Is Tony Robbins the new Jesus.............
While talking to the good people of Fubar I came across someone who had been to one of this guys "shows" turned out on further questioning she was one of his volunteers, or disciples as I would refer to the poor misguided souls. So this got me round to thinking, maybe this guy is the new Jesus, so I looked for evidence and similarities between the two.
Both are good talkers............... yep
Both project/projected a strong personality.......... yep
Both perform miricles*................ yep
Both empower the poor through non violet protest...... yep
Both live a simple humble life......... nope
(not unless you count 18 cars, 5 houses, 2 boats and a helicopter as simple, p.s. those are not in the Bible, if you were wondering which of the two owns them)
Both are surrounded by a band of followers who hang on every word... yep
Both promise you a better life is you listen to them.......... yep
O.K. I am joking, I am sure (but not 100%) not even Tony would think he was Jesus, but I am sure you would agree that they do kinda have the same message. There are a couple more differences, Jesus was not sued by the Federal Trade Commission on charges that he had misrepresented the potential earnings of franchises in his motivational seminars or by Financial seminar guru Wade Cook on the grounds that Tony has lifted concepts and terms from his seminars and his book, Wall Street Money Machine, during the creation of a competing financial course.......... naughty Tony lost both cases, I wonder if his personal empowerment took a hit ?
I admit, I have never read one of his books or seen one of the "shows" he puts on, quoting myself "I have seen the crappy advert on the shopping channel does that count" (she told me it did not) so in the interest of a balanced view point and to show I am open to new ideas, I agreed to read a book by him, so off I went to ebay and got me one. I must admit I was shocked to see just how many on offer there were, but thinking about it I worked out why, all those who had read the book were now multi millionaires sitting on tropical islands, and they had got the butler to put the book on ebay for $4 , silly me, what was I thinking.
Imagine a doctor urged you to undergo a treatment and encouraged you with tales of successful patients. He failed, however, to mention that the treatment fails with 90 percent of patients like you. You’d sue and win in any court in the land.
Yet self-help gurus routinely make similar recommendations without reprisal. For example, haven’t you heard a guru intone that the secret of success is self-esteem, affirmations, or meditation? Or urge you to “dream it and you can do it.”? Or even “Don’t push. When it’s meant to be, it’ll be.” You’re sceptical but gurus seduce you with tales of how they or an acolyte, with a dream and some effort, went from depressed to delighted, rags to riches, dung shoveller to star.
What the gurus don’t tell you are the odds. Sure, it worked for their cherry-picked exemplar or for themselves. After all, they were smart, driven, and/or lucky enough to get a book published or to appear on Oprah. The problem is that the typical consumer of their nostrums isn’t as smart, driven, and lucky. The gurus don’t tell you that for every Million-Dollar-Baby success story, there are countless people who bought Guru’s exhortations yet are still mumbling in their beer.
I’m now tempted to attend some guru’s introductory workshop designed to up-sell attendees a long (read “expensive”) workshop and ask, “What percentage of your workshop attendees significantly improved their life as a result?” If the guru were honest, he’d probably say he doesn’t know—few gurus are brave enough to validly evaluate their exhortations’ and incantations’ efficacy.
next rant, God gets both barrels, Religious types cover your eyes.............
p.s. any spelling/grammar errors are the result of me been only really smart at math
