Would you like to hear what I learned reading "Awaken the Giant Within" by Tony Robbins?
This book was published more than 20 years ago by Tony Robbins and it’s amazing to see how relevant this book is to my life today. I'm grateful I received this as a Christmas gift and I take seriously the gifts that people give me. I feel like that's the universe's way of putting what I need right in my path.
Read this post or watch the original video of day 103 of Happier People Podcast on YouTube to learn more.
Thank you very much to @gmichelbkk for converting the transcription of the YouTube video from GoTranscript into this beautiful post for Steemit, which is much faster to read than the video and has beautiful illustrations! While I recorded the video for this a few months ago, I just now got the post ready for you!
What I learned in "Awaken The Giant Within" by Tony Robbins!
I started reading again with a hard copy of "Awaken the Giant Within" because I realized that most of my adult life I was lying and saying that I didn't enjoy reading, even though I was listening to books and always reading things online.
I had this idea in my head that came from not liking reading boring textbooks in school, not books like this one, but boring textbooks in school. I got the idea that I hate reading. I'm grateful that right before I received this book, I also stopped lying about how I hate reading and I realized that I love reading.
At the same time, as long as I was playing video games, I didn't make time to read. If there was time to read or to play video games, I always chose video games.
So it's not a coincidence that I received this book on Christmas Day as a Christmas gift and that I gave up playing video games on the same day. Then, I started reading this book on a daily basis right after that.
I've shared that setup with you because lots of times hearing things that might be useful or motivational to you, you will think, “Well, I can't apply that in my life.”
We’ll hear things like that as people will say, “Well, that's great for that one person, but they don't understand my life. I can't read books in my life. I don't have time for a podcast. I don't know how to watch video courses.”
Today, I try to embrace the help I'm given because the universe, if I'm asking and praying, putting out for things and doing affirmations, and wanting things, the universe really does conspire with me to receive it, the only trick is that I can't say no.
I'm grateful this is the first book I've been given in a long time that is in a print copy that I actually said yes to and "wow," I learned a lot reading this book.
Changing how I feel
One of the biggest things I learned in this book is that I have the ability, at any moment, to work on changing how I feel. Just knowing that consciously helps me realize I'm making a choice about how I'm feeling and I can do the work at any moment to change how I'm feeling. That in fact, I can condition my body to constantly be improving and to be in a normal state of peace, grace and acceptance.
My body actually has habits, it gets used to whatever kind of moods I consistently give it. So I liked how Tony Robbins went into detail in the book about this constant and never ending improvement, which he calls "Kenny!" with an exclamation point. That’s at the core of my life too because I can make progress every day without having to reach perfection.
What’s amazing is that I can actually do so much better than I generally think I can do.
In Awaken The Giant Within I love this idea that's it's up to me to set the goals for my life, it's up to me to choose what I aim for, and why not choose things that are much bigger?
I recently talked with a family member and they have a quite common thing that we do as human beings, we often just go around and say, “Well, I just want to be able to pay my bills. I just want to be able to retire.” We set these goals that are not very inspiring.
Is it inspiring for me to say, “Look, I want you to be able to pay your bills.”?
Does that inspire you?
Does that leave you feeling defeated like, “Well, that's really exciting. I'm just going to work and pay my bills.”
The book helps me to have fantastic goals. Several of the videos I’ve made on Happier People Podcast in the last 20 days have been motivated directly by exercises in the book. I actually, for one of the first times in my life, went through and voluntarily did the questions and the exercises, most of the ones that were requested in the book.
My number one personal development goal
One of the exercises was to actually sit down and write out your goals, really write out what you want to accomplish. My number one personal development goal was to be unconditionally loving in every single situation. That is my highest number one personal development goal that I want to accomplish within a year. The beauty of that is I can accomplish and fully do that today, to unconditionally love in every situation, whether it's something that someone said or did.
Like this morning, one of the biggest challenges I've had today is just feeling like they were too many different things for me to do. I wanted to do this podcast, but Facebook is not going live right now. I wanted to do this Top 10 T-shirt Selling Business video, I just finished all the top 10 yesterday, and I just needed to do the intro. I wanted to do these Dash tutorials, but which one do I do? Are they even going to vote it in?
Often, just having too many choices is overwhelming and it helps me to see with my number one goal being personal development of unconditional love in each situation.
I realize that in the middle of that situation, my number one goal is to be unconditionally loving. Given it's just me and some computers, and dogs in the house, the trick is to be unconditionally loving with this body, to accept and say, “Look, that's so good, it's excited, it wants to go do work. That’s good, it’s not a bad thing, it's full of energy and excited to do work.”
If it gets a little bit lost and it doesn't know what to do right now, then just love it. Say, “Look, you can do whatever you want to. Just do whatever you want to. Do whatever is right.”
I'm grateful today that Tony Robbins in the book encourages actually writing out and looking at your goals. Another thing I like here, I made all these lists and one of the first things I wrote out on this book is a list of things I will no longer tolerate.
The point of this is to change the things you don't like in your life into the things you do like, to stop tolerating all these crappy parts of your life that you are volunteering for, that you are deciding, to stop tolerating all the parts in your life.
You are making a decision on some level, “I'm going to be depressed. I'm going to accept abuse from this person or this place, or this company, or this situation.”
Now, that doesn't mean you start screaming at people, “I'm not going to tolerate this and you!” It doesn't mean to get into drama, it means when you see that happening, when we see that happening, we do something about it inside.
Guess what?
My number one thing I wrote down that I will no longer tolerate is getting mad, judging, and being mean to my wife, daughter, and other people.
Now, you might say, “Wow, that's a pretty big thing to not tolerate. How do you not tolerate that?”
When I start getting tempted to do that, I remember that I said I won't tolerate this anymore, and if I won't tolerate this anymore then I will not indulge in the temptation of being mad at my wife or my daughter.
The truth is that most of us end up treating the people around us the worst. While we might complain about the sad state of the world, “Oh, these children of these days. Yes, the company, the government. Well, this sports team. Well, these criminals, man.”
While we might sit around and complain about the sad state of the world, the truth is the only way the world is created is through our own perception of it. If I'm having a hard time getting mad and judging my wife or daughter and the people I love, it's not because of them, it's because of me.
I'm creating that. If I sit around and complain about the sad state of the world, it's because I'm creating it.
It’s not because it exists, it's because I'm creating it.
I loved how Tony Robbins explained he did this in his life. He’s simply sharing stuff in this book that's worked for him, which I understand because that’s what I do. I'm simply sharing right here what I’m doing that has worked for me.
What I’ve learned in my life is to take total responsibility for how I feel and how I'm acting because that's up to me. That is truly growing up, not blaming how I'm feeling on other people.
Since I wrote this down, I’ve experienced an amazing transformation where I don't indulge hardly ever now in getting mad at my wife or daughter because I realize I consciously decided I won't tolerate that.
Tony Robbins said he was in the same spot in his life, that he was just miserable, he was depressed, he was frustrated, he didn't think things were going anywhere. He sat down and he did this, he wrote out things he would no longer tolerate in his own life.
Guess what?
Since he wrote down those things that he won't tolerate in his life, he became conscious of all the ways in which he was screwing up his own life. Since he did that he became and has enjoyed a much higher quality of life.
Now that doesn't mean he's perfect. He talks about in the book how he'd get mad and yell at some of the people he'd worked with and how he learns from doing things like that. I liked in the book how he points out the different vocabulary people use when describing how they feel.
Saying things differently
If you say, "I hate this thing. This company is doing this and I hate it. The government's doing this and they disgust me. They should be all burned."
You see that when you describe things with very violent vocabulary, you get the feelings that go with that.
I tried to do my Facebook live stream this morning and because Facebook's live stream wasn't working, that will likely mean that this podcast on Facebook only gets seen in the news feed by about a tenth of the people that it would have if the Facebook Live would have been working.
That means I lost, essentially, about 90% of the organic reach because of just uploading this pre-recorded instead of live.
I could sit there and say, “Facebook, you make all this money, you're so stupid. How do you guys act this up and this is BS, and I hate it when I go to use your stupid service and it doesn't work. How dare you? I'm not spending any more money with ads.”
You see, I could work myself all up in a state or I could describe it differently.
Here's another way to describe it.
“I experienced a minor inconvenience today as the Facebook live stream wouldn't work and I quickly decided I would just do it pre-recorded because it's no big deal. I’m sure they will fix it soon enough as they’ve fixed everything else before.”
You see, just hearing those two different descriptions, those two things describe the exact same actual event.
The reality is that when I went to do the live stream, the screen wouldn't load and it wasn't functional. Those two descriptions are the exact same thing, but they're two drastically different ways of feeling.
The first description leaves me feeling filthy and disgusting inside.
My mind is free to have any thoughts
The second thing I put on my list of the things I will no longer tolerate is feeling like I am a bad person for my thoughts.
I have gone through my life condemning this body and all of existence because of the thoughts that come through my mind.
I will not tolerate any more condemning everything because I have a thought I don't like, because I see a thought that comes through my mind. Through nothing I chose to do, through nothing I did.
I simply see things, I remember things from the past or project things in the future automatically. I don't get to choose that.
It's insane to sit or stand there and condemn, "I'm not the kind of person who should have a thought like that, how disgusting. You're a bad person. Only a horrible person would have a thought like that."
I'd no longer tolerate that.
My mind is free to have thoughts about whatever it wants to. At the same time, I pray not to indulge in the thoughts I don't need to mess around with. If my mind sees a beautiful woman and produces a thought about how great it would be to be with her, I pray then to check whether that's my wife first or not, and then to not indulge in any fantasy, even if it is my wife. I don't need to indulge in the fantasy about anything. I need to stay here.
I won't tolerate spending my whole mind energy anymore being in the past or in the potential future. That gives me massive freedom to be a happy person. You know what I noticed?
Everyone, everywhere I go seems to be happy.
Why?
Because the truth is most of us are really blank slates. We simply react to however everyone else is around us. If you've awakened the giant within you, you have superpowers on this Earth to influence all the people who are sleepwalking, so to speak, who are unconscious, who aren't really operating their bodies, who are just bouncing around like pin balls.
When you walk in radiating sunshine and happiness, guess what?
Just like the flowers when the sun comes up, they'll give back thanks.
"Oh, thank you for not bringing in the putrid air of disgust that so many other people walk around and bring in."
Everywhere I go people love me and it's not because I'm great, it's because I love them. I love myself, I love this life, I'm happy to be here and other people simply respond to that.
Tony Robbins wrote this book for me
I'm grateful today in Awaken the Giant Within to receive a load of tips for taking control of my personal destiny, for thinking consciously about what kind of life I do want to experience.
This is my life, this is my little dream, my little fantasy world.
How do I want it to be and what can I do to deal with how it is?
I got so many good tips in this book, I've been so motivated.
I wrote down things like what I aspire to be.
I aspire to be financially independent with no debt. My family has over $200,000 in student loan debt alone today, that's including my wife's loans and mine from undergraduate and both of us from graduate school, plus then another $50,000 or so in car loans, and a personal loan for my business.
The point of this is, I aspire to be financially free of all debt. Independent, so that my financial independence will assist other people on being independent.
That motivated me to set what you might call aggressive or ambitious goals for this year. I have a goal for 2018 to be debt-free. On January 1, 2018, to be debt free.
"Jerry, you can't pay down 200 and some thousand dollars in debt in one year."
"Why not?"
I'm willing to do the work for it. I've quit playing video games to make more time to spend with my family and more time to work, to be able to make my business more consistent. I'm helping more people than ever, why can't I pay down $260,000 of debt all in one year?
Why can't I?
My wife and I, if you count selling our house, paid down over $260,000 in debt last year. Why couldn't we do it again this year and finish off all the rest of our debt?
Before that, I did nothing but borrow money.
You see, Awaken the Giant Within tells me to see some of the depth that I have inside, the infinite depth and tools, and resources I have inside and the ability to help others using those tools as I have been helped.
Tony Robbins wrote Awaken the Giant Within for me.
It feels very personal when he goes in at the end of the book and writes down exactly, it says, "I hope you'll stay in touch with me. I hope you'll write to me, and then I have the privilege of personally meeting you. Till then, remember to expect miracles because you are one."
That's the same kind of thing I go around saying all the time already. What I'm starting to learn is there's almost a predictable formula for helping other people and being of service to other people.
Awaken the Giant Within is one of the most helpful books I've read in a long time. It has so many good tools that help just to focus and to consciously bring out the kind of life I want to have and to work on that life every day. I was inspired to try so many new things and start getting them into my routines based on reading Awaken the Giant Within.
The universe is trying to help
Now, how did I read this in the first place?
I read it as a Christmas gift after talking about how much I enjoyed Tony Robbins’ "Money Master the Game" book.
You see, the universe realized I wanted more Tony Robbins in my life. I'm grateful that my wife's family bought me this as a Christmas gift.
I read that book unlike all those books my mom bought me, that I just sat in my closet and gave away, as my mother knew the universe was trying to help me through her for 10 plus years.
"I love you Mom!"
My mother bought me book after book: Sun Tzu, Art of War, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. My mom bought me book after book and I consistently left them in my closet and gave them away.
You see, I'm grateful today to actually accept the help the universe gives me today, and instead of just putting this book on a shelf, and then giving it away, and feeling guilty because I didn't read it.
Then just thinking, “Well, maybe if I have that on my bookshelf, somehow through osmosis, I'll naturally become a better person," but it takes work. Tony Robbins said something like, "90% of the people who start this book will not go all the way through it," and I'm proud today that I went all the way through the book.
Did I do every little challenge? Did I read every single page in it?
No, he had this seven days of challenges I put in and I opted to skip that for now. I am open to doing it when the time is right. I did most of the other exercises. I read 95% or so of the book. I'm grateful today that I try and make myself a better person every single day.
Constant and never-ending improvement is one of the most consistently reinforced principles in the book, and that's what I try to do today.
Read the next book, do the next right thing.
You know what I've consistently noticed?
I noticed that most people who try to go out and do great things for the world, who try to help out, who try to write books, who try to be of service often get rejected for 5, 10, 15, or 20 years before they get something like a best-selling book.
Today I'm grateful to be able to just share all these things with you online today, that you collectively are giving me enough money to just continue to do what I'm doing on a daily basis, and I'm very grateful for that.
I try to make myself better every single day, to be of better service to you every day because the best of what I can teach is a reflection of the best of what I'm learning, of what I am learning and what I can learn, and I'm willing to learn.
My exercise for today is to remember what I've learned, especially the constant and never-ending improvement throughout "Awaken the Giant Within" today, as I practice my day today.
Thank you very much for experiencing this with me.
I hope you have a wonderful day today.
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Love,
Jerry Banfield