Anthony Robbins is a bestselling author,
entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is called upon to consult and coach with
some of the world's finest athletes, entertainers, Fortune 500 CEOs, and even
presidents of nations.
This book is the powerhouse of motivation. The
author discusses various topics of self improvement in details like
1.
The power of decision making
2.
The concept of NAC ( neuro - associative
conditioning)
3.
The concept of CANI ! (Constant and Never Ending Improvement)
4.
The importance and impact of words, appropriate vocabulary
in developing once character,
5.
Emotions and their impact and how to use them in
self- empowerment.
Every section of this book contains various
activities and sequential steps about how one can make a change in oneself. Initially some people might find this book a bit
boring as there is too much repetition of some concepts and anecdotes.
Dhriti Shandilya
Some excerpts….
Raise Your Standards: Any time you sincerely want to make
a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards.
Location 136
The Niagara Syndrome. -
Life
is like a river, and that most people jump on the river of life without ever
really deciding where they want to end up. So, in a short period of time, they
get caught up in the current: current events, current fears, current
challenges. When they come to forks in the river, they don't consciously decide
where they want to go, or which is the right direction or them. They merely
"go with the flow." They become a part of the mass of people who are
directed by the environment instead of by their own values. As a result, they
feel out of control. They remain in this unconscious state until one day the
sound of the raging water awakens them, and they discover that they're five
feet from Niagara Falls in a boat with no oars. At this point, they say,
"Oh, shoot!" But by then it's too late. They're going to take a fall.
Sometimes it's an emotional fall. Sometimes it's a physical fall. Sometimes
it's a financial fall.
Location 478
Although you may never have even thought about it, your
brain has already constructed an internal system for making decisions. This
system acts like an invisible force, directing all of your thoughts, actions,
and feelings, both good and bad, every moment that you live. It controls how
you evaluate everything in your life, and it's largely driven by your
subconscious mind. The scary thing is that most people never consciously set
this system up. Instead, it's been installed through the years by sources as
diverse as parents, peers, teachers, television, advertisers, and the culture at
large. This system is comprised of five components:
1)
your core beliefs and unconscious rules,
2)
your life values,
3)
your references,
4)
the habitual questions that you ask yourself, and
5)
the emotional states you experience in each moment.
Location 490
By changing any one of these five elements—whether it's a
core belief or rule, a value, a reference, a question, or an emotional
state—you can immediately produce a powerful and measurable change in your
life.
Location 499
God's delays are not God's denials.
Location 635
Know that it's your decisions, and not your conditions,
that determine your destiny.
Location 686
The question is: which one of these beliefs is the true
belief? The answer is that it doesn't matter which one is true. What matters is
which one is most empowering.
Location 1289
Our brains can't tell the difference between something
we've vividly imagined and something we've actually experienced.
Location 1306
Remember, whenever we believe something, we no longer
question it in any way. The moment we begin to honestly question our beliefs,
we no longer feel absolutely certain about them. We are beginning to shake the
reference legs of our cognitive tables, and as a result start to lose our
feeling of absolute certainty.
Location 1423
If you question anything enough, eventually you'll begin
to doubt it. This includes things that you absolutely believe "beyond the
shadow of a doubt."
Location 1446
On the positive side, convictions—by the passion they
inspire in us—can be empowering because they compel us to act.
Location 1492
Often the best thing you can do to create mastery in any
area of your life is to raise a belief to the level of conviction. Remember,
conviction has the power to drive you to action, to push you through all kinds
of obstacles. Beliefs can do this as well, but some areas of your life may
require the added emotional intensity of conviction.
Location 1496
The conviction that you are an intelligent person who can
always find a way to turn things around can help steer you through some of the
toughest times in your life.
Location 1500
Wealth
In our culture, people have incredibly mixed associations to
wealth. There's no doubt that people want money. They think it would provide
them with more freedom, more security, a chance to contribute, a chance to
travel, to learn, to expand, to make a difference. But simultaneously, most
people never climb above a certain earnings plateau because deep down they
associate having "excess" money to a lot of negatives. They associate
it to greed, to being judged, to stress, with immorality or a lack of spirituality.
One of the first exercises I ask people to do in my Financial
Destiny™ seminars is to brainstorm all the positive associations they have to
wealth, as well as all the negative ones. On the plus side they write down such
things as: freedom, luxury, contribution, happiness, security, travel,
opportunity, and making a difference. But on the minus side (which is usually
more full) they write down such things as: fights with spouse, stress, guilt,
sleepless nights, intense effort, greed, shallowness, and complacency, being
judged, and taxes.
Do you notice a difference in intensity between the two sets of
neuro-associations? Which do you think plays a stronger role in their lives?
When you're deciding what to do, if your brain doesn't have a clear signal of
what equals pain and what equals pleasure, it goes into overload and becomes
confused. As a result, you lose momentum and the power to take the decisive
actions that could give you what you want. When you give your brain mixed
messages, you're going to get mixed results.
(Location
2099)
Your mental
computer is ever ready to serve you, and whatever question you give it, it will
surely come up with an answer. So if you ask, "Why can't I ever succeed?,"
it will tell you—even if it has to make something up! It might come up with an
answer like, "Because you're stupid," or "Because you don't
deserve to do well anyway.
(Location
3038)
… Mitchell chose
instead to ask himself, "How can I use this? Because of this, what will I
be able to contribute to others?" These questions are what created the
difference in destinies: "Why me?" rarely produces a positive result,
while "How can I use this?" usually leads us in the direction of turning
our difficulties into a driving force to make ourselves and the world better.
(Location 3337)
“It's not only
the questions you ask, but the questions you fail to ask, that shape your
destiny.”
Anthony Robbins
(Location 3376)
Be careful not to
ask limited questions, or you'll receive limited answers. The only thing that
limits your questions is your belief about what's possible. A core belief that
has shaped my personal and professional destiny is that if I continue to ask
any question, I will receive an answer. All we need to do is to create a better
question, and we'll get a better answer.
(Location 3543)
So many suffer
from the delusion that emotions are entirely out of their control, that they're
just something that spontaneously occurs in reaction to the events of our
lives.
Often we dread
emotions as if they were viruses that zero in on us and attack when we're most
vulnerable. Sometimes we think of them as "inferior cousins" to our
intellect and discount their validity. Or we assume that emotions arise in
response to what others do or say to us.
What's the common
element in all these global beliefs? It's the misconception that we have no
control over these mysterious things called emotions.
Out of their need
to avoid feeling certain emotions, people will often go to great, even
ridiculous, lengths. They'll turn to drugs, alcohol, overeating, gambling;
they'll lapse into debilitating depression.
In order to avoid
"hurting" a loved one (or being hurt by one), they'll suppress all
emotions, end up as emotional androids, and ultimately destroy all the feelings
of connection that got them together in the first place, thus devastating the
ones they love most.
(Location 4615)
Experiencing an
emotion and trying to pretend it's not there only creates more pain. Once again,
ignoring the messages that your emotions are trying to give you will not make
things better. If the message your emotions are trying to deliver is ignored,
the emotions simply increase their amperage; they intensify until you finally
pay attention.
(Location 4635)
Freudian
psychoanalysis, for example, searches for those "deep, dark secrets"
in our past to explain our present difficulties. Yet we all know that whatever
you continually look for, you will surely find. If you're constantly looking
for the reasons why your past has hamstrung your present, or why you're so
"screwed up," then your brain will comply by providing references to
back up your request and generate the appropriate negative emotions.
(Location 4653)
The Ten Action Signals
1. Discomfort
2. Fear
3. Hurt
4. Anger
5. Frustration
6. Disappointment
7. Guilt
8. Inadequacy
9. Overload,
Overwhelm
10. Loneliness
The Ten Emotions Of Power
1. Love and
Warmth
2. Appreciation and
Gratitude
3. Curiosity
4. Excitement and
Passion
5. Determination
6. Flexibility
7. Confidence
8. Cheerfulness
9. Vitality
10. Contribution
(Location 5050)
Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They
are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only
reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow.
Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it's
who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals,
that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment. So
maybe the key question you and I need to ask is, "What kind of person will
I have to become in order to achieve all that I want?" This may be the
most important question that you can ask yourself, for its answer will
determine the direction you need to head personally.
(Location 5614)
"Habit is
either the best of servants or the worst of masters."
Nathaniel
Emmons
(Location 5711)
Those people who
focus on what they can't control are continually disempowered.
(Location 5797)
Anytime you have
difficulty making an important decision, you can be sure that it's the result
of being unclear about your values.
(Source:
Awaken The Giant Within Loc. 6360)
As long as we
structure our lives in a way where our happiness is dependent upon something we
cannot control, then we will experience pain.
(Loc.
6872)
The key question
is not whether rules are right or wrong, but whether they empower or disempower
you.
(Loc.
7116)
At the base of
every emotional upset you've ever had with another human being is a rules
upset. Somebody did something, or failed to do something, that violated one of
your beliefs about what they must or should do.
(Loc.
7120)
Rules should be
designed to empower our relationships, not destroy them. Any time a rule gets
in the way, the question we need to ask ourselves is, "What's more important,
my relationship or my rules?"
(Loc.
7176)
Remember, the most empowering rule is to enjoy yourself
no matter what happens.
Location 7289
You want to learn from your past, not live in it— focus
on the things that empower you.
Location 7465
The power of reading a great book is that you start
thinking like the author.
Location 7478
You start to think like they think, feel like they feel,
and use imagination as they would. Their references become your own, and you
carry these with you long after you've turned the last page.
Location 7481
If you find yourself resenting someone who is wealthy,
what message does that send your brain? It's probably something like
"Having excess money is bad."
Location 8454
John Wooden's Seven-Point Creed: "Making The Most Of
Oneself"
1.
Be true to yourself.
2.
Make each day your masterpiece.
3.
Help others.
4.
Drink deeply from good books.
5.
Make friendship a fine art.
6.
Build a shelter against a rainy day.
7.
Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.
Location 8811
"Only those who have learned the power of sincere
and selfless contribution experience life's deepest joy: true fulfilment."
Anthony Robbins
Location 9485
The next time you see someone who's in trouble, instead
of feeling guilty because you have so many blessings and they don't, feel a
sense of excitement that you might be able to do just some little thing that
could make them think about themselves in a new way or simply feel appreciated
or loved.
Location 9516
