The Happiness PhD Project (Encyclopedia)
Unleash The Power Within (UPW) is Tony Robbins’ signature introductory event. It is an immersive experience designed for personal transformation.
If you’re not familiar with Tony — he is the arguably the most influential figure in the self-help space (which is essentially a space he created). He was one of the primary reasons for the introduction of business and life coaches. He draws on a mix of psychological methodologies, neurolinguistic programing (NLP), spiritual / religious beliefs, and direct experience to illicit personal growth. His work has been influenced by Jim Rohn, Milton Erickson, John Grinder, Peter Guber, Sigmund Freud, and Christianity/Eastern mysticism (although he does not use religion directly).
UPW is a powerful introduction to Tony’s approach. It’s hard to capture it in a short summary. But I’d say more than anything it is a form of experiential learning.
You learn how to influence your state by controlling your thoughts, language, focus, and physiology. In fact by simply modeling a different state you can change how you feel in an instance (sit up straight, smile, fake laugh, and think of a puppy — actually do it!… feel different?). The ability to get into optimal states will help you see the world differently which changes your perception. Depending on how we feel the same objective event can make us feel totally different. Further, when we are not in what what might call a resourceful state (positive affect, energy, focus, etc.) we interact with the environment and people around us in a way that is generally less effective (someone doesn’t say hi back and we assume it’s personal rather than them not hearing us). So by mastering our state we master how we interact with and perceive the world and ultimately this changes our behaviors and results.
So UPW is meant to be a powerful experience of exploring the tools to remain in and cultivate a peak state as the foundation for changing strategies and results. It also offers numerous other models of behavior change and success / achievement.
My review from must, strongly recommend, recommend, neutral, to avoid is — strongly recommend. Despite already being fairly familiar with most of this material I found it to be worth the investment. You’re not going to get a ton in the way of business or implementation tactics. But the emphasis on and experience of emotional mastery and the power of mental training is incredibly valuable. Further, you’ll likely leave behind a few unhelpful beliefs or patterns and leave with new more empowering ones. Finally, you will likely leave with a renewed intention to prioritize happiness and quality of life.
The price of this event was tiered with most standard packages being $750 to $1500 (not including transportation and lodging). Fair warning you will be heavily sold to over the four days with numerous upsells for more programs and products. Sneak snacks in if you can - there aren’t many breaks. And frankly the final day you can probably skip.
Below I share a more detailed summary of the four days and a discussion of the scientific research into Robbins’ work.
*Note these are my personal notes so at times I will reference my personal insights and commitments in italics.
I was rather surprised that Stanford researchers have done fairly rigorous assessments of Tony’s program. Below I will outline each, here are the reference links.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938421001530
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022395622001157
Study of effects on depression and wellbeing…
This study assessed Date With Destiny (DWD)…
This includes 6 days of immersion in what the researchers call psychosocial training followed by 10 minutes per day for 30 days of training (this 10 minute training is essentially engaging emotional states of gratitude, focus, and joy). They compared this to a control group of 36 days of gratitude journaling. There were 23 and 22 in each group respectively.