Awaken the Giant Within

"Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you
must do is raise your standards. When people ask me what really
changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most
important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down
all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would
no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming."
"We don't have to allow the programming of our past to control our
present and future. With this book, you can reinvent yourself by systematically
organizing your beliefs and values in a way that pulls you in the
direction of your life's design."
"Though we'd like to deny it, the fact remains that what drives our
behavior is instinctive reaction to pain or pleasure, not intellectual calculation.
Intellectually, we may believe that eating chocolate is bad for
us, but we'll still reach for it. Why? Because we're not driven so much
by what we intellectually know, but rather what we've linked pain and
pleasure to in our nervous systems."
Anthony Robbins is the embodiment of the personal transformation
guru. In the United States at least he is a household name
and it would be difficult not to have seen one of his television
infomercials there. He has personally coached presidents, royalty, top
sports stars, and corporate leaders, and has reached huge new audiences
through a combination of legendary personal energy and marketing
prowess. Other self-help titans like Deepak Chopra and Wayne
Dyer are low key in comparison. Lots of people are willing to pay over
$1,000 to attend a Robbins weekend seminar, which features walks
across hot coals and the hysteria normally seen at pop concerts or
evangelical meetings.
Awaken the Giant Within begins with Robbins in a jet helicopter on
his way to a sellout seminar. Below he spots the building where, a
decade before, he was working as a janitor, and remembers the Robbins
of that period: overweight, broke, and lonely. Now svelte, happily
married, and a millionaire with a mansion by the sea, this is the
moment Robbins realizes that he is living his dream.
Such details are part of the enjoyment of Awaken the Giant Within
and Robbins knows that the best advertisement for his products is his
life itself. But let's go back to the beginning…
Robbins and NLP
Robbins's first book, written while still in his mid-20s, was Unlimited
Power. Itself a bestseller, this laid the groundwork for its successor,
revealing the source of many of Robbins' methods: neuro-linguistic
programming (NLP).
As we saw in Chapter 2, 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. Its premise is that we
can control our nervous system so that our responses and actions,though seeming to be "natural," are in fact programmed. Another key
premise is that if we "model" the actions and behavior of successful
people we can achieve at least the same results as they have.
Robbins's genius has been to refine and market NLP to a general
audience. His catchphrase "Change happens in an instant," for example,
comes directly from NLP, as do his points about linking our motivations
to pain or pleasure.
Some points from Awaken the Giant Within
The book gets the reader's imagination going by the questions it asks,
the possibilities it creates in your mind. Robbins is the master of unlimitedness,
yet is careful to provide the practical steps and details for goal
achievement. The book is 500 pages long. The following list covers
some of the themes, all are of which are backed up by copious references,
stories, and facts.
Pain and pleasure
These are the key shaping forces in life. We can either let them control
us or understand them to suit ourselves. Be careful what you link pleasure
to: Some people equate pleasure with heroin, others with helping
people. Do you want to be like Jimi Hendrix, minus the talent, or
Mother Teresa? By linking massive pain or massive pleasure with an
activity or thought, we change who we are.
The power of belief
Two men are chained to a wall in a prison. One commits suicide, the
other goes on to tell people about the power of the human spirit.
Rather than the events of our lives shaping us, it is our beliefs about
what those events mean that do so. Global beliefs (how we see the
world and people in general), if changed, can alter virtually everything
about the rest of our lives. All great leaders create a sense of certainty,
never believing that their problems are permanent. The CIA has techniques
to change a person's core beliefs in a very short period. You can
apply the same techniques to your own limiting beliefs.

The power of questions
All human progress occurs through questioning current limitations. We
don't need to have an answer prepared; ask a quality question and you
will get a quality answer.
The power of words
Use the power of words and enlarged vocabulary to transform thinking
and action. Appreciate also that "leaders are readers"—reading allows
us to make crucial distinctions based on others' experience.
Clarity is power
Determine exactly what you want to achieve and write it down, creating
a future so amazing that you are compelled to realize it. You must
"focus on where you want to go, not on what you fear." Create a tenyear
plan then work backwards; most people overestimate what they
can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade.
Raise your standards, change your rules
Make decisions rather than wishes about what you are and take action.
Figure out the hidden personal rules by which you currently live and
create new ones that will drive you to live out your destiny.
A closer look…
Awaken the Giant Within is the popular bible of psycho-technology.
Converts will feel that if everyone read and applied Robbins, the world
would be a vastly more empowered, fulfilled, and happy place.
For some readers, however, Robbins' world may seem too black and
white. It shows you how to get out of any sort of negative state,
hygienically removing the bad mood, depression, and so on. Other selfhelp
writers like Thomas Moore and Robert Bly see great value in
depression and even grief. It teaches us about ourselves, they say, and is
part of a soulful existence.
Awaken the Giant Within is subtitled "How to Take Immediate
Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Financial Destiny!"
Can we really control our destiny? Are the goals that Robbins inspires
people to dream up really unique to them? His own life might appear
to be living fantasy, but does this mean that all our desires should be
fulfilled too? The tools he provides to achieve anything we want are
indeed impressive, but there is no caveat about the reasons for wanting
them.
People can be turned off by the superman aura around the book and
its conviction that the fantasy we might have about ourselves can be
realized. To a critic, everything is about "achieving your goals." Eric
Fromm wrote about the "marketized individual," the person who ends
up as a mere reflection of the capitalist economy, pursuing selfimprovement
only to the extent that it may bring higher status.
In Robbins' defense
To address these criticisms, it is true that some people may use
Robbins' mental technology to achieve banal materialistic ends, but
what he actually says challenges the very hold of materialism in our
lives. The core of his philosophy is defying the culture that surrounds
us by refusing to be just another mole, burrowing away at our job so
that we can keep in step. In his world, everyone should be amazing.
And the book does have us question our idea of success: Is it, Robbins
asks, a product of our deepest creativity and highest vision? His philosophy
holds that pursuing a dream is the only way of keeping ourselves
truly alive, and money is always secondary to that.
What Robbins does is get people to "step over the edge," to change
their beliefs about themselves, identify their core values, move on from
jobs or relationships that do nothing for them, and reveal that their
limitations are largely illusory.
Final comments
The Robbins message has mass appeal because we all believe that there
is much more to us than others recognize. The world is fond of putting
our ideas in the "unreasonable, unrealistic" category. We are taught
that we can't do what our heart desires and after a while we accept it
as fact. But Robbins' truly successful person refuses to be reasonable.
Awaken the Giant Within has been called "plastic surgery for the
mind," meaning if you're not happy with your identity, change it.
Though that idea will sound far-fetched or even distasteful to one per-son, the reassurance that it is possible can be a lifeline for another. Reinvention,
let's not forget, is the very 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.