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If you want to change your life, you are going to have to do things differently. And sometimes, you can look to inspirational books to create a positive change in your life.
If you desire change, you are going to have to step out of your comfort zone. As Anthony Robbins points out:
“All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs. So how do we change? The most effective way is to get your brain to associate massive pain to the old belief. You must feel deep in your gut that not only has this belief cost you pain in the past, but it’s costing you in the present and, ultimately, can only bring you pain in the future. Then you must associate tremendous pleasure to the idea of adopting an empowering new belief” — Anthony Robbins
In order to transform your life, you will experience discomfort and pain. Change can be a painful process, but the rewards of going through the change are priceless.
In a nutshell: It is time to seize the day and live the life you’ve imagined. This is your starter kit.
Anthony Robbins is the embodiment of the personal transformation guru and has become a household name in the US through a combination of personal energy and marketing prowess.
Awaken the Giant Within, published in 1991, begins with Robbins in a jet helicopter on his way to a sell-out seminar. Below he spots the building where, a decade earlier, he was working as a janitor, and remembers the Robbins of that period: overweight, broke and lonely. Now svelte, happily married and a millionaire, he realises he is living his dream.
Robbins knows the best advertisement for his products is his life itself.
Power of language
The source of Robbins’ methods, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) was pioneered by John Grinder and Richard Bandler and arose out of the study of how language, verbal and non-verbal, can affect the nervous system. The premise is that we can control our nervous system so that our actions, though seeming to be natural, are in fact programmed. Another key is that if we model the actions and behaviour of successful people we can achieve the same results.
Robbins’ talent has been to refine and market NLP to a general audience. The book gets the reader’s imagination going by asking questions and creating possibilities in your mind, while at the same time providing the practical steps for goal achievement.
The pain and pleasure principle
Robbins sees pain and pleasure as the key life-shaping forces. We can either let them control us or understand them to suit ourselves. By linking huge pain or pleasure with an activity or thought, we change who we are.
Rather than the events of our lives shaping us, it is our beliefs about what those events mean that do so. How we see the world, if changed, can alter virtually everything about the rest of our lives.
All human progress occurs through questioning current limitations. Ask a quality question and you will get a quality answer. Use the power of words to transform thoughts and action. Appreciate that ‘leaders are readers’ and that reading allows us to make crucial distinctions based on the experience of others.
Determine exactly what you want to achieve and write it down, creating a future so amazing you are compelled to realise it. You must ‘focus on where you want to go, not on what you fear’. Make decisions rather than wishes about what you are and take action. Figure out the personal rules by which you currently live and create new ones that will drive you to live out your destiny.
Beyond reasonable doubt
The Robbins message has mass appeal because we all believe there is much more to us than others recognise. The world is fond of dismissing our ideas as unreasonable or unrealistic. We are taught that we can not do what our heart desires and after a while we accept it as fact. But Robbins claims that the truly successful person refuses to be reasonable.
Awaken the Giant Within has been called ‘plastic surgery for the mind’, meaning if you are unhappy with your identity, change it. That idea will sound far-fetched or even distasteful to some, but the reassurance that it is possible can be a lifeline for others.
Reinvention, let’s not forget, is the basis of American culture and Awaken the Giant Within could not have surfaced in any other place. Look on it as a sort of Statue of Liberty in words.
About Anthony Robbins
Born in 1960, Robbins grew up in a low-rent suburb of Los Angeles but was thrown out of home by his mother at 17 for being ‘too intense’.
Claiming to have read more than 700 self-help books, he came across neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) in 1983 and went on the road to promote his brand of it. He was a millionaire by the age of 24, lost his money and regained it.
Robbins is now the US’s best-known ‘peak performance consultant’. He has coached Bill Clinton, Andre Agassi, Mikhail Gorbachev and Princess Diana. His company runs seminars around the world and his foundation helps the young, elderly and homeless.
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