31: A Crisis Case Study: Tony Robbins Responds to a Media Attack

This week how to respond to a media attack if you are a leader of a business organization, community or brand. This episode's case study Tony Robbins response to the explosive buzzfeed News investigation into the self help guru's behavior towards women. For the Competent Communications podcast, I'm Molly McPherson and this episode is a special headline news edition on how to survive a reput. If you're Tony Robbins. The focus of this week's episode is on reputation management as it relates to any front facing person heading an organization. You could be the CEO, a board member, a small business owner, or you could even be a leader in the community. Now, I chose this topic for a few reasons. 1 1, I always like to break down current news stories because there's a lot of lessons to be learned. And two this topic comes up a lot in person when I give talks. And recently at a conference, a woman in the audience came up to me to relate a story that had happened to her husband. She had been to one of my talks a year earlier and she remembered some of the advice that I imparted on the participants. And one of the items I mentioned as a tactic for responding to bad press was to be your own spokesperson. And that's one of the benefits of using social media. So after my talk she came up and she related to me something that had happened since then. Her husband was a longtime coach and athletic director, I believe, in their community, beloved in their community, worked for a Catholic school for a long time and he was abruptly fired without any warning and without any reason. And not surprising. She related to me in this day and age of social media that everybody started talking about it. And she felt as a spouse and also as a communicator that something needed to be said. The school wasn't putting out any information. They felt perhaps legally they didn't have to do that. However, in that silence, in that vacuum, anyone can create their own narrative based on history or based on whatever they want to discuss. She said that she held her own press conference and she posted it and to Facebook, which I thought was wonderful because that is a page ripped right out of the playbook. Now, I don't have anything in there about running your own press conference, you know, as a citizen. But man, she was a citizen journalist and she said it was so empowering to her as a communicator that she could help her husband, but also that she was able to change that narrative. And she did that again by being her own spokesperson and using techniques and tactics for the 21st century. Now I like to use those type of examples because they can easily translate to help any leader out there as well. And I like this idea of how someone can become an indestructible leader. How can I offer tools to prepare you for communicating in the middle age and help you survive any type of attack and the event is something that could have happened to you or something of your own doing. Like what happened to Tony Robbins to set the story on May 17, 2019 about two weeks ago, BuzzFeed News posted an article about popular self help guru Tony Robbins under the banner of unlimited power a BuzzFeed News investigation. On today's podcast I'm going to break down what happened by connecting the dots in the news story to Robin's response to how the media fits in and mixing in other incidents of men. Also getting me to Ed why that matters and then show the steps that Tony Robbins used to manage this crisis to his brand. In the end, you'll be able to see the path that Robbins used and determine if it was the right one. I was a guest on a podcast this morning dedicated to crisis management and preparedness and I gave this story about Tony Robbins as an example. But I won't reveal my opinion that I gave on that podcast until the end of this podcast. So no surprise, don't worry. I'm going to give you my opinion here as well. There is a lot of information to call through in this episode about this incident, so I'm going to move through it pretty quickly, but we'll highlight the areas and highlight the lessons that I know will stick because I love sticky information. I don't want you to have to work too hard to remember it. Let's begin. It was a bombshell story that clearly had been in the works for quite some time. BuzzFeed News posted an article about Tony Robbins under the banner unlimited power a BuzzFeed News investigation. Now, no one knows precisely when the Tony Robbins camp was made aware of the story, but being the towering force in life that he is, at 6ft 7 and on the stage, it was clear that Robbins take this hit to his reputation lying down. The news story was based on leaked records that revealed that Tony Robbins was acting more like a bully and sexual predator than the popular self help icon. He was accused of berating female abuse victims at his seminars. He was also accused of making inappropriate sexual advances and remarks and putting former and current female staffers into very unwarranted situations. Now the first dot here is going to start in 2018. Robbins was targeted during the first wave of the MeToo movement in 2018. He had similar accusations levied against him back then, but he did continue to work. He sold out his shows and his products. And part of this was likely due to the sheer number of men whose reputations took major hits for dealing with this whole MeToo movement. Now, since Tony Robbins was one of the many men swept up in that hashtag movement, he and his handlers, I think, were able to quickly quell any of the negative media interests by responding quickly and decisively to contradict all the claims that were made against Tony Robbins back in 2018. So it was a way to keep him away from that epicenter ground zero of Me Too. His name was still bantied about, but he wasn't one of those central figures in that whole Me Too movement. Now, of all the professions that were included in the sweep, having accusations from the MeToo movement stick to a self help guru. Now that would have been devastating to the Tony Robbins brand, especially since females make up so many entrepreneurs and a lot of entrepreneurs follow Tony Robbins. Robbins did manage to come out of that first wave of bad press, but one could argue here that set the stage for the second phase of the bad press that was yet to come in 2019. With this Buzzfeed News article. Now a dot here. Just because you survive one hit doesn't mean the battle is over. It could simply mean that the enemy could be in full retreat, adding to their weapon, adding to their arsenal to come back and hit you with something else, something bigger and something worse. Which is what happened to Tony Robbins. The rap against buzzfeed is that it's a website built on listicles and cat videos. It's accused of being a clickbait website and that's a valid one. However, a lot of people don't realize that There is a BuzzFeed News section that is separate from all the viral videos and that did not go unnoticed with the Robbins camp. So they certainly jumped on that bandwagon as well by accusing buzzfeed of being a less than credentialed news service. Now let's start connecting the dots here. If you were to look at the story and if you go to the show notes, I have a link directly to the BuzzFeed News story about Tony Robbins. BuzzFeed News does have an advantage here because it is a website. It is a news website that is built to have their stories go viral. The COVID art alone has an interactive sketch that first portrays Tony Robbins as a confident up on stage, but then it soon fades into this evil Red toned devil like caricature, complete with the furrowed brow and an evil grin. And as soon as that story posted, no surprise, it went viral. All the share buttons were in your line of sight when you were reading that story. And it meant that other news organizations and social media commenters were going to start buzzing about that story. Amazing. Immediately. And they did. Now let's start connecting dots here about BuzzFeed. Up until 2016, BuzzFeed had mostly been known as that Internet culture and listicle website. It was founded in 2006 and the primary focus of that site was to capture Internet eyeballs. You know, they wanted listicles and shareable videos and content. They were the premier site for doing that and perhaps seeing the growth potential as well as the power. Jonah Peretti, who was the who created and founded Buzzfeed, hired an inside the Beltway online news ace, Ben Smith. He was with Political, another online news source, to assemble a news organization there. So now we had BuzzFeed News Next. In 2016, BuzzFeed formally separates its news and entertainment divisions. And this is critical. In 2016, BuzzFeed wanted to be known as a news site just like the Washington Post, just like political. And it fell under the newly formed Buzzfeed Entertainment Group, which also includes Buzzfeed Motion Pictures. But the Buzzfeed News section had correspondence up to 12 countries, making it, well, a legit news source. Now Buzzfeed had found the white space in the news environment so they could cull the Internet, were discussing online and packaging them in a way that made the stories irresistible to traditional news sources. Case in point, the dress. This is our next dot. Do you all remember the dress? If you were to type the term the dress into your search bar, you would likely see the image of a blue and black dress. Or is it white and gold? I also included a link to the dress in the show notes just in case for some reason you were asleep for a month in 2015. The history of the Dress so the dress and its viral question took over the Internet in February 2015. And I guess that dress takes the honor of being the first online story I think, to quote, unquote, break the Internet. It was a true viral sensation in every sense of the word. And for the record, my official vote was blue and black. I never even saw a hint of white or gold. The story of the dress starts where so much drama starts. On Facebook. Grace and Keir Johnston of Cindsey, Scotland, are getting married. The bride's mother, Cecilia, takes a photo of the dress she planned to wear to the wedding and then sends it off to her daughter Grace. Usually the ground zero of weddings. Mothers and daughters planning weddings. Now a side note to conclude the story of the dress before we get there, the actual color of the dress was confirmed as black and blue. Now some disagreements break out online over the perceived color of the dress. The bride posts the image of the dress to Facebook where her friends continue to disagree over the color of the dress. And then next week is the wedding. And at the wedding, one of the performers in the band who is also a friend of the bride and groom and I promise I will get back to Tony Robbins. Her name was Caitlin o'. Neal. She saw the dress in person and said, well, obviously it's blue and black and she posted it to Tumblr. So now we're on February 26, 2015 and the dress has made its way to the United States through Tumblr and a lot of people are seeing the dress for the first time. Next. Let's talk about Tumblr. Tumblr had its peak around the time of the dress and it's fallen in popularity dramatically since then. The current owner, Verizon Media, stated recently in an email to dot alert buzzfeed news that a vice for pornhub, one of the Internet's most visited pornographic websites See, I told you this episode was going to get interesting. Wanted to purchase the site to bring online porn back to Tumblr, which was banned off the site in December of 2018. He felt that the removal left many individuals, quote, without an asylum through which they could comfortably peruse adult content. Now how's that for messaging back to the dress? Once the photo of the washed out dress was posted to Tumblr, hashtags were created, the dress whiteandgold, blackandblue. Those started popping up everywhere online and I remember posting my blue black response after reading that Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian. I saw their take on the dress and I thought, heck, if they're in, then clearly this is a legit trending hashtag. So I remember seeing it in the morning. Next. Here's where the story turns into my lane. The mainstream media's pickup of the story about the dress. The dress touched off a firestorm of other media companies and organizations writing articles and producing news stories about it from Wired, USA Today, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal. Everyone jumped on the buzzfeed initiated bandwagon. Did you catch that Dot yes. Buzzfeed found it on Tumblr and posted it to buzzfeed, where it really went viral. And this is how it relates back to our story. Why Stories go Viral Some thoughts My theory one the dress went viral because asking opinions online is one of the easiest ways to create engagement. And anyone who works in the business of social knows that the engagement metric packs a lot more punch than a views metric. Brands want people to react to a product, not just look at it online. So it was cool to pick the color of the dress as a visual trick. It meant the viewer had to stay on the post to determine which color they saw. And that's watch time. The more watch time, the higher the watch time, the better. And then they had to comment. They had to comment. If you didn't, what was the point of participating? And because it was a trending story, people got a lot of social cred by jumping on the dress bandwagon early. Do you remember the people who posted in the weeks following all the dress hype? They were so late to the game, so they seemed a little socially latent, like these Luddites that had no idea what was going on until it was weeks later. The next piece of the theory was evidenced by the slow news cycle that week. If you remember the top news stories of February 26, 2015. No. Well, I do. So just as the dress was making its way into the mainstream press, there was an even bigger story. Two llamas went on the run in Sun City, Arizona. That was top news. Do you remember that story? Not likely. But again I do because this is my version of nerding out. I remember the story was breaking news like cut into programming on cable news news. And it's because it encountered the same reaction from the public as the dress, you couldn't turn away from the certain piece of content. In this case it was video. With the hole in the news cycle and the llamas escaping clearly represents a hole allowed another bit of news with content and engagement just ripe for taking off. And that is the dress. Now the next.it brings us all the way back to the point of origin where it took off in the US and that is with buzzfeed. We can look at this moment, the moment of the dress in viral history, February 2015 as the moment when viral news was considered legit news and the source of viral news was going to make their place in the news. Because it was a year later that BuzzFeed formally separated and created their news division Next Dot, which eventually wrote a story about the lead figure of this episode, Tony Robbins. Now back to the story. The banner of the buzzfeed story was easy to spot. I had mentioned it had social media widgets encouraging readers to share the story. The tab on the buzzfeed website had a trending up favicon like you could see the arrow pointing up to let the reader know that they were reading hot news that had Buzz. In part one of the report by investigations correspondent Jane Bradley and BuzzFeed News investigative reporter Katie J.M. baker. I wonder if she's a relative. BuzzFeed News builds the story with quotes from firsthand accounts of Robin's alleged bad behavior. And one by one, BuzzFeed found Robin's history of disparaging his female employees and attendees at his seminars. The story was curated with news copy to be read with video to view, with plenty of shareable quotes and even more video. First person video that was posted to YouTube. Buzzfeed created the story with it to be shared in mind. That's what separates many of the online news stories from the online versions from traditional news sources. For example, a story printed in the New York Times or the Washington Post, for example, is written to go to press first. Where will it land on the physical newspaper? Is it a front page story or is it tucked away on page two of local? Then considerations are made for making it shareable. Does the reporter have images? Great. Is there a video? Even better. But online news outlets like buzzfeed and Yahoo News, they're written first for the Internet and to be shared. Now, these websites don't have the storied history and credentials of longtime newspapers and broadcast networks, which is why typically, one of the chief complaints you'll hear from someone on the bad end of a story from one of these sites is that they are not a credentialed news source. Print and network broad news organizations said the same thing about cable news said the same thing when CNN appeared on the air. But those complaints died down quickly as soon as NBC put MSNBC cable on the air. Next dot to understand how to respond to an attack online, let's look at Tony Robbins response when BuzzFeed News broke the story I've already discussed the history of BuzzFeed News, the history of BuzzFeed, and the history of why BuzzFeed got so big. The dress and how stories go viral. Let's discuss why the Tony Robbins story went viral. The Buzzfeed News story about Tony Robbins was posted on May 17, 2019 at 9:06am Eastern Time. Tony Robbins replied to the story soon after the Buzzfeed story was posted and Rob response on May 17th at 9:41am if you read the tweet, it said, please read my open letter to Buzzfeed. In the social media vernacular, this is on Twitter BuzzfeedNews. TruthIsPower. As a side note, we have no way of knowing precisely what transpired behind the scenes at Tony Robbins HQ the morning this buzzfeed news story broke. However, since buzzfeed News considers himself a credentialed news source, they did seek Robbins response before the story was published and like any traditional news source is required to do. And Robbins does cite in his response that he was contacted. So we'll get to that in a moment, in a future dot. Buzzfeed, we now know, dedicated a year to the story, and this is where the dots start to connect that backs up the story to the Me Too movement. The story, as it was reported in the post, was based on the leaked recordings and the internal documents and the dozens of interviews with fans and insiders that did reveal how Robbins has a history of berating abuse victims and subjected a number of his followers to these unorthodox and potentially dangerous techniques, and former female fans and staffers have accused them of inappropriate sexual advances. BuzzFeed had time to work on this story because it likely started in 2018, but that gave Robbins time to respond to the article. He posted his open letter to BuzzFeed editors and the board of directors from Tony Robbins on the blog Medium. And anyone who follows my podcast knows I detailed how another name in the news employed the same tactics when he was called out by the National Choir over his alleged affair with a married Lauren Sanchez, who is a former reporter and on air personality who started an aerial film and production company. And me thinks this is where Lauren connected with the subject of that article, Jeff Bezos, the owner and starter and founder of Amazon. So in 2019, back in January, Bezos and his wife Mackenzie, they split after 25 years of marriage. As I mentioned mentioned in the podcast episode with Jeff Bezos that I'll also link to the show Notes, he announced the divorce on Twitter and it was from his Twitter post and he included it in a note like he created the note online like on an iPhone, and then posted that to Twitter then on February 7th. So now a month later, Bezos published his essay on Medium, and that's where he accused the National Enquirer of leaking text messages and other photos and basics, extorting him and blackmailing him. And the National Choir now is now on wobbly ground because Jeff Bezos and among other reasons, called them out. Enter Tony Robbins. He did the exact same thing. Now in the rules of crisis management, I note that there are three steps to crisis management response. I say this on the podcast. I say these in my workshops and my talks. Step 1 acknowledge, accept or apologize. Step 2 put the issue or charge into context. Step 3 indicate plans, priorities, changes for the future. Also known as what did I learn from this whole mess? And then there is a bonus step and I call this the ask. And this is where the person is asking for redemption, a second chance. They need to stay in office. They want to keep their business afloat, whatever it is. They want to be made whole again. Connecting another dot Former Vice President and current president candidate Joe Biden followed these steps when he was accused of DOT inappropriately touching women. But he had trouble with the first step, the apology. However, he did eventually acknowledge that he was out of touch at the time because times have changed and he learned his lesson. He said verbatim, I got it. And as of of the time of this podcast, he is still running for office and he is in first place. Next. Another Democrat, Senator Al Franken from my birth state of Minnesota. And I have to insert here a very nice guy. I went on a boat ride with Al Franken, Senator Al Franken and his wife Frannie on a Coast Guard cutter up in South Portland, Maine. And they could not have been nicer. Frannie was nicer. But the two of them together were wonderful. In the weeks before Franken resigned, it looked like he might keep his seat despite the allegations against him. He did a last ditch exclusive interview with a television journalist from the CBS affiliate in Minneapolis, wcco, where I used to work. And he did this to reassure voters and atone for his transgressions. But it missed the mark. Listen, why? I guess the question, one of the questions people are asking is what exactly did you do to these women, both the ones that alleged that you you.

Broke their buttocks in these pictures and.

Also to Leanne Tweeden who says you forcibly kissed her.

Well, as far as these pictures of women in Minnesota, I meet thousands, as you know, people in Minnesota and I take thousands of pictures and I'm a warm person and I hug people. And in some of these encounters, pictures or meetings, some women and any you know is too many have felt that I have crossed a line.

Now an audience can usually accept that someone in Franken's position wouldn't remember each of the thousands of photos during his lifetime or his time in public life. But as Murphy noted in her questioning, all those watching the interview would expect him to remember each and every time he inappropriately touched a woman's behind every single time he was trying to hedge and he didn't make a complete and honest admission of guilt. Franken tried to worm his way out. He didn't totally admit to anything, only partial fault. And the voters, they were too wise and the public is too cynical nowadays to understand or tolerate this hedging. And the apologies rang hollow. And that's why he lost the seat. But he does now have a podcast. We're connecting more dots now we're back to Tony Robbins because he tore a page out of the Al Franken playbook and he now is the third in this triumvirate of examples of how to get out of a mess when you've been accused of inappropriate actions, especially with women. Now connecting the dot back to Jeff Bezos. Tony Robbins drafted an open letter that was posted to Medium just like Jeff Bezos. Let me read some of the lines. The first one, this letter is one that I would have preferred not to write. So he's putting it into context right there. This is a sticky issue. I have been the target of a year long investigation by buzzfeed. Note here, the lack of news just buzzfeed. Unfortunately your organization has made it clear to my team that you intend to move forward with publishing an inaccurate, agenda driven version of the past pierced with falsehoods. It is intended to disparage me personally, my family, my life's work, and the efforts of millions of individuals around the globe and who have taken this journey with me over the last 40 plus years. There is a lot of context in that statement alone. We've learned that the investigation was a year long. We learn now that Tony Robbins defense is attack. Instead of focusing on the charges, he is focusing on the lack of credentials that Buzzfeed has to accuse him of anything. Now something that Tony does, that's pretty smart. In this letter he includes multimedia links. In the letter he states, please see this video with one person's account on how your reporter so eagerly tossed her truth aside. Take a listen.

BuzzFeed just basically continues to try to use pieces of the intervention out of context to make their point, the point that they want to make. Regardless of the experience that I am relating, Tony and I had a very sacred moment in that intervention. He served me a lot.

Adding this video is critical to the Robbins response because it is a visual and audio piece of evidence that is difficult to dispute. We're watching it now. Some insight into the back and forth. You have denied my team's request to meet with you in person to present key evidence that contradicts your false allegations. You do not seek truth. You seek to further your own agenda. Now this is a common thread heard by almost everyone who gets attacked in the press nowadays. You attack the messenger, the press. Next, Tony Robbins states, after more than a year long investigation by your online entertainment company, we're splitting hairs here, Tony. The entertainment part of the BuzzFeed separated in 2016, though it is still under the BuzzFeed Entertainment section. The news division is a separate news division. Going on with this letter, you allege that approximately 20 to 30 years ago. Note the length of time there. When I was in my 20s and early 30s, I was negligent with both my employees and individuals and who chose to attend my seminars. You also allege through anonymous sources that I pursued conflicting intimate relationships. Your claims range from indistinct to ridiculous. Now those are Tony Robbins choice of words. Again, this is a statement that is framing the story. It's adding context to his charges against buzzfeed. Back to the letter. What stands out even in today's sea of misrepresentation and journalistic corner cutting is a 2014 report by the industry standard nonpartisan Pew Research center, which cites buzzfeed as the least trusted news source of them all. So it stands to reason that you are presently facing financial, organization and management troubles. Interesting, Tony. Now, editor's note, when he wrote the word misrepresentation, when you read it online, it's mis representation. You haven't seen that since the day of a typewriter. So it's a little misplaced here in the online context. But back to his context here he's citing Pew Research center and he has a link as buzzfeed listed as the least trusted news source and also a link about their financial, organizational and management troubles. This is pretty savvy because now he's bringing his evidence into his messaging and he's including the links. More context from Tony Robbins. He states, let me be clear. While my open classroom therapeutic methods are not for everyone and while I am on my best day, still only an imperfect human being. In context, he's saying I have flaws like everyone else. This is the closest that he gets to admitting anything. He does not repeat any of the specific allegations. And in media training we always tell people we advise him, never ever to repeat the negative or what you're accused of. But he is clearly deliberately sidestepping any of the charges here. And the last graph I'll cite here in my six decades on this earth. And this is Tony, by the way, not me. I've had the privilege to work with leaders like Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, presidents of countries and international companies, not to mention millions of dedicated human beings from over 100 countries around the world. Never in my life have I witnessed a cultural climate like this. So now the context is that Tony Robbins, he has been around for six decades and he has spoken to the most important people on the planet and in history, but not for a moment. I'm sorry, here, this is my side note. I don't believe that he worked with Mother Teresa and I google that to look for any type of proof that he did. And I couldn't find it. But what is clear is that Tony Robbins point of view that his charges against BuzzFeed is that BuzzFeed is now creating this discourse that is deteriorating into this idea of online conflict. He in a sense is gaslighting. He wants to work away from the allegation and towards the problems with buzzfeed. He cites examples from the Word of the Year selections. And he had a typo in there, by the way. 2016, it was post truth. 2017, it was fake news. 2018 it was Ms. Dash information. We clearly see what Tony Robbins is trying to do, painting BuzzFeed News as a joke. And he ends it by doing this, the last step in the process. Millions of people have experienced life changing breakthroughs and transformations on our journey of growth. And I invite them to join me now to stop BuzzFeed and others from tearing our society down by denying and mischaracterizing the truth. Enough is enough. And there it is folks, the ask. Whew, that was a lot. So let's review all the dots or in this case, the steps on how to manage a crisis. Step one, did Tony Robbins acknowledge, accept or apologize for his actions? Not a chance. Step two, did he put the issuer charge into context? Yes, frequently Robbins cites the case that the click baiting culture rot buzzfeed News is out to get him. So the context is not about Tony Robbins and his behavior. The Context is about BuzzFeed News. Step 3 Indicate plans, priorities or changes for the future. This is also known as what did I learn from this mess? And since Tony Robbins did not admit anything, there's nothing to learn. So he skipped over step three and the ask step where the person is asking for redemption, a second chance, stay in office, whatever they're asking. Tony Robbins turns the bonus sideways by asking people to go after buzzfeed. He is aligning with the narrative that the site is Internet junk food and should be eliminated from the public's online diet. Now, the Robbins counterpunch. How did he unleash the power against BuzzFeed News? With none other than former President Trump, White House press secretary and Big Brother contestant non contestant, Anthony the Mooch Scaramucci started a petition for BuzzFeed to remove their false article about Tony Robbins. And as the day of this recording it has, get this, 5336 supporters. Well, Buzzfeed is no slouch in the media game, so they had something up their sleeve. Another dot a piece of content just itching to go viral. So this is the drip method of online news reporting and one that I think Tony Robbins was not expecting. On May 22, the headline, Four more women have accused Tony Robbins of sexual misconduct. Yoinks. The self help guru is now accused of groping followers at his events, exposing himself to women assisted and sexually harassing fans. I'm relatively certain that team Tony Robbins was caught completely unaware that there was going to be a part 2 to the original story. So what does Tony Robbins do next dot HE fills his social media feeds with proof of support from online supporters and naturally, Tony Robbins himself. Take a listen.

I'm reaching out to you today cause I didn't want another day to go by without thanking all of you. I mean, I have been humbled and overwhelmed by the amount of love and prayers and encouragement that I've received from tens of thousands of you. Not to mention that people have stood up and told the truth about what happens in our events. And also the people that have been misquoted by buzzfeed who got up and said they're just lying, it's just not true.

Also, he tweets under the hashtag TruthIsPower a statement from his former assistant. And then BuzzFeed News says, oh yeah? Well feast your eyes on this because on May 23rd at 6:32pm Eastern Time, Part 3, Tony Robbins was filmed using racial slurs. The footage shows Tony Robbins using the N word repeatedly and describing how he responded to a skeptical participant by getting in her face and kissing her. As far as videos go, viral videos, this is like the third rail of viral videos. This is a hard one to recover from. Now, BuzzFeed News uncovered this video, meaning someone shared it with them. And this video is a bad video. If you were to watch it, I don't think anyone would say, nah, that's not too bad. It's fine because it's bad. Now what do you think Tony Robbins did? What would you do? Well, he went to Twitter of course. And he shared a video with Rodney King's daughter, Laura King to respond on Tony Robbins behalf. For Gen X folks and older, you'll remember that Rodney King was the construction worker who was brutally assaulted by the LAPD. And this was back in 1991 when this news story went viral. The video of him being attacked went viral. So it's Rodney King's daughter Laura who posted her response. But next, and this is really all Tony Robbins had left is he fired off a letter from his attorney, which again, he included the link online. But here's an excerpt from the first paragraph of the letter from Tony Robbins, attorney to the reporters at BuzzFeed News. Dear Ms. Baker, this letter responds to your email of earlier today demanding a response within two hours. Both your email and demand for a response within two hours concerning excerpts of a video featuring Mr. Robbins from from 30 plus years ago only underscores the utter bad faith and malice of you and your co writer Jane Bradley and buzzfeed, Period. Two spaces. Again, if anyone knows me, that's a tell that someone older wrote that for. That is a statement written by an attorney who's probably over the age of 50. At any rate, this is all that Tony Robbins had left. He had to go back to the attorney. And if you were to listen to that first paragraph and figure out what the context is, it's not about what did. He's not apologizing for it. He wants to put it into context, not about the video, but about what buzzfeed did to Tony. And in this case, they only gave him two hours to respond to a video. In my opinion, who cares? The upshot? How did Tony Robbins do? Let's connect that final dot. Tony Robbins, in my opinion, was masterful in his response in the beginning. Going to medium.com to post an open letter that was only a five minute read. It's pretty smart. Adding multimedia links to videos, more evidence of people supporting him. Disputing the type of reporting that BuzzFeed News did against Tony Robbins. That's genius. Also, sharing all of his information on social media, on Twitter, on his website, including his response to the website. An open letter is one of the genius moves for 2019. Heading into 2020, if you are under attack in any way, use the open letter template. It works perfectly. However, where Tony Robbins takes a stumble, it's on the steps. Remember, step one, acknowledge, accept or apologize. If you don't do any of those three, then the following steps are on unsolid ground. Tony Robbins did not acknowledge, accept or apologize for anything. And that meant the following steps were rather pointless. He couldn't put the story into context because the context for him was about BuzzFeed News not being a reputable news source. And he couldn't talk about plans or anything that he was going to do in the future to change because he wasn't admitting to anything. And then the final step, the bonus, the ask. Well, it wasn't about redemption for him. He wanted people to attack BuzzFeed. The jury is out on what will happen. And Tony Robbins, I think, will still go on being Tony Robbins. But the problem with his response is that it did not remove the stink. This is going to continue to follow Tony. He will continue to make his millions and sell out his shows, but he will always have to answer to the allegations. It will always be out there, and not in the ether, as Robbins would hope, but stuck to him. It will always be in the present, in media interviews, and in the minds of every single person sitting in his audience or deciding whether or not to buy his product online or watching it on television. I know I'll never be able to watch the movie Shallow Hal the same way again. And undoubtedly he will take a financial hit with this reputation. Hit. I know just recently that he was working with a huge company that dumped him from all of this. And also, and this is the biggest barnacle attached to him, Tony Robbins can no longer have anyone from this point forward accuse him of any misconduct. He is stuck in time here, thanks to BuzzFeed News. Tony Robbins may think he's won the battle, but he has undoubtedly lost the war because he will never, ever be able to shake it. That's all for this week on the Confident Communications Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Next week, I'm going to bring you an episode about how to communicate effectively in the 21st century as a leader. Some of the points that I talked about in today's episode, some of the flubs I'm going to talk about in the podcast next week. And this podcast is a special one because it is going to be the setup to explain what I'm going to be launching soon. And that's the Confident Leader Network. It's an online subscription service to help leaders, to help anyone become a more effective and confident communicator in the 21st century. And I'll tell you all about it next week's episode. Thanks for listening. Bye for now. Sam.