It was more like a big-budget rock concert than what I was expecting, light show and all. Huge speakers blasting music (everything from AC/DC to Celine Dion), synched perfectly to crescendo in rhythm with Mr. Robbins. The main thing that surprised me was how much audience participation is involved...every 30 minutes or so Tony says "Get up! Shake yourself out! Find a partner and start dancing! Give each other a massage!" and so on.

Even as I write this I can't believe I did that shit. Group activities which involved spilling your guts to sweaty strangers were also prevalent.

But I gotta say, it's pretty intense to go inside of yourself for 3 straight days and think about why you do the stuff you do. Tony Robbins is a master motivator, public speaker (gotta be the best in the world at public speaking), and most impressively a master salesman.

Yes, the seminar was peppered with pitches for his seemingly endless assortment of products. The most impressive pitch was a two-hour talk about his Mastery University (no .edu domain?:), where I swear he got at least 1,200 people (of the 3,500 in attendance) to quickly jump out of their chairs and drop between $10,000 and $15,000 on a set of three classes.

The technique was impeccable. "Everyone get up and sign up at the tables on the side of the room!" There I was, pretty much sitting alone in the middle of the room. "If you don't want to sign up, that's fine -- feel free to either take a break, or watch this video!" -- a commercial for the thing I wasn't signing up for.

But all-in-all it was a very positive experience. It was Tony's salesmanship that made me respect him the most -- anyone that good is worth learning from.

Tony rocks. And I might sign up for those classes one day (don't tell anyone)