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ILP
September 2006 
Day 2 - Persistence
Posted on Feb 5th, 2006
by 
Tuff Ghost
Tuff Ghost
You might think I'm in trouble writing a blog post called persistence on day two, but bear with me here. I had a moderately interesting last twenty four hours. Last night I went out with friends to celebrate the fact that I'm going back to Melbourne. Another friend is also setting sail for Sydney, so it was a bit of a farewell drunken shindig. Now, what was interesting was having a drunken conversation with a close friend of mine, about, of all things, Tony Robbins.
You can call me a Tony Robbins skeptic. Not because his stuff doesn't work, or whatever, but just because his whole image is so hyperreal that it's hard to take him seriously. Doubtless some of that comes with the territory, but it would be nice to have a super duper motivational coach who didn't give off batshit insane super achiever vibes. TONY ROBBINS HUNGRY.
Anyway, my friend is a bit of a fan of Tony, so we got chatting about the strengths and weaknesses of NLP and the various approaches. By chatting I mean "How FUCKING GOOD is the hour of power? Hell yeah man!" All loudly shouted in the confines of the very yuppie Belgian beer bar. I think at one point I may have said "With my booksmarts, and your ability to exploit people with booksmarts, we're gonna change the world!" This was followed by several promises to call him in the next couple of days, though for what purpose I can't remember.
Still, it was nice to have some common ground to discuss some pretty wide ranging topics. He was notably impressed that Tony Robbins had endorsed Ken Wilber (cue several more Fuck yeahs!) and me likewise. It's also nice to see someone who's gone the Tony route and succeeded, at least in material terms if nothing else. It's also challenging for me to put my cynicism in a box, at least for a little while. That's what I'll be doing for the next 90, sorry one hundred, days if nothing else.
This morning I went to church, to listen to the chaplain from Baxter detention centre talk. To be honest, it wasn't a particularly good talk, but interesting nonetheless, particularly since the chaplain's job involves counselling suicidal asylum seekers. Very much a world away from yuppie beer bars and superachiever talk.
So we're trying to find the happy medium between those two poles. Personal Power and Personal Powerlessness.
You can call me a Tony Robbins skeptic. Not because his stuff doesn't work, or whatever, but just because his whole image is so hyperreal that it's hard to take him seriously. Doubtless some of that comes with the territory, but it would be nice to have a super duper motivational coach who didn't give off batshit insane super achiever vibes. TONY ROBBINS HUNGRY.
Anyway, my friend is a bit of a fan of Tony, so we got chatting about the strengths and weaknesses of NLP and the various approaches. By chatting I mean "How FUCKING GOOD is the hour of power? Hell yeah man!" All loudly shouted in the confines of the very yuppie Belgian beer bar. I think at one point I may have said "With my booksmarts, and your ability to exploit people with booksmarts, we're gonna change the world!" This was followed by several promises to call him in the next couple of days, though for what purpose I can't remember.
Still, it was nice to have some common ground to discuss some pretty wide ranging topics. He was notably impressed that Tony Robbins had endorsed Ken Wilber (cue several more Fuck yeahs!) and me likewise. It's also nice to see someone who's gone the Tony route and succeeded, at least in material terms if nothing else. It's also challenging for me to put my cynicism in a box, at least for a little while. That's what I'll be doing for the next 90, sorry one hundred, days if nothing else.
This morning I went to church, to listen to the chaplain from Baxter detention centre talk. To be honest, it wasn't a particularly good talk, but interesting nonetheless, particularly since the chaplain's job involves counselling suicidal asylum seekers. Very much a world away from yuppie beer bars and superachiever talk.
So we're trying to find the happy medium between those two poles. Personal Power and Personal Powerlessness.
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