Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial [Paperback]

Realizing I had a problem, I first read Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, by David Burns. This book seemed promising and according to the author was the #1 most recommended book on a list of 1,000 self-help titles. (I learned this in the follow-up: The Feeling Good Handbook.) Yet, every day I found excuses to avoid applying for jobs. It just seemed too painful to me to go apply for jobs I didn't want in the first place and then to get mercilessly rejected.

Feeling Good and Awaken the Giant Within approach the issue of self-esteem from exactly opposite positions. Feeling Good says that you should have self-esteem no matter how little you've achieved in life. Awaken the Giant Within admits that most of us base our self-esteem on how we're perceived by others, or at least, how we think we'll be perceived by others.

All I can say is the approach in Feeling Good didn't work for me.

But in Chapter 3 of Awaken the Giant Within Mr. Robbins discusses the forces of pain and pleasure, and shows that everything we do is a result of our trying to avoid pain and move toward pleasure. He says that most people don't achieve what they want in life because they focus on the short-term pain, rather than the long term pleasure. And I realized that this was exactly what I was doing. I was avoiding job hunting and applying for jobs because of the pain I imagined I'd receive from being rejected. Of course, by avoiding taking action, a larger pain would be waiting for me down the road: homelessness.

With a single concept, Awaken the Giant Within got me to take action, which the entire book of Feeling Good could not do.

A second concept that is going to change my life is in Chapter 4: "Belief Systems: The Power to Create and the Power to Destroy." The main concept in this chapter is that what you believe is irrelevant as far as its accuracy goes. (Not counting dangerous beliefs like I can heal my children with my thoughts, or I can fly if I jump off this building, of course.) What counts is whether the belief is motivating for you or not, whether the belief gets you to take positive action.

For example, let's pretend I'm a wannabe writer. But I'm a little conflicted about my talents. I have doubts about whether I'll ever make it or not. Sometimes I feel like the stuff I write is great and sometimes I believe I'll never succeed. So what happens when I waffle like this is that I go for long periods without writing at all. Thus, slowing the process down incredibly, taking years to complete a single novel.

But what if I changed my beliefs to: "This book is going to be a bestseller. As soon as I complete this book, my life is going to change dramatically. As soon as I complete this book, all my dreams are going to come true."

Of course, the odds are that it won't be a bestseller. There's a good chance it won't even sell.

But, by having this positive belief, I take action. I complete the book and at a decent pace. And it either sells or it doesn't, but the belief did what it was supposed to do, it got me to take consistent, daily action. And if that book doesn't sell, then I have the same belief for the next one: "As soon as I complete this book, my life is going to change dramatically. I can't wait to get this book written. I can't wait to get famous, etc. My life is going to be incredible." (Of course, keep your beliefs to yourself. Your friends will be very eager to pop your balloon. But when you keep writing books and they don't know why you're suddenly being so productive, they'll be eating their hearts out! )

Basically you want to believe whatever keeps you most motivated, whatever gets you to take action. Because in reality your success is determined by your consistent, daily actions.

Whether a man serves his time in federal prison camp like the ones at Eglin, Allenwood, Sheridan, or Lompoc, or he serves his time in high-security penitentiaries, like Lewisburg, Leavenworth, Beaumont, or Terre Haute, adjusting to confinement requires a long-term perspective.

There are so many frustrations built into the daily activities that a prisoner who lacks control over his thoughts and emotions can begin the day normally enough, but end it in segregation or the hospital, knowing that tensions are about to escalate. No matter how bad prison experiences seem, when a prisoner loses presence of mind, he exposes himself to an abysmal downside. In order to avoid these prisoner pitfalls, I look for books that help strengthen my resolve, and I found such a book in Anthony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within.

Robbins divides his 500-page life guide into four parts, each of which provides a logical approach to conditioning one's mind for the inevitable challenges that constantly frustrate progress. Like Covey, Robbins advises us to articulate the code of values by which we want to live, then to commit to those values. He wants us to evaluate our actions constantly to ensure they're moving us toward the values we proclaim to admire.

Rather than allowing obstacles to serve as an excuse for failure, Robbins suggests that we view each day as an opportunity to make the most of all that's available to us. His work provides practical strategies we can implement to improve our lives so that we're able to achieve the goals we set for ourselves.

One of the simple techniques that Robbins recommends we incorporate into our lives is constant self-examination, the asking of questions to ourselves. Over 2,000 years ago Plato wrote that the unexamined life is not worth living, and Robbins wisely expresses the thought again when he advises us to ask questions that will help direct our focus, our thoughts, and our emotions.

Rather than allowing interferences to block or impede the efforts we're making to move toward our goals and values, Robbins' book guides us to make better inquiries, to examine whether barriers truly are insurmountable, or whether it'' our perception of them that limit us. As we examine obstructions more closely, we can make adjustments that will enable us to move through them, pass over or around them. The questions we ask ourselves can lead to solutions, they can help us stay the course we committed to follow. It's a simple lesson, the lesson of questions, but it's one that I've noticed many fail to grasp. This failure pronounces itself loud and clear in the prisons of America.

As prisoners we have no voice in the rules we are required to follow. The institution dictates when we eat, when we're to report for bed, even when we're allowed to report our illnesses to a doctor. For years we may use commodes enclosed in stalls, but a zealous guard may determine the privacy unwarranted, and without warning or explanation, remove all the doors from bathroom stalls, requiring prisoners to defecate in plain view of others, an arm's length away from the prisoners using toilets on either side of him.

These basics of prison life, the regimented rules and changes that come without commentary, seemingly born out of callused or malicious minds, frustrate many. They push some prisoners to rebel against the institution that holds them, leaving any possibility for progress or inner growth as elusive as world peace. By following the principles that Robbins teaches, especially this asking of questions, even prisoners can side step the impediments of a life sans autonomy.

Over the many years I've served in USP Atlanta, in the medium-security prisons at McKean and Fairton, and since 1996, in Fort Dix, I've responded to all of the problems I faced with questions. I asked myself what it was that I really wanted. I asked myself the possible ways that I could respond to the doors coming off my room, to the bad food, to the meddling prison guard or incompetent counselors. Invariably my questions led me to consider the goals I had set for myself, and that pause helped me choose a better course of action. As prisoners, we have to know where we're going. If we don't know, any road will take us there. Success, on the other hand, does not come by accident. Rather it requires a plan, and the questions we ask ourselves help us stick to it.

Anthony Robbins' excellent book, Awaken the Giant Within, provides a set of strategies that help us choose actions that will ensure we become more than we are today. I recommend it to all who choose to control their future, to those who refuse to allow circumstances to control them.

After reading Robbins' first book, "Unlimited Power", I bought the hardbound copy of this book the day it hit the bookstore (pre-Amazon.com days). This book has been so incredibly helpful, I have bought numerous copies for friends, families and co-workers. I recently went over my goals that I wrote down in the first hardcover version in 1992 a few weeks ago and re-confirmed (not to my surprise) I had achieved every single goal (Eleven of them)! Go figure!

I have been a self-improvement junkie ever since I read "Think And Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill while I was in college back in the late 70's. This book is different because you are not just given theory in a drabble form, you get workable tools and get entertained in the process. I especially appreciate where the highlights of the book are emphasised in bold and italic print for easy review. By the way, I have just re-read the book again, set new goals using the techniques taught in the book, and I'm positive each goal will be accomplished...AGAIN! This stuff works!

None of these techniques are the brainchild of the author. They are hybrids of the best that's out there to make us the best we are capable of becoming. The greatest adaptation came from NLP (which Tony tweaked to become NAC). Yes, those of you who have not read the book or have not applied Tony Robbin's teachings can criticize him because he got a divorce and teaches a small part on successful relationships. The author is still laughing all the way to the bank and continues on, like him or not, because his techniques work.

My better question to you is how have you applied what's in this book and what are those results? Life is a journey and everything is a choice. You can't control everything that goes on, but you can control your choices, emotions and representations of those things that are important and positive for you. What positive choices are you making? This book has some fantastic tools and you may want to read this book again and again, then put them to practice. Then, go figure what went right!