Understanding attendees’ transformative experiences following Tony Robbins’s Unleash the Power Within seminars

Tony Robbins is an American life coach and entrepreneur who claims his motivational workshop, Unleash the Power Within (UPW) can transform people’s lives. This article is based on an interpretative phenomenological analysis of eight participants who had attended different UPW seminars and explored their experiences of transformation. Eight themes were identified: (1) a change in their sense of self, (2) the development of new skills, (3) changes in lifestyle, (4) transformation/conversion, (5) changes in relationships, (6) permanency of change, (7) feelings of fear versus anticipation and (8) loss versus gain. The research concluded that participants had undergone transformation involving significant, valued and enduring changes centred on new meaning in their lives. Further research was suggested to examine both a wider and more in-depth approach, as personal development workshops offer a large and potentially rich field of transpersonal study focused on human meaning-making and change.