Tony Robbins' Breakthrough Series

Tony Robbins' Breakthrough Series

By Kari Forsee
Oprah.com | July 26, 2010

Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Princess Diana and President Clinton have sought his counsel. Now, motivational speaker and life coach Anthony "Tony" Robbins is coming to your home. In his six-part television series Breakthrough—premiering Tuesday, July 27, on NBC—Tony helps families that are dealing with tragic accidents, economic hardships and heartbreaking losses change their outlook in just 30 days.

In this exclusive Q&A with a man who's helped motivate millions of people over three decades, he reveals what he's learned from these families, the best advice he received from a world leader and how he stays energized. Plus, how he defines happiness.

Watch a preview of Breakthrough

Kari Forsee: Can you just tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind Breakthrough?

Tony Robbins: Well, I've been working with 50 million people over the years—4 million people at live seminars in over 100 countries. And over that time, I've seen just about every kind of challenge you can imagine, but two years ago, in 2008 when the financial crisis hit, I just saw that level of pain magnified because people just started feeling overwhelmed. Right now the polls are showing we're the first generation of Americans to think that our future for ourselves—the quality of our life for ourselves and our kids—is going to be worse in the future than it is today. I decided that I'm reaching a lot of people—4 million people in seminars is wonderful—but, you know, in one week of primetime television, I can at least expose 4 million people to kind of a pathway to turn their lives around.

I haven't done it in the past, based on time, and I haven't done it because most of the shows brought to me over 15 years were always kind of "vote people off the island" shows, and I know they're popular, but I thought, "We don't need more humiliation. We need some inspiration." But have it be raw and real, you know? Not something constructed, and so I got the right partners. The people from The Biggest Loser, Reveille, are my partners, and then the people from Extreme Home Makeover as my other partners, so I have people who have pure intent and who really want to honor people. That's where it started, and then, once we conceived the show, [we were] saying, "How do we take really good people—not people who just want to be on television—but people who get nominated, who got a raw deal, where life has really kind of crushed them? And let's give them a second chance, and let's show them how they can literally change their entire lives in 30 days, and let's capture the entire journey.

KF: Can you tell me about some of the people featured in the series' six episodes?

TR: We think we have a problem until we see something more severe, and then it puts things into perspective. So you think you have a problem if you lose your job, but if you lose a leg, all of a sudden, the job is not the problem. If one of your children has a life-threatening disease, your leg doesn't matter. If you have terminal cancer, suddenly everything has a different perspective. I decided I was looking for couples that were really in tough places. So this couple, Frank and Kristen, you can imagine they're going to have the happiest day of their life. They're going to be married. They fly down to this beautiful resort in Mexico. They bring their family, their friends, their loved ones, and there's a tradition there that after the "I dos," you jump in the giant swimming pool. People take pictures, and you celebrate. So they're all jumping in, some of them fully clothed. Right after the "I dos," everybody's celebrating, except Frank, the new groom, jumps in—the final person—and he hits the cement step that no one saw. As a result, he instantly broke his neck and became a quadriplegic. So, if you can imagine this poor woman, her husband is floating, bleeding and saying, "I can't feel anything."

I show up a year later when I found out from some friends of theirs what had happened. If you can imagine, this man can no longer feel his wife when he touches her. She's having to change his catheter every three hours—she's his nurse. She's waking up every day feeling completely depressed, because there's no future. There are no children. There's no intimacy. She then gets angry because she's tired of feeling depressed. He feels guilty because he really does love her, and it feels like, "If I would have just jumped in a different spot. If I'd not jumped in..." So they're living in a place where she won't even leave the house to go to work, because she's afraid if he falls over, he'll stop breathing. So I came in, and NBC said, "Well, you probably can't do anything with this couple." And I said, "Well I'm certainly not the Messiah. I can't get him walking in 30 days, but I know people that have billions of dollars, and they're miserable human beings." Their lives are hell because the quality of your life is not what you have; it's the quality of where you live—emotionally, psychologically and spiritually—and I have to show this man. I think I can create a path that rewrites his story, because his story was, "We flew to this beautiful island environment, and we took this leap of faith, and our life just ended with a tragedy."

KF: How did you help this couple rewrite their story?

TR: I said, "First, get them out of the house, which they think they can't do. But instead of cross-town, I'm going to take them to Fiji, where I have a home and resort. I'm going to rewrite the story. Come to a beautiful place with a new leap of faith." The first task was, he thought he was worthless and he could do nothing, and she was carrying all the burden. So I had to show him the chair didn't control him. He could pierce her emotionally and psychologically and break through and become the source of power and support for her, and once he can get her laughing and feeling alive again, in minutes he suddenly became a man again. She felt like a wife for the first time in her life. Then, I said, "You took a leap of faith, and you're going to take another one. You're going skydiving today." She freaked out even more and said, "He can't do that." I said, "Don't worry about him. You're his partner. You're going too." So they both went on the skydive, which was magnificent. That's the first eight minutes of a 44-minute show, to give you an idea.

KF: What did you learn from Frank, Kristen and the other people you met while filming this series?

TR: What happens is, you watch these people, and you just go, "Damn, I got no excuses," you know? It lifts you. It inspires you, and it's real and it's raw. These people are...you just fall in love with them, and I really want to put something out there that would be different than the oil spill and the economy. [I want to] just remind people that the human spirit can overcome a lot of things. Events do control a part of our lives, but we ultimately control who we are, how we live, what we give, who we become. This couple is just one example. Each special is completely different.

KF: In addition to helping families in Breakthrough, you're a father, an author, an entrepreneur...the list goes on. What is a typical day in your life like?

TR: There are no typical days. I'll tell you a typical day—full!

KF: How do you have so much energy?

TR: Well, I have a workout regimen that I just don't miss, and I am honestly a very light eater. I eat throughout the day. I eat small portions of food, but where my energy comes from is it's psychological and spiritual. I mean, it's pretty hard not to be inspired when every day of your life...[I have] a dozen people walking up and saying, "You changed my life. I lost 50 pounds. I got my kid off drugs." That's what I live for. Every day you get to see the impact of what you're doing.

KF: Do you ever just sit around and watch bad TV? How do you relax?

TR: True Blood! My wife says, "You have to watch this True Blood," and I'm like, "Honey, how could you?" Then we watched one, and I was like, "Put on the next one!" So, you know, 24 and True Blood. We download stuff off of iTunes, I'm an Apple guy, and we travel all over the world. My wife, honestly, is the greatest thing in my life. I would trade everything—I'm not saying this lightly. I'm not saying this as hyperbole. I really believe I would trade everything in my life for this woman, because she is the joy of my life. We're in this together, we love each other, we have this passion, we travel everywhere together, and we're never apart. I have so much joy with her.

KF: Over the years, you've helped many children learn valuable leadership skills. What are three things parents can do to help their own children be good people and strong leaders?

TR: I think the first thing you have do is you've got to be in the situation where you are honest with yourself, and you've got to lead by example. You'll never get your kids to be better leaders if you're not…They look at the communication of our behavior. One of the beautiful things is, when I became a father—and I became a father instantly when I was 24, and I had a 17-year-old son, an 11-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old instantly and then a son on the way—it made me grow at that stage in my life like you wouldn't even imagine, because it made me raise my standards for myself. The first thing you can do for your kid is raise your own standards. Most of us will do more for someone we love than we'll even do for ourselves.

Number two is stop having an idea of how your kid is supposed to be, and wait and find out what their nature is and reinforce it. I was talking to a man actually from Time magazine, and he's a new father, and he's a great, great guy. I really enjoyed this man, and he was talking about how he wants to make sure he's ready for [his son] to be a man's man, and I said, "You know what? Why don't you wait and see what he's like?" All you have to do is love this child completely and totally. You have to have some standards, but you have to say, "Is this child going to be more artistic? Is this child going to be more athletic? Is this child going to more intellectual or quirky?" And you've got to love that part and let them take that part, whatever it is, to the highest level possible.

I think the third piece that you've really got to do is you've got to make sure you get them around other people who will inspire them. We think it's all us as parents, but they look at other role models. Who you spend time with shapes who you are. Who you spend time with shapes your children, so I'm a big believer that the environment plays a huge role.

I really believe life is about two things: It's about growing and giving. If you don't grow, I don't care how successful you are. I don't care how much success, money, respect, whatever accolades, whatever people think is success, you're going to feel empty if you're not growing. What makes people happy is progress. Growth, on the other hand—if you grow and you don't give anything, it's all about you. Life's not about me; it's about we.

KF: You've met and advised some of the most renowned leaders in the world—Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and everyone in between. Was there a piece of advice one of these people passed along that you'll never forget?

TR: I've met so many beautiful people. You've named two of my favorites. Nelson Mandela, because who else could you respect more than that? Someone who has been put through what he has been through, maybe the Dali Lama, and to still step up and give the way he's given and still have the mindset that he's had and be the kind of leader he is. I think Nelson Mandela told me something that I never forgot. I made the mistake when I first met him of asking him the question, "How did you make it through all those years of suffering? And how did you survive?" I think that's the word I used. I said, "How did you survive all those years?" And he abruptly shifted. He's a big man, and his shoulders came back, and he had this almost scowl on this face. He said, "I didn't survive. I prepared." And I'll never forget that. The idea that when life gives you something that's outside of your control, it's not about how to survive it. It's about how you use it—how to use the cards that have been dealt you.

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I don't think there's anybody who is a better example of, yes, life sometimes gives you something that is completely unjust, but you still have to take your power, your spirit, your commitment, your love, determination, some purpose or mission larger than yourself to find a way to use it. I think that's the ultimate lesson for all of us because we're all going to experience injustice, pain and things we didn't ask for. They're going to strike us, and that's part of what Breakthrough is about. It's taking people who have experienced that injustice, that have experienced that raw deal, that have experienced life crushing them and showing them that there is that second chance. There's a way to turn it around. It can be done quickly.

KF: How would you define happiness?

TR: I think happiness is a really wonderful thing, but what's the deepest form of happiness? Because happiness is like love. You can love your dog, and you can love your husband and your wife. I hope that's not the same, you know? So in the English language, you have certain words. What I really think we're craving in that experience is a life of meaning, and I think of meaning where you feel that sense of joy and fulfillment that is lasting. Pleasure happens in the body; happiness happens in the mind. The experience of real joy—that euphoria, that sense of meaning, that sense of fulfillment—comes in the spirit. And that only comes, in my experience, when you get out of yourself, when you are doing something for someone you care about or love. Where you disappear. As long as you are here, there are going to be problems. It's just the way we are. It's just the way the human mind works. But the only time we disappear is when we're there for something more than ourselves: a purpose, a mission, a child, our family, your mother, your father, something that matters to you. Then you're not there, and all that's there is your spirit or your soul. That's when people feel that experience, and we can do that every damn day.

The energy you hear in me that I have, that's part of my life. My wife has it, and I know a lot of people that have it because their lives are about something more than just themselves. That's not to say you don't get to enjoy your life or have fun or have those pleasures or joys or happiness, but that long-term fulfillment comes from not what you get, but who you become. You can only become something when you step outside yourself and serve. That's really what I believe, in my heart and soul, life is about.

Watch a preview of Breakthrough

Printed from Oprah.com on Tuesday, June 18, 2013