About Tony Robbins Robbins was born as Anthony J. Mahavoric in North Hollywood, California , on February 29, 1960. Robbins is the eldest of three children and his parents divorced when he was 7. His mother then remarried (more than once), including a marriage with Jim Robbins, a former semi-professional baseball player who legally adopted Anthony when he was 12. During high school, Robbins grew ten inches, a growth spurt later attributed to a pituitary tumor . He has said his home life was "chaotic" and "abusive". When he was seventeen years old, he left home and never returned. Robbins later worked as a janitor, and did not attend college. Career Robbins began his career promoting Seminars for Motivational Speaker and Author Jim Rohn when he was 17 years old. In the early 1980s, soon after meeting Neurolinguistic Programming co-founder John Grinder , the two became partners. At this time Robbins...