027: A $499 Zoom Call: Why I Bought Tony Robbin's UPW

Howdy folks,

Last week I paid a whopping $499 to go to a 4-day Zoom Call Event.

If this sounds crazy to you, then we’re on the same page. When I put it like that it seems a bit crazy or ridiculous. So why would I pay so much for a video call?

The reason is that this is a virtual event that has been put together by Tony Robbins called Unleash The Power Within.

Some people swear by Tony Robbins for his ability to help transform their lives. His testimonials include - Oprah, Conor McGregor, Presidents etc

But at the same time, some people see him as a TV sales personality and don’t trust him or the things he talks about.

I just wanted to share some of my honest thoughts & why I decided to go to this

My Background with Tony Robbins

I’m relatively new to the Tony Robbins world. Years ago I read Money Master the Game. I found it super helpful in pointing me towards how good index funds are for investing which stuck with me for years after

The next time I got into his world is when I did one of the free events 2 years ago. This was during covid times when I was literally locked in a room in Liverpool with covid in quarantine.

I joined the event as a sporadic - why not? There’s not much else I can do for the next 10 days.

But all in all, I enjoyed the event. There was just a lot of energy and enthusiasm and there were ideas shared there that I felt true to my own beliefs.

In the days and weeks after I did feel a bit more charged up and this helped me personal and work life. It was a little boost that I needed and it was completely free - I had nothing to lose.

The Change That is Happening Today

Now 2 years on I’m over here in Bali and I’m on a new path and journey to work and life. If 7 years ago was my 1-way ticket to Thailand to start an online business & become a digital nomad while focusing on my mental & physical health.

This right now feels like my next bigger phase in life. I’m working on how to grow bigger than me. How do I love what I do every day and how can this expand to other people?

If 2016 was about me figuring out and designing a life that I loved living. 2023/2024 is the start of me putting myself out there.

It’s sharing thoughts, ideas, resources, tutorials, how-to’s. All around the mission of “helping people sell online so that they can design lives they love living”

So where does Tony Robbins come into this?

Well here’s the thing. What I’ve learned over the past few months, and you might have felt this too in life at times.

Is that even though I feel like I have all the ideas in my head, I have everything I need in terms of resources, time & environment etc

But I still struggle with doing things that are aligned with that mission.

Yes, I set up a great video home studio - but I still have fear & insecurities of putting together a video.

Sometimes it was the thoughts that would come up

• who am I to be talking about any of this stuff
• why would anyone care
• I don’t want to be a guru or life coach
• what do I know really, I’m just a dude who’s just living my little life

Sometimes it’s not even a thought, it’s a feeling.

• anxiety or stress
• a low energy or looking for a distraction. Let’s just work on X instead of doing this video

Over the past few years, I had excuses.

My life is so chaotic. I'm bouncing between countries all the time, this is post covid & I don't have the time because i'm back with family.

I just had enough time to do the bare minimum. I had these dreams but I just didn’t create the space to go for them.

But now I created the time, space & environment.

There are no excuses - this is where it hits the hardest.

So this is where Tony Robbins comes in again.

I know it isn’t the knowledge I need - and maybe you’ve felt the same in your life at times.

I’ve read tonnes of books, blogs, and articles, and watched countless hours of videos, and podcasts.

I don’t need a how too anymore. I need a shift in a feeling within.

Now I do believe you can do so much of this work in many different ways. Meditation helps, writing, exercise, hypnosis, therapy etc.

This is all about finding a block and then starting a process of releasing, unblocking and creating a new belief, habit etc

I’m pretty open to trying new things - I’m willing to try things at least once. If there’s a chance it might help - even a little bit it can be worth it.

So that’s why I joined up to the Free 3-day Tony Robbins event. It wasn’t that I felt I would learn anything radical. But there was a hope it would shift any blocks I had - even if it was a tiny bit.

It wouldn’t cost me anything but time. But I have a feeling that if this helped it could save me time in the long run. Instead of avoiding videos an example I would feel more comfortable and be able to do it.

That was my hope anyway.

So what was the event like?

I guess it would take an entire post to go over what happened over the 3 days + the bonus day.

But I’ll try and sum up my experience.

There was a lot of jumping and moving & In general - getting hyped. There were insightful ideas around beliefs, blocks etc. There were a lot of stories of people who succeeded. There were laughs, tears & feelings of excitement and relief.

And of course, there was the upsell.

This was always going to happen of course. But I think I’m more okay than ever about people trying to sell me things. They have provided a free experience with the hope that it helps. Then offer up a bigger, better experience for people who want more of the same.

I think when it comes to experiences it’s harder to quantify than a physical object. It’s easier to understand if you’re out at a shopping mall food court. And each restaurant has a small sample of the food for free.

We don’t get annoyed at this happening. In fact, it’s helpful. You get to taste the food, have a little look inside and then decide if it works for you.

That’s pretty much how I felt about this event.

So the ultimate question that we started this whole thing about was

Why did I pay $499 for this event? Here are the 3 main reasons.

1. Feel like it would help unblock

If I could sum up my experience after the event I would say is that I felt pumped up & full of energy, excitement & enthusiasm.

When I’m in this state life feels like there is more colour. Music sounds better and I’ve just got more life to go at the things I want.

In the days after it felt easier to do work. I had new ideas. And most importantly I just felt okay to be me. Maybe it’s just that feeling of self-empowerment.

One of the blocks that came up for me was just the feelings of insecurities and doubts. This free event helps me build more confidence in my own abilities.

No, it wasn’t a magic pill that would magically solve everything. That is snake oil stuff. But how I’d describe it is this.

Growing up I used to play a lot of rugby. We had an amazing coach from New Zealand who pretty much transformed our entire school's rugby teams.

But going beyond the technical aspect of the game which he was incredible at. He would be instilling a mentality in us. The most memorable would be before a big cup game.

It still gives me goosebumps and I can feel it right in my heart.

But basically, before this big cup game which was being played in the national stadium, it was on TV etc.

We gathered in the lecture theatre in school. He made a big motivational speech, we had an ex-professional player come in to inspire us, and he played on the big screen projector a montage of all our highlights of the year.

To say we were incredibly inspired is an understatement but what happened next took it to another level.

As we finished up in the lecture theatre feeling super pumped and inspired. We went out to go get on the bus in the playground that would take us to the big stadium.

As we made our way out to the playground we were met with a sea of noise and faces.

Our entire school was out in the playground and where cheering us on.

This was a complete surprise - who would have thought the school would do this just for a game of rugby.

But our coach managed to make it happen. And it created an incredible feeling inside every single one of us.

He appreciated that it’s not all about technical skills or knowledge. That creating feelings of immense belief and self-confidence is just as important in these moments.

This is the idea of what I got from this free Tony Robbins event. Obviously, it wasn’t as immersive as this. But it was tapping into the feeling.

It was soul food to boost my self-belief more than anything.

So after getting a taste for that, I knew that the $499 would be more of the same but more.

Also the in-person event would probably be even more impactful as you get the immersive yourself with the feeling of people around you - just like the playground filled with my schoolmates cheering us on.

2. Think it will save me money & time long term

As much as I am an emotional being who feels from the heart. I can’t shift the thinking brain in me who wants to look for data and reason in making decisions as well.

As much as I love that immersive feeling and want that shift. I don’t make spontaneous decisions. Most things I do in life I have thought deeply about - probably too much I’d even say.

Maybe it’s an upbringing where I didn’t get too much or money was so readily available. I’ve always had a knack for finding value, bargains and cost-effectiveness.

Even when it came at times when it made no sense for my girlfriend. I put this down to my Irish upbringing.

If Americans are woohoo yolo. The Irish in me would be the opposite of that. It’s the more cynical and reserved.

But the balance between my emotional heart and my Irish brain has done me pretty well at times as they offer a balance.

Anyway, the way my brain saw it was like this.

I pay $499 and this could save me a tonne of time and energy. Instead of pushing through and battling these feelings of self-doubt etc.

I can just try and blast it out over a mega-day event. This could be an investment that speeds up what I want to be able to do this year.

I had just received a VAT payment rebate. The business is lean. I have the time and space. If this is something I’d want to try at least once in my life there was no better time than now.

This is how my heart and my head got aligned in the decision to hit that buy button.

3. Learning from the best

The last reason was the icing on the cake - I told myself.

If part of my mission is to help people design lives they love living - then who better to take notes from is the man who is probably the best in the world at this?

Now I will put this in and I will keep on saying. I don’t want to be a life coach and I am no guru. Helping people isn’t me trying to be Tony Robbins - it’s not my vibe nor what I want to be doing with my life.

But what I do want to do is to curate information and hand it to people so that they can do it themselves. I don’t want to tell people what to do I just want to have options out there and give people the tools so they can design it for themselves.

It’s like - I’m trying to teach people how to paint.

But I just want to hold a class for people to come too. Here’s a subject an apple, and here are some paints, pastels, crayons, pencils and a canvas.

Now you paint your own picture.

I just wanted to create a space to make that happen.

So that’s what I want to learn from this Tony Robbins event too. What does he give that helps people and how can I give that as a tool and resource for the Start Designing Life community?

So that’s why I spent $499 on a Zoom call but what's next?

I know this might be crazy or ridiculous to most people - or not.

But some people like to spend money on clothes, cars or watches etc. I have nothing against these things but like someone who might spend $200 on a pair of trainers I would be like that is nuts - but that’s what they value so fair enough. That’s a bit like how it is for me with these types of things.

So hopefully you understand a bit of the thoughts behind this. I’m definitely not saying that everyone should do this. This is just more about sharing my experience of the past week.

Hopefully, you found that interesting. If you’ve got any thoughts, ideas or inspirations from this - feel free to share it with me.

I love the chats I have after these posts and I’ve just set up my email so you can reply straight from this email to me as well as on all the socials like before.

I’ll for sure share my thoughts and experience from the event whenever it finishes in March.

But that's it for this week - here’s wishing you a badass week ahead.

Stay awesome

Matt

🫶

🔥 Dope stuff from this week

1. Feature Request with Canny

The past week I've been focusing more on building more features for Start Designing Life. The goal is to make it 'the best place on the internet to get help in designing life'.

But the question has been what does that look like?

I want to try and build all the ideas out in the open for people to see and also for the community to be a part of too.

That's why I went looking around for the best feedback tool out there and the one that caught my eye was Canny

They have a generous free plan that I'm using and it's perfect for what I need right now.

I put in all the ideas that I would like to build for Start Designing Life and people can vote on which ideas they like and also can suggest what they might find helpful too.

You can check out the feature requesting software here. Feel free to have a browse over the ideas I'd like to build over this year & feel free to add anything.

https://start-designing-life.canny.io/feature-requests

2. The Power of Social Media

I'm on the lookout for a way to send bulk emails out to people who did the SDL quiz. I went looking around to see what the people I know, like & trust, are using and came across Beehiiv & ConvertKit.

I did a little post on X and was super impressed by the responses from both of these companies. This is what modern businesses feel like when they are in touch & connected with their users.

📚 The Book Club

Bringing in this new section to the newsletter. I'm usually reading 1 or 2 books at a time so I'll just updated them here & leave any little nuggets I got from them as I got along.

📖 Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal

• I just finished this book this week

📖 Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

• This is what I like to listen to before I sleep. I don't know why but listening about Ancient Egyptians always puts me to sleep.

and that is it for this week's newsletter folks

wishing you a great week ahead as always

let's chat soon

Matt

🫶

Stay awesome  ❤️

P.s  you can now reply to this email & get straight to my inbox. If you ever want to ask a question from today's writing or share something cool with me - i'm always happy to hear. You can now catch me at [email protected] or across the socials