Anthony J. Mahavorick, aka Tony Robbins is probably the most well-known NLP student of all time. At one point in his truly remarkable career Tony was estimated to be worth $800 million and had an infomercial for his Personal Power product on TV somewhere in North America every 30 minutes. Tony learnt NLP back in the 80s and really did 'go for it' and apply what he learnt fully, fueling a career that went on to establish him and his "Mega" seminars as one of the top events to go to in the personal development world. He has coached or advised some of the top sports, business and politicians of our time.

If you have ever seen Tony at a live seminar you will know he is an exceptional presenter and master crowd communicator. Even in Great Britain, a country known for being quite conservative in behaviour he will have 10,000+ attendees from the UK and around the world jumping up and down and celebrating like a rock concert crowd and singing "life will never be the same!".

So just how does he do this? What NLP methods are observable in his presentations? In this 3-part video analysis of a UPW Preview event, I examine many of these themes. I look at both the auditory and visual anchoring used, how Tony directs their attention, how he seeds beliefs and chains thoughts. You'll see Tony setup a propulsion system and demonstrate excellent state management and elicitation.

For those of you who watched my Derren Brown Trains of Thought Analysis (here), the key thing to keep in mind is that unlike Darren's fast NLP techniques to alter states with a specific outcome in mind, Tony will be seeding thoughts and stacking anchors overtime which to a non-trained eye are far too subtle to be picked up. Even when you know NLP, it is easy not to 'see' what he is doing.

We pick up this analysis in video 1 where Tony is setting the frames for the beginning of the session, setting a hook to hang the rest of the presentation on.

He skillfully guides the audience through a journey, moving from doubt, pessimism to really want to go for changing their lives. In terms of NLP skills demonstrated, by the end of the presentation Tony will have setup a number of anchored states, convincers and a new perspective to move toward creating an extraordinary life.

Remember a little practice, done regularly is worth a lot more than a lot of "someday I'll get really good" talk.

Before you watch, please note I don't cover every aspect and have intentionally left some NLP aspects uncommented. Also, please be aware that the volume contrast between Tony's presentation and my speaking over varies so I suggest you keep your volume semi-low until you've calibrated to the right sound level for you.

CAUTION: The audio levels in the following videos vary widely while playing back elements of the live workshop. Therefore, please turn your audio down at 00:45 to avoid discomfort.

Video 1: Tony Beginning To Build A Propulsion System And Reframe Common Resistance Beliefs

Video 2: Anchoring An Extraordinary Life, Chaining Ideas And Eliciting A Self-Convincer

Video 3: Amplifying Certainty State, Teaching Self-Anchoring And Finally Triggering "Go For It"

Practical Application:

So after watching the above videos, what have you learnt? What did you notice that Tony does very well that perhaps you can use when doing your own presenting? Did you notice how when Tony anchored the audience he didn't look at his hand and give it attention .. his anchoring was outside conscious awareness and over the videos he amplified and chained more ideas to that left hand gesture (the anchor). How can you use that technique deliberately in your own talks?

Or perhaps you can use the disarming way Tony skillfully reframed and outframed likely limiting beliefs that stop people from going for the things they want. Notice how he didn't try to intellectualise it to his audience. He engaged their emotions and leveraged the peak states of his audience to have them re-affirm his earlier beliefs. Powerful.

Regardless of what skill level you are at, there are most certainly many aspects you could model from this presentation to how you use NLP in your life. Remember a little practice, done regularly is worth a lot more than a lot of "someday I'll get really good" talk.

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