Posted on 04/08/2018 5:29:17 PM PDT by ethom
Tony Robbins didn’t invent the NLP techniques he popularized, but the number of people referring to his work in videos, books, and articles I’ve read over the last few years is staggering. If you’re talking about someone who has influenced the influencers over the last few decades, no one else in his field even comes close. Whatever you want to say about him (wait, you mean the infomercial guy from Shallow Hal? The giant guy with the big teeth?), he is as good as it gets when it comes to self-help, psychology and, oh yeah, sales. There’s a reason he started out with nothing and is now worth 480 million dollars.
In any case, despite all of his success, you don’t hear a lot about Tony Robbins on the news. In fact, usually if you do, it’s because a few overzealous reporters freak out about a handful of people getting blisters doing the fire walk he leads over 1000 degree coals. (P.S.: Yeah, I got one of those at the one Tony Robbins event I attended in Chicago.)
In any case, Tony Robbins is in the news because he didn’t shower the #MeToo movement with praise when he was asked about it at a conference. To the contrary, although he went out of his way to say he wasn’t criticizing the whole movement, he noted some very negative things about it.
To begin with, if you listen to his full comments, Robbins goes out of his way, over and over again, to say that he’s not trashing the #MeToo movement. He begins like so:
You could use the #MeToo movement to be such a beautiful thing. I’m not mocking the #MeToo movement, I’m mocking victimhood. I’m not saying you have to agree with me, I’m just suggesting that you consider what its impact is. Look at these people and see what is empowerment. Anger is not empowerment. What you are seeing is people making themselves significant by making someone else wrong and getting certainty. There’s nothing wrong with that, it just won’t make them happy. It won’t make them better and it won’t make you better… (Asked to the audience) Is there any one of us that hasn’t done something that we’d prefer we not, that we’re embarrassed by or was hurtful? Who here has never done anything of that nature? (One person raised their hand) One liar in the room…(later) I think anyone who has been hurt should be able to express it, should be able to go get restitution and I support it. What I am not supportive of is victimhood. There was a time in America when people HATED the idea of being a victim. A whole movement formed around being an angry victim is not a psychologically healthy idea. If we’re not talking about dealing out justice to a Harvey Weinstein type or some other sexually abusive person, how does it make your life better to participate? How is defining yourself as an angry victim going to make you happy? That’s not the political take on it, but Robbins isn’t a politician. He’s talking about it from a self-improvement viewpoint and he’s right.
Robbins then goes on to note some real life negative consequences that the #MeToo movement has created for women.
When you push someone else, it doesn’t make you safe, it just makes you angry. In Hollywood, where this is most intense – I have so many clients there – I talk to men all the time and it breaks my heart for women, not for men. Because I was just with someone the other day, a very famous man, a very powerful man. He was saying how stressed he is because he interviewed three people that day, one was a woman, two were men, the woman was better qualified, but she was very attractive and he knew, ‘I can’t have her around because it’s too big of a risk’ and he hired someone else. I’ve had a dozen men tell me this. Upon hearing someone like that, a healthy political movement would probably ask, “What are we doing wrong? How is it that men who don’t intend to harass women are getting so nervous about what we’re doing that they don’t want to hire women? How do we change that?” An unhealthy movement responds to stories like those with comments like this:
Lane Moore ✔ @hellolanemoore if you can read that Tony Robbins interview where he says it's totally acceptable to not hire a woman who is more qualified for a job than any male candidate just because she's "very attractive" and you dont walk away thinking Tony Robbins is a piece of shit, your brain is broken
12:49 PM - Apr 7, 2018 1,820 410 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy If you’re part of a movement that says it’s about stopping abuse, but shrugs its shoulders when unprovable decades-old allegations are treated as credible, men are treated like they’re guilty until proven innocent, and everything from a bad date to rape is treated as roughly equivalent, you are creating significant new problems while you are trying to solve the old ones.
Here’s more from Robbins:
Everything is a two-edged sword and I’m just trying to get you to see where the sword is hurting... I’m talking to you as a human being who has dealt with tens of millions of people from a hundred countries and here’s what I can tell you. There are patterns that make you angry, patterns that can make you sad, there are patterns that excite you, there are patterns that make you grateful. You gotta choose your patterns well. Because otherwise, you’ll let the culture choose them for you... I’m not saying the movement is wrong. I’m saying everything has a consequence… and you want to use things in a way that doesn’t addict you to your problems and you don’t want to be a victim. If you use it and it doesn’t make you a victim, I’m thrilled... (To the audience) I’m saying man or woman, if you get in a pattern of victimization, who’s it going to hurt? (Crowd) You... ask yourself a question: How do I want to live my life? Do I want significance through problems or significance through growth? This is a message that applies not just to the #MeToo movement, but to much of modern politics. This is a bigger problem for the Left than the Right, but it does apply to both sides.
Any political movement that tells you that you are a victim should be suspect. Any movement that constantly tries to make you angry should be suspect. Any movement that takes something almost universally despised like racism, rape, cops shooting unthreatening, unarmed people or violence against kids and says, “We’re against that and the other side is for it” should be suspect. If you’re a feminist and you find that you’re starting to not like men, there’s something wrong with what you’re doing. If you’re a men’s rights advocate and you’re starting to feel hostile toward women, there’s something wrong with what you’re doing.
Speaking of states, what kind of state is our politics putting us in these days? Not Republican politics, not Democrat politics, but politics? Does it bring us together or push us apart? Does it make us feel like we can solve our problems together or like it’s hopeless to even try? Are there people trying to work things out or is the Internet full of partisans screaming profanities at strangers they've demonized for disagreeing with them? Which options make us happy long term vs. short term? What makes for happier people? For a happier country?
Politics has never been a business for angels, but only in the last couple of decades have most people stopped asking questions like this altogether. Tony Robbins is looking at all of this from a perspective of what’s best for human beings, not what’s best for a political tribe. More Americans should embrace that approach.
“Any political movement that tells you that you are a victim should be suspect.”
This is very true. I often think of people I’ve known - people who seem trapped in poverty or bad relationships, or Black people convinced that racism is keeping them down, etc. - who have fallen into this trap.
Of course there have been injustices, and still are; of course there are things to be angry about. But dwelling on the injustice and continuing in anger over it isn’t HEALTHY for a person. On a deep level, they are accepting all sorts of assumptions, spoken and unspoken, that just drag them down.
You become what you dwell upon consistently and with conviction; you live in conditions you’ve mentally and emotionally created for yourself.
The evil comes with failing to take our troubles to the Lord. If we just take them to secular humanity, we might get sympathy but no redemption story to invest them in.
Shaming the word “victim” out of discourse is but one more proud perversity with no acknowledgment of a Victor from Heaven.
U don’t get it: O.J. was set up.
All that is needed for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.
And there will always be those among us who ardently insist that is more virtuous to do nothing.
I’m mocking victimhood.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Always casting oneself as a “victim” in this world of impermanence is like having a bleating sheep staked as bait for predators. It has that pattern of karma.
It is un-American. If one happens to have been assaulted, train in becoming a warrior. It’s the American way. Don’t gather into a herd of bleaters. It just does not work, In the long run you will have to face another predator aggressor. All the bleating in the world won’t help you.
Get some skills. You’ll be glad you did . You will be able to protect yourself and those you love, instead of being a victim, become a skilled protector with a huge heart.Then you will have become a great American. Then Make America Great Again!
I’m speaking against self-pity and politicizing one’s ‘victimhood’; not against responsible, level-headed thought and action.
Many years ago I worked for a small non profit in San Diego. I was the only woman in management. The day of my interview I arrived early and had to sit and listen to a crazy receptionist wearing a halter top with her boobs hanvgng and who proceeded to tell me that a) she was hungover from last night and b) she had a sexual harassment suit against the boss. She was so nutty I just ignored it. She was gone by the time I was hired. After working there for several months I learned they spent a lot of money on an investigation before they were able ot let her go. I also noticed that during staff meetings everyone seemed a tad nervous. During one of those meetings, probably after I had been there a month or so, the boss started talking about harassment policies. I stopped and said, “Is this because of that reception, because let me tell you, she was a nut! I could feel the sense of relief. This #METOO thing is setting woman back decades and the more they scream the worse it’s going to be for them. I stand with Tony Robbins. We have to stop the left from destroying people lives and reputations. For the first time in my life, I am seriously fearful for this Country.
I thought that was Marion Barry’s line. /wry>
It is un-American.
Amen to that, my FRiend!
It is un-American and un-Buddhist and I am both. :)
Not sure exactly why...
But...
Glad I read This post.
It is un-American and un-Buddhist and I am both. :) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hey, I resemble that remark ! How are you dear FRiend?
The other day I was asked to take one of the girls in the office with me to collect lunch for everybody and I replied “Nope. Too easy for something to be alleged that didn’t happen.
I don’t take female colleagues alone in a car anywhere. “
I was ridiculed.
Eff em.
“I don’t take female colleagues alone in a car anywhere. “
Good for you.
I’m a woman with three sons and three grandsons-———it’s a “guilty until proven innocent” world for men.
.
.
I knew Global Warming was a scam when politicians (particularly Al Gore) jumped on board
I knew #metoo was a scam when Hillary Clinton tried to claim it as her own
I knew you did. heh
You are one of the few here that would get the second part of my statement.
Unfortunately too few western Buddhists would get it either.
I am doing OK.
I have been better and I have been worse but it is what it is isn’t it? :)
I am the only one who has ever victimized me and that is a good thing to know. When I get tired of it I don’t have to go far to deal with the troublemaker! lol
While the other 95% said silently to themselves. YEP, he's right.
#Metoo is empty when most who are #Metoo disregarded all previous sex assaults and crime etc, and benefited by saying nothing. It’s a scam that buries those who were true victims rendering them mute and victimized again.
You are absolutely correct.
But I’m also concerned about men being tried and convicted in the ‘court of public opinion’. Today, a woman just has to point her finger and tell a story, and a man’s life can be seriously harmed if not destroyed.
Tony Robbins made an ass out of himself when he promoted Tookie Williams.
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