[Neurons] 2017 "Neurons" #6 Review: "I'm Not Your Guru; I Just Behave as if I am"

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2017 "Neurons" #6

January 30, 2017

A Critical Review of the Movie

 

 

I'M NOT YOUR GURU,

I JUST BEHAVE AS IF I AM

 

 

Here's my bias as I begin this review: I like Anthony Robbins; I always
have.  From the first time I read Unlimited Power, I knew that he had a real
gift of explaining difficult things.  Then over the years, it became evident
that he was a genius in marketing, branding, and entertaining.  Even to this
day, I would guess that Tony brings more people into the field of NLP than
all of the rest of us combined.  Years ago I had a front row seat as I saw
how Richard Bandler treated Tony that caused Tony to stop saying the three
letters, "NLP" in public.  That's should not have happened; Richard should
have put an mantle of honor on Tony.

 

So what follows here is not a criticism of Tony personally.  Instead it is a
critique of his new movie and its unfortunate message.  The title of the
movie is, I'm Not Your Guru, and it is about Robbins and his work,
especially the "Date with Destiny" program.   Now to his credit, Tony begins
the movie by saying that he is not a guru and doesn't want to be.  He also
explains to the unknown interviewer that he does not have "the answer" to
people's dilemmas and that there are many paths.  All of that is good and I
congratulate him on saying:

"Who am I?  I'm not your guru.  Not here to fix you.  You are not broken."

 

But ...  and this is a big but, in spite of those disclaimers, there are
many things in the movie that say otherwise.  In fact, there are several
things that Robbins does that will, in effect, actually encourage people to
think of him as a guru.  That's unfortunate.  So unless Tony changes these
things, people will continue thinking of him as a guru and he will have to
continue dis-avowing that he is not a guru.  To behave in these aspects
-aspects that a guru would act- actually argues against all of one's
disclaimers to the contrary.  In writing the following critical review of
the movie, my objective is to use some critical thinking to offer some
balance to Tony.

 

Now the movie is very well edited and produced. It is engaging and it is
emotional.  The voice over sections powerfully tie together some of the
interview questions while showing Tony back stage or the thousands of people
in the audience or the beautiful scenes in Florida.   Overall, it is very
well done.  And much that Tony presents is good.  But in terms of the title
about not being a guru, the movie does not demonstrate that at all.  In
fact, I think the movie actually encourages people to think of him as a
guru.  I'm here using "guru" not in the Eastern sense of "teacher" or
"master," but in the sense of being a cult leader, someone so superior that
people treat him as an enlightened being.

 

If you want to be a Guru - 

If you want to be a guru, there are certain things that you would do that
would elevate you in people's thinking.  Here are some of them:

 

1) Give No Credit

If you want to be a guru and give people the impression that you are the
source of all of your wisdom, insights, and "magic," then give no one an
credit to anyone for your message.  Quote no one.  Mention none of your
studies.  And this is exactly what Tony Robbins does in the movie for nearly
two full hours.  In fact, when he encourage people to go out and "teach
one," he refers to his tools and the tools that he has given them. 

 

>From the movie, no observer would have any idea that Tony learned what he
learned from Richard Bandler, John Grinder, and Wyatt Woodsmall.  No would
know that his first book, Unlimited Power (1985) is essentially the NLP
Practitioner course.  For two hours, there is in fact not a single reference
to NLP.  It is as if he invented every process that he has learned and he is
the source of all of that wisdom.  Doing that is not the way to demonstrate
that "I am not your guru."  It is the opposite.  Do that and people will
quote you and you only.  What else are they to think?

 

Yet within the movie itself are many things that come from NLP.  In the
opening scene, for example, Tony does a pattern interrupt when he interrupts
a young man's pattern of hating himself and wanting to hit himself.   Tony
asked, "Why you hate yourself so much?"  There's a moment of hesitation,
then he does a humor interrupt, "Is it because of the red shoes?"   He looks
down at his shoes.  "Those are fucking red shoes."  The young man smiles.
Tony warns, "Now be careful, you'll start to enjoy yourself."  Other
patterns within the movie that come from NLP are Change Personal History and
Collapsing of Anchors.  But in all of that, not a single word is uttered to
give credit to NLP as the source.

 

2) Speak in Absolute and Global Terms

As a great entertainer with tremendous showmanship, Tony is bigger than
life, his "show" is bigger than life, and he speaks about things in that
kind of grandiose way.  This both makes him effective and equally makes him
ineffective.  He speaks using extreme language statements.   Who else would
title a book, Unlimited Power?  But power is limited.  And no one but God
has unlimited power!  He calls upon people to be is totally passionate.  He
speaks about his program, "The Ultimate Business Mastery" about adding
massive pleasure, adding massive pain, engaging in massive action plan.

 

All this encourages people to think about him as bigger than life and about
being cut from a different clothe than the rest of us.  If you don't want to
be viewed as a guru, sprinkle in some down-to-earth language.  Quote your
sources, temper your speech with tentative words, avoid absolute terms that
polarize life into two categories.

 

By speaking in these over-simplistic ways, using over-exaggerated terms, and
failing to speak with precision- he leaves the impression that he has
absolute truth.  On day five from the stage he poses the question, "Who has
not had a breakthrough at this point?"  Then he asks a rhetorical question,
"How could you not have a breakthrough?"  After letting the question sit in
the air for a moment, he gives the answer.  It was the theme of the day, "If
you're in your head, your dead."  So he announced, "You are in your head."
Apparently there's no other possibility or alternative answer.

 

Speaking about the lack of precision, he also uses the F-word frequently and
commented later that it is his way of breaking patterns and shaking people
up by using outrageous words.  He shouts from the stage, "I'm fucking
unstoppable."

 

The advice he gives sounds right, but the problem is that it is so general
that it doesn't take any context or constraints into account.  When Sienna,
a 19-year old girl, stands and says she has a problem with her diet, he asks
a series of questions and eventually she says that she's looking for love.
Tony asks whether it was dad or mom that she didn't get the love that she
wanted.  It was dad.  He announces,  "She loves him, she just hates it that
she loves him so much."  A little later he announces, "As much as you hate
what he does, he hates himself more."  Is he psychic?  She nods, so he must
be!  Or maybe it is just over-generalized statements that could be true of
anyone, of everyone.  "What if you called him and blame him for all these
things. ...  You also need to blame him for all the good too.  Give credit
for what's great about you."

              

>From the stage he talks about problems and announces, "Your biggest problem
is that you think you shouldn't have them!"  He talks about the problems he
had with his mother and that it made him "the man that I am proud to be
today."  So that seals the deal: problems are good.  Of course, what's
lacking is any precision about what kind of problems are we talking about.

                                                                      

3) Be a Fantastic Faith Healer

Watching this movie reminded me of many of the old televangelists of the
1970s and 1980s, Oral Roberts, Jimmy  Swaggart, and others.  Crowds in the
thousands, loud gospel music, charismatic faith leader encountering a person
who suffers desperately, commanding devils to flee, the person falling back,
swooning, God be praised!  Even the music in the movie reminded me of the
music in those big events.  And the movie ends with dimmed lights and Tony
doing a hypnotic induction to the music of Amazing Grace.  Is this "The
Church of Tony?"

 

Tony did that at the beginning with Matyas, a suicidal young man from
Berlin, and then later with Dawn, a young woman from Brazil who sold all of
her furniture to come to the training as her last hope.  On Day three he
said, "Raise your hand if you're really fucked up!  Someone who is
suicidal."  It was Dawn, the young 26-year old woman, who was still
suffering from sexual traumas from having grown up in a cult.

 

But the problem with the movie is that the suicide issue is treated as if it
is solved once and for all by an experience with Tony, and that's it.
Actually, I was surprised at these parts of the movie because for years
problems with suicides have plagued Tony.  Once in Germany three people who
had attended his program committed suicide afterwards, it also happened in
Australia and other places.  The over-emotional and over-intense program
(which used to go to two and three in the morning) put a real strain on
people already wounded by life and frail in terms of their ego-strength.

 

Like faith healers, the movie presents dramatic and intense "confrontations"
that Tony has with the people in the audience.  He calls his "interventions"
or "demonstrations."  He style is to go out and find someone in the audience
and interact with them in a way that seems incredibly "personal" and yet it
is only superficially so.  No one could "coach" or do a therapy intervention
in the way he talks and interacts with people.  Well, unless you have 3,000
people watching you!  Yet people respond quickly and dramatically!  Why?
Probably because they are on stage with three thousand people watching!  No
wonder they are so responsive.

 

When he dealt with Dawn who raised her hand about thinking about suicide,
afterwards he explained that the solution "just came through me."  He
explained that his own difficult childhood set him up so his mission now is
to save others from a horrible childhood. 

                                          

4) Set Up Subtle Audience Response Rituals

To "work the crowd" Tony has several processes that are both exciting and at
the same time subtly persuasive and maybe even manipulative.  He repeatedly
presents something and then asks, "Who agrees with me? ... Say Yes!" And
with that comes a chorus of yeses.   It sounds obvious and innocent.  Yet it
actually taps into some of the power of group dynamics.  Just imagine
hearing three-thousand people shouting "Yes!"  Even if you didn't say yes,
you just heard a whole auditorium exploding with "Yes!" repeatedly, that
ritual will put you into a yes-set.  And the yes-set creates a subtle
influence that predisposes a person to agree and value and to avoid thinking
it through.

 

Similarly when he gets people saying "I."  "How many  are for that?  Say
'I'!"   "Who gets that?  Say 'I!'" "Who knows what I'm talking about?  Say
'I!'" The sound of "I" as a chorus in an auditorium echoing around
encourages people to take ownership of it and personalize whatever was said
or presented.  Effective?  Yes.  Manipulative?  I think we have to say yes
to that as well.

 

5) Always Make Everything Positive and Upbeat 

The entire "I'm not your Guru" movie is not a documentary although from the
beginning of the film it seems to suggest that. "This is the first time
Robbins has allowed outside cameras to fully document the six-day event."
Yet the film asks no hard questions, and it doesn't present any skepticism
about anything.  While there's no indication what the Joe Berlinger Film is,
it strikes me as a video production company that Tony hired to create the
"Date with Destiny" Video to sell the program.  In the end, everything is
positive and upbeat.  There's no failures, no downside, no "let the buyer
beware."  There are no constraints or concerns presented. This is good if
you want to be a guru.  It is counter-productive if you do not want to be a
guru.

 

After challenging one young woman about whether she is getting what she
wants from the relationship.  She shook her head no.  He then ask her in
front of the thousands to get her boyfriend on the phone.  When she let him
know her dissatisfaction; the call did not end well.  He hung up on her.  In
a voice-over, the interviewer asked Tony, "Are you ever concerned about
giving the wrong piece of advice?"  He says that he watches their body and
what their body "tells him is right."  "It's true because her whole nervous
system responds."  "I'm looking for what's real."  In this, he answers the
question, not directly but indirectly: "I never give wrong advice."!  At the
end of the film in the credits, however, we learn Hali and her boyfriend
have decided to stay together.

 

Conclusion

The movie I Am Not Your Guru is a very entertaining film, well-crafted, and
highlights the "Date with Destiny" seminar.   It will probably be great as a
promotion for selling that seminar.  It is also a self-promotional marketing
film and not a documentary movie and not from an objective third-party
perspective.  

Most importantly, in terms of the title, it does not demonstrate that Tony
Robbins does not want to be your guru.  In fact, due to the things
mentioned, what it shows is precisely what would be recommended to a person
who wants to be seen as a guru.  Now if Tony Robbins is serious about not
being seen as a guru, here's what I recommend that he do.

           Quote sources, give credit to NLP for the original source of his
skills.  Invite people to read or consult sources outside of himself.

           Temper his language patterns by using more precise language.

           Present cautions to the audience and to the people he works with
letting them know that he is not a psychologist, does not have therapeutic
training, and that if they are suicidal they should seek professional
assistance.

           Temper his use of the reverberating "Yeses!" and "Say 'I'" that
he uses.

           Present some non-dramatic conversations and/or interventions so
to convey the idea that change doesn't require big dramatic instantaneous
transformations.

           Co-train with other people on his staff so that it is not all
about him.

 

 

 

By L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.,  <http://www.neurosemantics.com/>
www.neurosemantics.com.   <mailto:Meta at acsol.net> meta at acsol.net 

 

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