When asked who they think the best public speaker around today is, many people say “Tony Robbins.”  He’s certainly one of the most financially successful – he made $30 million in 2007.  The good news is that before you put down lots of money for one of Robbins’ self-help seminars, you can check him out on TED and see for yourself — http://tinyurl.com/3hl5dy.  My analysis:  Tony makes the 20-minute talk seem long.  Several times during the video I looked at my watch, thinking, is it over yet?

But that’s because of several reasons, reasons that are seminal for Robbins’ success.  Overall, he's one of the more intensely focused and emotional speakers I've seen.   

First of all, Tony has the mechanics of public speaking down.  He is a master of the basic techniques.  He moves purposefully in relation to the audience, going toward them to make his points, and stopping and planting his feet to complete the thought.  So there’s a lot of motion, which is interesting, but it’s not random, which is irritating.  He’s focused entirely on the audience.  To do that, he has to know his material cold, and he does.  You can see the fruits of endless practice in his mastery of the basics.  His face is mobile, and he uses the basic four facial gestures easily and naturally. 

He uses the heart posture and open gestures to build trust with his audience.  (See Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma if you want to know more about this and the other fundamentals of building trust and authenticity.).  Oddly, he keeps a hand in his trouser pocket during most of the talk, and he has a nervous tic of constantly stroking his nose – two distracting and ultimately off-putting gestures I wouldn’t recommend – but his performance overcomes both those obstacles. 

His voice is his best feature, however.  He talks at a tremendous clip – nearly twice the average rate, by my rough count – but he does pause just enough to keep it from being bewildering.  I imagine he’s working really hard to say everything he needs to in the 20-minute time slot allowed.  Most importantly, though, he keeps his voice at a relatively high pitch, conveying emotion and intensity, and that’s what makes us watch him, even if we find him a bit arrogant and self-centered.  The number of self-references in the 20 minutes was impressive given that the topic was about what motivates people, not “Tony Robbins:  what makes me tick.” 

That pace and intensity would rapidly become overwhelming if he had more than 20 minutes.  I assume in his longer seminars he lets up a bit, but I suspect it’s at the center of his success: he’s figured out how to project tremendous emotional intensity and that makes him charismatic.  It’s like watching the proverbial car crash – you can’t take your eyes off him.  

In addition, his voice is roughened, which also conveys strong emotion.  I’ve never heard him live, so I can’t tell if this is a technique or the result of a bronchial infection, but it works.  Jesse Jackson is a master of this as well; check out his 1992 Democratic convention speech to see what I mean.  Again, this technique would not work well over much more than a 20-minute talk.  It’s like being shouted at; the effect palls quickly.

But overall, Tony Robbins is a highly professional master of the public speaking genre.  You may end up not liking him much, but you won’t take your eyes off him.