Tony Robbins: The Most Confident Man on Earth

How Tony Robbins talked his way into building an empire.

- Kris Frieswick

IF TONY ROBBINS TOLD YOU TO JUMP OFF A BRIDGE, WOULD YOU DO IT?

Marc Benioff would. He did.

Benioff first discovered the self-help guru as a 28-year-old. The aspiring entrepreneur was working at a big corporation when he began absorbing Robbins’s tapes and attending his seminars. Eventually, he credited Robbins with his decision to start Salesforce years later, now a $6.6 billion San Francisco enterprise behemoth.

This is not uncommon. Robbins boasts a star-studded network of clients, several of whom, including Benioff, have seen their relationship with him morph from one of master and student to that of friends. In July 2012, while Benioff was vacationing with four buddies at Robbins’s Namale resort in Fiji, Robbins decided to show them something in the middle of the night. He shuffled them into his jeep, drove to a bridge, and then came to an abrupt halt in the middle of it. Below was a raging river. Robbins said they were all going to jump off to face their fears. “I’m afraid and nervous,” recalls Benioff about staring down at the water swirling below. “I have no idea what’s going on.” But he jumped anyway.

Robbins waited until they were in the water to tell them about the poisonous snakes. Shortly after he mentioned them, Benioff saw one swimming next to Robbins. “Tony didn’t seem to care about the snakes,” says Benioff. “But I did.”

What could have been a reckless game of chicken was, for Benioff, a teachable moment. “Tony turned that night into a seminar,” he says, articulating, in part, why high-power executives, politicians, and celebrities keep Robbins at the top of their contact list. “Tony realizes that the only thing that prevents you from focusing on what you want is fear.”