Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins
AWAKEN THE GIANT WITHIN – THE SUMMARY
THE POWER OF DECISION
‘Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its very existence on its stated purpose’ – Benjamin Disraeli.
Have you ever considered what the variables are that create differences in the quality of people’s lives? How is it that people from humble beginnings and disadvantaged circumstances go on to great heights of achievement, their lives serving as shining, inspirational examples to others?
Some do this despite overwhelming obstacles.
Others from privileged backgrounds and with every opportunity for success end up leading lives of bitterness and frustration, often littered with broken relationships and chemical addictions.
Many years ago, Anthony Robbins asked himself that very question. He was alone in his tiny bachelor flat in California, "crying into his pretzels’, listening to melancholy "love gone wrong" pop songs and contemplating his miserable lot. He was broke, overweight, frustrated and wondering if he would actually survive.
How Do They Do It?
In considering the lives of remarkable, high achieving people in contrast to his own at that time, Robbins realised that many people of high distinction and great achievement had come from impoverished circumstances and disadvantaged backgrounds. The lack of satisfaction with their lot in life had provided an emotional leverage to inspire them to action and change.
These individuals were driven by compelling forces of willpower, desire and imagination to rise above painful circumstances and handicaps of poverty and lack of education to seize control of their own destinies and transform their lives.
From this single realisation, Robbins was able to turn his own life completely around and go on to blaze a trail of outstanding accomplishment. And he did it in a relatively short space of time. Robbins recounts how once, flying his own jet helicopter over a city where he used to live, he had cause to reflect on just how far he had come. He noticed a building which appeared familiar and paused to hover over it. Looking down, he realised it was the building in which he had worked as a janitor years earlier.
How did he do it? Simply by learning to harness the principle he calls ‘concentration of power’. He made a decision in that moment that he would change every aspect of his life.
He focused his willpower on his goals and he backed his decision with absolute commitment to action. This controlled focus was to act like a laser beam, cutting through obstacles and helping him shape a masterful destiny for himself.
THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF GOAL SETTING
‘Concerning all acts of initiative and creation there is one elementary truth – that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too’ – Goethe
In order to create change, people must first clearly define their objectives. Setting goals is the primary step toward turning the invisible into the visible and the foundation for success.
Clearly-defined goals mean that you become focused in a certain direction and from there on your thoughts and actions will be directed, consciously and unconsciously, towards that outcome.
Goals might be defined as dreams with a deadline. It’s important to set a time frame on the achievement of goals, give yourself a deadline. Scrutinise your actions constantly to analyse their relevance to your goals.
Put pen to paper and dare to dream.
Ask yourself: ‘What do I need to be doing today, right now, that will contribute towards my desired outcome in six months?
Ask: ‘What would I want my life to be if I could have it any way I wanted? What would I go for if knew I could not fail?’
Let’s Make a Few Changes - Today!
• Write down – right now – four things you really need to do but have put off .
Are you a bit over-weight? Is that smoker’s cough getting worse? Have you let a silly falling out come between you and a valued friend?
• Then write the answers to these questions beside each: Why haven’t I acted yet? What pain have I associated with such action in the past?
An honest answer will bring home the fact that the thing holding you back has been that you link more pain or inconvenience with the action than with inaction.
• Next, set down all the pleasure you’ve gained by adopting this negative course.
The immediate pleasures of indulging in a cigarette or chocolate or one too many beers are obvious. The same goes for avoiding a difficult task or painful conversation. Writing them down focuses your
attention on your target. Change comes with new goals – think of ways to get these, or better,
pleasures without the unwanted consequences.
• Now, write the cost of not changing.
Money, ill-health, death… perhaps it is a precious relationship that will be lost or damaged forever if you don’t act. Add up the cost over the next year, the next 10, the next 50. Consider the effects on your self-respect and your feelings about your life during all those years to come.
• Finally, write down all the possible pleasures which could result from acting on these issues, now!
Make the list long and lavish. Allow it to get you worked up. Let it charge your emotions with anticipation of all those benefits. Remember the benefits for others are at stake here, too.
High-Jump The Barriers Of Self Limitation
Don’t be afraid to dream outside the limitations of your current achievement. The seeds of desire to achieve a specific goal are signs of your inherent potential and capacity to do it. Then ‘carpe diem’ (seize the day)! Truly committed decisions are the catalyst for turning dreams into reality.
Mahatma Ghandi’s decision to rid India of British rule, along with his dauntless will, set up a chain of events that eventually altered the balance of power among nations.
Many doubted his capacity to achieve his aim through non-violent opposition, but he succeeded by the sheer strength of his commitment – and that of his millions of followers. He deliberately left himself no choice other than to follow dictates of his conscience.
It is in these moments of true, committed decision that you shape your own fate. It is a process of committing yourself to a particular outcome and then deliberately isolating yourself from any other possibility.
People who truly decide to stop smoking have given themselves the gift of a solid gold certainty. They know they will never smoke again. No other possibility can ever be considered.
Anyone Can Play
The best thing about the truly tremendous power of decision is that each and every one of us already has it in our possession. It is the giant asleep within us. We need only wake it to experience the thrill of exercising our unlimited power to implement radical improvements in our lives.
The act of making such an unshakeable decision, even if is a difficult one, comes as a great relief to most people. Suddenly – often for the first time – they have a clear and unchallengeable goal.
Never Fear The Falls
Once you have known this empowered feeling, there will be no stopping you. The best way by far to learn to make better decisions is by practice! More decisions, more often – every one you make and stick to will increase your sense of power over your own life destiny.
And don’t be afraid of mistakes. Success grows directly from good judgement, judgement comes from experience and experience is largely built of poor judgments! Whenever you try something and fail – and it will happen as sure as death and taxes – don’t waste time commiserating or berating yourself. Instead ask: "What good can be salvaged from this? What have I learned?’
Then get on with your next idea. Your ‘failure’ is really a valuable lesson, an asset to carry with you into the future.
YOUR MASTER SYSTEM
When we aspire to our highest dreams or a set of goals that seem beyond our capacity to reach, when we demand of ourselves actions that seem beyond our capabilities and outside the comfort zone of our normal mode of operating, any number of self-limiting psychological variables will inevitably confront us.
These variables are part and parcel of your own personal Master System. It is what has determined your achievements and life experiences up to the present day. Your Master System includes all your core beliefs. It is comprised of all the conscious and unconscious rules by which you live, your values, your emotional responses, the habitual questions you ask, your references.
In order to achieve your goals, you must program your Master System to make it consistent with your desires. You can literally undo and eliminate past conditioning and negative programming by a conscious effort to change any or all of the variables of your master system that limit you.
It is perfectly possible to re-invent yourself systematically by organising your beliefs and values in a way that pulls you in the direction of your life’s design. Having a design is the prerequisite. Add real desire for your goals, and you’re away.
Focus On Where You Want To Go, Rather Than Your Fear
The importance of focusing clearly on your desired outcome rather than fixating on a negative variable that stands as a temporary obstacle to the achievement of your goal, cannot be over estimated.
In motor racing, a driver who skids out of control is always tempted to look at the looming wall, barrier or ditch which might easily claim his life. Yet a seasoned driver knows that the direction of his gaze can eerily determine the course that the car will take. He knows it is imperative that he direct his gaze away from the wall and towards the road with every ounce of his will. He must look only in the direction he wishes to go.
Similarly, what we consistently focus on in life eventually becomes the substance of our reality. People can spend a lifetime focused on the brick walls of their own imagined shortcomings. They fail to achieve their dreams and goals simply because they don’t look at them intently enough.
In a clear and committed focus on your goal, the ‘how’ will usually make itself apparent.
THE FORCE THAT SHAPES YOUR LIFE
‘If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment’ – Marcus Aurelius
Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers
Winners are people who challenge the belief barriers about what is possible – for themselves or for any human. They realise these barriers are composed of nothing but belief and, by choosing instead to believe in themselves, go beyond them to new heights.
Consider the case of Roger Bannister. Until 1954 it was commonly believed that no one would ever run a mile in under four minutes. Even though times for the event had been gradually improving for years, the four minute mark seemed an insurmountable barrier.
For an inordinately long period the times approached closer and closer to it, but still it stood, seemingly unbreakable.
Until 1954 that is, when Bannister made athletic history. He achieved the ‘impossible’.
How? Aside from obviously being a gifted athlete and training his heart out, Bannister took the novel approach of practising the event mentally as well as physically. He put in a lot of effort visualising himself running the race.
In his mind he saw himself breaking through that barrier with so much emotional intensity that he created vivid references that became unquestionable commands to his nervous system. These served as cues during the race, pushing his body to produce the result.
Even more amazingly, he destroyed forever a forbidding belief barrier. Almost as soon as he had demolished that barrier, others poured through after him. Within one year of his triumph, 37 other runners also broke the four minute mark!
Bannister’s feat had shown them what was ‘possible’. It gave them their own strong references. The Following year another 33 sub-four minute time were recorded.
All of our actions are dictated by an inevitable human desire to move toward pleasure and away from pain. Just what each of us defines as pleasurable or painful is individual and relative, but we are all motivated to actions that increase pleasure and minimise pain.
Procrastination arises from the fear of more pain resulting from a course of action than from the discomfort or inconvenience of putting it off.
Toothache is a classic case in point. Many people will put off a trip to the dentist indefinitely. That is until they reach a maximum emotional threshold. They don’t act until they experience an intensity of pain or discomfort that compels them to create change.
In the end, the prospect of an extraction seems less painful than the chronic, throbbing of an aching tooth. In the pain stakes, the dentist has become the lesser of two evils.
At this magical point however, pain has become our ally. It is a powerful assistant in providing the leverage we need to create positive change.
USING PAIN AND PLEASURE
‘I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pain be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures’ – Michel de Montaigne
People consciously or unconsciously gravitate toward life experiences that provide more fun, more joy, more laughter, more stimulation, excitement, etc.
Advertisers know the power of shaping our lives by linking pleasurable sensations and emotions with ideas about their products. They are expert in using imagery, music and sensory stimulation to heighten our emotions. Having aroused us to an emotional state, they simply flash an image of, or message about, the product. It remains with us, closely bound to those pleasant emotions.
We can harness pain and pleasure to change virtually anything in our lives. We can deliberately amplify emotional pain and attach it to negative, self-defeating behaviours. The only alternative then becomes a move away from the negative experience towards a more pleasant and rewarding outcome.
Associating maximum perceived pleasure with a desired outcome – and rewarding yourself amply along the way – will speed your progress and make your journey infinitely more enjoyable. Always remember that the journey is at least as important as the destination.
CHANGE YOUR LIMITING BELIEF SYSTEMS
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that every truth moves through three stages:
‘First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident’
Changing a limited belief system is a powerful strategy for effecting change in your life. Our beliefs are like unquestioned commands and reference points that have become an integral part of our Master System, telling us what’s possible and impossible for us.
Our beliefs may be created by repeated experiences that lead us to feelings of conclusive certainty about reality. Alternately they may be adopted as ‘received truth’ from the belief systems that operate in society. ‘I could never get a well paid job because I didn’t finish school’.
‘Nothing splendid has ever been achieved, but by those who dared believe that
something inside of themselves was superior to circumstance’ – Bruce Barton
Look hard at the belief systems of those who attain excellence and high achievement. They contain vital clues for elevating your own. Successful people operate with positive, empowering beliefs about their own capabilities. They believe they are worthy of winning. This certainty is an essential component of success.
WHAT IS THE QUESTION?...
‘Some men see things as they are and say ‘Why?’. I dream of things that never were, and say ‘Why not?" – George Bernard Shaw
One major difference between people is the nature of the questions they consistently ask. A genuine quality of life comes from continuously asking quality questions.
Questioning sets off a process that can have an impact beyond our imagination. Questioning limitations is what tears down walls in business and relationships alike – even those between nations.
If you ask empowering, quality questions, you seek empowering, quality responses from the world around you, from others and from yourself. Try asking yourself the following empowering questions each evening as you review your day:
• What did I learn today?
• What did I achieve today?
• What did I enjoy today?
• What did I contribute today?
‘The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity’ – Albert Einstein
TRANSFORM YOUR VOCABULARY
Did you know that the English language contains some 750,000 words? Yet the average person’s working vocabulary consists of 2,000 – 10,000. Put another way, the average person uses from 0.5 to 1.5 per cent of the words at his disposal. With such amazing resources with which to express our feelings and ideas, why should people accept such an impoverished vocabulary?
William Shakespeare used over 24,000 words and, when none would suffice, created his own, many of which remain in usage today.
The power of words to shape our individual realities is tremendous. We need carefully to evaluate our own usage of words and consistently aspire to elevate and improve our vocabulary. We should use words that constantly empower us to think in terms of positivity and excellence.
We Are What We Say
Linguists say that, culturally, we shape and are shaped by our language. Have you ever noticed yourself adopt the habitual vocabulary of someone you associate closely with or admire? Interestingly, English has a predominance of verbs. In contrast, the Chinese language place a great deal of value on qualities of stillness and continuum, and the Chinese language features a predominance of names rather than verbs.
John F Kennedy once pointed out that the Chinese equivalent of our word ‘crisis’ is a composite of two characters – one representing danger and the other, opportunity.
Transformational vocabulary is the conscious use of specially- chosen words and phrases to intensify or diminish any emotional state, positive or negative.
Transforming our habitual vocabulary breaks unresourceful patterns, produces totally different feelings, changes our emotional state and allows us to think in a more qualitative and elevated way.
We cause problems for ourselves when we start habitually using words like furious and humiliated. We must consciously evaluate the impact of words we use on our emotional state or we risk creating more emotional pain than is necessary.
Turning Down The Heat
Try this when next you are overwhelmed with anger. Instead of thinking of and venting your feelings as ‘fury’ or ‘outrage’ make a choice to express them like someone who might say they are ‘feeling a little peeved’.
If you can’t keep a straight face while doing this, congratulations. Your anger might just evaporate into a self-mocking smile. And all because of a choice of words.
A Pause For Our Sponsor
The Power of words can work for or against your purpose. Either way, they are powerful, so take care when handling a loaded word.
Sometimes vocabulary is even more transformational than we bargain for – a fact to which several major advertisers can attest. After translating their slogan ‘Pepsi gives life’ into Chinese, Pepsi executives were stunned to discover that they’d just spent millions of dollars announcing ‘Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave’.
Chevrolet, mystified by sluggish sales of its new Nova compact sedan in Latin America, eventually discovered that in Spanish the words nova mean ‘It doesn’t go.
EMOTIONS
‘Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him’ – Aldous Huxley
People experience an average of a dozen or so different emotional states in the course of a normal week. Yet there are over 3,000 words in English to describe emotions. Even more interestingly, of these, around 1,000 denote positive emotions while roughly twice as many words relate to negative ones.
Our emotions are actually learned neuro-associative responses to circumstances. As we experience a given situation, we re-live the pleasurable/painful neuro- associations of our previous experiences of similar situations.
Quite often our emotions are related to past times and events, so they are neither appropriate nor productive to the situation in which we currently find ourselves. When this is the case, we need to identify and consciously break the pattern of our programmed responses which might be counter-productive to achieving our preferred outcomes.
Mastering Ourselves
In order to attain mastery of our emotions we must first realise that, overwhelming though our emotions sometimes are, we
are more powerful than they. We create our own emotions so it follows that we have the capacity to discard or dissipate
them.
One can detach from negative emotions or limiting feelings and considerations to persist with a decided course of action.
Proceeding with something (say, an examination or a parachute jump) might well f ill us with fear. But that need not stop us from going ahead.
Repeating such an action will diminish the neuro-associations gradually, a little more each time we go through it.
Eventually they are neutralised or erased completely. We may even come to relish a once-feared prospect. Old emotional associations are replaced by new, positive and empowering emotional experiences. They give way to the excitement of anticipation and the joy of self-mastery.
Our emotions are a gift, a guideline, a support system. They are calls to action. Mastery of our emotions is by no means the same thing as avoidance. Avoidance means falling back on substances or other means such as ‘workaholism’ to prevent ourselves from feeling uncomfortable emotions at all.
Mastery means acknowledging and making friends with these feelings. It requires the recognition that at some time in the past those feelings served you well as an internal compass to help you gauge and respond to a situation.
It’s now up to you to decide whether the negative feelings you associate with something are relevant to the present time and circumstances or whether you need to put in the work to create a new neuro-association. Alternately, you may simply have to change a situation that causes negative responses.
Ten Negatives – Calls To Action
• Discomfort
• Guilt
• Fear
• Disappointment
• Hurt
• Loneliness
• Anger
• Inadequacy
• Overload
• Frustration
Ten Positives – The Power To Create Success
• Love & Warmth
• Curiosity
• Appreciation & Gratitude
• Vitality
• Excitement & Passion
• Flexibility
• Determination
• Confidence
• Contribution
• Cheerfulness
BODY LANGUAGE
The feelings we experience are strongly linked with how we use our bodies. Emotion is the product of motion. The smallest changes of facial expression and gesture will effect our feelings at a given moment – and consequently our actions and responses.
Every emotion you experience has a specific physiology linked to it – posture, breathing, patterns of movement, facial expressions – habitual muscular patterns literally begin to dictate emotions. Slumping at your desk, for instance, can affect your breathing and induce back aches, making you both more tired and more irritable – both translating as ‘less productive’ – than you ought to be.
A key to success is to create patterns of movement and posture that create confidence, a sense of strength, flexibility, power – and fun.
Remember that fitness and health are by no means the same thing. True health means that all your body’s systems are working at their optimum. Pounding your body around a gym twice a week will not guarantee that. Fitness refers only to capacity to perform certain athletic pursuits.
Some care with diet and regular exercise can only make you healthier. Aim for moderate aerobic exercise. This means ‘with oxygen’ – gentle exercise sustained over a period. It burns fat for fuel and increases your endurance and the general health of your cardio-vascular and muscular systems.
Anaerobic exercise is that focused on pounding heart rates and brief spurts of power. The fuel for this is glycogen and fat is stored by the body while it undergoes this type of activity. Many of the health problems of Western societies arise from our almost completely anaerobic lifestyle, combined with the stress of our work, habits like smoking, and lousy diet.
Addressing these problems in your own life can multiply your energy and potential for achievement – not to mention the time you might have left to enjoy the fruits of it.
AND DON’T FORGET…
‘The great man is he that does not lose his child’s heart’ – Mencius
What is the purpose of life if not to be happy? Success requires hard work but remember to play with equal resolve. Even God had a day off.
Have fun, be spontaneous, be outrageous. Never underestimate the value of play or forget our capacity to laugh at yourself.
Never be afraid to fail. It is through failure we learn to orientate ourselves towards success. Thomas Edison considered that his 2,000 odd ‘failures’ were just so many steps in the process towards his successful invention of the light bulb.
Keep perspective. If a problem seems insurmountable, consider that we live in a galaxy that comprises several hundred thousand million stars, which in turn exists in a universe that contains several hundred thousand million galaxies.
Consider the enormity of this grand cosmic design. Think of its magnitude. Now, how big is your problem?
Can you rise to the challenge of awakening your own giant? It is a giant of talent, creativity and unlimited abilities to contribute amazing things to the world. It is sleeping within you right now.
Are you willing to rise to the challenge of a heroic life? Perfection is not heroism, but humanity is. Within each of us burns the spark of heroism and we can fan into flame if we choose.
The late Michael Landon, movie star and great humanitarian, once said:
‘Somebody should tell us right at the start of our lives that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every single day. Do it I Say! Whatever you want to do – do it now! Carpe diem. Seize the day! And expect miracles, because you are one’.
