Awaken The Giant Within

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.

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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.

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God's delays are not God's denials.

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Know that it's your decisions, and not your conditions, that determine your destiny.

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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.

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Our brains can't tell the difference between something we've vividly imagined and something we've actually experienced.

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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.

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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."

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On the positive side, convictions—by the passion they inspire in us—can be empowering because they compel us to act.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters."

Nathaniel Emmons

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Those people who focus on what they can't control are continually disempowered.

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Anytime you have difficulty making an important decision, you can be sure that it's the result of being unclear about your values.

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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.

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The key question is not whether rules are right or wrong, but whether they empower or disempower you.

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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.

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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?"

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Remember, the most empowering rule is to enjoy yourself no matter what happens.

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You want to learn from your past, not live in it— focus on the things that empower you.

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The power of reading a great book is that you start thinking like the author.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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"Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life's deepest joy: true fulfilment."

Anthony Robbins

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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.

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You can buy the book from Amazon.in : Awaken The Giant Within