TJ Walker breaks down why fire-walking at Anthony Robbins seminars is a gimmick, not transformation. After 40 people got injured at a Dallas event in 2018, Walker explains the physics: sweat and coal's low thermal conductivity protect skin. He argues these stunts distract from actual skills like public speaking.
Questions this video answers
Late spring / early summer 2018
About 40 people
Unleash the Power Within at the K. Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center (downtown Dallas)
Parkland Hospital burn unit
Sometimes 5,000 to 10,000 people (large group rallies)
Chapters
Burned by hot coals. 40 people injured at a recent Anthony Robbins seminar.
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Okay, folks, I am going to annoy a lot of people today because I have some contrasting views on Anthony Robbins. On the one hand, I like a lot of what he says. I do think he's a skilled, gifted speaker. I don't think he's just a grifter or a con man. And, and a lot of people look down their nose at him and think he's sort of cheesy and tacky. On the other hand, I do think he does some cheesy, tacky things and walking across the coals, that's one of them. So those of you who are big die hard Anthony Robbins fans and if you've walked across the Coles, you're not going to be happy with me. Here's the situation and it's not the first time this has happened, ladies and gentlemen. This is in late spring, early summer, 2018. Forty people were injured at a motivational seminar held by Anthony Robbins in Texas. This was one of the Unleashed the Power within conferences which I've been to one of his three day conferences. Again, he's a fascinating speaker, quite compelling. This was at the K. Bailey Hutchinson Convention center in downtown Dallas and apparently 40 people were injured. A number of them were taken to the Parkland Hospital burn unit for serious burns on coals. Now, for those of you who've never heard of Anthony Robbins and are asking yourself, what is this guy talking about? Why would somebody walk across burning coals? Anthony Robbins is perhaps the foremost motivational speaker in the world. He's held seminars for 30 plus years, rose to massive fame and influence with the success of his infomercial. And when he has large group rallies of five, sometimes 10,000 people, he will have a segment. And I'm afraid to say I got to the event late, the three day event I went to of his and I missed it. But what he does is he helps people show they can overcome challenges in life, focus on goals, accomplish things that they think are impossible, and they literally walk across hot burning coals without burning themselves. And he's done this with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions of people at this point in his career. So it's something that people talk about, it's memorable, it's fantastic drama. The only problem is, every so often, oops, people end up in the burn unit in the hospital. Is it worth it? Here's the big Problem I have sympathetic to Anthony Robbins because he's basically giving speeches and he's got to figure out, how can I capture people's attention and not bore them? Because if I just talk the whole time, no matter how good I am, it can be boring. So he's looking for ways to make it more interesting, more dramatic, more visual. Well, walking across burning coals solves all those problems. Here's the problem that fundamentally, from everything I've read, the research shows it's a gimmick. If you're able to walk across hot coals and not burn yourself. It's not because you've all of a sudden developed amazing willpower from an Anthony Robbins seminar. It's not because you have great concentration. It's not because you have the most fantastic discipline. It's not because you now have the ability to conquer all major challenges in your life. No, it's a basic scientific principle of human beings. Sweat. Our feet sweat. So think of it this way. You can take a hot, hot scalding iron. If you lick your finger and touch the iron, you don't burn your finger. It just evaporates the saliva from your finger. It's essentially the same thing when you are walking across coals. The other issue is, when we are nervous, we tend to sweat a lot more. So most people are nervous before walking across hot coals. So your feet are perspiring even more and you're just walking across and it's evaporating. The other thing is, coal is not a particularly good conductor of heat. So even though inside it's thousands of degrees, the outside of the coal that you're touching is not that hot, you put it all together. Yes, most people are able to walk across cold and not burn themselves. But whether you do that because you've been listening to great motivational thoughts and now you're so in awe of what you've accomplished, or someone just woke you up out of sleep and said, walk quickly over here and don't look down. The results would be the same. So it's frankly, a gimmick. It's cheesy gimmick that I think tarnishes an awful lot of the good message of Anthony Robbins. I mean, so much of his message is have goals. Look at what successful people in life that you admire do and did and do what they do. Try to associate with people who are doing the things you want to do with life. Don't associate with people who just sit around and watch TV and drink beer all day long. So his advice is perfectly Good. His techniques for speaking are excellent. But there's this overreach of trying to teach people new skills through metaphor. And the idea is, well, if you can walk across Kohl's, you can accomplish anything. So you can now go write that best selling novel. It just doesn't work that way. If you want to write a best selling novel, probably what you should be doing is sitting at home writing a novel instead of going to a feel good seminar where you walk across Kohl's and do high fives with people. And in fact you should write a whole bunch of novels. And whether it's Stephen King or many other famous novelists, you should write your first six novels that are maybe so bad no one's even willing to print them. And you've got to write your seventh novel because you're that committed before the first one actually sells more than two copies. So that is my biggest problem with these big showy events. Whether it's walking across hot coals, whether it's walking across broken glass. I'll tell you about how I did that once myself in just a moment.
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So yes, I didn't do this as a part of my seminar, but I was at a three day growth retreat where a whole variety of speakers were there and I was one of the speakers at the event teaching people very specific practical skills on how to communicate more effectively. Well, there was another speaker there, motivational speaker, and his particular shtick was he put down all this broken glass and had people walk across the broken glass without cutting themselves. Wow, isn't it a miracle? Look at how brilliant you are with your concentration. I mean, here's the thing folks, if you walk slowly, you're not running or jumping up and down. And the glass is. I forgot if they had to be in large pieces or small pieces, but perhaps it was small pieces. It's just very unlikely anyone is going to cut themselves. There's a science to it. It has nothing to do with mystical willpower. And the problem I have with a lot of so called motivational speakers is is that their central message is somewhat trite and cliche. They all give the same good advice, have goals, work on them every day, have role models, try to figure out what they did. Don't spend all your time watching TV and drinking malt liquor or martinis. All great advice, but it sounds trite and cliche because everyone said it a thousand times. So a a lot of these speakers are constantly trying to come up with a new gimmick to stand out in the marketplace of ideas, entertainment. And so they come up with these things that are seen as vast metaphors. If you can overcome this great thing, then you can do anything else in life. I take a different approach. If you want to get over a specific challenge in your life, why not do that actual thing now? As a public speaking coach, a media trainer, I get offended when people say, oh, you want to get over your public speaking fear? Then meditate or visualize yourself getting a standing ovation. Or just watch videos of other speakers all day long, or drink green tea or visualize your audience on their underwear. It's all complete nonsense. If you want to be a better speaker and get over your fear of public speaking, then speak. Speak on video. Watch it. Keep doing it until you like it. Anthony Robbins is a great public speaker, not because he walked across coal and not because he visualized success. He He's a great public speaker because since the age of 17 he's given hundreds of speeches every year. That's the real lesson from Anthony Robbins and any other motivational speaker. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.
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