If Cinderella was a man and the story took place in our times, Tony Robbins life would fit in the script perfectly.

Born on the 29th of February 1960 (a leap year) in North Hollywood, California, Tony was oldest of his two siblings. His mother Nikki loved him dearly, yet expected only the best behavior of him and he did everything to please her. A year after his parents got divorced, the quiet and shy seven-year-old Tony moved to Azusa, California, where he attended Glendora High School.

His mother later remarried to a former baseball player – Jim Robbins, whose surname Tony took on. His stepfather was the first person, who helped Anthony to build his confidence. He also instilled in Tony a love for baseball.

Anonymous act of kindness and adulthood

“Every problem is a gift – without problems we would not grow.”

When Anthony was 13 his family struggled financially to the point that on Thanksgiving Eve, his parents could not afford to buy their children presents or have a Thanksgiving dinner.

That night someone left a Thanksgiving basket on their doorsteps. To the Robbins’ family it was a little miracle and the whole family enjoyed the celebration. This act of kindness had a profound effect on Anthony and he promised himself that one day he would make enough money and help others as well.

As he grew older, his relationships with his mother became more and more strained. She depended on Tony for cooking, cleaning, making repairs around the house and she was very strict when her expectations were not met.

On Christmas Eve 1977, at the age of 17, Tony decided that he had had enough of his mother’s care and control. He walked out of the house with nothing but the clothes he had on, eager to make it on his own.

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While most of us believe that change takes time, world-renown motivational speaker Anthony Robbins does not agree with this. He is convinced that it is preparation to change that takes time. Change itself occurs in an instant.

This makes sense if you look at change not as a life-changing transformation, but as a number of tiny actions that bring us immediate results.

Of course, it takes weeks to get ready for a marathon, months to learn a new language and years to build strong happy relationships. I will be the first to tell you that there is no way of naturally losing 35 pounds in a day or writing a book overnight.

But!

Every lost ounce, every written word, every single compromise that you make (even when you do not feel like it), is already a small victory, a little step towards a much bigger and more noticeable change.

According to Anthony Robbins there are Three Main Beliefs that are crucial for any long-lasting transformation to take place:

1. Something must change.

When everything seems to be going fine in our lives we tend to relax and get lazy. It is only when our ‘comfort zone’ gets too uncomfortable that we become determined to change something about our current situation and readily take proactive steps to do this.

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