PERSONAL POWER

A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Author: Anthony Robbins

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

About the Author

Wisdom in a Nutshell
Personal Power is a month-long training program that covers many areas of
personal development. You see this program advertised on late night
television and many successful people offer testimonials supporting it. In this
set of 30 tapes, Tony Robbins describes a variety of self-help techniques and
Anthony Robbins provides exercises to help internalize the experience.
Tony Robbins is the nation's expert in the
psychology and peak performance of
personal, professional and organizational
“turnaround.” He served as a peak
performance consultant to 1992
America's Cup Winner, 1993 Stanley
Cup finalists, the Los Angeles Kings,
André Agassi, and the 1995 San Antonio
Spurs, as well as organisations such as
Hallmark, Southwestern Bell and the
U.S. Army.

He has also had the privilege of advising

presidents of the United States and
members of royal families. He is a
bestselling author with three titles
published in 14 languages, and has
produced the best-selling personal
development audio series of all time,
Personal Power.

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 PERSONAL POWER By Anthony Robbins

Key Ideas through along with the pleasure that you will get from
taking action.

On the first tape, Robbins talks about the keys to Here are the main concepts from the remaining tapes.
personal power as the ability to make effective They follow the same format with a discussion by
decisions and take consistent action. His ultimate Robbins along with a set of exercises to follow:
success formula:
1. Know your outcome (what you want). Neuro-Associative conditioning (NAC)- is a
2. Get yourself to take action by deciding to do technique, developed by Tony Robbins, for
so. conditioning yourself where you are aware of how
3. Notice what you are getting from your actions your thoughts, feelings and actions directly affect your
and change your approach if necessary. life. Everything that you think or do is a cause set in
motion, and will have an effect or result in your life.
Use role modeling to accelerate the pace of success. These events begin to stack up and take your life in a
Seek out people who are already successful and find particular direction. It's important to decide what is
your ultimate destiny- what you want your life to be.
Write down previous positive and negative NACÕs
that have shaped your life.
To change ourselves, we must focus our
attention on how not changing our The emotional state that you're in determines your
behavior and performance. You are always
behavior will be more painful than actually responsible for your own states. Some of the ways to
changing it. change your state include:
Using physiology- move your body differently
(as if you are already successful). Use your voice
out what the person is doing to be successful. Model to help put yourself into a peak state by projecting
what they are doing and you will get the same results. more enthusiasm. Practice changing your
breathing patterns and facial expressions so that
Robbins includes practice exercises with each lesson. you have more control over your emotional state.
On this tape he asks listeners to write down two
important decisions that they have been putting off Exercises- practice going from dispassionate to
and decide to take action on these decisions passionate, determine the difference in how you
immediately. moved and breathed, your facial expressions,

Tape two of this volume is about the controlling forces

of pain and pleasure. Robbins says that we will do far
more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. To change The emotional state that you're in
ourselves, we must focus our attention on how not determines your behavior and performance.
changing our behavior will be more painful than
actually changing it. Also determine how changing will You are always responsible for your
bring you more pleasure. Change what you link pain own states.
and pleasure to in order to help change your behavior.
Use pain and pleasure instead of letting them use you.

The exercise for this lesson is to write down four voice, etc. Robbins has participants practice
actions that you know you should take and evaluate speaking in a flat, dull tone, to projecting more
the pain that has kept you from taking these actions, excitement. Get leverage on yourself- list 10
along with the pleasure from not following through. reasons why you must change your behavior now
The strategy then is to reverse the process by and the reasons that you know that you can.
determining what it will cost you if you don't follow Interrupt your present pattern of association-

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PERSONAL POWER By Anthony Robbins

design four to five ways to get yourself out of the experience all of these emotional states. Begin to
limiting beliefs or associations. Condition a new question your rules and determine which ones
empowering association until it is consistent by are limiting you so you can change them.
feeling and thinking about it over and over until
you have internalized it. To change a belief, you must identify it, and link
enough pain to it so your brain wants to move
Change your state by controlling and directing away from it. Link massive pleasure to the new
your focus- since most of what is going on belief, condition the new belief by rehearsing
around us is being deleted or ignored, we must over and over how your life will be better with this
control what we are picturing in our minds, and new belief. Some sample core beliefs- the past
how we are seeing it (dimension, brightness, does not equal the future. There is always a way-
etc). Control the questions you ask yourself- if you're committed.
eliminate endless loop questions (such as: "why Exercises- identify a belief that you want to
can't I get thin?") and replace them with change and think about the consequences in 5,
empowering questions ("What is the healthiest 10 or 20 years if you don't change. Step back and
food I could enjoy right now?"). realize that none of this has happened yet.
Determine what new beliefs that you need to
reverse the process. List areas of your life that
are not what you want them to be and write down
To change a belief, you must identify it, what additional beliefs you would need to live by
in order to set goals and achieve them.
and link enough pain to it so your
brain wants to move away from it. Power of Why. We must have a big enough
"why" to succeed, enough compelling reasons to
drive us forward to do whatever it takes to
achieve our goals. Who you become in the
process of achieving your goals is the real
Values- we want certain things or conditions in purpose.
our life because of the pleasurable states we
Goal setting- list your goals and write down the
think they will give us (means values). Changing
time within you are committed to accomplishing
a value changes what the brain is paying
them. Focus on specific goals that you can
attention to and how we respond to different
achieve in the next 1, 3, 5 or 10 years. Select the
situations.
top 3 goals in each category and list the most
Belief- a feeling of certainty about the meaning compelling reasons to accomplish them. Be
of something. Your beliefs determine whether or aware of the various types of goals, such as
not you feel like you're meeting your values and financial goals, personal development goals,
they can either limit or liberate you. Types of family goals, career goals, etc. For each one,
beliefs- global beliefs (generalizations such as: write down what action you could take right away
life is. people are) Rules (for me to feel to make initial progress. Do the rocking chair test
successful, I must have___). By being aware of to help you commit- see yourself as an old person
your beliefs and changing some of your rules who had or had not accomplished these goals.
and global beliefs, you have much more control
Power of rituals- many positive or negative
over your emotional state.
emotions we feel on a regular basis are the result of
Exercises- look at what is most important in an internal ritual. Rituals are the habitual ways of
your life, along with your rules and values. List looking at the world, talking to yourself, performing
the negative emotions you would do almost daily activities and moving your body.
Exercise- list your negative and positive emotions
anything to avoid. Find out what your rules are
and what rituals (recipes) you have for creating these
by writing down what has to happen for you to

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 PERSONAL POWER By Anthony Robbins

emotional states. Develop a pattern interrupt for the Figure out what you don't understand about money
negative rituals and think of new rituals that you and investing, and get help. Develop a belief that who
could develop that would be more empowering.

Anchoring- is setting up a trigger to help put

yourself into a desired state. This could be Robbins emphasizes that you should never
something you say to yourself or the way you clap threaten to end a relationship as a way
your hands together. This technique is an important
part of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and is
to coerce your partner to conform to
also used by many athletes to keep themselves in a some expectation.
peak state. Whenever you are in an intense
emotional state, anything that happens around you
consistently while you are in that state gets
associated to it. Positive anchor- when you are at you are is much bigger than anything that could ever
the peak of a desired state, do something over and happen to you financially. Robbins believes that
over again until it is conditioned, such as touching financial abundance comes from doing what you love
your thumb and middle fingers together. Later you most, doing it massively, and making sure it creates
can use this anchor to help put you back into the tremendous value for other people.
peak emotional state.
References- people have many positive and
Swish patters- get rid of negative emotions by negative references based on their life experiences.
picturing the negative scene, along with the ideal Take control of your references by defining what must
scene. See a slingshot firing the ideal scene and it happen for you to feel successful or a failure. Create
gets bigger and bigger until it bursts through and new definitions that makes it easier to succeed and
destroys the negative scene. Another swish more difficult to fail. Eventually you will create enough
technique is to see the negative scene as getting positive references to develop more confidence in
your daily activities.

Exercise- list five of your greatest successes and

write a paragraph describing each one. Use these
One way to encourage more financial examples to remind yourself that you can always find
abundance is to change the negative a way.

associations that you have about money Increasing health and energy- Use daily aerobic
and see all of the positive things that you exercise and deep breathing exercises. Breathing
controls the flow of lymph, stimulates the immune
could do with it. system and carries out the body's wastes. Eat at least
70% water rich foods (fruits & vegetables).
Otherwise your body is not able to process the wastes
smaller and smaller and turning black & white. The and becomes clogged up.
desired scene becomes more vivid and colorful.
Exercise- write down everything that has passed
Condition yourself for wealth- money is a means through your lips in the last 24 hours and the
to measure the value between people. One way to percentage of water rich foods. Decide on a diet that
encourage more financial abundance is to change will help you achieve greater vitality.
the negative associations that you have about
money and see all of the positive things that you Relationships- think of a relationship as a place to
could do with it. Make abundance an absolute must- give rather than receive. Don't let arguments get out
set a specific amount of money that represents of control by using pattern interrupts. Look for ways
financial abundance, and commit to a financial plan. (triggers) that show our love- some people need to be
shown, others need to hear it or to be touched in a

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 PERSONAL POWER By Anthony Robbins

certain way. Write down exactly what you want and

don't want in a relationship. Robbins emphasizes
that you should never threaten to end a relationship
as a way to coerce your partner to conform to some
expectation.

Problems- see them as challenges that are

opportunities for you to grow. Spend 20% of the time
defining the problem and 80% focusing on the
solution.

Mentoring group- develop a team of people you

deeply care for, to whom you are inspired with and
want to contribute more and more to. This team of
people can be your "mastermind" group that you
share ideas and inspiration with. Re-evaluate your
life on a regular basis.

Rejection- people are rejecting the impression of

you in that moment. This is often based on their own
set of prejudices and expectations. You are the only
one who can set off rejection in yourself. Develop
new rules to help you overcome rejection. For
example: rejections may not be pleasant but they
are necessary on the path to success.

Decide how you can add a new component to a

boring job or task to create enjoyment out of it.
Robbins uses the example of when he had to make
a large number of phone calls and was frustrated.
He made the task more enjoyable by making calls
while in the Jacuzzi.

Strive for Constant and never ending improvement

(CANI) in the important areas of your life- physical
vitality, relationships, finances, etc. Continually
evaluate and improve your standards and make
small daily improvements.

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