Читать книгу Passion Into Profit - Harrington Andy - Страница 8

One night, after visiting her in hospital, I came home and slumped down on the couch. I switched on late-night TV and surfed through the channels, hoping to find something to occupy my mind so I could drift off to sleep.

After a few moments I am glued to the TV screen, I'm feeling a tinge of hope. It was an infomercial by Tony Robbins, the American motivational guru. His message was clear: you can master your own destiny. I hear of his work with celebrities like Andre Agassi, but also ordinary people who have attended his events and had life-changing breakthroughs in their businesses and their private lives. People who had been stuck for years had seemingly magically transformed their circumstances. They seemed like genuine people, too – not weird or funky, but solid, dependable types.

I'm naturally sceptical as I call the freephone number.

‘Thank you for calling the Anthony Robbins Companies. Marshonda Henderson here, how may I assist you?’

Marshonda's incredible gift of the gab convinces me to enrol in the Mastery University programme, which is tens of thousands of dollars'-worth of investment.

‘What have I got to lose?’ I ask myself, and resolve – against all medical advice – to check her out of the Priory Hospital.

A few weeks later, if you had travelled with us, you would have flown to the Orange County Convention Centre in Florida. We had front row seats at Robbins' Unleash the Power Within event. It promised us major breakthroughs, and boy do we need something. I feel like it's my last throw of the dice.

Tony Robbins hits the stage and begins by telling all 5,000 of us that we have the power to change and that later that night we will be walking across hot coals as proof of our power. She is joining in, but I can see she is only going through the motions. I get a sense that her problems are too deeply ingrained for any lasting real change to occur.

‘I'm looking for someone who's depressed,’ Tony asks the audience. Instinctively, without thinking, I raise her arm. My heart is racing.