OVER THE PAST thirty years, Tony Robbins has become the world’s most successful performance coach.
He has coached former President Bill Clinton, tennis icon Serena Williams, and revered hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones. He has sold millions of books, videos, audio recordings, and tickets to his seminars (he’ll be appearing at one in Dublin in the new year).
Robbins is 55 years old, but he maintains a packed schedule of events and is more frenetic than ever on stage, regularly jumping with and running through crowds that often number from 5,000 to 10,000 people. The days can last 12 to 14 hours, and in his most intense seminars, he is putting in as many steps as he would in a marathon, he said.
Business Insider recently spoke with him after he toured six countries in 12 days, and he said a major element of his sustained energy and focus came from his intense and highly unusual morning routine. It has evolved over the years, but here is its current incarnation.
Because of his frequent travel, Robbins doesn’t go for a specific wake-up time, but he ensures that he gives himself at least 10 to 15 minutes for his routine regardless of how much sleep he got.
Robbins previously said that when he was in one of his several homes around the world, he would jump into a Jacuzzi after waking up before taking a dip in one of his cold plunge pools, personalised pools maintained at a temperature of a brisk 13 degrees Celsius. But now he goes straight for the cold. He keeps himself submerged for a full minute.
“I don’t do it because I’m a masochist — I do it because there is nothing that can change everything in your system like a radical change in temperature,” he said.
When he’s in his home in the resort city of Sun Valley, Idaho, he instead goes for an adjacent river, even when it’s snowing. “So that’s pretty crazy,” he said.
“Every organ, every nerve in your body is on fire.”
Robbins quit his painful ice-bath habit when he discovered whole-body cryotherapy a few years ago after several people, including NBA icon Kobe Bryant, told him about it.
According to Cryohealth, whole-body cryotherapy was first developed in Japan in 1978 for arthritis sufferers and uses liquid nitrogen to drop the user’s skin temperature by up to ten degrees over two to three minutes.
The sharp drop in temperature reduces inflammation and triggers a rush of endorphins. It can cause a tingling sensation but is painless.
Robbins bought a unit for his mother-in-law with arthritis, and after she fell in love with it he got one for himself. He said that when he first tried it, “It was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is incredible.’” He said it was especially helpful the mornings after a 12- to 14-hour seminar session.
He has a unit that goes up to his neck right now, but he said he was looking into getting a unit in which he could immerse his entire body.
“I made a deal with myself: If you don’t have 10 minutes for yourself, you don’t have a life,” Robbins said.
“There’s no excuse. So I have 10 minutes, and I do this little ritual.”
He calls this ritual “priming,” and it is broken into three parts. He will usually play some form of instrumental meditative music throughout.
Part one: Breathing exercise
Robbins does three sets of 30 Kapalabhati Pranayama breaths. In this ancient yoga exercise, a person sits straight and takes a deep inhale before exhaling forcefully by constricting his or her abdomen. The inhalations in-between are slight, and the full breaths are done in quick succession. They’re concluded with a deep inhale followed by a deep exhale.
The yoga site Yoga Outlet warns that the technique is for advanced yoga practitioners and may be dangerous for novices.
Robbins says he does it because it changes the way he breathes and moves.
Part two: Expressing gratitude
He then takes a few minutes to think of three things he’s grateful for, with one of them being something small, which can be something like “the wind on my face or the smile of my son.”
“The reason I picked gratitude is because when you’re grateful you can’t be angry,” he said.
“And when you’re grateful you can’t be fearful.”
Part three: Pray
Robbins then spends the next three minutes seeking strength and wishing good things on his family, friends, and clients. He considers it a spiritual exercise, but it doesn’t need to be tied to religion.
Once he’s done with his rituals, he’ll typically go for an unexciting but nutritious breakfast, usually fish and salad. He keeps it boring, he told writer and podcaster Tim Ferriss in an interview last year, “because I just know it’s fuel”.
Then it’s off to go motivate some people.
- Richard Feloni
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