What Tony Robbins Doesn’t Know About Psychology | A Psychologist’s Response
changing negative thoughts is a thing that we all want to do that we have negative thought well let’s do whatever we can to change it it must be bad it’s negative right there in the name a lot of different theories on how to do this and this response video a Tony Robbins perhaps the 20 Robbins we all know who he is big guy looks like Easter Island head is going to present us with one solution in how to do this and in his solution he’s going to speak to a serious issue with psychology an error that not only he commits but all of psychology commits as of right now and for the sake of time I’m gonna cut out the beginning of the video where he where it talks to four woman from the audience and they tell him their problems something about failing not knowing what you want to do my mother is dying you know typical stuff so let’s see what he has to say in a couple of minutes let me just introduce all of you to just a simple understanding a concept all of you have targets things that you’re after if you’re gonna get a new result if you’re gonna grow your business if you’re gonna be able to support your mom if you’re gonna get rid of the anxiety if you’re gonna be able to overachieve and not have all that fear inside of you you obviously need to get a new result you’re gonna have to get new action we all know that you don’t get new results with old actions doing the same thing what human beings can do this is a human being believe it or not I majored in art [Laughter] sorry that’s my better and it’s coming through continuing the other things can do is amazing what they will do is usually disappointing it’s not because we’re not people can do is amazing what people will do is usually disappointing that’s called something what’s that word somebody came up with it something that sounds profound but it really that there’s no content to it it doesn’t help at all it seems like a great thing can we can do amazing things but usually we do disappointing things that doesn’t help what does that mean I think with tony robbins we get a lot of those two prisms or whatever they’re called continuing Oh beloved it’s because we don’t have new actions because we did in certain emotional states that dominate us like anxiety like fear of failure right like the fear of the loss of your mother is an example so if you’re in a state of fear you’re gonna behave very differently and get very different results that’s what that means right there then if you were in a place of being courageous or bold or warm or connected or playful any of those aren’t two different states there’s a state of fear or a state of courageousness or boldness or or connection those aren’t two different things there is no one state of fear this perpetuates the idea that fear or anxiety is somehow bad it’s not it all has to do with how we relate with the fear it’s not the state that our brain is in it’s how we relate with that state appraisal theory of emotions much better validated scientifically than the science that he’s gonna start to prose here pretty soon continuing so the most important key to changing your life in any situation is to change results you’ve got to change behavior but to change behavior you got to change the emotional state you’re in how do you do that way to change behavior we change emotions that’s not necessarily true that can be true but you don’t have to be in a new emotional state to change your behavior you don’t want to do that first another way to change emotional state is with knowledge is with understanding what that emotional state is what it means that alone changes the emotional state but of course you’re not really changing the emotion necessarily you’re changing how you relate with the emotion if we don’t do this first we don’t relate with our emotions first then we become cut off from ourselves and any sort of behavior is necessarily going to be handicapped which may be fine to do in the short term if you’re in a sales meeting and you’re feeling any sort of overwhelming fear if you can do something in the short term to the fear off then I say do that but not at the expense of ignoring the fear later on and talking about it with somebody even if I have just yourself journaling about it becoming more aware of it understanding what’s at the root of that fear otherwise you’re not going to be a genuine person from which real power flows you’re never gonna have a presence if you’re constantly tricking yourself I guess we’re gonna get to it here if you’re constantly tricking yourself into having a presence continuing don’t feel like it right or it feels overwhelming there are two ways and I’ve done this with the greatest athletes the world that does this with four different presidents the United States I’ve done it with billionaire clients all you have to do to change your state is not trying to think your way there like I’m happy I’m happy I’m happy and do a bunch affirmations your brain is gonna go be us you are not happy right yeah but Tony Robbins you have told people to think positively all the time you have told people about affirmations and oh just go make up a little gratitude list you have said that and people come out and say oh that’s BS that doesn’t actually work so now you’re coming up with a new trick a new technique to not only cover up emotions but to cover up the fact that you don’t really understand psychology continuing you need to do is make a radical change in the way you use what we call your physiology it’s a big word it just means the way you use your physical body the way I’m speaking right now because I got five minutes all so it’s sped up just a little bit but if I said – there’s a depressed person behind curtain number one over there and I’ll donate a hundred thousand dollars to your best charity your favorite charity if you could describe what they’re like physically tell me what’s their posture like if they’re depressed you tell me slump over slump where’s their head where’s your head down down are they breathing full or shallow yeah and are they talking really fast or more slow slow louder quiet probably quietly you’re all saying the same thing how’s that possible you’ve got practices before but here’s what see what he’s doing here by asking them certain questions in a certain way he’s getting them to say what he wants them to say he’s making it seem like they all came up with the same description of a depressed person but they didn’t he essentially implanted that idea in their mind of what a depressed person looks like though that doesn’t matter anyway I mean even if a depressed person does look like that doesn’t mean changing the posture or body language of the depressed person is actually going to change the depression causes change effects but just because you change the effect doesn’t mean you change the cause not all systems are linear like that I mean you know and it’s ridiculous to think that in the most complex system in the world that most complex organ no not just the most complex thing we even know the human brain it’s insane to think that it works like that I mean gunpowder makes the bullet shoot out of the gun making gunpowder does that but that doesn’t mean that taking the ingredients of gunpowder and pulling them apart makes the bullet go back another gun I mean it’s insane and you know we haven’t even gone to it but just to set the stage of everything he said up until this point is essentially been incorrect anyway continuing you can find if you take that same person and you change the tempo which they move you bring their shoulders back and change their breathing pattern if they make a faster gesture if they speak more rapidly it fires off a different biochemistry in you and in that state you will take radically different actions the fact I’ve taught this for 40-something years forty years and about three years ago Harvard finally did a study where they proved what I did worked and they called it these power positions and what they this is simply not true standing up straight power poses it can change your physiology it has been shown to change your physiology a little bit in the short-term but unless you address the issue why you were anxious of why you’re depressed in the first place not that it’s more complicated but it’s simply not them a matter of changing the state of your body there can be a lot I mean just on a neurological level there can be a lot wrong with somebody’s brain that makes them depressed or makes them anxious and you think just making a power pose to change your cortisol levels a little bit it’s going to cause any sort of long-term solution it’s not how about you get to the root of the issue understand your anxiety understand your anger ask yourselves where they coming from it’s not that much more complicated yeah I guess it does ask a little bit more out of you than simply standing up straight but you want a real solution to your problem so you walk around you don’t have to think – sandals treat you do it automatically or do you want a fake solution make yourself stand up straight you’re gonna be a fake person nobody’s really gonna want to be around you you’re not gonna be genuine you’re not gonna be able to understand real negative emotions when they come up it’s gonna make you a fragile human being you won’t have good relationships you won’t be an effective leader never gonna make enough money never gonna make money you have to sit and stay focused and do continuous work to make money you need to manage anxiety not get rid of it not act like it’s bad and change your body around or change your affirmation around to do that actually manager anxiety man I guess Tony Robbins you know I guess the seminars could I could imagine how they could be helpful because you go there and at least you’re talking with somebody and you’re writing down some sort of plan for your life but until you get your psychological issues handle it’s never gonna happen and from my experience a lot of people you know just normal people who don’t have any serious prominent sort of problems they all have serious issues in their life that they need to get handled first I mean I guess you don’t really see because I done until the beginning of the video but but two maybe three of these woman that he’s talking to are morbidly obese what just doing a power pose are gonna change out that this is an indicative of a serious issue if it wasn’t for a political correctness we would treat obesity like this like two maybe three of these woman have I couldn’t tell though when we on the left she may be kind of huge if it wasn’t for political correctness we would treat this morbid obesity the same way that we would treated any sort of opiate issue any sort of alcohol issue just change the way that you stand continuing job was if you stand everyone can try this stand up just for a moment if you wanted way at homes can try it as well sooo simply really said I put both your hands on your hips like Wonder Woman or Superman or that stuff right if you stand like this and you breathe deep for just two minutes what the science found was that you will absolutely increase your testosterone by 20% man or woman you’ll drop your cortisol which as you know is the stress hormone by 22% and you’re 33% more likely to take action with you wouldn’t have before cuz fear would have stopped you know the research didn’t show this the initial research did then they found out they couldn’t replicate the research very well some of it was replicated some of it’s not it has to do with something called the P curve of how accurate this stuff is it doesn’t really matter the point is even when it is replicated it’s only shown to work in the short term and until we understand our anxiety our anger how emotions really work even what emotions are show me one other psychologist who sits you down and tells you what emotions are without first qualifying by saying oh well nobody’s really sure what emotions are there’s no real consensus of what emotions are won’t until you get that figured out all the power posing all the affirmations all this Tony Robbins seminar is writing out you know a plan for your life it doesn’t matter none of that’s gonna matter if you have a ball and chain around your neck called your emotional issues called conversations you’re not having called resentment towards your father that you don’t want to talk about you’re too afraid to talk about you don’t have the wherewithal to talk about ball and chain around your neck called anxiety around women around stating what you want around asking for what you want around thinking it’s okay to have what you want and just because you have these issues doesn’t mean that you’re broken doesn’t mean we can’t change this we got a look at the issue for what it is first doesn’t involve standing up doesn’t involve looking at yourself in the mirror and taking deep breaths with your hands on your head it involves sitting down taking out a sheet of paper writing down what’s going on putting it there and black and white talking about it making it useful and it’s videos like this all the people that believe it cuz nobody else you know I’m not blaming people didn’t nobody else is telling you otherwise this is exactly why I need to exist
