Personal Power II by Anthony

Robbins: Summary

Personal Power II by Anthony Robbins: Summary + PDF | The Power Moves

https://thepowermoves.com/personal-power-tony-robbins/

By Lucio Buffalmano / 36 minutes of reading

Personal Power is a month-long transformation program by Tony

Robbins.
The concept behind this is to listen to a recording per day and take
action as instructed to watch your life blossom.

There is some annoying woo-woo in there, but also some of the

best content in personal development.

Contents [show]

Summary

About The Author:

Well, if we need to introduce Tony Robbins, that means you are just
starting out with self-help.
Because Tony Robbins is the most popular, and likely most
successful, self-help guru in the world.

More about him:

Lucio: Robbins is a fantastic motivational speaker, a
self-help “guru” with great content… And an endless
marketer and covert bragger. Still thumbs up, though

Success Formula:

1. Get clear on what you want: you gotta know what you want
and what your outcome is
2. Take action! Do something. Personal power is the ability to
take action in spite of fear
3. See what you’re getting: develop acuity, take feedback on
what works
4. Use a role model

Success is composed of :

1. Beliefs (core of our performance)

2. Potential
3. Actions
4. Results

Tony Robbins says that potential is unlimited but we only start

tapping into it once we believe that we can reach good results.

Once you start believing you can, you will tap much more potential
and take a lot more actions and then you will start tapping into a
positive look cycle.
You get some great results and your brain goes “see I told you that
you would succeed”, and your beliefs grow stronger and you’re in
that success cycle.
Tony Robbins says that to get great results when you’re in a
downward spiral you can take massive action, and that’s a great
way.
Or you can change your beliefs and visualize your results in
advance, which will make your actions even more confident and
inspired.

The Controlling & Driving Forces of Our Lives

Ton Robbins says people are motivated by 2 forces:

1. Need to avoid pain (greater motivator in most cases)

2. Desire to gain pleasure

If you want to control your life and your actions you have to control
the motivating forces.
You have to link pain to not doing something and link pleasure to
doing it.

When you learn to change emotional associations to things and

behavior in your life (pain and pleasure links), then you control your
life.

The author says that if you try to make a change and never happens
it’s because your internal association of pain and pleasure hasn’t
changed.

You want to change something, but because we have strong

“wiring” in our brains already in place it’s difficult to change purely
out of will.
BUT we have the power to change that.

The basic idea is that the less you use your old neuro association,
the more they will atrophy.
And the more you use your new empowering neuro associations,
the stronger those links will become.

Use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you.
That’s the secret to success, Tony Robbins says. That’s the secret
to controlling life and not having a life to control you.

Then Tony Robbins gives us an example we can all relate to: how
many times have you seen someone you’re attracted to and whom
you would have liked to date but didn’t do anything?
It’s because you associate more pain with walking up and asking for
a date than not doing it.

Remember, the resources you need to change anything in your life

are within you right now, Tony Robbins says. Right now you have a
set of neuro-associations that habitually cause you to not fully use
your capability. What you must do is reorganize your neural
pathways so that they guide you in the directions you desire.

How to change your neuro associations:

Tony Robbins says we have to believe that we can change right

now.
And that WE are responsible for the change.

Get to the point where you believe that something MUST change,
that YOU must change, and that you CAN change it.

We’ve already seen the steps in Awaken the Giant Within, but here
they are again for simplicity:

● Step 1: Decide what you really want and what’s

preventing you from having it now
Focus on what you want and clarify to yourself what’s preventing
you from having it. Understand what pain you link to changing to a
new behavior and what kind of pleasure your current behavior is
giving you (or what pain it’s shielding you from).

● Step 2: Leverage! Associate massive pain not changing

and massive pleasure changing

Start thinking and noting down your own brain’s benefits of all that
you are missing by not changing.

Ask yourself a question to self-induce pain in not changing. Ask

yourself what you’ve missed in the last 5 years with your current
sub-standard behavior. Ask what it cost you. Ask how much more
you could have today if you had changed earlier. Ask what it’s
costing you right now. To you, to the people around you. Ask what it
WILL cost you in the next 1, 2, or 3 years.

Another two ideas to get leverage is to make a public commitment

that you’re going to change (what Charles de Gaulle did to stop
smoking) and personal integrity (ask yourself how your current
sub-standard behavior is inconsistent with who you are.

● Step 3: Interrupt the limiting pattern

Anytime you see yourself leaning against the old pattern, change it
immediately.

Change it abruptly and make it as conspicuous as possible. If you

can manage to shame yourself too in the process of changing the
pattern you will not only interrupt the pattern but also get leverage
at the same time.

● Step 4: Create a new, empowering alternative and link

pleasure to it
Step 4 is critical for long-term change.

Your old habit was likely filling a need for you and is also engrained
in your brain. Simply erasing it is difficult. You gotta replace with
something new.

Ideally, you replace it with something that gives you the same
pleasurable feeling without the negative effects. Or something that
gives you even more pleasure.

A good technique is to “use” the pleasure from something else and

link it to the new behavior. Tony Robbins for example used to link
pain in leaving food on his plate. And when he started to link
pleasure to pushing the food away he did it when playing a song he
loved. He is using the song he loved positive association and
started transferring it to push the dish away.

Genius.

Another technique is to think about a time you felt strong and

powerful and then immediately think about what scares you.

● Step 5: Condition the new pattern until it’s consistent

Conditioning is the way to make sure a change you create is

consistent and lasts long term. The simplest way is to rehearse it
again and again with tremendous emotional intensity until a
neurological pathway is created.

Do it long enough and it will become conditioned.

A couple of good techniques are to imagine it first (your brain can’t

tell the difference between something vividly imagined and
something actually experienced) and to reinforce it by giving
yourself a reward.
 ● Step 6: Test it!

Testing is two-fold:

● Imagine yourself in a situation where your old habits

would have taken hold. Are you able to resist and go
ahead with your new habit?
● Make sure the new change is consistent with your
identity

Neuro associations shaping your life

Tony Robbins invites you to take stock of all the positive and neuro
associations in your life and then address the top 3 negative ones
you want to change by following his 6 steps process.

The meaning we associate with our neuro

association

The author says the meaning we associate with a given association

controls our life and behavior.

Tony Robbins gives the example of a rape victim.

Many rape victims will feel violated, or dirty, and constantly keep
this dark hole inside.

But what if you completely changed the meaning of it?

What if you told yourself that you’ve been there and now you’re
stronger than ever?
What if you could use that experience to help other people in a
similar situation?
Or help people in general, by showing how resilient a human being
can be?

Those are the kind of empowering questions that can change the
meaning of a terrible event and give someone strength and power
instead of pain and depression.

Incantations

Incantations are continuously repeating to yourself something you

want to be true about yourself.

Brian Tracey, for example, suggests that you repeat daily to yourself
“I’m the best, I’m the best, I’m the best”

My note:
Incantations have been proven to be potentially harmful to people
with low self-esteem.
Also, read pop-psychology and self-help myths.

On another tape, Tony says as a youngster he repeated for hours

and full intensity incantations to himself, after which his whole body
was shaking.

Exposure therapy to destroy your comfort zone

Please like this website to keep reading this long article:

The idea is that you expose yourself to stimuli that cause anxiety
until your brain and mind realize it’s no danger for you.

What happens with social anxiety is your sympathetic nervous

system kicks into overdrive and focuses all of your energy on
“survival” because it tells your brain/body that you’re in danger. Yes,
approaching a hot chick is the same as a car crash or shark attack
on your brain/body.

My Note:
in The Talent Code returning Iraqi soldiers suffering from PTSD are
given the same stimuli they had in war zones and they are
conditioned to stay unreactive.

STATE – changing your state

The ultimate goal is that no matter what happens, you’re gonna stay
in a beautiful state.

Tony Robbins believes the success of his life has come down to
one basic skill: state management.

On a consistent basis, Tony learned to manage his state and

therefore he got himself to break through and take actions when he
would have normally done nothing and when very few people
around him were able to.

He says he’s done every day, day after day, by doing things that
would increase his physical ability changing the way he moves and
breathes.

And by consistently and daily conditioning myself to ask the kind of

questions and create the kind of focus that moved him in the
direction he wanted.

The moment you put yourself in a better state you will see more
solutions and you can tell yourself a better story to start a
breakthrough and change plan.

Focus:
What you focus on determines how you feel.

Many people focus on what they don’t have, or on the problems

rather than what they have, the solutions, and what they can do.

Questions

Tony Robbins says a great way to focus on positive endeavors, is by

asking questions.

The quality of the questions you answer yourself determines the

way your brain thinks.

While already mentioned in the state section, questions are one of

the 5 “master systems’ in Tony’s approach.

You gotta ask with conviction and a sense of certainty and

expectation for an answer. And you really have to dig for those
answers.

Example: The Man Who Stole From Tony

Tony Robbins had a guy who embezzled from his company. He

started raging and screaming “how could he possibly do this to me,
how could he have the audacity”.
Then he switched.
Tony loves learning and started asking himself “what can I learn from
this”.
What’s funny about this that I didn’t notice? And he really started
searching for those answers. And he changed his state.

Questions you can ask yourself:

● “What are you most happy about right now”

If nothing then:

● “What COULD you be happy about if you wanted to be”

● “I know you don’t, but if you did, if you could, what could
you feel happy about”
● “What about that makes you happy”
● “How does that make you feel”

Also, ask these questions to unhappy people around you and you
will see what shift they will bring.

Morning questions

Ask yourself these 5 morning questions and give two answers each:

● What am I most excited about?

● What makes me happy
● What do I look forward to
● Who loves me (or who could love me, even if it means
getting a puppy)
● What can I do today to make it a great day

Body

Ton Robbins uses his now famous equation that Emotion = Motion

He says the number one way to change your state is by changing

your body.

Change the way you move to feel empowered and in confident.

Change your breathing and your facial expressions.

Emotion = Motion
Breathing

How do you breathe when you’re happy, excited, bored…?

Face:

Learn as many facial expressions.

Notice when you’re tense you have some tension in your facial
muscles.

Voice

How do you speak when you’re happy, when you’re euphoric when
you’re on top of the world?

Emotion templates:

Write them all down so that you can re-enact them whenever
needed

Things You Can Do To Be Happy

Write down all the things you can do or experience that will make
you happy.
Every time you need to feel in a specific way, you will have a list of
things to do.

For example, a few items on my list are:

● Listen to great music and jump around

● A great smoothie
● Eating great and healthy food
● Having sex
● Spending time with a woman I like
 ● Spending time with someone I like
● Calling/texting someone I care about and making them
feel great
● Read
● Enjoy a sunset with a beer and a cigarette

Exercise – Negative focuses

What do you focus on that doesn’t help you?

I’m sure you gotta pretty long list here, I know I do :).

Consciously stop focusing on these whenever they come up, and

consciously switch to positive ones as soon as it will become more
and more natural.

Values

Tony Robbins says that your values tell you what you will pay
attention to and will determine the kind of person you are.

Values are built from beliefs, which are built from references (more
on that below).

There are both values we move towards, and value we reject and
wants to move away from.
Your values determine your destiny. Your values determine what
you move towards and what you reject and determine your most
likely behaviors.

And it’s very possible you have value conflicts that create
self-sabotage (example: top value of success and top moving away
from value as rejection).
How can you fix this?

Step 1 – awareness
Explore what are your current values.

Ask yourself: what’s the most important thing in my life? Is it peace

of mind, impact, or love..?

For Tony Robbins, for example, it was: passion, love, freedom,

contribution, being able, growth, achievement/accomplishment,
happiness, fun, health, and creativity.

Step2 – decide
Make a conscious decision about the values you want to live by.

As yourself not “what’s important to me” but “In what order do my

values need to be to achieve my ultimate destiny?”

Ask yourself what other values you need to add -Tony Robbins
found out intelligence was a big one missing-.

Ask what values you need to eliminate.

Tony Robbins, for example, found out that by constantly focusing

on being free he was missing out on the freedom he already had.
So he dropped freedom from the list and consciously decided not to
make it an issue anymore.
And suddenly it was amazing the freedom he had by dropping it
from the list.

Ask which benefit you get from which values and which cons you
get (for example for Tony having passion at the top meant he was
burning out).

Tony Robbin’s list changed to: health/vitality; love/warmth,

intelligence, cheerfulness, honesty, passion, gratefulness,
fun/happiness, making a difference, learning/growing, achieving,
being the best, investing, contribution, and creativity.

Tony asked if being happy higher than achievement would suck the
wind out of his sails, but it was quite the contrary: he started
achieving more by being happy.

My Note:
I did the exact same with freedom.

Freedom was such a big thing for me I felt suffering any time I was
doing something that negated my freedom.
Helping a friend? That’s not freedom! Keeping an appointment?
Damn, where’s my freedom!

I dropped the freedom trap by reminding myself that I AM free. I

CAN do whatever I want.
I always choose what I’m doing. Being a free man in a free world,
freedom is NOT your issue.

Update:

I am not convinced anymore about “having to drop” your values.

First, think if you can leverage your values.
Today I went back to valuing freedom instead of considering it a
burden. And it helped me launch my business.

See my speech here about it:

Also what you place higher up means you give it more importance,
so ask yourself how the placement will affect your life. For example
ask: how would your capacity to deal with fear, frustration, and
rejection be affected by placing “courage” high upon your move
towards value?

One more note:

Brian Tracey adds that our happiness and self-esteem are heavily
dependent on how closely we live to our values.
Our self-esteem is tied to our ideal self, such as the person we want
to be, and the way we see ourselves at the present time.
Unsuccessful people have no values or sacrifice values for
short-term gains. You gotta stay true to your values if they are to
shape you in any significant way.

Rules

Tony Robbins says that rules are the belief (sense of certainty)
about what needs to be fulfilled in order to achieve your various
values.

They are generalizations you’ve set up for yourself about what has
to happen to experience a certain result in your life. They often are
in the form of “if… then” statements.

For example: “I wanna be successful”. Success is the value. How do

you know if you’ve reached it? Those are your rules.
The value is the target. The metrics to see if you’ve reached it are
the rules.

Rules determine not only whether or not a certain value is met, but
also whether we’ll feel good or bad, whether we’ll give ourselves
pain or pleasure.

Tony says a great way to make yourself feel better is to have laxer
rules.
Many are afraid that we have too lax rules or we’ll lose our drive. But
Tony says that you don’t need to have ridiculously difficult rules to
keep your drive. We certainly want to use the power of goals and
the allure of a compelling future, but we must make sure at the
bottom of it we have rules to allow us to be happy any time we
want.

We want rules that move us to take action, that cause us to feel joy,
that cause us to follow through. A bit of push-through pain is great,
just don’t make it overwhelming.

Rules and values conflict

You can also have conflicting values and rules.

For example, if you were heartbroken your new rule could be “never
get too close to someone”, but if you value love… major conflict.

Empowering and disempowering rules

A rule is disempowering if it’s impossible to meet if it’s outside of

your control, or if it gives you only a few ways to feel good and lots
of ways to feel bad.

To know if our rules are empowering or disempowering ask yourself

“what has to happen for me to feel good in.. “

And remember, the most empowering rule is to enjoy yourself no

matter what happens.

Kind of rules

The author says there are two kinds of rules: threshold rules
(musts) and standard ones (should).

In a way, it’s better not to have too many must rules, or we’ll be
shackled.

Example: Managing A Bit Let-Down

Tony was in a resort having high expectations for the eclipse which
was going to happen.
But clouds gathered and it was a huge letdown for everyone.
However, Tony decided he would enjoy his time anyway in spite of
the clouds. It was possible because had decided that “no matter
what happened, we’d find a way to enjoy it”.

Some people say it’s lowering your standards, but it’s actually
raising them because you’ll enjoy it in spite of what happens.

Beliefs

Tony Robbins says that beliefs are feelings of certainty about what
something means.

2/3 of top athletes are the oldest in their classes so they grow up
winning and develop a belief they’re the best.

My Note:
But beliefs can often trump the body.
An experiment allowed a mouse to win fights against bigger
opponents by drugging the opponent. Then he was pitched against
bigger NON-drugged opponents.
The smaller mouse trashed the bigger opponents.

Beliefs are supported by what we call references, which are life

experiences. Imagine beliefs as tabletops, and references are the
legs of the table.

An idea can become a belief the moment you start linking

reinforcing experiences confirming that idea.

If for example, you have an idea you’re sexy, girls telling you-you’re a
great lover, a playboy, attractive, etc., those are reinforcing your idea
with experiences and it’s like putting legs underneath that tabletop
so you feel certain about it.
Often ideas we have turn into beliefs because we cherry-pick the
experiences we will use as legs.

So if you think you’re a failure it’s often a self-reinforcing prophecy

because you only register the times you failed and keep behaving
as a failure and apply that “I’m a failure” lens to everything in your
life.

The good news, of course, is that you can change beliefs and you
can develop a belief about anything as long as you find enough
references/legs.

Global beliefs are: “people are”, “life is”, “I am..”

The second kind of belief is that rules are: “if… Then” “if you love
me..” “if you respect me..” “if you appreciate me..”.

Tony says that every great achiever he’s ever interviewed had the
ability to get themselves to feel certain they could succeed, even
though no one before had ever accomplished it.

Belief’s categories

There are three categories of beliefs:

1. Opinion- something we are relatively certain about. Can be

easily changed.
2. Belief- much stronger because it has more references and
emotional attachment.
3. Conviction- eclipses a belief due to emotional attachment.
Identity is based on convictions. To give up a conviction
would be to lose your identity.

Tony Robbins says that often the best thing you can do to create
mastery in any area of your life is to raise a belief to a conviction.
The conviction will then become your identity and drive you to
action and push you through obstacles.

Creating a Super Belief

How to create a conviction:

1. Start with a basic belief

2. Reinforce your belief by adding new and more powerful
references (think about when it happened or make them
happen)
3. Find or create a triggering event.

If you don’t have that belief at all, start conditioning it with the 6
steps on neuro associations and then take action to reinforce it and
create new references.

How to change your beliefs

1. Think what the negative belief is costing you (a staple to

change, what it will cost you.. )
2. Doubt the old belief (question it, find contrary examples,
ask how was this belief ridiculous or absurd, was the
person I learned it from an expert in this area, where they
producing results? )

If you do this right you will soon start doubting the old belief and
your mind is then ripe to instill a new one by associating pleasure
with it and conditioning it.

Example: Getting Good With People

Let’s say you wanted to get good with people, and you wanted to
adopt the belief, “I can learn to get better with and understand
people.”
You’d build that up out of all of the references you have in the past
for talking well to people, how many guides there are for talking to
people, and how great it would feel to finally handle this area of your
life.

Then, look for the antithesis you’re feeling right now, that you’re
terrible with people and you’ll never get better.
Find as many references that run counter to it, like how you can at
least talk to store clerks or make small talk with people, how some
people with backgrounds of being shy have evolved to socialites, and
imagine finally shaking off this negative label for yourself.

Then, associate massive pain to it with the techniques listed above.

When it becomes too painful to not adopt the belief and too enticing
to hold back from adopting it, you’re on the right track.
You’re now motivated enough to take action towards building this
idea into a full-blown belief and you’ll find ways to get experience
with talking to people. Maybe you’d read guides, talk to strangers,
figure out what works and what doesn’t, and keep focusing until the
changes stick.

Beliefs You Have

Tony Robbins then encourages you to make a list of all the beliefs
you have. Positive ones and negative ones, and then encourages
you to start changing the top 3 negative ones you are currently
holding.

References

Tony Robbins says that references are all that has happened or that
we’ve seen or heard or read or imagined in life.
Their strength depends on the amount of emotion attached to them
and the number of similar reference experiences.

References do not necessarily have to be accurate, but they do

become accepted as real, regardless.
With enough emotional intensity and repetition, our nervous
systems experience something as real, even if it hasn’t occurred
yet.

We have countless references for everything, often running contrary

to each other. And references build our beliefs not neutrally, but in
the way we select them and the meaning we attach to them!

Nothing in life means anything but the meaning you give it, so
please give your past events an empowering meaning to build
powerful and empowering beliefs. Write down some events you
think impacted you negatively, and instead of using them as an
excuse to beat yourself up, look for a positive and empowering
lesson: there are no tragedies if something good can eventually
come of it. We are not our pasts unless we live there.

This is also very well explained in Ryan Holiday’s masterpiece The

Obstacle is The Way.

Rituals – The Power Of

Tony Robbins says asks what are some emotions you experience
on an ongoing basis.

It’s important to know because we often end up with “patterns”, or

sets of actions and thoughts we use recurrently. These patterns can
make us happy or unhappy, and it’s up to us to use the good ones
and discard or change the bad ones.

Disempowering Rituals:
Step one to remove them is awareness. So ask yourself: what do
you need to do to feel bad?
For me, it often used to be “having” to go to work, and this was the
loop I’d fall into:

1. I go to sleep much later than I should (or I take a nap after 8

pm)
2. I am still sleeping when the alarm rings
3. I am still sleepy, and I feel staying in bed would be
amazing
4. I think it sucks “having” to go to work (work is a duty
here, not a potential enrichment)
5. I stay in bed longer with negative feelings
6. My face is contracted, my mouth tilted down
7. I get out of bed… Late
8. I get the pressure I gotta run because I’m late, fight back
the “rushing” urge but it gets even later
9. I feel like my work sucks, and I translate that dislike
toward my boss and the company
10. I go out of the house, again having to run, and I hate
that feeling

Empowering Rituals:

In my case, these are some rituals that empower me:

1. I Push my limits in moving towards a goal I want

2. I start getting closer and closer and start loving the
struggle
3. I take a small break and think of myself proudly
4. I get it done and feel fantastic
5. I give myself a small reward and it feels 10 times better
than normal
Emotions – The Power Of

You can choose which emotions to feel and you should build that
still. But at times it’s good to listen to emotions without trying to
change them right away because emotions can act as useful
messengers.

Tony Robbins says there are four wrong default answer people have
for emotions, which are:

1. avoidance (trying to suppress emotions) ;

2. denial (pretending “it’s not that bad”) ;
3. competition (a race to who’s “got it worst”) ;
4. learning and using (the correct one).

Mastering emotions:

1. identify what you’re really feeling;

2. Acknowledge and appreciate: emotions support you, you
never want to make your emotions wrong.
3. Get curious about the message this emotion is offering
you. It will help you master your emotions, solve the
challenge and prevent the same from occurring again
4. Get confident you can handle it immediately. Remember a
time you felt similarly and successfully handled it.
5. Get certain you can handle it in the future as well. Rehearse
handling situations where this Action Signal comes up
again.
6. Get excited and take action.

Vanquishing Worry

Tony Robbins says worry is one of those emotions to stamp out,

and you do it as follows:
 1. Think of the worst-case scenario, accept it, then work to
improve the worst-case scenario.
2. Focus on the goal, on what you want, rather than on what
can go wrong
3. Get busy: if you’re busy you ain’t got no time for worry

My Note:
getting busy to “crowd out” worry is NOT a good strategy as that
only covers up the issue, as well explained by Brene Brown Daring
Greatly.

Rid of Procrastination

Tony Robbins says that an easy way of dealing with procrastination

is, well, to procrastinate it.
Put it off.

Here’s a 5-step process:

1. An easy way of dealing with procrastination is to put it off.

2. Find out how you create the rituals and put yourself in a
state to procrastinate
3. Don’t tell yourself you “have to do” because that makes your
brain rebel. Say you “choose”!
4. Think of what you’re missing while you procrastinate and
think of how great it will be if you moved your ass
5. Develop the physical habit that as soon as you feel like
you’re procrastinating, you MOVE

Anchoring to Success

Tony Robbins says that you are anchoring every time. Any time you
are in an intense emotional state, anything that happens around you
consistently while you’re in that state gets associated with that
feeling.

Negative associations can kill a relationship because you go home

and you are angry a few times in a row, then you anchor that feeling
to that person.

My Note:
I second and confirm that from first-hand experience.

Create an anchor

Put yourself in an emotional state that you want to anchor in.

Example: Motivation
Think about a time when you were motivated, breathe how you were
breathing, move like that) and once you’re in the state consistently
do something unique (for example: clap your hands and say yes).

It’s important you create the anchor while you are at the peak of the
emotional state, not going up for the peak, or coming down.
You can create several anchors that will as “buttons” to command
your brain.

Collapsing an anchor

You can remove an anchor by collapsing an anchor.

Create a positive anchor similar to the negative one. For example, if

I get sad when someone touches my left shoulder, then I create a
positive anchor to the right shoulder.

Test the anchor by getting out of state and then back again.
Once the anchor is set, then fire both the positive and negative ones
simultaneously.
My Note:
I didn’t personally find anchoring super useful

Switch Patterns

Picture yourself about to start the behavior you want to change

(play with your hair, crack your fingers, get weak in the presence of
your boss).

Then create a picture of yourself as the guy you want to be, your
ultimate self (confident, great communication, charming, drawing
people in, a picture of success).

Take a picture of yourself taking the action you want to avoid and
make it big.
Take a picture of who you want to be and put it behind the first
weak picture of you.

Now feel the tension between the two pictures, like a slingshot.
Make the picture of you want to be moved farther and farther away
until it disappears.

Then release and make it come back again exploding right through
the weak picture into your mind making a weird noise (woooosch).

Speed is important, the strong picture has to come back strong.

Financial Success

Tony Robbins also has a section on financial success, but I will skip
it.

My Note:
I didn’t find the steps or what Tony Robbins said here to be
particularly useful, to be honest.
This was before he wrote his Money Master the Game and
interviewed true experts like Ray Dalio. He said things like “you can
increase your return without increasing your risk”, which makes little
sense.

The usefulness for me of this section was:

● Write down all the negative associations you have linked

to money
● Don’t make money your only and sole priority as that’s the
best way to fail at life
● Develop a belief that no matter what happens you are
bigger than anything which can happen to your finances

And of course, the last point he gives is that you should help out
people. Receiving is the evidence you’ve given consistently.

Receiving is evidence you’ve given consistently

Overcoming Fear of Failures

Tony Robbins says that failure is impossible.

The only way you can possibly fail is to tell yourself you failed.

Tony Robbins advises you to write down what must happen for you
to feel like a failure and what must happen for you to feel like a
success. And then change that.

Your new failure will be quitting and totally giving up. And your new
way to feeling successful will be to give it all no matter the situation
and no matter the result.
Erasing technique

Worst case scenario you can always “delete” a failure from your
mind with the erasing technique.

Just think many times over about the scene of you failing, then start
changing it.

Imagine the people around you getting smaller. Growing mickey

mouse ears.
Farting or whatever silly stuff you can imagine. Rewind it back
quickly, with all the voices unintelligible. Put some weird music as a
background.

Be outrageous, do something your brain will not expect, and do it

over and over again until you don’t remember it straight anymore.

My Note:
This idea that it’s impossible to fail is weak in my opinion and
possibly dangerous.
You want to build yourself into someone who doesn’t ache just
because of a failure.
Also read: the antifragile ego.

Vanquishing Rejection

1. Decide you are not going to allow this limiting emotion to

control your life.
2. get enough leverage on yourself: write down the price you
will pay if you don’t control rejection and all the pleasure
you will get if you were able to get rid of the fear of rejection
3. Create a new set of rules for what is rejection (make it
tough to feel rejected)
 4. Repeat to yourself that mass rejection equals mass
success. You really can’t have success without rejection
5. Condition yourself to feel great in front of rejection. Feel
unstoppable and create an anchor. Now imagine a reaction
and fire off the anchor over and over until rejection makes
you feel strong. It sounds difficult but it’s actually easy!

Eliminating Self Sabotage

Tony Robbins says that self-sabotage starts because our brain links
an often wrong meaning to certain stimuli.

For example, any time you experience a significant amount of pain

or pleasure your brain searches for the causes in 3 ways:

1. Something that appears to be unique;

2. Something happening simultaneously ;
3. Consistency –but we highly generalize about consistency-

Self-sabotage is a positive intent, the brain linked something in the

past that it now wrongly associates with pain/pleasure.

Example: curing self-hurt

If someone hurts himself on purpose he probably associates that
people care for him when he’s hurt.

So he does it again to get love.

What Tony did with that man who was hurting himself was to make
him realize that what he was getting wasn’t really love, but an
obligation.
And people were actually hating him for that (he is linking pain to his
previous pattern).
And then Tony asked him “what do you feel when you give love”, and
the guy understands that giving love means love. And Tony begins
installing a new pattern.

My Note:
This was simplistic as self-hurt is often associated with Borderline
Personality Disorders (also see: I Hate You Don’t Leave Me and Stop
Walking On Eggshells)

If you clearly see a pattern where you are subconsciously self

sabotage yourself, then you might be sabotaging yourself.

Mixed neuro associations self-sabotage

Harder to spot is self-sabotage originating from mixed

associations.

For example, you might love the money, but at the same time, you
link feelings of pain to money.

To find out if you might have self-sabotaging mixed neuro

associations, you can list all that you think about something.

The negative associations don’t have to be more in terms of

quantity but sometimes are more powerful (ie.: “stress, greed,
sleepless nights” are stronger than “security and opportunity” )

Step by step and eliminate self-sabotage:

1. identify a behavior keeping you from your goal (ie.: getting

nervous with pretty girls and people around)
2. ask yourself: what’s the positive intent here, what is my
brain trying to give me (shield me from rejection)
3. get some leverage on yourself (teach your brain that if you
don’t change you get more pain)
4. interrupt the pattern
 5. install new patterns

Confidence

Tony Robbins says that confidence lies in the belief that every
person you meet is better at something than you are.

But every person you meet, you’re also superior to them in

something else.

And he suggests focusing on what you’ve already done and

accomplished.

Confidence is often a question of how you manage your memories.

Go back in your life and think of all the great things you’ve done, or
of all the times you think you weren’t gonna do it but you did.

Problem-Solving

Tony Robbins applies the Pareto Law here.

He says you should spend 20% of the time on your problem and
80% on the solution.

He suggests coming up with solutions and exploring them deeply.

Ask yourself “what if we do this..” and keep expanding on the
options rather than shutting solutions down as they come up. This
way you’ll open up more possibilities.

Asking the right questions:

Tony Robbins gives us an amazing example of a time when he went
back home, was super tired, and almost a hundred important calls
had piled up for him to take care of.
So he starts by asking:

1. What’s great about this (nothing? What COULD be great

about it)
Example: Well, 3-5 years ago Tony would have begged to
speak to these guys. They just want me and these are
movers and shakers and he can make a difference
2. What’s not perfect yet (presupposing it’s gonna be perfect)
Example: I don’t have enough time for my own personal life
3. What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it
(presupposes you want and can do something)
example: I’m willing to find a way to make these calls cause
they deserve an answer and I will change my schedule
4. What am I willing no longer to do to make things the way I
want them
example: I’m willing to no longer complain when I set the
thing up. And I’m willing to change things so that more
people can take care of my things
5. How can I do what’s necessary to get this job done and
enjoy the process
example: you own a Jacuzzi, haven’t been there in a while, go
outside, bring the laptop there, bring the phone, get in
Jacuzzi, and have fun calling guys and making fun of them
and with them!

Words and expressions for energy

Tony Robbins says that the words and expressions you use, and
how you pronounce them, make a difference in your states.

For example, how you call your spouse will change the way you feel
about them. Maybe keep “partner” for business and use “lover”,
“soulmate” or “better half” for your romantic relationship.
Softeners and Intensifiers

Softeners and intensifiers give us a greater degree of precision in

our dealings with others, whether it’s a romantic relationship or a
business negotiation.

Years ago when Tony thought something was screwed up he’d call
the appropriate person and say “I’m really upset” / “I’m really worried
about.. “.
That would automatically put the other person into reaction and
they’d often become defensive, preventing them from finding a
solution.

So what he learned, even if he felt more intensely, was to say “I’m a

little bit concerned about X, can you help me?”.

This lowered his own emotional intensity and conveys that you have
faith in that person’s ability.

Expressions and metaphors:

● rather than “pissed” or “furious”: I’m getting a bit frustrated

or peeved. Peeved made Tony laugh and moved him out of
an enraged state.
● to a man who said “they put a gun to our head”, Tony
changed his state by breaking his pattern by asking “what
color is the squirt gun”. Now the gun has become a silly
toy.
● to a guy who said they had put them in a box, he said “I
don’t know about you, but I know nobody could ever build a
box big enough to hold me”.
● If you’re drowning in a world of chaos, take a stroll down
the shore of tranquility and think a bit before acting.
● to a woman who said she had pieces of baggage, Tony
said: what if you dropped the baggage.
Sometimes you need the opposite though and expressions can give
you the hedge to move:

● Some parents didn’t feel like they should encroach on their

sons’ troubles and Tony wanted to spur them to action. So
he said: “there are two bullets to your son’s head right now,
one is alcohol and one is drugs, and one of them will
eventually kill him”.

That image gave them the strength to move.

Metaphors for life

Tony gives a few great metaphors for life:

● Life is giving by becoming more

● Life is a game
● Life is a dance
● Life is a gift

Blueprint and Happiness

Tony Robbins says that if you are not feeling satisfied in your life it’s
because your blueprint -the idea you have of how your life should
be- is not aligned with what your life is right now.

There are 3 ways people cope with that:

● Blame (themselves or others, and doesn’t fix the problem)

● Change their life (great approach)
● Change and rewrite their blueprint (great approach)

My personal challenge to you

Tony ends by saying that if you really wanna master your life :

1. Master your own mental and emotional state.

2. Develop compelling reasons to manage your state.
3. Develop goals to keep your good state.

Anticipate Challenges
Tony says to anticipate the challenges of life and role model how to
deal with them.

Some challenges are obvious and fixed. Like death for example.
What are your beliefs about death so that you can deal with it? Talk
to people who have already done it successfully.

Some other challenges for people are turning a certain age, which
Tony says often has to do with a “0” after a number.

Re-evaluate Life
It’s a great idea to re-evaluate your life every 6 months or year.

Become a Team Player

The secret to lifelong wealth and happiness is this: become a team
player.

Tony says that we will do more for the people we care about than
we’d do for ourselves.
If you can find a team of people whom you deeply care for and you
can make a difference for them and be a source of power and
possibility you will be driven the most.

Every day cares deeply, create something new, cooperate with ppl
on how to make a difference, commit to being the best and
contribute. The dreams of your past will become small confronted
with what you will have.
Life is a process, so enjoy it.
You are bigger than anything that can ever happen to you

I wanna leave you with a great quote Tony uses by John How to
spur those people who are scared of dreaming and acting big in
case of possible failures:

“What a folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at

once, yet having no regard by throwing it away by parcels
and piecemeals”.

It’s not how long you live, but how!

Live with passion!

Photo by Randy Stewart

CONS

On top of my notes above:

● Talks with certitude about what he doesn’t know

One of Robbins’ secrets to success is his charismatic conviction.

And to keep up the charade of an omniscient human being, he talks

with full certitude about anything. Including topics, he has no
expertise on. And… It shows.
To people like me, he loses a lot of credibility. But to many other
people, he just seems more Godlike.

● Law of Attraction

It’s been a while since I listened to it but, unluckily, Tony is an early

peddler of the law of attraction.

He tells the story of a couple who won the lottery, twice in a row, by
acting as if they had already won it.

That’s stuff that I don’t approve of and I would not recommend

anyone to follow that path -either the blind belief in the law of
attraction or focusing on winning the lottery instead of making
through skills and dedication-.

Review

It’s been many years since I first listened to it.

And it was one of the very first self-help products I got into. And the
first one that “wowed” me.

Back then I thought that “Personal Power 2″ was the Sistine Chapel
of self-help products and nothing I had encountered up to that point
held a candle to it.

Even today, I think it’s still one of the best self-help products ever
devised.

You will feel energized as you’ve never felt before at the end of the
month.
But motivation for motivation’s sake has little use.
That’s not an issue for this course though, because the content is
also top-notch