David’s Journal

“Make your move!” a man shouts beside me.

I make a loud shout and thrust my fist forward.

“Make your move!” he says again.

I do it again, just as intensely.

I’m ready.  Mentally.  Emotionally.  Physically.  He can see it in my body.

“Okay, go!”

I step out.  Barefoot.  Onto 2,000 °F red-hot burning coals.

I step bravely, boldly, confidently.  I can feel the intense heat beneath my feet.  I keep walking.  Focused.  Prepared.  Doing it.  I’m doing it!

I’m walking across fire!

Before I know it, I’m on the other side.

“Wipe your feet!” a person yells on the other end.  I quickly wipe my feet, making sure no coals are stuck on the bottom.  At the same time, they spray my feet with water, washing out between the toes.

“Celebrate!” is the next thing they yell.

I jump up and explode with energy, shouting and cheering, high-fiving my fellow firewalkers who walked ahead of me.  Then we keep clapping and cheering on the rest of the 4,000 people about to walk on fire for the first time.

And that was just Friday night.

This past weekend I attended Unleash the Power Within, a live 4-day event with Tony Robbins and Joseph McClendon III, two very powerful motivational speakers, businessmen, and life coaches.

But don’t let them hear you call them motivational speakers.  That’s not what they’re about.  Motivation is a by-product, a side effect, of what they do.

They teach, they inspire, they transform lives.

And over the course of this weekend, that’s exactly what happened.  My life was transformed.

The amount of material we covered was enormous.  In this blog, there’s no way I could even attempt to give justice to half of what I learned over those powerful four days.  But suffice it to say, I learned more about me — and what I’m capable of — than ever before.

We learned about psychology, emotion, what drives us, and what shapes our destiny.  We dug in deep to discover our empowering and limiting personal beliefs, our core values, our emotional and behavioral patterns, and how we relate to ourselves and others.  We learned about health and vitality, business and finance, relationships, and more.  But out of all that, nothing compared to something far greater I learned and experienced this weekend.

I learned about my limits.

Or more specifically, my lack thereof.

I’m not talking hypothetical here.  I’m not talking about “you can do anything” motivational seminar type talk.  Yes, I have limits.  It turns out, they’re just way higher than I previously thought.

Let me explain.

At a Tony Robbins event, it’s technically considered a business seminar, although you could also call it something of a live rock concert.  Music blasting.  Lights flashing.  People jumping up and down on the floor and on their chairs.  Hands and fists in the air.  Heads rocking.  People shouting and cheering.  Everyone having a blast.

There really is no comparison.

We didn’t just sit and learn and take notes (although I got a lot of that, too).  We danced.  We partied.  We pushed ourselves to higher and higher levels — emotionally and physically.

There were many times I could feel myself reaching my personal limits.  My muscles were tired.  My mind was tired.  And in the middle of certain emotionally intense exercises, even my emotional-spiritual self was tired.

But I kept going.  I kept pushing.

I reached my limit of what I felt and believed was possible.

And I pushed through, giving just a little bit more.

And my muscles responded.  My brain kicked in gear.  My emotions and soul charged up.  I went deeper.  Stronger.  Harder.  Faster.  Wait… that sounds sexual, doesn’t it?  Well, I’m not comparing this event to great sex, but I will say that I learned some tools and techniques at this event that will definitely improve my sex life too.

Anyway, moving on…  The greatest thing I learned the entire weekend, aside from all the insights and understandings and strategies and tools to master and get the most out of my mind and body and emotional drive… all that aside, the greatest thing I learned is that I’m much stronger than I ever realized.

And again, it wasn’t long before my muscles were really exhausted now.  It wasn’t long before my mind and emotions were really tired and spent.  I pushed through my limits and hit a new, higher limit.  But when I reached that limit, when I hit that higher threshold… I pushed through it yet again.

Bam!

More energy, more power, more strength!

Where was this all coming from?

It was inside me all along.

I just gave up too soon before.

I believed in my limits.  Instead of demanding more of myself.

I learned this weekend that I could not only demand more from myself, but my self would also deliver the more I demanded.

This isn’t something intellectual that I learned.  We all “know” we’re capable of a lot more than we think possible.  But this time, I experienced it, for real, in my body.

What an incredible feeling.  What an awesome discovery.

So for the rest of the weekend, every time I hit a new limit, I drew extra strength from God-knew-where, demanded more and more out of my mind, body, heart, and soul — and delivered.

Until about Monday morning.  Like I said, I do have limits.  They’re just a LOT higher than I previously believed.  But eventually, physically, your muscles just can’t give any more.  Not without rest first.  Nature rests.  Life rests.  So I must learn to rest now and then as well.

I took it easier on Monday.  Still gave some energy, but not nearly at the levels of the previous 3 days.  A lot of lactic acid had built up in my system, from exercising and pushing my muscles so much.  (By the way, after a day or two of resting, I wake up and feel myself not only stronger but also with a lot more energy.)

The big thing I learned this weekend is that I am strong.  On the inside.  I have what it takes.  I’m capable of much more than I ever gave myself credit for.  And again, I say this not intellectually or because any motivational speaker ever said so, but because I feel it, I have experienced it, in my body.

Feeling something real in your body is totally, totally different than just “knowing” something in your mind.

So, with all that being said, if you ever get the chance to go to UPW (Unleash the Power Within), go. The reason I went is because a former girlfriend went several years ago.  She told me that if I ever had the chance, I needed to go.  “Yeah, but I’ve already got a lot of Tony Robbins’ tapes and materials,” I said, “I already know the content.”

“It’s not the same,” she said.  “You have to trust me.  Just go, if you ever get the chance.”

So I went.

And I’m saying I would’ve spent 3-4 times the price of admission for what I learned, discovered, and experienced at this event.  It’s worth it.  Go.

I got to go with a friend, too.  I watched her life transform before my eyes too.

But anyway, I’m not here to sell you on Tony Robbins or UPW.  Some people love him.  Some people hate him (usually the ones who’ve never met him or experienced any of his events or products, ironically).  But whatever you think or believe, that’s fine, that’s your beliefs.  As for me, I was open, I tried it out, and I got a lot out of it personally.  I had several incredible, defining, life-transforming moments.  Walking on fire was just the first, a way of teaching our subconscious how to control and face our fears, step out, and do what you previously thought you couldn’t do.

For those of you who have done UPW before, you’ll know what I mean when I say the Dicken’s Process was an emotionally intense, powerful, life-changing moment as well.  For many people, probably far more than firewalking did.

I learned how to use and control my physiology, my focus, my language… to change my state, to feel what I need — and choose — to feel at any given moment.

I’ve already had opportunities to apply it.

Last night I was tired and feeling a little under the weather, as my body was finishing up cleansing out all that lactic acid in my system.  But I had a commitment to go see somebody, a 13-year-old girl I’m sponsoring for Catholic Confirmation.  I was tired.  A little sick.  Didn’t feel up to it.

But come on.  I knew myself better now.

I shifted my emotional state and my physical energy, literally within seconds, using the tools and techniques I learned at UPW.  It didn’t take much and I was ready.  Charged up and ready to go … when a moment earlier, I was having trouble getting myself off the couch.

Or again this morning, I caught myself dwelling on some stupid irrational fears and self-doubts.  Willpower and self-talk alone wasn’t enough.  And quite frankly, I didn’t feel like staying in that unpleasant emotion.  So again, I used what I learned, and in a heartbeat, I found myself in a completely different (and empowered) state.  From this better mental-emotional state, I could see and think more clearly.  I saw the truth of the matter.  And the fear and doubts were gone.

So yeah, I got (and am applying) some useful tools from the “seminar.”  The live seminar rock concert life-transforming thing called Unleash the Power Within.

I think it’s aptly named.

Okay, this is a long blog, but I have one more thing to share.  A Magic Moment.  Something amazing and beautiful and just frickin’ awesome that happened this weekend.

It was Sunday night.  Late.  We had been in there for about 12 and a half hours already.  We had only one break for food, around 8pm.  (We started at 8am.  No one ever complained.  Time flew by and we were having fun.)  And this is the end of the third day of a very long and intense weekend.  Needless to say, we were all a little tired.

Tony Robbins was trying to teach us something, and he could see our eyes starting to glaze over.  So he stopped and had us stand up for a minute.  It started with the traditional back-rub/massage-your-neighbor thing.  Then they blasted some techno music and we all cheered and danced a bit.

Now that the energy and adrenaline was flowing again, he let us sit back down.  But then another song started playing.  People kept cheering and jumping, standing on their chairs, giving more and more energy and enthusiasm.  We were all really tired.  But by this point we had learned how to draw more energy and strength from ourselves, despite our very real-feeling limits.

The song finally ended.  That was nice.  Okay.  I’m ready to sit down and keep learning.

Nope.  Another high energy song started playing.

The crowd — the 4,000 of us — gave even more!  Jumping, dancing, cheering, shouting.  Totally rocking out.  We kicked it up another notch.  Louder.  Higher.  Stronger.  Even more passion and intensity.

Then another rock techno song started after that!  And all of the sudden, without any prompt from anyone else, someone took their bottle of water and waved it in the air, splashing out a cool rain over the nearby audience.  Seeing that, someone else in another part of the crowd did the same.  Followed by someone else, and then someone else.

In an instant, water was flying and splashing everywhere, all over the crowd, as we rocked and danced and bobbed to the music.

And then Tony and some of his crew ran back stage and grabbed some super soaker guns.  They ran out on stage and started squirting the audience.  But then they went down into the crowds, into the mass of dancing and rocking people, and ran around blasting everyone with water.

By the time Tony Robbins worked his way through the crowd and back on stage, he was completely soaked head to toe.  So much so, that even his microphone shorted out and stopped working!

Finally the music stopped.  We all caught our breath — Tony and crew included — and remained standing.  (Remember, before this all started, we were glazed over and spacing out from exhaustion.)  Tony started to say something, but couldn’t.  He laughed.  He said he was speechless.  And for him, that doesn’t happen often.

We were unbelievable.  Outstanding.  And he let us know that.

He does these events all over the world.  And has been for 30 years.  He told us that he was blown away by the energy and passion we gave — the whole weekend through, and especially in that moment.  That this event was now one of his top 10 best memories, he told us.  And he was sincere about it.

His voice was almost gone.  He had been shouting and cheering right along with us.  He finished out the night as best he could.  I learned more great tools that I’m already practicing and applying in real life, after the event.  But that night, with the crowd going wild, the lights flashing, the music blasting, and the water flying every which way…  I will never forget that.

So that, in a very tiny condensed nutshell, was my experience at UPW this past weekend.

Thank you for joining me.

Namaste, power and love to you,
David Michaels

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