Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been listening to a set of ancient inspirational tapes (well, a digitized version).
I got them because I watched the original infomercial for the tapes, which came out in 1988, and was sold less by the promises (health, wealth, happiness, and success) than by the testimonials (a lesson for you there). So many of the people in the infomercial said, “I’d tried everything, I was still a failure, until I found this.”
If you’ve been following my emails over the past few weeks, you might know the program in question is Personal Power by Tony Robbins. For years, I’d hallucinated Tony Robbins to be some kind of motivational fluff guru. I imagined he went up on stage, hyped people up, and sent them home. “That’s not how success works,” I told myself.
Turns out I didn’t really know much about Tony Robbins. For example, the man is a giant, or close to one. He had a brain tumor while he was a teenager, which caused his pituitary gland to keep leaking growth hormone. He grew 10 inches in high school and now stands at an impressive 6’7. (The tumor imploded in on itself eventually.)
But more importantly, it turns out Tony Robbins knows what he’s talking about. He’s got some real “success technologies” that others aren’t teaching. Well, I’m sure somebody out there is teaching the same stuff as Tony Robbins, especially after the big man has been in the limelight for 40+ years. But I’ve read a bunch of self-help, how-to-succeed books, and while some of the stuff that TR teaches was familiar to me, some of the key details were new as well.
Most importantly, his “success technologies” work. I can’t say I’ve achieved dramatic increases in health, wealth, or success in the 10 or so days I’ve been listening to the tapes. But by using a couple of the ideas TR teaches, I have been able to motivate myself to do things that I normally struggle to do. I’ve done them consistently, and pretty cheerfully and automatically, instead of grudgingly and haltingly.
So what’s the point of all this? Well, if you too have tried everything, but you still find yourself a failure (no shame there, join the club), then maybe give the digitized version of Personal Power a listen. And even if you don’t care for Tony Robbins and have no interest in his “success technologies,” maybe you will find it heartening to know that there are some good and useful products sold through direct response advertising, and yes, even through infomercials.