Grifters
If this doesn’t destroy the reputation of Tony Robbins and hopefully every other motivational speaker/New Age faith healer/grifter in America, what will?
Fire officials said 21 people at an event hosted by motivational speaker Tony Robbins suffered burns while walking across hot coals and three of the injured were treated at hospitals.
The injuries took place during the first day Thursday of a four-day event at the San Jose Convention Center hosted by Robbins called “Unleash the Power Within.” Most of those hurt had second and third degree burns, said San Jose Fire Department Capt. Reggie Williams.
Walking across hot coals on lanes measuring 10 feet long and heated to between 1,200 to 2,000 degrees provides attendees an opportunity to “understand that there is absolutely nothing you can’t overcome,” according to the motivational speaker’s website.
Nothing you can’t overcome. Except 2000 degree hot coals.
Bah. Nothing a few tax cuts won’t cure.
It won’t change a thing. They are the secular versions of crazy preachers. They will just say the injured people didn’t believe enough…
BINGO!
They just didn’t have enough “faith” in Robbins and themselves.
Religious grifters use this all of the time:
“Either you ain’t prayin’ hard enough, or you ain’t prayin’ right. (Or you’re just a FECKIN’ LOSER, Rube – HA!).
Try it ’til you get it right. Follow what I told you, tither some more money, and you’ll be rich and successful, because God and Jesus will love you. (SUCKER!!!)”
Wow! Things never change. Dave Barry wrote a whole column making fun of this groundbreaking business-motivational fad in 1985.
This shit goes all the way back to Dale Carnegie (d. 1955). Carnegie started out as a respected public speaking instructor but over the years injected more and more motivational crap and pseudopsychology into his teachings.
But the true father of the self-help grifterhood was Napoleon Hill (d. 1970). Pretty much everything Robbins, Covey and the rest of the current lot babble is just repackaged Hill.
Greylocks seems to know too much about this genre of grifting.
For just $249.95, you can learn it too!
I never understood the opposition to charging people a round number. Round numbers are much more aesthetically pleasing.
Heh.
To defeat the enemy, you must first know him.
I worked for a book wholesaler in the 1970s. We sold case lots of Hill’s crap, especially Think and Grow Rich. Being a young, stupid and underemployed recent college graduate, I read that book because everyone else was reading it and I figured it would be great to get rich just thinking.
I thought, but I did not grow rich.
Non-religious and quasi-religious oogity-boogity. It’s a short leap from Robbins and Chopra to crystals, dreamcatchers and anti-vaccine list-serves. The final step is organic farm communes and “elders” donning suits made of bubble wrap.
Eh, you can get quality carrots from organic farm communes.
Don’t knock bubble wrap until you’ve tried it!
A: Nothing. See, e.g., Duke and the Dauphin.
You might as well ask what Sarah Palin can do that would lead her to fade into obscurity.
Grifters, swindlers, and faith healers are a proud American tradition.
You might as well ask what Sarah Palin can do that would lead her to fade into obscurity.
My honest, politically incorrect answer: Lose her looks, and she’s just about half way there. There are very few attractive right wing idiots who have held office. But there are plenty of just plain old idiots with such credentials.
You’ll be OK as long as you walk fast enough and don’t fall down. And slowpoke tripping types show God’s disfavor.
Also go first, before the ash layer gets knocked off. Mass fire-walking doesn’t work.
(This might mean Robbins actually believes his own load of manure, and isn’t just fleecing the rubes with a physics trick.)
And the coals are suppose to made from light balsa type wood that may get very hot do have allot of BTUs to transfer to the foot. Like electricity “it’s not the voltage, it’s the amps that kill you”
How much ya wanna bet some moron just bought bags of hickory chips at the home depot?
And I have my doubts about the 2000F degrees, to smelt iron at 1500F requires charcoal and bellows, I’d say 1000F is the max.
Edit: And the coals are suppose to made from light balsa type wood that WHILE THEY may get very hot do NOT have allot of BTUs to transfer to the foot. Like electricity “it’s not the voltage, it’s the amps that kill you”
I get it, I get the almost universal human need to belong to something, anything, to believe. I’m just glad that takes the form of me being a total music fanatic, not walking across 2000 degree coals barefooted.
If they were just stealing people’s money, that might be different. Depends on whom. People getting hurt? Whatever. Glennolds will ignore it, so the feeding chamber for Drudge doesn’t have to deal, and life goes on. Meanwhile, was the Batman shooter a liberal? It would be irresponsible not to ask! (I know. sorry.)
It’s hardly a secret how to do the hot coals stunt safely. Even Mythbusters did it. It’s all in walking technique.
Somebody screwed up and there should be criminal charges.
They sort of did it. Adam got burned. Not really one of MB’s better moments.
yeah, because they didn’t tell him the proper way to walk. He stepped too quickly, and the additional pressure from jumping that little bit worked through the protective layer of cooler coal surface.
Also, it is common to do it at dusk, when the coals have cooled on the surface, but look bright; and then there is a bunch of dew on the grass that transfers to the feet.
Yeah, some Robbins flunky cut some corners and fucked up. Yeah, he should be sued. But I dunno if the idiots who were subscribing to his malarkey deserve the proceeds.
Tony Robbins should show how motivated he is by lying down in the hot coals. There’s nothing he can’t do.
“You’re sharpenin’ stones
Walkin’ on coals
To improve your business acumen.”
Bravo!
geez, don’t be ridiculous. if these people were stupid enough to pay him for his gibberish in the first place, a little third-degree burn isn’t going to deter them.
i can distill mr. robbins’ entire spiel in one short sentence: “you can do it!”
that will be $500 please.
“Nothing you can’t overcome. Except 2000 degree hot coals. ”
DO you mind if I steal it and use it in a motivational speech?
Robbins and his multiple cons have always been proof of the sheer gullibility of millions of people and the power of glib, rich assholes to delude them. It’s depressing that even corporations fall for Robbins’ infomercial hucksterism, enough for his cons to make him a fat 8-figure income. From the beginning, he was as transparent as a Don Lapre (without the satisfactory ending) only what he was selling was even stupider. It’s hard to accept that so many Americans can be swindled so easily, or the fact that Sean Hannity has millions of actual fans, but one only has to look at the modern GOP to grasp that it’s all too real.
Tony Robbins is proving on a daily basis that Mencken and Barnum were correct.
This is weak tea compared to the continuing scam perpetrated on us since the dawn of civilization. Crusades, Inquisitions, suicide bombers, and all the people whose lives are ruined by shame and persecution, and we still treat religious mouthpieces with respect and deference, just because they’ve had thousands of years to work on the patter. The “religious grifters” aren’t just the ones asking for money on the telly. A few toasted soles is nothing.
Can he be sued?
Or, as I suspect, does each attendee have to sign about eleventy pages of legal releases with more opaque fine print than a sub-prime mortgage?
I’m really disappointed that his old infomercials don’t seem to be on YouTube. I especially treasure the one touting the great success of Barry Melrose, Jim Lefebvre, and some guy who once had a bit part in a Charlie Sheen movie. Only the Tom Bosley ones were better.
“At first I got lots of discouragement from friends and stranger who are loser! You know what these people kept telling me? They kept saying, ‘Well Tom Vu, you a crazy nut, here you are, a poor immigrant, poor minority, speak no English, no contact, on and on, and you trying to be rich in America! You crazy, man! Look at people out there! They smarter than you are, they not even rich! Who are you to try?’ And you know what? I have to keep telling these people every time, I kept saying, ‘You are loser! Get out of my way! I make it somehow!’”
Ok, I concede the point, Robbins and Bosley are #2 and #3 at best. You too can live like this!
Let me introduce you to Peter Popoff and his Miracle Spring Water.
Though the movie was kinda lame as a whole, Tom Cruise’s performance as a self-help guru in Magnolia, was pretty great.
PS looks like these people should have gone to Landmark Forum instead. They brainwash you and take your $ but as far as I know, your feet are safe.
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