Tony Robbins on a Federal Healthcare Advisory Board? Hmmm....

[00:00:00] At Seek Safely, it's our mission to empower seekers to have a safe and meaningful self-improvement journey. Why do we care? Seeking to be your best self is an amazing, beautiful human impulse that has led us to create art, invent technology, tell amazing stories, and reach the moon. But we saw the dark side of self-help in 2009 when a recklessly run self-improvement retreat led to the death of three people, including my sister, Kirby Brown.

[00:00:30] We want people to seek, to dream their big dreams and chase their beautiful goals. But we want to make sure they're safe along the way. This podcast is about education and empowerment and getting real about the promises and problems of self-help. We talk with people who understand and care about the self-help industry and everyone it touches. I'm Jean Brown. I'm Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle. And this is the Seek Safely.

[00:01:05] Hello and welcome to the Seek Safely. My name is Jean Brown and I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle. What's up, Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle? Oh my gosh. It's yet another episode of the Seek Safely Podcast. We're back. Here we are. And I wonder what we're going to talk about. I wonder if there's anything to talk about that is relevant to the self-help world and the impact of the self-help world on the real world. Yeah.

[00:01:33] So we're always interested in kind of showing that intersection because one of the things we felt very strongly when we first started working as an organization, Seek Safely, we wanted to show people that, you know, self-help isn't really a fringe concern. It's something that does kind of filter through into many different aspects of our lives and our society. And I think more and more people are seeing that.

[00:02:03] So we did an episode recently talking about kind of self-help and celebrity and self-help figures over time who have ingratiated themselves with various political figures or other celebrities and how there's this kind of two-way street of using one another. And we've got another prime example of that. Your boy.

[00:02:26] Well, we should start by like, so when we go back to that old episode about self-help and entwining itself with politics and influence and stuff, the prime example of that was my boy Anthony Robbins.

[00:02:50] And just to revisit that subject slightly, like, so kind of the apex of this kind of thing I thought that we would see in our lifetime was, and I think I told the story on that episode where right after Bill Clinton, President Bill Clinton came to power. He was having a rough go of it in that first year.

[00:03:14] And they were really struggling to get any legislation passed, and it was a rough time. There's a book by Bob Woodward titled The Agenda that really lays this out well. Because Clinton and his staff, his team, were really struggling. And so Clinton, who is a possibility thinker, famously into self-help books himself, we should talk about that sometime. Like, Clinton starts out his biography.

[00:03:43] Bill Clinton wrote a biography. I think it's just titled My Life, creatively titled. And one of the first things in that book he talks about is one of his favorite self-help books, a book titled Take Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakin. Anyway, so Clinton was the self-help guy. And when things got rough for him in that first year of his administration, like 1993, what did he do? But he called in the troops.

[00:04:10] He called in, like, a handful of self-help gurus to the White House, famously. And so it was Tony Robbins and Stephen Covey and Marianne Williamson, I think, was one of them. And Gene Houston, I think, was another one. So it's a time-honored tradition of self-help cozying up to power.

[00:04:36] And Tony Robbins has been at the forefront of this because he loves talking about coaching world leaders. It's one of his favorite things to talk about. Like, man, in fact, you could do a drinking game, like, whenever you expose yourself to any of Tony Robbins' content. Like, how long does it take him? Back in the 80s and 90s, it was like, how long would it take him to mention that he had coached Clinton or Gorbachev? That was the other big one. He's like, yeah, like, when the Soviet Union was falling apart, like, I got the call from Mikhail Gorbachev.

[00:05:07] But he loves that. Well, and we talked about on that episode the idea of how self-help figures have used these examples and these relationships to, you know, lend themselves some sort of gravitas or credence to, you know, emphasize their kind of self-importance and whatnot. So... You bet. Yeah. So... Big on that. So it's a time-honored tradition.

[00:05:33] And, well, what is interesting about that tradition is that, you know, so self-help by definition is, like, you don't have to have any qualifications to be a self-help guy. You just have to have a brand. And you have to have a, you know, a relatively successful brand. And then you're the guy. Like, so I am a psychologist. Like, I have some credentials. Like, I'm not as credentialed as others. I'm way more credentialed than some.

[00:06:03] But, you know, like, I'm somebody who has credentials who happen to get popular on the internet. But that's not a requirement to have that credential. Like, I mean, if you can... My twin, my soulmate, Glennon Doyle, does not actually have a doctorate. I don't think you're her type. Sorry. I don't think so either. I do not think so either. I think Abby would have an issue. But... No, man.

[00:06:33] I mean, but it's a... What an example of, like, so I have that credential and I happen to get popular. She does not have that credential. She got way more popular. Mm-hmm. But that's kind of the point is that that world of self-help is all about branding. It's not about credentials. I mean, the purest example of this was our friend James Arthur Ray, who, on the one hand, got plenty popular when he was in The Secret and on Oprah. Mm-hmm.

[00:07:01] And then it was kind of strange because he could have just cruised on that. He could have just said, okay, I'm popular because I'm popular. I'm popular because I was in this movie and I was on Oprah and stuff. But he couldn't let that go. He insisted on making up credentials. You remember this? Yes. And the stuff he made up was so interesting. Like, he would start with a kernel of truth. Mm-hmm.

[00:07:26] So, for example, one of his jobs was he was a telemarketer for, I think it was, I want to say it was AT&T. Yes. And that was, he ran the telemarketing operation. That's what he did. He was a telemarketer. But in his telling of it, that became, I studied at the AT&T School of Business. And, you know, come on. But then he went beyond that. So, he had gone to Hawaii once.

[00:07:56] And that became, well, I was trained as a huna, as a Hawaiian spiritual leader. In fact, I was the only white man to be declared a huna. And he had gone to, there's a Peru, right? Peru. Yeah. And he was constantly going on saying, yeah, I became a shaman down there. I trained and became a shaman. And when this is actually looked into, turns out what happened was he met a tour guide down there once. Yeah.

[00:08:25] Anyway, but so he would invent qualifications. I like go traveling and I tend to pick up recipes, you know? And then, like, I'll be like, okay, now I'm going to make this recipe of this really good dish that we had in, you know, the Dominican Republic. Like, now I'm going to, and James would collect fake credentials from his travels. I guess that's just, you know, a different way to do it. But, yeah.

[00:08:49] Well, and what's interesting about that, too, is so by the time James became a really successful author, kind of on the heels of The Secret and Oprah, he was effortfully trying to work these fake credentials into his shtick. Like, so he really wanted to be known, especially as a shaman. Like, he loved that bit. But actually, right before his death, he was running around calling himself a minister. He has no training as a minister. His dad was a minister. Yeah, I know. That was a funny one, too. Yeah.

[00:09:20] Actually, I've been thinking about his fake credentials a lot recently because I've been reading Michael Pollan's book about psychedelics. Mm-hmm. And you know who comes up in that book a lot is Stanislav Groff. Oh, yeah. Good old holotropic breathing, yeah. The holotropic breathwork. So that was another thing that James claimed was that he was certified in holotropic breathwork.

[00:09:43] And he was given, like, you know, cease and desist type things from the Groff Foundation because he wasn't actually certified. Good time. And he was using the breathwork. Yeah. Even though he wasn't certified. So just one of many, yeah, faux qualifications that he touted.

[00:10:04] There's a book coming out by our friend Annette McGivney called Plastic Shaman that is going to, I assume, is going to explore, you know, some more of the stuff with Jamesy in particular. God rest his soul. I don't have James to kick around anymore, sadly.

[00:10:26] Anyway, the reason why we're talking about any of this is because it's relevant to, like, when we think of Seek Safely's mission. It's, you know, we think of ourselves as an educational organization and not really a watchdog exactly, but we like to point out red flags and kind of send up some flares.

[00:10:47] And one of the things that the self-help industry is really bad at is kind of policing itself when it comes to these bullshit credentials. Yeah. And it's motivated to do that. Like, one of the reasons why that is is because, okay, if I, as a self-help guy, call out James Arthur Ray as a plastic shaman, then who's going to call me out, right?

[00:11:14] Like, it's to everybody's advantage in that world to not call each other out. Right. Because, frankly, everyone's about equally unqualified. Right. In that world. And it's part of the culture. It's part of the self-help culture. Yeah.

[00:11:31] Now, of course, the granddaddy of all of those, of lack of credentials and qualifications, is my boy, Tony Robbins, the king of the entire industry, the entire movement. Now, Tony himself, so this is kind of interesting. So, in contrast to James, who would make up credentials and make up experiences, Tony kind of went the exact opposite direction.

[00:11:59] But Tony, as part of his, I say Tony as if I know him, as if we're pals. We're not pals. Unless you count that one time, he emailed me and invited me on his podcast. That didn't really happen, guys. They tried to scam me. Anyway. Scam. Tony went kind of the opposite direction because it's part of his mythos that he doesn't have credentials. It really is. Yeah.

[00:12:28] I was going to say, it's like they go one of two ways. They either make things up or they kind of lean into the idea that they're not credentialed. And kind of like quietly throwing shade on the idea of being credentialed. And so then they're trying to, what they're selling is something that's like, I'm an alternative to that. And you've probably had experiences in healthcare or in mental healthcare that weren't really great. I'm offering something different.

[00:12:58] Big time. And yeah, Tony definitely seemed to lean into that idea. He didn't even lean into it. He made it central to his shtick. So one of the reasons, and I can say this as a tortured fan of his, not say a former fan. It's not that simple. Like I'm all twisted up into a pretzel tortured pseudo fan of Tony Robbins. He's a scumbag.

[00:13:26] I'm not, please don't write us emails. He's a scumbag. No, like one of the things that made him appealing to me was it was central to his shtick that I, Tony, and nobody special. And I turned it all around. Like he tells this whole story about how he was homeless and living in his car and working a terrible job as a janitor and all these things.

[00:13:55] And he scraped together enough resources to start attending self-help seminars. Like we talked about Jim Rohn, who was kind of his mentor. By the way, if you really want Tony Robbins material, but you want it for free, go to YouTube and listen to a bunch of Jim Rohn talks. Because that's where he got his stuff. And I say that admiringly. Like I love Jim Rohn.

[00:14:21] But anyway, yeah, like a big piece of Tony's shtick was like, yeah, man, I didn't have a college education. And I didn't have all of these advantages. I didn't have money. I didn't have family connections, et cetera, et cetera. And I still managed to make this work. And if I can do it, you can do it. That's a central tenant of Tony Robbins' shtick. And it's also a central piece of, for what it's worth, neurolinguistic programming shtick.

[00:14:50] Neurolinguistic programming, NLP, is all about if anybody has produced a result, all I need to do is uncover their patterns. Thinking, believing, behaving, et cetera. And I, too, can produce that result. So, I mean, it's very on brand for Tony. Now, there's something really seductive about that. Because Tony Robbins went on to be stupid successful, right? Like he is rich and people love him and he's always up and kind of all these things.

[00:15:18] And there's something real intoxicating about that. Okay. But can we agree that if you're going to make a central part of your shtick that you don't have credentials? Like you figured stuff out, but you really don't have great beyond your life experience. And Lord knows, I'm Mr. Lived Experience. I mean, I really respect that.

[00:15:39] But can we agree that if that's a central part of your shtick, there are certain opportunities that maybe shouldn't be afforded to you? Can we maybe agree on that? Kind of like becoming a member of the Healthcare Advisory Committee in Mental Health and Wellness. For the federal government? Maybe that.

[00:16:05] So we talked about this, I feel like we talked about this a few episodes ago, about how the self-helposphere is having a moment in the current political climate. Like it's not just the presidential administration. And our current health and HHS secretary. Yeah. Who is a self-help guy. He loves it, right? Like RFK Jr. Whatever, like him or not like him. But he's definitely a self-help guy.

[00:16:34] He's a believer in, man, he recovered from addiction using 12-step, right? Like he's a big believer in fitness. He's a big believer in diet, raw milk, like all that stuff. And that kind of make America healthy again movement is deeply entwined with kind of the, you know, they call it the conspirituality strain.

[00:16:58] Which is, in American culture, which is heavily influenced by the, it's kind of the latest iteration of that self-help, of that self-help ethos. So, but we can agree. So there was a lot of conversation when RFK Jr. became HHS secretary. There was a lot of conversation about, is this guy really qualified for this? What are his qualifications? He was an attorney, right? In fact, he was an environmentalist, I think.

[00:17:26] But like RFK Jr.'s big qualifications were basically, he had a lot of opinions. And he had done activism and these kinds of things. But enough eyebrows were kind of raised at that, like, hmm. But now they're kind of taking that to its logical conclusion by appointing Tony Robbins, again, notorious for his, proud of his lack of qualifications. Okay, now, remind me what it is.

[00:17:56] What's the actual name of it? So HHS is the Department of Health and Human Services, which is what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the head of. Mm-hmm. And the CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medical Services. So they have created a new federal advisory body. So I'm reading from an article, which I will put in our show notes.

[00:18:23] It's a federal advisory body comprised of leaders from across the healthcare system to provide expert advice on improving, strengthening, and modernizing U.S. healthcare. So it's a committee to advise both of these different departments. So one of the departments is led by RFK Jr. The other one, CMS, is led by Dr. Oz. Dr. Oz. Oh, gosh.

[00:18:50] So this is looking at ways to improve how care is financed and delivered across Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program, as well as the health insurance marketplace, which is the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare system. Yeah.

[00:19:09] So we took a look at this list of people, many of whom do seem either qualified or they have kind of a personal interest or a professional interest in kind of how healthcare is operating in the country. In the healthcare industry, right? Yeah. In the industry, yeah.

[00:19:32] You know, they're corporate medicine people, which is, I don't know, living in Canada now, corporate medicine itself is a weird term for Canadians. It's very strange. But yeah, so these are people who are working in various aspects of healthcare. So even if you might question some of their motivations, you at least kind of get the sense that they like have some idea maybe what they're talking about.

[00:20:00] So people working with, you know, healthcare technology or IT. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So Tony actually on this list, he kind of seems like a bit of an outlier because he really has, I mean, his background is having successfully marketed himself as like a alternative mental healthcare provider in a way.

[00:20:28] So what's interesting about this whole thing, so as you say, we look at the list and there are a handful of medical doctors on the list and kind of followed up on several of them. And sure, like there are some folks who seem super qualified and experienced and even the tech guys on the list, right? Like there are a couple of CEOs on this advisory committee.

[00:21:00] Like one of them seemed to be CEO of a company that when you kind of got down to it, specialized in like EHR, electronic health records. And so again, they have kind of skin in the game. What was weird about Tony's inclusion, one, I think that we can say without a doubt, he's the highest profile appointee on this list. Yeah. Oh, I think. Yeah. None of the other names stood out like we were looking, but. Yeah.

[00:21:28] Like, like, like he's certainly the most famous. But here's the other thing that. So Tony has lots of experience with creating successful businesses. That's true. He has lots of experience with selling products and services and, and popularizing tools. I'm being very generous here. Popularizing tools that help people get and stay well.

[00:21:57] But Tony will be the first to tell you he's not a therapist. He will be the first to tell you he's not a medical professional. In fact, I'm going to guess that if you go to a Tony Robbins seminar, you probably have to sign documentations to the tune of you understand that this is not medical treatment, right? Mm-hmm. So his inclusion, his, his, his invitation to, to be part of this advisory committee is, is interesting.

[00:22:23] And, and it begs the question, again, I'm told that I'm using that incorrectly, that phrase incorrectly, but sorry, Zach. It, it begs the question of, you know, why was he really included? Like, like, like, like what's, what's the shtick here? What's the, what's the game? And what it says to me. So, but, so we then ask the question, what is Tony really good at?

[00:22:52] Well, one, he's really good at marketing himself. And you made the point, I think during our Epstein files episode, you had made the point that, that, you know, what is important, what seems important to this administration is not so much that you have credentials, that you have a brand. A brand, yeah. That the leaders of this administration are really impressed by branding. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So Tony does have a strong brand, but what does he, when you get down to it, what does he do? He sells products and services. He sells seminars, really.

[00:23:22] Like that's where, that's where most of his money comes from. Mm-hmm. So his advice to Medicare, Medicaid, you know, these systems. Now, what do these systems do? Like they make healthcare available to folks who might otherwise struggle to access healthcare. Like that's what they do. Mm-hmm.

[00:23:46] One would assume that the inclusion of someone like Tony Robbins to advise like on, on changes and, and, and policy and these kinds of things would be, you know, the, the intent would be to make these systems more free market oriented. Because that's what he does. He sells these products. He doesn't just come up with wellness products out of the goodness of his heart. That's what Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle does. Yeah. What Tony Robbins does, he sells them for a premium. Yeah.

[00:24:15] And so that, I, I, I just get curious about that. I'm like, all right. So if that's his, if that's his area of expertise and he's been invited to, you know, advise these, you know, these, these systems kind of what's the, what's the game here? Kind of what's the, what's the best, think about this. Like what's the best possible thing he could offer? Yeah. He doesn't have experience in healthcare. I think like, you know, kind of on that point of the branding there, there are a couple of possibilities.

[00:24:45] One is that they just like the idea of having that name. Yes. On, on this list. And in some ways, I think Tony Robbins is kind of a quintessential American success story. This, the kind of, you know, his backstory that he's always promoted true or, or embellished. It's sort of that quintessential bootstrap story of like, I came from nothing and now I'm, you know, a millionaire.

[00:25:14] That definitely fits the brand and the kind of target audience for, for this administration. But even beyond the politics of it, that's very much, I think, part of the kind of American identity is this idea that anybody can become the success, right? So I think it's possible that, you know, his inclusion is, is kind of just all about that.

[00:25:40] It's all about what that looks like having that name on there and how it fits into the, the kind of image that they want to put out there. I also feel like, you know, RFK came, came in with, you know, his kind of anti-vax opinions.

[00:25:56] Again, very much that idea of like, the healthcare system that we have right now, and I don't disagree with this entirely, but the healthcare system as it is right now wants people to be unwell. So that it can profit from treating people. And, you know, maybe it would be better if we looked into alternatives in wellness.

[00:26:26] So I think, and again, I don't entirely disagree with that stance. I think, like, encouraging people to focus on nutrition, encouraging people to, you know, focus on fitness, trying to get, you know, questionable food additives out of the food system. Like, I think that those are actually some really, probably really, like, good goals to have.

[00:26:50] But yeah, I think Robbins kind of represents, again, that alternative idea coming from the mental healthcare system. He's been successful as somebody promoting wellness and in the mental health area.

[00:27:07] You know, so something I keep seeing tossed around in reference to this, I mean, not just this committee and this appointment by kind of healthcare general, make America healthy again. Like, I see the word prevention thrown around a lot. Mm-hmm.

[00:27:57] And Tony is consistent with that branding. Mm-hmm. However, what occurs to me is the only reason why anybody knows who Tony Robbins is is because they got unwell. The only reason I know who he is is because I was unwell, right? Like, the only reason he has a business is because people experience pain. So he isn't actually a wellness or prevention guy, you know?

[00:28:26] He doesn't start out from the place of, okay, if you do this, you'll be less likely to get sick. He starts out from a place of, like, you're already sick. And the way that he would frame it is, like, you're already sick because you've been taught all these limiting beliefs by the world and your upbringing and stuff. And I can help you turn it around.

[00:28:49] The reason why we care about this is not just because, look, not just because we think that everybody appointed to a government committee necessarily needs to be the most qualified in the history of the universe. I mean, people's opinions are going to vary on who is qualified, you know? Like, some people feel really strongly. For example, there was a lot of conversation about how qualified RFK was.

[00:29:14] But, you know, I think the conversation is probably a little more nuanced when it comes to somebody like Dr. Oz who, like, look, I don't love the guy, but he's an experienced medical doctor, right? He actually is a doctor, yeah. You bet. A surgeon, yeah.

[00:29:30] Okay, I was thinking about this in reference to the COVID stuff, that part of what made the environment really complex around conversations like this during COVID times was some of the people, like, you know, the stereotype was, yeah, you know, like the anti-vaxxers are a bunch of kind of hippie weirdos that don't really know anything about science.

[00:29:57] But also, you had people who are pretty qualified. It had some contrarian positions, like Dr. Robert Malone, who is, like, again, like, whether or not you love what he said on Joe Rogan was, like, his credentials were impeccable. So the point is not that we need everyone to meet our definition of the most qualified.

[00:30:25] But, man, when you take the king of self-help, again, for whom lack of credentials is actually an important part of the brand, and you put him in this highly visible, and again, this is not by accident. Like, you put him in this highly visible role. What signal are you sending?

[00:30:48] You know, you're sending essentially the signal, among others, that, you know, credentials that we institutionally now value economic success as its own credential in the healthcare domain. Yeah, exactly. Right?

[00:31:04] Well, and, you know, that comes in conjunction with a lot of other actions that have called into question other types of credentials, like, you know, attacks on academic institutions and that kind of thing.

[00:31:20] So it's all kind of, I think, part and parcel of this idea that, you know, the longstanding institutions that we have in society, that there's something wrong or rotten within them, and we need to kind of upend all of that. So I think Robbins definitely fits into that idea as well.

[00:31:42] Yeah, and I think the other reason, you know, we wanted to talk about this a little bit was, again, just this idea, like I mentioned at the beginning, that, you know, self-help isn't just that section in the bookstore. Like, this is now in your government. You've got, I would say, like, two big self-help guys, if I'm talking about Oz, you know, somebody who was promoted heavily by Oprah, the, you know, the real kingmaker of the self-help industry. You can't get away from her, man.

[00:32:12] No, we can't. I mean, she's... She never wrote you back. No. You wrote her an open letter and she never wrote you back. I really put my heart into that letter. It's a great letter. Link it. Link it to the notes. Never, yeah, put it in there. So, yeah. Yeah, we've got these two guys right there in our healthcare system. And again, like you said, Oz, whatever he may be, he is actually a doctor, so I'll give him that.

[00:32:41] But Tony Robbins, like, he's a compelling speaker and he's a good business brander man. Well, and so here's what's another super interesting thing to me is if we got the press release that Tony Robbins had been appointed to the president's special economic task force on making the economy great again, which is a thing I just made up. Yeah.

[00:33:09] But, but, but, like, if we got the memo that Tony Robbins had been appointed, like an economic advisor. Mm-hmm. Again, you can have whatever thoughts or feelings you have about either the president or Tony Robbins as people. But my own reaction to that would be like, eh, makes sense. Yeah. Right, sure. Like, like Tony Robbins has whatever else he has. He has a long history of stupid successful businesses.

[00:33:39] And so can I believe maybe he has some expertise on how to create and sustain economic prosperity? You betcha. Mm-hmm. And we wouldn't be doing this episode. We would probably, we would mention it on Seek. We can kind of roll our eyes, but. Right. Well, and like, yeah, because, you know, I've, I've seen Tony Robbins, you know, he'll go to like a real estate conference. Yes. There was a real estate conference in, in Toronto one time that I saw and his, his face is all over it.

[00:34:09] And I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. So think about this idea that like, you've got this guy who simultaneously would be at a real estate conference. Mm-hmm. Trying to pump up real estate agents about how to like, how to sell and how to brand and how to market. And you've also got him being like a mental health expert. I don't know. It just. God, what, what, one of these days we really have to do an episode.

[00:34:36] This is Gene's favorite thing when I pitch new episode ideas during the episode. We have, we have to do an episode entirely devoted to the cringiest endorse, either endorsements or, or speaking collaborations that self-help guys have done.

[00:34:57] Because his, because there's a, a, a story tradition and particularly along like small to moderate self-help guys, uh, they'll take any speaking slot they can get. And so there's a story tradition of having them as keynote speakers at like multi-level marketing, um. Right. Events and stuff. Like the one that, that leaps out of me. Oh boy. James had a great one. James. So right after he got out of prison.

[00:35:27] And by the way, I love whenever I get to say that phrase right after James Arthur Ray got out of prison. You remember when he was in prison for negligent homicide? We, we remember. It only lasted for 20 months. So you might've forgotten about it. That's true. Anyway. Um, and he was trying to rebuild his brand. And I got to say like at the time, at the time I kind of respected the hustle. Um, but he was doing, um. Two did hustle.

[00:35:57] Well, no, but he was, yeah, he was taking every speaking slot he could get. And he got hooked up with, I believe it is a, a network marketing, um, company that, but their product was something called the salad master. Did you see this? Do you remember this? It's, it's, it's some kind of like, so multi-level marketing companies. Remember when we did an MLM episode like years ago? Yeah. Yeah. We gotta revisit that. Um, it's a good one.

[00:36:23] It was, so MLMs, um, in order to be quote unquote legitimate businesses. So they're not just pyramid schemes. They need a product. Um, and, and this particular product was, yeah, again, I think it was called the salad master. And, and Laura, I don't know what it did. Like it was some kind of implement, but, but you had James, you had these pictures of James in his one suit that he owned post-prison.

[00:36:48] And cause we saw, cause we saw, cause he was wearing it everywhere with his new long hair look and, and everything like posing with this salad master. And here's Mr. Like, he's trying to be a shaman. Like he's trying to be like a hoona and a shaman and buy the salad master. Like, I'm picturing this, this slap chop. Was that what it was called? Yeah. Like, I feel like that was it. Do you remember that, that guy? I think he went to prison for like doing some bad stuff, but the, the slap, slap chop. Is that what it was called? You just slap it.

[00:37:18] You just slap it. Oh boy. That's funny. We, we, we need to do a whole episode. Cause we could do, cause Tony would fit right in there, man. He does real estate. Like one of his latest things, God, this is, I wish Christine Whelan was on because I'm sure she knows about this. Yeah. This, this is a whole like geek out with you guys. Cringe, cringey endorsements. Yes. Um, public figures and their favorite self-help books. That's another one. You guys. Oh yeah. We got him. You betcha. You betcha. Yeah.

[00:37:48] But one of, one of the, the, the latest things in the last few years, Tony had, he's, he's teaming up with a guy named Dean Graziosi, um, who I believe is a real estate guy, but they do this stupid thing where. Did I come to our free seminar and, and it's a free virtual seminar.

[00:38:08] And what you do is you log on and they pretend that it's happening live, like they've prerecorded it, but they, they do the thing where they put your, your face on the screen with a bunch of other people who are supposedly attending at the same time. And they give you like the prerecorded stick. And, and, and, and as usual with those things, it's basically just an advertisement for the paid thing.

[00:38:31] Um, but, um, it's, it's, it's cringy and, and, and, and it's so on brand, um, which is interesting for Tony. Cause you'd think that, that like at this point, yeah, yeah. Tony is the brand, right? Like, like he doesn't actually need to piggyback, but, uh, but it also reminds me of like, so in Tony's seminars, this is why be a stray of our point.

[00:38:54] But in Tony's old seminars, he used to do this thing where you could pay to partner with him, partner in quotes, which is essentially you would pay to, to present part of this, of the seminar and have your product advertised. And he would advertise nonsense. He would advertise the Q link. You remember the Q link? Here's a bit of, of self-help lore from the, from the eighties. Really? It's not even really the nineties or the eighties.

[00:39:24] A Q link is a tiny piece. It looks like a, it's a tiny piece of technology. It looks like a microchip and you'd wear it around your neck. And Tony would swear by this thing. He'd say, you know, you remember this? Yeah. He, he would, so you'd wear it around your neck and it would supposedly protect you from, from, um, electromagnetic fields and stuff.

[00:39:49] And Tony would say, yeah, I do these seminars and I, and I'm awash in electromagnetism because of the microphones, but I wear my Q link and suddenly I feel better and stuff. This is the guy advising the centers for Medicare and Medicaid. That's. Anyhow. Yeah. He seems a bit out of his depth when you look at the list of her. A little bit.

[00:40:13] And by the way, that's not even necessarily, and look, we've been throwing shade at him all episode, but, but that's not even necessarily to throw shade at him. Look, I would be out of my depth. You hire me to be on that committee. You and I would be, you have like a master's in public health. Like, like, like we would be out of our depth. We, you know, we would have certain things to say because of our experience, but, but we're not qualified. So we're not necessarily throwing shade in that way. So how much do you suppose he paid?

[00:40:41] So when we read the article, it said something like they were considering, what was it? 400 people. Yeah. Four. They'd gone through like 400 nominees. And it was a competitive process. The article said. Right. I don't know that we'll ever find out what that process was. Well, so what I wonder is, does that mean did he have to campaign for this? Right. Right. Did he have to lobby for this?

[00:41:10] Certainly one of the people, one of the other people on the list, she was a big campaign donor. Hmm. That's true. So that might be one way to lobby. I wonder how much it costs to, to, to get appointed to this prestigious. I wonder if maybe next seat week we could raise funds to get Jenny Brown appointed to the next year's version of the committee. Oh boy. Anyway. I wonder if they'll have minutes for their committee meetings.

[00:41:40] Yeah. You know what? That's an interesting, that's an interesting question. I wonder what their work product will be. Like it will be a report or, or whatever. Like, will there be like hearings? Right. Like, like, will there be like. Yeah. I don't know, like we should definitely follow up on that and see what they actually do. And I'll be, I'll be curious. I'll be curious to know what they're actually doing. And, and I, or if it's just something they're all going to put on their resume and it's not actually really going to do anything. Oh, that perish the thought. That never happened.

[00:42:12] That never happens. Where somebody just gets appointed to a thing and it's just something for their resume. Well, I, I do wonder if, um, if Tony, if this will come up as a marketing tool, because again, like he's at the, he's at the level where he doesn't actually need the help. Yeah, it's true. I mean, yeah. When you think of like, I, it feels like a vanity thing to me.

[00:42:41] Like what, what, you know, when you think about like, what does, what do they get out of him being on the committee? What does he get out of being on the committee? I feel like it's just. Well, there is a certain level of legitimacy, legitimization that happens. Like, so I'm here thinking like, we happen to know somebody who was, uh, hurt by a Tony Robbins coach. Um, and I mean, and, and really struggled with it.

[00:43:10] And I, and I was thinking about her, like, like when I heard this, like I was thinking about her, I was thinking like, okay. Yeah. Like she was not coed to my understanding. She was not coached by Tony Robbins directly. Like it was one of his guys. Right. And, and, and that's, that was a big part of, of Tony's business model was like, he trained a bunch of coaches to now coach in his name. But man, like imagine what it must be like, um, to be hurt by one, you know, by one of

[00:43:37] Tony Robbins coaches and then see Tony Robbins, like essentially endorsed by the federal government. Like, it's kind of like seeing your bully embraced by the, by the president actually. And, and I was, and I was also thinking about the people who, um, you know, a couple of years ago when there were all those really gross accusations made against Tony by people who felt they'd been victimized by him sexually.

[00:44:04] And I was thinking, man, like on the one hand, we can kind of be playful about this. Like, oh, ha ha. He's, he's, he's not qualified. And yet he's in the government. Welcome to the, welcome to the mid 2020s, I guess. But, but man, to be one of those people and then see this person again, kind of, then again, to, to, to see somebody who has been credibly accused of, of sexual misconduct at the highest levels of government, unfortunately is not the newest thing.

[00:44:34] No comment, Glenn. No comment. And not even like a new thing, like not even like a 2020s thing. Like that goes back. Like that goes back. It's true. It's true. I mean, we talked about Bill Clinton already. So. You remember those days of, of, of the Clinton impeachment that, that we all thought this was like the worst thing in the world? Like a, like, like, oh boy. Oh dear. A sweet summer children in the late nineties. Yeah.

[00:45:04] It was the nineties. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, at the very least it's interesting. We thought it was worth mentioning. Self-help is everywhere. I don't know. Guys, we had a whole other topic to cover. And as usual, we just got to talking about this thing. So we have, oh, can we, can we give them a, a preview of, of the other topic we were going to cover? Because it's, it's, it's exciting.

[00:45:34] I don't even, what was the other topic we were going to cover? Well, the other topic we were going to cover. So, so, you know, on, on seek week, we have asked the docs and we have Dr. Glenn. I love that. I love when people call me that. And, and, and, and Dr. Christine, but, but Jean Brown decided, you know what? It's, it's not, it's not enough docs. That's true. And so Jean Brown went out and, and she did a thing. Do I tell the people? Go for it. Go for it. Okay.

[00:46:04] So Jean Brown decided to apply, already having a master's degree, right? Mm-hmm. Decided to apply for a, a doctoral program. And, and, and what happened, Jean? I got in. She got accepted. Tell us. So, I mean, I, I guess I realized I wasn't thinking there was another topic because it's all related. So my, I applied for a program called Health and Society and what I pitched to them was

[00:46:31] this idea of the self-help, the wellness, whatever industry you want to call it, presenting itself as an alternative form of healthcare, particularly in the mental health space. So I wrote my application proposal before this even happened with Tony Robbins. And then this news happened and I was like, well, there's even more material for my, my thesis. So yeah.

[00:46:58] So yeah, I'll be starting that in September. Oh man. That's exciting. Totally. Yeah. I mean, one of the, it's funny because one of the things that we've always, one of the issues we've always run into as we're trying to like tell people about the issues with the self-help industry, trying to, you know, advise legislators on this topic.

[00:47:26] There's not a lot of academic research to point to. There's like Christine's research and, you know, there, there are a few other, other things to look at, but there's just not a lot out there. And so finally I just was like, you know what, I guess maybe I'll just do some of the research that I wish existed. Gene, Gene said, screw it. I'll do it myself. I'll just do it myself. Fine. Gene was like Thanos and the infinity gauntlet said, I will fine. I'll just do it myself. Congratulations.

[00:47:55] I'm, I'm so excited. Thanks. This is going to be an interesting journey and we will 100% get like, so when you're, when your dissertation is a little further along, we will get like a whole episode. I know you telling us all about this. I'll go into it and then hopefully, you know, give it, I don't know, six years. Maybe there will be another book. So. You betcha. All right, gang, before we close up shop, we need to take just a few minutes and remind

[00:48:24] everybody that the Seek Safely Summit is, is fast approaching. Um, so what the Seek Safely Summit is. So this is the second year we've done it. It's, it's, it's online again this year. Like eventually we're going to make it a, an in-person thing, but this year it's, it's online. It's basically people who care about these self-help and, and, and person development,

[00:48:53] wellness industries, um, and people who have experience in them and have something to say about their future. Um, we're kind of bringing them all together, um, for, for really interesting conversations. And, and last year it turned out to be just so interesting. We had, uh, um, Sarah Edmondson and Nippy Ames and, and, and, and you guys, if you guys know, know the, a little bit culty podcast, those guys, um, we had, uh, Rachel Bernstein,

[00:49:22] you know, and, and, and myself, we had a great conversation about recovery. Like, like when you come out of a, a high control group, cause the, the, the link there is that so many of these, um, self-help, um, groups and materials and stuff, you know, that it, it tends to be a pipeline when it's, when, when there's a lack of accountability and ethics tends to be a pipeline into like a high control environment.

[00:49:46] Um, so it's not a coincidence that, that our mission so frequently intersects with and entwines with the cult recovery guys. So we had a bunch of them, um, this year, we're going to be talking about much the same stuff. We're going to be talking also about, um, you know, the, the, the legal aspects of all these

[00:50:10] things, um, you know, the, the legislation that, uh, is in far further along than I ever thought we'd get. Um, God bless Senator Skoufas. Yeah. But anyway, the, the, the, the, the super interesting conversations. We would love for you to, uh, to, uh, be part of it. If you go to our website at seek safety.org, there is a link for the, the seek safety summit.

[00:50:35] We have a variable, um, uh, ticket pricing, um, for those. Cause we really wanted to make it accessible to anybody who, you know, who wants to come. And, uh, it doesn't matter. Like if you're a practitioner, if you're a consumer, look, if you're listening to our podcast, like if you follow my material or, or, or whatnot, like, like you're interested, like, like, like this is, you know, like, like you have a stake in this, in this industry and we would love to have you at, uh, at the seek safely summit.

[00:51:04] You get to ask questions. Um, we would love to see you there. So May 30th, mark your calendars gang. Yeah, exactly. And like Glenn said, the, the tickets range in price from $35 to $105 and you get some things with that, including access to the day. Um, you get access to the recordings so you can revisit things later. Cause there, I remember the last time, like there was just so much good stuff that we,

[00:51:31] uh, covered like lots of great conversations. Um, so you might want to go back to things after the fact, you'll be able to do that. Um, we've also got like the seek safely empowerment compass workbook will be included in that, a PDF of our red flags, green flags. Um, so yeah, it's just, you know, again, like this is part of, we just, we had a conversation

[00:51:56] with Anne recently where we were talking about, you know, building the, building up the good aspects of the self-help industry, um, and trying to focus on solutions to improving the industry. Because we do see all of the good and the potential, um, you know, to offer to people and we want to have conversations about how we make that happen. So yes, we hope you will join us, um, May 30th.

[00:52:25] So yeah, like Glenn said, go to, go to seek safely.org right on the homepage. There's a link there where you can go get more information and, and get tickets. And, and by the way, if on the off chance, Tony Robbins is listening to our podcast, give me an email, shoot me an email and, uh, and, and you can attend gratis. Like, like, like you can be my guest at the seek safely summit. Um, we'd love to have you join us, Tony, man. So many, be part of the solution.

[00:52:55] So many years. I extended the very generous invitation to James to be on our podcast. He never took us up on it. Bear, if you're listening, we'd love to have you. You, you, you blocked me on Twitter, but, but we would still love you. She did. She, I, I messaged her and I, and I was being very sincere and I said, I'm sorry for your loss. And she didn't even, she just blocked me. All right, gang. Thank you for tuning in to the seek safely podcast.

[00:53:23] Um, if you loved our show, feel free to leave us a, a glowing five-star review and, and, and, and make your voice heard on your podcast. Catcher of choice. If, uh, if you didn't like our show, just forget I said anything. Um, feel free to follow me on all the socials, uh, at Dr. Doyle says, Jean is, uh, at various things at Jean C. Brown, right. On, on the Twitters. Are you on threads? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:53:53] I've dabbled. That was convincing. No, I was on threads for a while. I can't remember. I think it's JB Beans 8 on threads. It's the same as my, uh. Good old J Beans. I want to see a return of the self-styled life. I, I, I keep waiting. I know, I know. I'm working on it. Keep waiting. All right, gang. We will see you soon. We love you. All right. Thanks, everyone. Ciao, ciao. Thanks for listening to this episode.

[00:54:22] We hope that you have found it enlightening and we'd be so, so grateful if you'd share it with the seekers in your life. We all know at least one, right? Until our next episode, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at SeekSafely. Connect with Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle at Dr. Doyle Says and me, Jean, at Jean C. Brown on Twitter. Feel free to send us an email, info at SeekSafely.org.

[00:54:48] To support SeekSafely, you can make a secure donation on our website, SeekSafely.org slash donate. The SeekSafely podcast is produced by Citizens of Sound.