The 11st of September 2014 at 14:20 at the Village, University of New South Wales, Sydney
By: Christian Ljungbeck
(Reading time: 15 minutes)
Uni and Everyday Life
The following few weeks in Sydney from the 18th of August (the end of my last blog) I spent quite some time on home work and assignments as I knew I was going to Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Within seminar in the beginning of September for 5 full days, so I had to prepare in advance. The uni work isn’t that exciting to write about, so I’ll spare you for the details.
In the evening on the 19th I went to a free 1-day-event called ‘financial freedom through FX’ with one of the world’s leading forex traders, Greg Secker. I knew in advance this was an event where he would promote his forex trading product and coaching, but I enjoy going to events like these as you always take home something – even though it might just be a small phrase or idea. I went primarily because I myself have an interest in trading (although not forex), and therefore I wanted to get to know his beliefs about trading and copy and adopt them as my own. One of the keys to duplicating another person’s success is to copy their core beliefs. Through my almost 5 years of business schooling I have been taught that it is not possible to beat the market return, however every day there are people around the world who do it. So who do you listen to? I would rather listen to the ones that are actually doing it than those who claim it cannot be done, which is the reason I went to this small event. It was actually really good, and he was also a very great speaker. Now, it is only a maybe 2-hour event, so of course he cannot go into details about what to do, but he sure opened everyone’s mind when he showed how he had made £19.000 in just 4 minutes! Sure he is a sales-person; however his credibility and results speak for themselves. I didn’t sign up for the program, however I did receive some valuable information about his beliefs such as: “To achieve and believe we must spend time in the company of those who are already doing it” and “Anticipation is the mother of all skills in serious money-making” and much more.
On the 21st I visited another Toastmasters club close to UNSW, and to my surprise I found that Alex from my accounting class was actually a member of this one. The format was very similar to the first club I visited.
I signed up for a parkour class during the semester and the first class was on the 22nd. It was really fun. We were a group of maybe 10 students and one instructor in his late 20’s. It is a very psychological sport, so whenever he shows you what to do you think ‘that doesn’t look too difficult’ but when it’s your turn your mind goes ‘oh fuck’. The same pattern continued the next couple of weeks in my parkour classes. Even though my 10 years of trampoline training definitely helps, the ironic thing is that I have no problem doing full front and back flips, but a ‘simple’ thing such as jumping over a wall with your hands first cause me quite some trouble. Anyway, I keep practicing. I have 2 parkour classes a week – on Mondays and Fridays.
On the same day I had the experience of being denied access to a bar together with Erik and Emil because we were too drunk according to the security guy at the door. Now I can’t remember if I have ever been denied access after having had less than 6 beers on the excuse of being too drunk. The funny thing was that one of the other security people came over to us just 2 minutes after and told us to go inside or further away as people were sleeping in their hotel rooms just above the bar. Apparently, he could tell we were too drunk, so I doubt this excuse was even valid. Anyway, to be sure to get in you need to bring girls or go in alone. Åsmund, who had definitely been drinking the most, had arrived just a few minutes before us. He had a plastic bag with some clothes in it, and when he had arrived one of the security people asked if he was working in the bar. Åsmund had said yes, and the security person had let him in the employee entrance. When he told the story the next next day, it just confirmed my suspicion that the security people had no idea what they were doing, haha.
The following day I went for dinner with Peter, Åsmund, Erik, and one of Eriks’s friends, Mandy, and her friend, Grace before going to some bars in Newtown.
On the 24th it was time for the 5 km Sydney Color Run. Fortunately it was located just north of campus, so when I woke up during the morning I decided to run to the starting area. It turned out to be a bit further than expected, so my warm up for the 5 km race was a 4 km run. I met up with Erik, Peter, and Åsmund and we got in line waiting for our turn to start.
There were 20.000 participants all dressed in the same white T-shirt and accessories. Every 3 minutes of so, 1000 new runners started the race. But after the first 30 minutes when it was finally our time to go there were so many people on the track that the 5 km turned into something like 1½ km of running and 3,5 km of walking. There were no time taking or anything like that, so you could just complete the race as you liked. We decided to take a picture after each of the 5 color stations to see the progress, which can be seen below.
After pink
After orange
After blue
Afterr purple
After green
When we finished the race the time was only 10:30 AM, so we joined the party in front of the stage where they played music and every now and then made the whole audience do a color throw. A color throw is when everyone in the audience had a pack of color powder and throws it in the air at the same time. It looks amazing, but shortly after you can barely breathe if you are in the middle of it. But it was fun!
In the beginning of the semester I became aware of a student society called university network of trading and investing. And just recently I saw they announced a trading competition in collaboration with Saxo Bank Australia, and I decided to check out their information session and perhaps meet some of the Aussies I had previously sent emails to from my time in Saxo Bank in Copenhagen. The event itself was pretty basic, but I did get to meet 4-5 of the people from the Australian office, however I did not know any of them. But they knew my team back in Copenhagen, so we talked a bit about that and the 2-week-trading-competition.
I have almost finished repairing my bike, and it has taken way more time than originally expected. But the next time I went to the bike club to finish up the rest, the wheel was turned 90 degrees, and I’m thinking ‘WTF?!’. Fortunately, I could easily just turn it back again.
Continuing my experiment to see how much I can batch my life, I wanted to try and experiment with delivery of groceries. So I went online and started shopping on coles.com.au and stated my preferred delivery time. First time shoppers got free delivery and since I didn’t have to carry the stuff myself I put in a huge order of almost $200. Just 2 days later in the morning it was delivered right to my door – so easy and convenient! Definitely something I can recommend, and it also forces you to think in advance what to cook for the week so you don’t have to go shopping several times a week. The only problem with my huge order was that I vastly underestimated the capacity of our freezer. But fortunately one of my flat mates had an extra freezer in which I barely could fit the remainder of my items – so perhaps I should place smaller orders in the future. But a large part of this order was also due to Occam’s Protocol, the 28-experiment I am currently doing, which required some changes in my diet.
On the 2nd of Sept I visited yet another Toastmasters club called Professional speakers. This day they had a joint meeting with another club so there must have been 30 people or more. This club also started out with 1-minute impromptu speeches. The person leading this part of the evening was not aware that I was a guest so she asked me to join the stage as there were not many volunteers for this speech. I did not expect this at all, since it was my first visit to this club, but I went. She had given me a picture of a tree with some birds on it, and I had to talk about, but I had no idea what to say so I just came up with a fantasy story that I told for maybe 30 seconds before returning to my seat. It wasn’t the best performance but definitely fun and insightful to try.
Crewing Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within
Finally came the days I had been looking forward to for several months: Tony Robbins was coming to Sydney to host his powerful event ‘Unleash the Power Within’. I had attended the same event in London back in March, and because of this I was now eligible to crew the event in the future, so I had applied 3-4 months in advance and had been accepted on the crew team. For those of you who are not familiar with Tony, he is the world’s leading success and peak performance coach, and he has worked together with people from every walk of life from Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana, André Agassi, and US presidents to some of the most challenged people on earth.
The event itself runs for around 50 hours over the course of 4 days, but the crew also met for an information session on the 4th of Sept. one day before the event. I think we must have been more than 100 people crewing the event aged between 20 to 75. The first day was pretty much just some basic information about what we were going to do during the event, but meeting all these people who had previously attended Tony’s UPW event was a gift in itself. Everyone on the crew team had given up their time and pushed past obstacles in order to serve and contribute to the more than 3000 participants and help them create changes and transform their lives over the course of the weekend. Just being in this kind of environment surrounded by these kinds and types of people was very unique and rewarding. In this group there were no limitations in life and people supported each other in a way I have never seen or felt anywhere before. To give you a metaphor, they were probably some of the spiritually youngest people in life, who saw the whole donut and not just the hole in the middle as most other people do. When we finished Thursday and I went to bed, my alarm said just 4½ hours since we were meeting again Friday morning at 7 AM.
Friday was the first official day of seminar, and after having done all the preparations in the morning, the 3000 participants started arriving at 9AM. It was quite early as the event didn’t start until 1 PM, but Tony attracts a lot of people and most everyone wants the best possible seats so they stand in line for several hours. It was interesting to see the participants and feel the energy in the room when they arrived. A lot of them were a bit uncertain why they were here, what they could expect, and most of them only talked to the people they arrived together with. But this surely changed already after the first day.
Finally the music started and the dancers went on stage and got the whole audience engaged by having them do the same moves as the dancers. After a short 10-minutes-dance Tony himself made his impressive entrance on stage. He is amazing to watch on stage and even form a far distance you can easily tell he is a very very tall and big man. I wish I could report everything he shared during the event but that would be too long a blog. I will however share this important piece of information form Tony: ‘The quality of your life is determined by the emotions you experience on a regular basis”. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, how successful you are etc. If you keep living with feelings of depression, frustration, stress, and anger, then that is how you will be living and experiencing your life.
Day 1 – The Fire Walk
Friday night is particularly known for the famous fire walk that Tony has all the participants do. The crew team was split in 2 on this day – one group called the fire crew and the other the event crew. The fire crew spent almost the entire day preparing for the fire walk until around 10 or 11 PM when Tony had prepared the participants for the walk.
On stage Tony prepares the audience for the fire walk mentally, physically, and spiritually for several hours, while the crew practices their individual roles during the fire walk. Around 20 minutes before the audience is ready everyone from the crew is in their position and ready to begin the fire walk. Almost 150 people including coaches, trainers, and security were waiting in their positions at the 16 lanes that were set up before the doors opened and 3000 participants all came rushing out ready for their fire walk. The fire walk is a much more a mental game than a physical one, and one must use specific strategies and tools to keep the mind focused on the task and not let the inner voice and self doubt take over your state. Therefore Tony teaches the audience to clap and say yes while waiting in line, so all 3000 people were just clapping and screaming ‘yes!’ – it was beautiful! Then Tony joined from one of the back doors and got in position at one of the lanes and said ‘Let the games begin’. This was the clue for the trainers and himself to test the fire walk by first walking it themselves. After this the game was on and the 3000 participants stormed across the fire one by one. When you have 16 lanes, that means almost 200 people are crossing your lane and I got to see how everyone of them dealt with the fire walk – something most people considered impossible before coming to the event. I saw children aged 5 and adults ages 80 walk the fire walk. It was amazing to see the transformation that happened in those people’s lives right there, and also see how well people dealt with the inner voice inside their head while still conditioning their body to perform ‘the impossible’. After all the participant had had their turn, everyone from the crew had an opportunity to try it. Obviously we didn’t have Tony to prepare us for the event, but since all the crew members had previously attended his seminar and done the fire walk it was assumed that we didn’t need any coaching. I had done it before and I knew also that I could do it again, but still the voice inside my head went ‘Are you sure?’. I waited in line and when it was my turn I made my power move, screamed yes, and blasted to the other side of the fire before celebrating my victory! Wow, it’s amazing, fun, and incredibly addictive. It was such an addictive energy boost that I had to do it again – partly to experience the feeling again but more importantly to see how fast I could condition myself for another fire walk. I ended up walking 3 times in total feeling more alive and energized than almost ever before.
Day 2-4
The rest of the seminar was just as amazing as the first day and consisted of quite a lot of crew things to do but also participating in the seminar. Saturday was the day where Tony’s head speaker, Joseph, among other things taught the participants the ultimate success formula which is:
- Know your outcome
- Know your reasons why
- Take massive action
- Notice your results
- Change your approach
A more detailed description can be found here: http://training.tonyrobbins.com/the-ultimate-success-formula/
Sunday Tony was back again for ‘Transformation Day’. This is probably the most powerful day of the whole event – and for most people it far surpasses the fire walk. This is the day where Tony smashes the participants limiting beliefs and shows them what is possible in this world – which is anything. He does so through a powerful 4-hour-long emotional process he calls ‘Dickens’. I won’t go into details and rob you of this amazing experience should you choose to attend one of his UPW events. During this day Tony also shares lessons and stories from his own life to show the participants what is possible and open their minds to another world of endless possibilities. E.g. he tells his story how he came from nothing and now is privileged enough to charge more than $1.000.000 for 12 hours of his own coaching time – and there is an 18-months-waiting list. The reason he can do this is because he produces immediate results.
Towards the end of Saturday Tony asks all crew members to join him on stage to receive recognition for our contribution and he shakes everyone’s hands.
This is the closest I have ever been and he is even bigger than I expected. He must be 210 cm tall, size 50 in shoes, and well over 100 kg. After the event we all went to the crew room where Tony showed up shortly after and we got a group photo with him (unfortunately I haven’t received this photo yet).
On my way home this night I decided to cross along the curb (kantsten) on my bike instead of across which resulted in my getting thrown off the bike and landing on the sidewalk on my left hips and hands. Fortunately nothing bad happened and I was able to continue my way home, however the next morning it did hurt a bit more, but I could still function properly.
On Monday Joseph covered the keys to a vital life and how to operate on an unlimited amount of energy in your life. This included everything from exercise, food, breathing, and much more. This day is likely to be the day where most people’s beliefs and assumptions are questioned the most regarding their own health and well being. They teach you what actually breaks down the body and causes it to age faster, and how you instead can keep the body in balance and enjoy seemingly limitless energy. Obviously I cannot report all the lessons they shared this day since there are way too many. However, as they teach, you should consider your own health the most important subject of your life, because without the energy to perform and do what you want, what else have we got? Tony for instance is 54 years old, but says he has more energy and feels more vibrant and alive than when he was 20. One important distinction they make is whether your body burns sugar or fat. Most people burn sugar, which is similar to a short burst in energy, whereas burning fat is like burning coals – it keeps going and going. After my 28-day Occam’s Protocol experiment I will train my body to burn fat and feel and experience the results.
After the event most of us went to the Novotel bar afterwards to say goodbye to each other. Here I had the opportunity to talk to some of the trainers and senior leaders and ask them about their lives and the impact Tony has had on them. I spoke to one of the trainers, Kym, and she told me that see could see me become one of the senior leaders one day. Honestly, I barely had had a chance to talk to her during the event but her words encouraged me almost more than anything else during the weekend. So thank you, Kym!
All in all it was an amazing event and definitely worth crewing. Tony will be returning to London in March where I will be applying for crew once again.
First Mid-term Exam
I made it back to the Village late Monday night and had a mid-term exam Tuesday the 10th. During the last 5-6 nights I had slept an average of just 5 hours, but because I had to get up and study for my exam I couldn’t even sleep much more this night. So I woke up and started studying. I only had 1½ to study and learn everything by heart from the first 6 weeks of school. It seemed like way too little time but I just looked through the lecturer’s slides and a little in my notes before I had to go. I was a bit late and when I found the room I thought was the right one I wondered why I was the only one there. Apparently it turned out that I was 1 hour ahead of time, so that just gave me another 40 minutes to study, which was good. It was a multiple choice exam and it wasn’t too bad at all. Interestingly, the difficulty of exams at CBS seems much greater than here at UNSW (and also University of Texas) even though the UNSW business school is supposedly one of the best in Australia. It went quite well based on the amount of time I had put in, but let’s wait and see if the result says the same.
Christian Ljungbeck 