Reporter: Why Rich, specifically? Why'd you invite him?
Tony: He's my bud! (Laughs)
I'm Rich Feloni, senior reporter at Business Insider.
Tony Robbins is a, what he likes to call, "performance coach." He's coached people
like Serena Williams, Marc Benioff at Salesforce, Paul Tudor Jones who's a
billionaire investor. Over the last few years, I've had several opportunities to
interview him. His team reached out to me and said Tony is going to be at his
resort in Fiji. He was going to be hosting the winners of Shopify's "Build a
Bigger Business" competition and so we decided that yeah this would be a great
opportunity to see what Tony is actually like. We headed out from JFK in New York City
to LAX and then from LAX we took Fiji Airways to the main airport in Fiji.
It's called Nadi.
As we're waiting to get on this little island hopper, we
noticed that on the runway is Tony's private jet and it has a big TR logo on it.
I'm going to admit that I was pretty scared. I haven't really been in a plane
that small before.
This is the only time I've ever actually checked the life vest under a seat.
As we were going into the Savusavu Airport — well, it's called an airport.
There was a tiny little shack that was the airport, but it was
basically a cow pasture.
From there, off to Namale.
Namale is Tony Robbins' resort.
This was one of his first major investments, so he was able to get it
kind of cheap and then over the last 30 years, he's just really built it up into
a beautiful resort that's basically in the middle of the jungle
by a bunch of coral reef.
One of our first stops was Tony's house.
Tony: Well, nice to see you on the other side of the world. (Laughs)
How are ya? Rich: Nice to see you, Tony.
Tony: Great. Good to see you too. Come on in.
He basically has this
decked out hut in like the secluded part of his resort.
Tony: You ready for my morning routine? Rich: Yes, perfect
So Tony has this really elaborate morning routine. I thought he
was going to kind of give us a demo or something, but he said, 'Why would I give
you a demo when I could just guide you through the whole thing yourself?'
So we started off with priming, which is kind of like his take on meditation and yoga.
Tony: Begin to think of a moment in your life you could feel really grateful for if
you wanted to. Enjoy it. Feel it. Fill up with it.
Yeah I'll admit it was pretty weird
but I just gave in totally and was like
you know what, we came all the way to Fiji, I'm just gonna go all in.
So after his priming exercise, Tony took us inside and I was surprised to see his
personal trainer Billy, this incredibly energetic guy who's always laughing.
He made this little cocktail that was called like an adrenal cocktail or
something. I didn't really know what it was, but I just decided to drink it.
Tony: How was that? Rich: Tastes pretty good (Laughs)
And that fueled me for the rest of the day and everything that was to come.
So next, it's time to check out what Billy and Tony called the "electric taco."
Billy: We're gonna work as a team. You tell me when you feel it — even if it doesn't hurt —
just tell me when you first feel it, and we'll gradually go up.
Rich: So right now, it feels like I'm getting punched in the chest on both sides.
Tony was saying that this is something that he does essentially every morning and it
basically stimulates your muscles to the point where it feels like you're getting
a deep tissue massage. I immediately felt all of the tightness in my back first
get really, really intense and then loosen up.
After the electric taco, we went to
Tony's personal gym. It was filled with these weird contraptions
that looked kind of like something out of "Saw" or a medieval torture chamber.
Tony: If you want, we'll put you on the little torture machine.
Full tilt. All the way. Push as hard as you can.
The most medieval looking of all of these things
is called the four-minute machine.
Tony: Push! Push! Push! Push! Push!
Around two minutes in, I really didn't
think that I could do it.
Tony: Whatever you got! This is it!
Tony was screaming at me and I just felt like
I couldn't embarrass myself there. So just driven by ego, I had to finish it.
Billy: Push! Yes!
Tony: Isn't that wild?
It felt as if I had spent like an hour in the gym.
Tony took us to the next thing that
he does every morning, which is
spend some time in the sauna and then a cold plunge.
To be honest, it felt great. Basically, it's part of the workout because your
heart rate is accelerated the whole time.
Tony: You'll find your body really relaxing
because you've taken it to such extremes. You'll drop down to a different level.
Like if you went and meditated now, you're gonna meditate deep.
So the week went by.
We got some great opportunities to see Tony in action and coaching entrepreneurs.
We realized that we needed some extra footage that we didn't get to kind of
just wrap everything up before we headed back home.
Tony: How you guys doing?
We were really only expecting 5 or 10 minutes.
He starts giving us a tour and after just a few minutes, he
points out something and says
Tony: Did you go up to the waterfall?
Rich: Have we gone to the waterfall? Reporter: No we didn't make it to the waterfall.
Tony: OK we should run you up to the waterfall. Will you call them and ask
them if they've got — my car's broken down, I think
I don't know if I can fit in this car.
So a five-minute trip for extra footage
ended up being an adventure that lasted over an hour.
Tony: I love this.
At the top of this mountain was a waterfall.
I really wasn't expecting him to just dive into the water
throw his shirt off
and then scream like Tarzan.
(Tony yells)
I dove into the water after Tony.
It's a pretty surreal experience.
What I got from this last adventure was that Tony is a guy
who if you give him five minutes and you're able to get in front of him
if he's able to make a connection with someone
he's really going to engage fully.
In Fiji, you could tell that he's like completely relaxed. This is his home turf.
And I could see that he still kind of had like a
kids approach to the whole thing.
Tony: Are we on time? Am I late?
They had to catch a flight to Australia.
A group of people who worked at Namale had formed a semicircle
to sing a traditional Fiji farewell song.
Tony: Time to say goodbye again. I'm so sorry
but I look forward to coming back home to see all the family again.
It's been a beautiful, beautiful trip. Bula vinaka.
(Singing)
When you're in Tony's presence, you kind of get sucked into this —
He's got a very magnetic personality.
Totally, he's not for everyone.
There are plenty of people who wouldn't be into this stuff.
Whether it's through his work or his philanthropy
I'm convinced that Tony is someone who is a genuine guy.
Yes, he's able to make a ton of money because he has very clearly defined business goals
but everything that he's preaching and teaching people, he genuinely
believes himself. So after this trip, I've become convinced that anything in his
material that he's teaching, this is something that he fully believes.
He's fully invested in.
And I think that makes a big difference
whether you're in or whether you're out.