Ingrates Never Win: The Power of Appreciation and Gratitude

I’m a big fan of Tony Robbins, he was just getting really popular when I was a teen and read his books and heard of his seminars. Never went though much to my detriment. Mainly because it was so looked down on my friends, family and culture in Canada. “Oh he is just a con artist”, or “It’s just stupid American motivational stuff.” Well, fast forward 3 decades and most of these folks who said this are nowhere in life. And I am behind because I foolishly listened to them.

So it’s January 2025, and I’m attending Tony’s free “Time to Rise Summit”, 4 days X 3 hours a day of Tony sharing his stories and providing frameworks to improve your mindset and life. Incredibly valuable. I got plenty of notes and recommendations for improving my life. And I mention this again, it cost me nothing. 2 days in and I saw something really interesting and enlightening happen. 

We were 2 hours into day 2 and Tony started to talk about his bigger program and how he put together a special package for attendees. Then he had a colleague show up and do a small sales pitch for a follow on program. Standard stuff as part of a sales funnel. And it was a really good offer. Anchored everyone and showed value of over $2100 usd but offered for $495 usd. It even includes a charitable donation to Feeding America. Great masterful packaging. 

What was interesting was the response from what I would say 1/5th of the attendees on the chat. You started to see snarky and negative messages like “of course, there is a sales pitch”, “I can’t afford that”, “this is so American”, “What a scam,” “I’m so disappointed seeing this sales pitch” and even “Bait and switch.” 

But you know what this shows, it showed a bunch of go nowhere losers. It showed a bunch of people who missed the lessons Tony shared in his summit. It showed a crappy mindset. It shows a lack of gratitude. Why? Tony literally just did and would go on to do a full on 4 day show with valuable ideas and tactics to make someone or everyone’s life better. He offered massive value at no cost to the attendees and earned the right to pitch something. It wasn’t even a hard sell. He wasn’t making anyone buy it. So strange. The point of paying for the package is the show of commitment and investment to yourself. You get what you pay for. 

Mindset is everything. No one owes you anything. Appreciate what other people do for you. You should be grateful for what you have and what you get. This is the path to a more satisfying and more peaceful life. I’d also say a more accomplished and successful life too.