01 Oct The event that changed Tony Robbins’ path

Tony Robbins is one of the most renowned life coaches, self-help authors, and motivational speakers in the world. He is known for his high-energy seminars and his ability to motivate people to take action and achieve their goals. He’s helped millions of people across the globe to overcome their issues and achieve success.

Robbins became a best-selling author and millionaire by the time be was 26 years old. This success, however, was not the result of a stable, supportive upbringing and a great education. As we’ll find out, Robbins had a challenging childhood and it took an inspirational event to change his trajectory.

How Tony Robbins was raised

Tony Robbins was born in Glendora, California, in 1960 and was the eldest of three siblings. He has described his home life as “chaotic” and “abusive”.

“I had to protect my brother and sister, so I became a practical psychologist just out of necessity.”

Robbins has described being physically abused by his mother as a child and that he was even chased out of the house by her with a knife when he was 17 years old. However, in a CNBC interview, Robbins attributes his difficult relationship with his mother as a key reason he became successful.

“If my mom had been the mother I thought I wanted, I wouldn’t be as driven; I wouldn’t be as hungry. I wouldn’t have suffered, so I probably wouldn’t have cared about other people’s suffering as much as I do. And it made me obsessed with wanting to understand people and help create change.”

Turning point

At the age of 17, Robbins left home, never to return. He took a job as a janitor after school and never attended college. On the weekends, he helped people move house to earn some more cash. On one house move, he cheekily asked the landlord, a family friend:

“My dad said you used to be such a loser, and how come you’re so successful now?”

The landlord told him that he started to turn his life around after going to a Jim Rohn seminar, which he described as “a man takes everything he’s learned in 20, 30 years of his life, and he pours it into like four hours.” This was the beginning of a dramatic change in Robbins’ trajectory.

So one week, Robbins decided to do something different with his earnings.

“I made this big decision to spend a week’s pay ($40) to go to Jim Rohn’s event, and I sat there and I was mesmerised. And that’s what started the game for me.”

Robbins described Rohn’s approach as captivating, and said it captured what he was trying to get from life at that exact moment.

“[Rohn] gave me a way of looking at life that allowed me to not ask life to be easier, but to ask that I be better. He got me to realise that the secret to life was to work harder on myself than my job or anything else, because then I’d have something to give people. And he really shaped me.”

Bestselling speaker and author

Robbins is best-known as a motivational speaker and his live events have become the stuff of legend. He has written many bestselling books, but the two considered his most famous are Awaken the Giant Within and Money, Master the Game.

Tony Robbins’ net worth is now an estimated $600m.

One conversation, one event, one realisation. Sometimes that’s all it takes to change someone’s path.