I’ve taken part twice in Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within.

It's a jamboree which big Tony himself modestly calls “the greatest personal growth event in history”.

After my first UPW experience and four days of power poses, fist-pumps and jumping up & down like a madman, I was so psyched up that I bought a pack of multi-coloured cue cards, spread them over my kitchen table, grabbed a sharpie and started scribbling short notes from the event.

I filled the cue cards with phrases like “I will find the way”…

…“No-one can take this strength from me”…

And my favourite of all: “What does it feel like to give up?”

Then I grabbed some blu-tack and stuck these cue cards all over my walls.

My kitchen was quite the sight. And when Lauren visited Casa Grundy (this was in the early days of our fledgling relationship), I’m sure she started to wonder what she’d got herself involved in. 

(I think she still does)

After a few weeks of raised eyebrows and head-shaking, she asked me to take the cue cards down. She said it was disturbing the feng shui.

While I wasn’t sure that the energy forces in my kitchen would be that much different with or without the cue cards, I relented.

Anyway, turns out my crazy cue card antics aren’t all that unusual. 

You can’t move on Instagram, for example, without seeing motivational slogans clocking up thousands of posts, re-posts, shares and likes amidst the videos of adorable hedgehogs and daily sandwich challenges.

Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with slogans like these.

But just to be clear:

Lapping up inspirational sayings is a wonderful way to confuse the menu with the meal.

See, I really thought that regurgitating all these sayings would somehow help me internalise them.

But it wasn’t plastering my wall with motivational cue cards from a Tony Robbins event which made any difference to my life.

It was going to the event in the first place. 

I can directly trace my decision to take a sabbatical back to Unleash The Power Within. The sabbatical which led to me quitting my job, starting this newsletter, taking Michael Neill's coaching certification, going back to my old job and helping other people figure out what they want, both inside and outside the office.

Sure, those cue cards felt good. I liked getting a boost of motivation whenever I saw the words “You can do this!” as I boiled my eggs each morning.

But at UPW, something clicked. Whereas the cue cards were just words about the click.

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To fulfilment,

Tom