Tony train just keeps going and going and going.
We did have breakout rooms throughout the day, which were underwhelming. Given my Zoom skills, honed from The Stoa, I felt like they could have been designed better. Overall, Day 1 seemed to be about laying the foundations for Tony’s Neuro-Associative Conditioning framework. I couldn’t help but feel judgmental.
Some of the models seemed quite basic; others, muddled. Whenever I come across success models in self-help, I always ask myself things like: Where did this guy come up with this? What are the intellectual underpinnings? Can a bro get a “concept map” over here? I’d like to see how all of these are connected. Muddled conceptual mapping drives me absolutely nuts.
But all these heady thoughts are low-energy. Dance, fool. Dance!
I did like his spiritual north star of cultivating a “beautiful state.” He told a story about speaking with a spiritual teacher from India who encouraged him to replace “peak state” with “beautiful state” as the telos of his teachings. Peak states can be cheap highs, like taking a drug. A beautiful state, on the other hand, must contain the truth about what is and what could be.
The truth was, I was getting exhausted. It was approaching midnight, and the grand finale for Day 1 was breaking the wood board. We were told to draw an “X” on the board, write down our limiting beliefs holding us back, and then, on the backside, write what we wanted to break through to.
I thought it was a cute ritual—but yes, I thought it was cheesy. It didn’t help that Tony started acting like Mr. Miyagi and spent an hour explaining the proper technique with multiple demonstrations. Dude, it’s a flimsy piece of paulownia wood that my farts could break.
Camille was watching and seemed impressed by my trash-talking beforehand, so I was relieved to actually break the board in one go. I was exhausted. 10 a.m. to midnight. I left the Zoom room and crashed on the sofa.
Wired from the experience and reflecting on the day that had just passed, my overarching sense was that it felt kind of soulless. A well-oiled self-help machine, no doubt—but soulless nonetheless.
I went down a Reddit rabbit hole, searching for negative reviews of the experience and Tony in general. I came across things like...
But he also is a bit of a charlatan. He pushes expensive products, supplements, and eastern medicine / mysticism, much of which is complete garbage. He uses the mind-control techniques to wear people out and get them to spend more money. There’s a lot of manipulation at his conferences- so much that I left one in the middle. His financial book Money Master the Game was a total mess and advocated bad financial products.
One Reddit thread had all sorts of scandalous accusations, which led me to revisit the controversy when he was #MeToo’d a few years back—something I vaguely recalled but had dismissed at the time as just another overzealous cancellation during peak woke. Upon watching the video, it was not a good look.
I went to bed seeing myself as a sucker and feeling like I’d been scammed.
Day 2
I woke up exhausted.
Lying in bed in a dream-like state, I started theorizing about the secret behind Tony’s high energy: Is he an apex energy vampire who feeds off the energy of his participants?!
Not cool, if true.
I decided: I’m not fucking dancing today. He’s not sucking any more of my energy. No breakout rooms either. I even debated calling it quits, but ultimately pushed through—for the marketing research, and the prospect of writing about it here.
Tony wasn’t present. I thought that was lame. Apparently he only shows up on Day 1 and Day 3. I found the guy who replaced him annoying at first, but he grew on me and turned out to be pretty funny.
One of the exercises we did really stood out. Basically, we focused on getting into a peak state (through dancing, of course) and then visualized a goal as if it had already happened. I’ve done things like this before—called “priming”—but never with the level of immersion this exercise offered.
It was great.
I visualized my goal as if I had already “won,” accomplishing a long-standing desire that had eluded me. I imagined myself on the other side, basking in the glory of my present success, power posing, pounding my chest, shouting, “YES, YES, YES.”
I liked what he said about “resolve.” Once you resolve to do something, you live like it’s already done. I’ve realized that with all these nuanced, “less foolish” musings over the past few years, I no longer resolve to do things. I just experiment, tinker around, and try new things. That’s been great. It’s opened up the adjacent possible. But I sense it’s time for me to put myself in a situation where I have to resolve.
We had an hour break. I took two. I went on a long walk, and a lot of insights emerged. Creative ideas that were surprising. I felt confident they were the way. I sense my path is not a standard one, and I am not supposed to win in obvious and conventional ways, but in new ways, or really old ones.
The second part of Day 2 was a letdown. Lots of upselling and recordings of Tony from previous events, which I probably could have found on YouTube. Watching pre-recorded videos on a live Zoom call during a sunny day is not a vibe. I was bored and, sadly, fell prey to “The Pull,” that unconscious force I’ve been fighting against—the one that drags you into the screen, as if you're being sucked into it. I guess this is what one gets for staring at a screen all day.
I started people-watching on Zoom, just observing them, alone in their rooms, trapped in their Zoom boxes and staring into their plastic portals. You could see the hope in their eager faces, trying to catch a glimpse of their potential. It seemed sad to me. Or maybe it seemed sad that I was the one judging. I didn’t want to be here. I was ready to leave.
The day ended, and the resolve exercise was just enough for me to continue on to Day 3. I went to bed, and something very weird happened. I woke up in the middle of the night and heard an intrusive voice in my head saying, “Tony must be worshipped.”
Whoa. It didn’t sound like my voice. Did some Tony Robbins “success entity” just visit me?! I wasn’t actually freaked out, because I’ve experienced stranger things before, and my explorations into “discarnate entities” taught me that not being afraid of them removes all their power.
I did process the content of the message and thought to myself, “Does Tony actually want to be worshipped?” There are a lot of people out there who definitely seem like they worship him.
I reflected on his past, his stories of a traumatic upbringing, the absence of a father figure, and what I can only imagine as a constant hunger for love. Obviously, he wants to help people and be useful to others. Extremely useful. I reflected on that same desire in myself.
Especially with my male friends, I wanted to be the one with answers, with solutions, with a practical wisdom that could help them navigate their confusion in life. It was only a few years ago, when I separated myself from the world and underwent intense inner work, that I realized the real motive behind my desire to help.
I wanted to be useful because I wanted to be loved. If I was useful, I would be loved, or so the formula told me. The problem with this kind of exchange is that you impose yourself to be useful where you can be, even when it is not needed. Moreover, most relationships should not rest on the foundation of one party being more useful to another.
However, I realize there are exaptive benefits to having such a motivational engine. Being useful in service of what matters most becomes an acquired taste, eventually becoming untethered from the sense of unlovability that once fueled it. There will be missteps, but like anything practiced, you get better over time.
Besides, I wouldn’t be writing here now, in the way I am, if I didn’t have a similar motivational schema to Tony’s.
My childhood wasn’t as traumatic as he described his to be. His gaping hole for love was much bigger than mine. I was beginning to understand his desire to help so many people. I was beginning to feel love for him, and not because he was being useful to me.
Day 3
Tony was back.
How exciting.
He came in with much higher energy today. He demonstrated his morning priming practice (which you can read here), which consists of:
Breathwork
Gratitude
A loving light exercise
Goal visualizations “as if” they are already achieved
I liked this. Compact and distilled everything, really. I needed a simple daily practice that was directed toward my goals, as they are not going to accomplish themselves.
Tony next talked about the VAKOG system, popular in NLP, where sensory-based modes (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.) are said to dominate how a person processes information. I’ve always been skeptical of this claim. For example, its sister theory, the VAK learning styles, is now considered a “neuromyth” by cognitive psychologists.
I noticed Tony casually uses other myths, like the idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit, which is often treated as gospel in self-help circles. That claim came from Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon who wrote Psycho-Cybernetics in 1960, where he noted that his patients took around 21 days to adapt to surgical changes, such as adjusting to an amputation.
Not only is the 21-day habit theory anecdotal, originating from a single man, but as far as I know, it has never been formally studied. There was a study in 2009 by Phillippa Lally that identified 66 days as the average time for habit formation, but I do not believe the study has been replicated. To be charitable, whether it is 21 or 66 days, the basic spirit of the claim holds: if you do something consistently for long enough, it can become a habit.
Still, being propositionally sloppy while spouting truth claims with the utmost confidence does not inspire confidence in those who care about sound premises. It does not build trust and instead creates a default sense of distrust in all of his claims, even if many turn out to be true. Overall, it seems that Tony’s intellectual framework was established in the 1980s, a time littered with various self-help myths, and he has not changed his views much since.
I have the capacity to bracket these concerns and believe I can still hunt for the value being offered, which was the topic of the next section: beliefs and values. I liked this part. Tony divides belief into “global beliefs” and “rules,” and values into “toward values” and “away values.” I usually roll my eyes at “write down your values” exercises, but something about doing it this time landed.
The values I wrote:
Adventure
Freedom
Peace
Yes. These ones, when honored, make me come alive.
Tony talked about value conflict, and it dawned on me that other values—such as security, comfort, and status—imposed through my upbringing and society at large, do not resonate with my soul at all. In fact, they dispirit me, reducing my aliveness.
My aliveness was fading again during the session. We went on a short break, and the coaches were hyping up the next part, saying it was the highlight of the whole experience. Okay. I’ll show up for this one, I thought. I’ll dance, I’ll yell, I’ll put Tony to use.
When the break was over, Tony said we were going to do “The Dickens Pattern.”
Basically, you:
Write down your limiting beliefs—things like “I am not good enough.”
Vividly visualize your future self 5, 10, and 20 years from now, suffering as a result of these limiting beliefs.
Deeply feel the pain. Make sounds to express it.
Then use this pain as leverage to change.
I went all in. I took many acting classes when I was young, so I have enough experience embodying intense emotions. I wrote down three limiting beliefs. It was interesting because they seemed to capture beliefs that correspond to both my “father wound” and “mother wound.” The former related to competency, the latter to love.
I felt into these beliefs, imagining a continued future with them. The lights were turned off. Tony’s voice was guiding the experience, telling us to picture what would happen in five years—the pain, the failures, the ruined relationships caused by these beliefs.
Naturally, my body slumped down, my head heavy, staring at the floor. I moved to the corner of the room, as if to hide, hugging myself in desperation. I was shaking, with tears welling. I felt pathetic, a complete loser and an utter disappointment to everyone I love.
“Ten years! Who are you letting down? Let out a noise!”
I yelped. It sounded awful, coming from a deep internal cavern.
“Twenty years! What suffering are you experiencing? Make a sound!”
This time, it was more of a wail. A guttural one. It was dark, from a place I do not wish anyone to visit. I was huddled on the floor now, hugging myself. All alone. Everyone had left me. No one cared. I was useful to no one, unloved by everyone. I was a nobody. A shattered man.
Tony was telling us to say our limiting beliefs out loud, associating this feeling with them. Then, changing tone, Tony asked us if these beliefs were really true, cueing a shift in the process. I said “no.” He kept asking. I barked, “No!” He asked us to shout out our response, and I raised my arms triumphantly and yelled, “FUCK NO!”
I cannot remember what happened next, but it felt orgasmic. We danced, power posed, yelled, and emotionally committed to a life without these beliefs.
Now, we were going to install the empowering beliefs, which were the antithesis of the limiting ones. But first, we really had to remove any trace of them. The exercise was goofy, but we had to stick our finger in our nose and say the old belief in a cartoonish way, then rip our finger out of our nose and say, “Bullshit.”
It was fun.
We wrote out our new empowering beliefs and took time with each one, shouting them with joy, with a smile on our faces, really feeling into them. I was walking in circles around my office, strutting like Conor McGregor—proud, confident, gorilla-like—declaring the man I was becoming. The man I am now.
All the feelings of cheesiness were fading from me. I could feel the energy of 60,000 people with me. It felt like one big beautiful party, where we were punching through all the bullshit that had been holding us back. The beliefs we didn’t ask for. The ones that were imposed on us.
We installed the final belief. It felt awesome. Pump-up song after pump-up song played. Tony was going wild. And dancing. I like dancing now. I dance better with these new beliefs.
What came next was surprising: Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” started playing.
WTF?!
It was an odd closing set for what was supposed to be the climax of the experience.
Maybe I was just drunk on peak-stating, but I saw Kurt Cobain’s spirit, and he was looking at Tony with the same "WTF" face as mine.
I thought Kurt was cool. In high school, I listened to post-grunge and was too young to know him when he killed himself. Growing up, sensing his influence among my peers, I was intimidated by him.
I was like, “Whoa, everyone I think is cool reveres him. He must be the most cool. He must know something about life I don’t.” He was depressed but real, and while I didn’t know exactly what he was rebelling against, it felt like something true. The coolest seemed dead to the success trappings of the world. He did say, “I’d rather be dead than cool.”
I looked at Kurt’s spirit and felt into my younger self. Young Peter went through depression with suicidal ideation. He was cool-dead, or dead-cool, and showing signs he wanted to join the “27 Club” as well. Everything was cheesy to him. He was into Nietzsche, existentialism, and all that deep, heavy stuff philosophically minded lost boys are supposed to be into.
Hearing Tony, with his damaged hoarse voice, singing “I feel stupid and contagious” shifted something in me. I can see now: truth and success are not incompatible values. Art and wealth don’t have to be at odds. Realness and real power can be one.
It’s coming together. Cool and cheesy. Depressive realism and energetic idealism. The grittiness of grunge rock and the triumph of the pump-up song. These subpersonalities are speaking to one another—awkwardly dancing, beginning their unexpected romance in becoming one.
It’s beautiful. 60,000 people see it too. Peak-stating. Breaking through their limiting beliefs. Cracking temporal boundaries to glimpse a future life as a beautiful one. I am doped up. I am cheesy! Cheesy is now cool. Cool-cheesy. Cheesy-cool. It’s here, right now.
Seeing all these people in Zoom rooms no longer seemed sad. Tapping into the energy feels powerful. I feel like we can do anything. We can do anything! Let’s ride this energy. Let’s smell like teen spirit. A mulatto, an albino. A mosquito, my libido, yeah!
All that upselling was worth it.
I’m glad I purchased this thing.
Thank you, Tony.
Thank you, Kurt.
Day 4
I slept like a baby, satisfied with the experience. I didn’t feel called to attend Day Four, which seemed to be a day full of guests sharing their thoughts on health—and surely upselling whatever their hustle is.
Instead of logging into the early start, Camille and I went to church, which felt extra peaceful. It seems peace comes in strong after a good adventure that brings about freedom.
I did pop in and out throughout the day. The first pop-in felt synchronous, because it touched on a “pain point” I’ve been wrestling with: marketing.
A man known for teaching “Millionaire Success Habits” shared the three golden rules of marketing:
Get inside the mind of your customer.
Know the difference between “want vs. need.” You sell them what they want and give them what they need.
People will buy from you when they feel understood, not when you make them understand you.
I agree with the first one. Also the third one, which is a good reminder for when I enter “selling mode,” as opposed to the more artistic, expressive mode I’m in now. However, the second one—while I understand the logic—has always been hard for me. I appreciated his framing, because it helped clarify why.
Uncharitably speaking, when adopting the second view, you start to see people as sad, huge fools who do not know what is good for themselves. But you do. So you sell to their stupid monkey brains with shame-inducing tactics and supernormal stimuli.
This naturally leads to things like confirmshaming and, in the attention economy, Mr. Beast–tier shocked-face video thumbnails that prime our primal selves to click.
It reminds me of what Plato wrote in Phaedrus.
“Is it not obvious, that even those who have a genuine message of truth and reality must first court the favour of the people so they will listen at all? Is there not such a thing as seduction to the truth?”
Søren Kierkegaard also comes to mind, who advocated that one must “cajole them into the truth!” Josef Pieper, discussing this passage in Abuse of Language—Abuse of Power, writes:
“First, so says Kierkegaard, you have to tell them something nice, aesthetic, to capture people’s attention—launch the boat, as it were. Then, when it is floating along, let it run aground: namely, on the rock of truth. Better hurry, though, to get away from there immediately; they will try to kill you.”
Holy tricksters like such challenges. However, such tricks must be grounded in real value in what is being sold. I am skeptical that you can sell wisdom, or even less foolishness.
With these philosophical musings, I shut down the computer for the day and went outside for a walk.
The Review
What is my final verdict on the experience?
7/10.
It would have been an 8 if there had been less upselling, if it had ended with the climax of Day 3, and if there had been more live Tony rather than prerecorded segments.
In an upcoming post, I’ll be critiquing Tony’s ideas with philosophical nuance—but in essence, the $695 was well spent.
In the meantime, I’ll be basking in the “new me,” full of potential: above me, no limits; below me, only love.
I’m considering taking it again with Camille, and I’ve downloaded his original Personal Power audiotapes, which I intend to go through.
I recommend the experience—with the caveat that you don’t go into it assuming it will be the only thing you need. It’s not. There are therapeutic interventions, rationalist agentic tech, spiritual practices, and good old-fashioned philosophical reasoning that may be more appropriate for addressing what’s truly bothering you.
Sometimes (upsell alert), one needs a guide to discern this.
If you have any questions, insights, feedback, or criticism on this entry or more generally, message me below (I read and respond on Saturdays) …