In this episode of the Marketing Muscle‑Up Podcast, host Richard Toutou​nji shares his personal entrepreneurial backstory—buying a fitness studio at 17, working on cruise ships, building a corporate wellness business, and eventually becoming a digital‑marketing mentor for fitness and wellness studios. He then delves into the most impactful lesson he’s taken from Tony Robbins: the power of affirmations and relentless repetition, a practice he first encountered at a Date‑with‑Destiny retreat. Richard explains how repeating a specific affirmation (“Now I am the voice… step up”) reshaped his mindset, gave him confidence, and helped him overcome habits like nail‑biting. He illustrates how similar affirmations have helped him during marathon training and how the technique can be applied to business growth, especially in today’s uncertain marketing climate. The episode also lists Robbins’ key resources—Unlimited Power, the Netflix documentary I Am Not Your Guru, and other books—encouraging listeners to seek mentorship. Finally, Richard promotes his own company, ComMarketing, offering a free 15‑minute “marketing muscle‑up” call to help fitness‑industry owners improve their digital marketing and align mindset with business strategy.
Chapters
Now I am the voice. I will lead, not follow. I will believe, not doubt. I will create, not destroy. I'm a force for good. I'm a leader. Defy the odds, set a new standard, and step up. Hey, welcome back to the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast Show. I'm Richard Toutounji. And in today's episode, I want to talk all about what I learned from Tony Robbins, Anthony Robbins, who has been— seen him Who finds him interesting, his content and his work? I'd love to know. Just hit me up on my Instagram, Richard Deterji, and let me know what you think about that. Now, if this is your first time listening, I'm really excited that you're here. If you're a regular listener, thank you for jumping on every time. You may have heard my story. I purchased a fitness studio at 17 and a half years old. I asked my parents to take a home loan, take equity out of their house. They were super scared at the time to do so. But they gave me a little bit of money to do so. I went in business with a business partnership. That didn't work out. But what did work out was the growth of my business. And I had no idea what I was doing. It was a bit of hard work, an A-frame sign. I bought an A-frame sign. And to be honest with you, I had no hope marketing. I had no idea what I was doing. I spent all my time at the studio, morning, night. I slept there a few mini nights, you could say. And I sold that, eventually sold that, worked on cruise ships, started a corporate wellness health business, which I might talk about a bit later. And I now spend all my time helping other fitness wellness studios, gyms, leisure centers to use digital marketing and become their own version of their marketing ninja because I didn't have money to hire an agency. And when I did, they never worked out for me. And so that's my backstory. And every episode, I want to kind of dissect what you can do to grow your business. And today's topic is what I learned from the great man Tony Robbins. And when I say the great man, I think he's impacted a lot of people, millions and millions of people over time. And if you haven't heard from him, heard him, I'm sure you can just Google him. You can find a lot of stuff about him. Now, I first came across him when I was working on a cruise liner. I was around 20 at the time. I was working in the Caribbean. And the, the other personal trainer I was working with, he gave me this book, Tony Robbins, and he said, hey, this guy's going to help you to, you know, be better. I said, okay, great. I dissected the book, read it really fast. And in fact, true story, I used to bite my nails quite a lot. I read a part, I think the NLP part, first time I've ever heard about that. And, you know, pretty much I didn't bite my nails after that for a very, very long time. And it was just amazing the way that we can change our mind to do the activities we want to do. And And I want to keep this episode relatively short because the biggest lesson I learned of Tony Robbins over the time, and we've, myself and Joey have been to multiple live events, Date with Destiny, I think in the Gold Coast, and his 2-day event, I forget the name of that one. And there was one thing that really stood out of how you can change your mind straight away. I want to share that with you right now. There was an activity that was used and the activity was a lot of affirmations. And you know what affirmations are? Affirmations are when you say one thing over and over and over again and you have a re-belief. And I'm pretty sure this is the Date with Destiny. That was the Date with Destiny. That was the week-long retreat talks about male and feminine energy and how do you just not think about motivation, but how do you make it a lifelong habit? And there was a quote that we all had to work out. If you've ever been to that, you would've heard the quote. And this is the quote. I hadn't used it for many, many years, but I literally just printed it out the other day because I thought it can really help me to develop a better mind and to have more of a growth mind. And And the affirmation that he made us say probably for a good half a day over and over and over and over and over in our head was something that stuck for me many, many years without me even reading it, without me even thinking about it. It was just always there. And it wasn't until the other day made me think about it and I printed it out. And when I printed it out, I just kind of put it around. I put one in my bathroom actually, one in my office. And you may have heard this. It says, now I am the voice I will lead, not follow. I will believe, not doubt. I will create, not destroy. I'm a force for good. I'm a leader. Defy the odds, set a new standard, and step up. And the word step up, you know, step up was repeated many, many, many, many, many times, hundreds of times, walking, chanting, step up, step up, step up, step up. And at the time I thought, oh, here we go. Here we go. And you've probably seen it. Oh, the Anthony Robbins You know, cult people say. But in the day, it was really interesting because that has stayed in my mind for so long, and it really adjusts what I think. I create a lot of different affirmations over the years. I remember one of them when I was running, you know, marathons, and I was really exhausted. I said, "My leg is my legs are strong. My mind is sharp. My legs are strong. My mind is sharp." And every time I thought about being weak. go to my legs. And I said, my legs are strong. And it'd go to my head. So I kept running. And so it's amazing what you can do with affirmations. It's amazing when applied correctly over and over again, they really can reshape how you do what you do. And they're pretty easy to create. They really are. You know, Tony Robbins taught us how to do it. And it's really just that simple. It's like creating an affirmation, a verse, a phrase, and repeating it over and over and over and over and over and over in your head. In a state of excitement, in a state of certainty. You know, when you're repeating these statements in a state of like doom and gloom and doom, it doesn't really trigger in your mind. But when you're repeating the state on a high, when you're repeating this state when you're excited, it really triggers in. Now, I don't know the scientific proof of this and the psychology of this. I just know that it works. So if you haven't yet tried it, you can Google Tony Robbins affirmations or now I am the voice, I will lead, not follow, and you can just print it out. There's heaps of people that have it there. That's what I did. And again, the biggest lesson I've learned here is repetition. You've got to repeat the same things that work for you. A lot of time in our fitness business, we do one thing And we don't do it again because we tried it once, it worked or didn't work, and we don't want to do it again. We want to find something else. And so what's happening now in the marketing landscape is there is a lot of vulnerability at the moment. You know, there's talks of recessions, there's talks of things are different. Yeah, they are. They are. Every day they're different. Every year they're different. And it's going to be an interesting time. Sure. But it's going to be a more interesting time for your business if you haven't got your own affirmation, if you haven't suited up and getting ready to win every day, if you don't have a growth mindset to win every day. So, you know, this episode is not particularly about a marketing skill, but it's probably the most important skill. It's about a mindset skill. And without the right mindset, you won't be able to push the marketing forward. Without the right mindset, you certainly won't be able to grow your business. And it's really important to do that, especially in this time right now where the market is not the same as it was, where it's easy to say, yep, I'm gonna make it happen. It's not like it was before, but it's certainly out there and there's certainly a lot of growth to be made at the moment because a lot of people that are waiting— don't be one of those people. So, um, let's talk about the best Tony Robbins books to read. Well, there's a whole bunch of them. I've got a few here. Unlimited Power is probably my personal favorite. I'm just looking here. I've got a few books here, but Unlimited Power is probably the personal favorite. If you haven't read that, read that. Which book is it for you? Just trying to think of these other book names. Unlimited Power, probably the classic, I would say. I always love the classic books, you know, because I just find that— I just find that the book, the best. It comes in different colors, but I'd say jump onto that if you haven't already. Or really just— he's got a movie, I think, too, on Netflix, I Am Not Your Guru. That's a great movie. That's all about Date with Destiny. And, you know, jump onto that. He's always around. And I think he's an amazing human being that has changed a lot of lives. And that's one of my secrets to success is having early mentors that you can really look up to and get your mind laser sharp because that's exactly what you're going to need right now. So if you don't have that, jump onto a mentor, jump onto a coach. Read a book, do a podcast. We've got heaps of podcasts that you can jump into, and that is a really great way for your growth. So team, if you do want a mentor and you do want some direction in your business in marketing, sales, what I'd recommend is, is jump onto our show sponsor, ComMarketing. That's our company, and we're going to show you how to grow your business and love your life. Love your life, because if you don't love your business, You're going to hate your life. If you hate your life, you're going to hate your business. Just go to our website, commarketing.com.au, and book what we call a marketing muscle-up call. It will be 15 minutes and it will literally change the shape of your business. We'll ask you some questions about where you want to get to and we'll show you some things that are not working. So some things digitally that are not working, we'll pinpoint that and show you some amazing opportunities that you have at the moment to grow your fitness wellness, um, business, whatever that may be— a leisure center or a gym, a personal training. We work with everybody, even a fitness supplier. I look forward to speaking to you there, guys. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Um, go and step up and set up a new standard. Thanks, guys. We'll catch you next time on the Marketing Muscle-Up Podcast Show.
