Robbins, Anthony

Anthony Robbins, original name Anthony J. Mahavorick, (born February 29, 1960, Glendora, California, U.S.), American motivational speaker and “life coach” who created a multifaceted business empire by preaching a gospel of self-improvement.

Robbins was born Anthony J. Mahavorick to a working-class family. In childhood he adopted the surname of a stepfather. During his youth he discovered that he had a talent for public speaking, and he began to read the works of such inspirational writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Dale Carnegie. Robbins did not go to college but instead took a job organizing seminars for the motivational speaker Jim Rohn. He also trained with John Grinder, a linguist and codeveloper of “modeling,” a technique through which a trainee attains success by closely copying the conscious and unconscious behaviour of a successful person.

In the early 1980s Robbins began to hold his own seminars, which came to be described as secular revival meetings. Grinder’s regimen, called Neuro-Linguistic Programming, had featured fire walking as a confidence builder, and Robbins began to incorporate the experience into his own programs. (In a celebrated stunt he guided Oprah Winfrey through a fire walk.) He built up a following by writing books and later by producing audiobooks, television infomercials, DVDs, and smartphone apps. In 2010 he hosted a short-lived reality TV show, Breakthrough with Tony Robbins.

As a motivational speaker, Robbins came in later years to increasingly focus on financial success and to tailor his services specifically to entrepreneurs, business owners, and wealthy people. His most notable general event was an annual six-day gathering attended by thousands of participants, each of whom paid thousands of dollars for a seat.

Robbins’s books included Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement (1986); Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical & Financial Destiny (1991); and Money—Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom (2014). Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook (2017) and The : Accelerating Your Journey to Financial Freedom (2020) were both written with Peter Mallouk. The documentary film Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru, directed by Joe Berlinger, was released in 2016.