How do we react to a crisis? Do we let life destroy us, or can we find a way to turn even the most devastating circumstances into something that can somehow serve the greater good for the long term?
Tony Robbins awoke the day of 9/11 about to conduct a training session in Hawaii for 2,000 people from 39 countries, teaching Emotional Mastery.
He quickly learned that more than 50 people participants, had already discovered they had lost family members, friends and loved ones, as well as a few who lost their entire business at the top of the World Trade Center that morning.
Instead of canceling the day’s session, he decided to bring together this diverse audience — people from different religions and cultures — and get them to redirect their focus to somehow serve a greater good.
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Tony’s seminar, which included personal interactions with a Muslim who stood up and told the group about his frustrations, and a Jew who did the same, ended up transforming them both. They discovered they shared the same love and the same pain.
The young Muslim man, Assad, later wrote a book called, My Jihad: A Muslim Man’s Journey From Hate to Love. He and the Jewish man, Bernie, also created a discussion group on religious tolerance.
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Over the past ten years, the Tony Robbins video of that training session has been used around the world as leadership training—from youth leaders in the Middle East to diverse organizations in all parts of the world—dedicated to bringing about positive global change.
“I really believe the best way to honor those whose lives were lost is to continue to embrace life fully, without fear, and to use the greatest of our human resources—our compassion and our drive to serve—to make a difference,” writes Robbins.
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“If each of us can find a way to be a source of strength in the middle of pain; if we can bring love where there is hate; and if we can be a force for good in a world of uncertainty then we’ll have done our part to continue the legacy of so many courageous souls who lost their lives that day.”
(WATCH the video below, from TonyRobbins.com)