Author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins joined Fox News Radio's "The Brian Kilmeade Show" Tuesday to discuss the social consequences of isolation due to business closures and other restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
"The level of frustration that people have is extremely high," Robbins told host Brian Kilmeade.
"So I went through the emotions I think your listeners are going through," he continued. "Number one is, we were shocked. I don't know how many people remember when I started telling you that you can't go anywhere, do anything. We were going to put healthy people in isolation, something we have never done. I just was shocked."
Robbins added that the lockdowns "make you angry and frustrated."
Over the weekend, Los Angeles County surpassed one million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic and reported its first case of a more contagious variant that was initially discovered in the United Kingdom late last year.
On Saturday, the county recorded more than 14,000 cases as well as 253 deaths and 7,597 hospitalizations, statistics from the local department of public health show.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY, KNOWN FOR STRICT LOCKDOWNS, HITS 1 MILLION COVID CASES
Robbins said that the "side effects" of coronavirus lockdowns are negative, noting that "three times" as many people died from overdoses than from the virus "over the last nine months in San Francisco."
"Eventually, you know, people get really sad or depressed. I got really sad. It’s like, 'This is my mission. What the hell am I going to do?' And then eventually, there is acceptance," he recalled. "That's what they teach you when you’re dealing with death and a huge loss. But I think there's a missing stage. And it's why so many people are sad and upset."
Robbins added that he had "built a Zoom stadium" to deliver speeches in order to circumvent the challenges of the pandemic, a process he described as "re-tooling to succeed in the new world."
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Robbins hosted a virtual gathering with more than 22,500 participants from 143 countries taking part in a Zoom board, which was also visualized in a 360-degree virtual studio.
"It's like we're not seeing the side effects of all of this, but the stage that you got to get to is to create," he said. "It's to understand that, OK, whether you like this or not, whether you think it is true, right, wrong and different, it doesn’t matter, you got to deal with it. So what are you going to create ... ? Because it's a new world now. We need a new year to make that happen."
Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report.