You might remember him from Shallow Hal as that really tall guy on the elevator, who helps Hal get over his superficial obsession with hot women, but Tony Robbins is best known as a motivational speaker, life coach, NLP trainer, and a prolific author of several books on personal empowerment. He has also developed several programs focused on helping people to achieve their personal goals. Programs such as "Personal Power" and "Personal Power II" along with "Get the Edge" all of which are available in audio formats that can be purchased online or at your local bookstore.

Mr. Robbins has a dynamic personality that can electrify a room and the people in it. Anyone who has attended one of his conferences on personal empowerment has witnessed his electrifying performance first hand. Many of them report having had an especially moving experience while attending a conference unlike any other. He is a strong proponent of visionary strategies, such as, "see it, believe in your power to do it, and then do it."

One unique strategy for personal empowerment endorsed by Tony Robbins is firewalking. This involves walking across heated coals without socks and shoes to protect the feet from the heat of the coals. People are able to walk across these very hot coals without incurring burns to their feet because they program their mind and body not to sense or react to the heat of the coals.

Walking barefoot across smoldering coals may not be something you would ever consider doing. However, it is truly remarkable that firewalking without injury is even possible with the implementation of mind over matter thinking. If you have the chance to attend a firewalking event, it certainly promises to be quite an interesting experience to say the least.

The firewalk experience was added to the lessons that Tony teaches in order to help people find and use their personal empowerment to achieve life goals through his formulation of neuro-associative conditioning therapy. This is largely based on the concepts of neuro-linguistic programming concepts which Tony has studied extensively.

NLP is a holistic approach to reprogramming mental connections to produce alternative brain connectivity and experiences, meaning that through NLP techniques you can change how you visualize the world around you and your place in it. Your vision of the world and of yourself can become clouded and this can prevent you from acheiveing your goals. NLP therapy can clear your field of vision for a more accurate assessment of the things that are happening in your life so that your reactions to them are appropriate to the situation. Central to what Tony teaches is his strong belief that life achievements can only occur through the active particpation of a person. People can choose to actively pursue achievements or they can just let life happen to them and accept whatever crumbs may come their way.

Tony Robbins' holistic approach to personal empowerment has expanded to include other holistic appraches to living. These include, maintaining a diet of natural foods and using natural supplements for added nutritional support, exercise, and avoiding harmful substances such as alchohol and tobacco. He has also developed a line of natural supplements known as Inner Balance. The name of his product line stems from his belief that balancing the body from within through the use of natural supplements will also balance your life.

Sharing his knowledge of self empowerment with others is extremely important to Tony. He devotes a great amount of his time teaching young people his techniques for empowerment to help give them an early start in achieving their life goals. Tony has even developed programs for use in prisons so that inmates can change their lives before re-entering society as free citizens.

There are those who are critical of Tony and his teachings; they claim that achievements are not made possible through the use of personal empowerment techniques. However, the large number of people who have found personal empowerment to be important in the achievement of their life goals strongly disagree with any criticism aimed at Tony Robbins.