“HOW TO PROSPER IN THE NEW MILLENIUM

2008-07-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

“HOW TO PROSPER IN
THE NEW
MILLENNIUM”
A Special Report Prepared by
Anthony Robbins & AssociatesTM
Copyright 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994 by Robbins Research, Inc.
All right reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 2
Tony’s Personal Success Rituals: Part 1
By Anthony Robbins
If you’ve spent any time with me in seminars or on tapes, you know I believe that the driving
force behind all human behavior is the need to change the way we feel, to change our states of
mind and body. We’re all doing things to either avoid pain or gain pleasure. I believe the same
force that drives Mother Theresa also drives Donald Trump—they both want the same end (a
change in their state) yet they’ve associated achieving that state to different means.
Donald Trump has learned that the way to feel pleasure is to be the best. If he makes the
biggest deals, owns the biggest yacht, has the biggest bank account, he will have massive
pleasure. But since people do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure, it appears that Mr.
Trump has also linked massive pain to not being number one.
Mother Theresa is driven by the same force—she’s just found that being around people
in pain created massive pain for herself. She also learned that if she eased other people’s pain it
would eliminate her own, and give her the pleasurable feeling of contribution. So she helps
people to ease their pain everywhere she goes.
Mark these words as maybe the most important you’ve read in a very long time:
“WHAT YOU LINK PAIN TO AND WHAT YOU LINK PLEASURE TO WILL DETERMINE
YOUR DESTINY.” Think about what that means. Maybe you’ve read about or even
experienced the tragedy of gang warfare in our inner cities. Why are these young people trying
to kill each other? What is it they really want? To hurt another person? Of course not—that is a
means they’ve linked to pleasure. The end they want is a state change—a sense of self-esteem,
of being in control of their lives, of power, of anyone. But these kids have forgotten what their
real goals are and the means they’ve chosen are deadly and destructive for everyone involved.
If a person has learned to associate pleasure to using drugs, will that affect their
destiny? You bet. I know that I was fortunate enough to link pleasure to learning. I watched a
lot of kids my age link learning to pain, and that certainly made a huge difference in our lives.
Remember this always: a change in what we associate pain or pleasure to will change
the direction of our lives.
The reason most people don’t succeed in life is usually two-fold: 1) they’ve forgotten
what success really means to them, what they’re really going for; and/or 2.)their rules for
success are so stringent that is becomes difficult or impossible for them to ever feel successful.
For example, I have a great friend who decided at age eleven that she wanted to
become a famous actress. Her entire adult life focused on that goal. While I respect her level of
commitment, I asked her, “What did you want to become an actress for?” We found out she
linked up in her mind that being an actress would give her a platform from which to impact the
quality of people’s lives, to be a role model and influence people to create a greater quality of life
emotionally, spiritually and physically.
Her eleven-year-old brain figured out that being an actress would be the only means to
accomplish this. Since then she’s been exposed to many other ways to achieve the same goal,
but her brain was so conditioned to focus on being an actress that she lost the power of her own
flexibility to achieve what she really wanted.
Have you ever been guilty of this? Have you set a goal and gotten so caught up in the
means that the means became your goal instead of the end you were truly after?
Another friend of mine at age fourteen decided he wanted to become an attorney so he
could contribute to people’s lives. Then as a young adult he figured that, in order to contribute
he had to be a top attorney in his firm so he’d have more control to shape what happened. But
in striving to become a senior partner he forgot why he became an attorney in the first place.
Once he got there, he said to himself, “Is this all there is? I this what my whole life has been
about so far?”
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 3
You see, what we get in our lives will never make us feel happy or successful. What
makes us happy in our life is who we become as people. Anything we get in the process
of becoming someone unique is a simple and enjoyable bonus.
I believe that true success is learning to experience and enjoy life to its fullest.
In fact, a simple definition of success is “the ability to consistently create more pleasure and less
pain in your life and in the lives of the people who you impact.” If you succeed in achieving
economic, personal, or business goals yet experience more frustration, anger, pressure, and pain
with each “success,” then you truly haven’t experienced success at all.
By this definition John Belushi certainly wasn’t successful. He had creativity, recognition,
money, but he didn’t feel the joy inside. He’s gone because he felt a lot more pain than pleasure
in his “success.”
So how do we avoid the common trap of being caught up in the means and not enjoying
life as much as we really deserve? Start by defining what success really means to you in clear,
achievable terms. Often times people are succeeding in life, but they don’t feel like there are.
They’re not keeping score—they’re not focusing on what they’ve achieved, how they’ve grown.
You need to find a definition for success that gives you pleasure when you win, and when you
lose (that is, when you don’t give your all or produce your best) it motivates you to make your
life better.
Of course, some definitions of success virtually guarantee the pain of feeling
unsuccessful. A great example of this happened at one of our Date With DestinyTM seminars,
with a gentleman who was a CEO for a Fortune 500 company. He had a great relationship with
his wife and kids, excellent health and a huge personal income. I asked him, tongue in cheek,
“Are you successful?” he answered “No,” with absolute sincerity. I couldn’t believe it! I said,
“How do you know you’re not successful?” and he said, “If you’re successful you never get
frustrated with your children, you have 7% body fat, you never get depressed, and you make
over $2 million a year.”
This made it difficult for him to feel successful! Another person in response to the
question, “Are you successful? Answered, “Yes!” And when I asked, “How do you know?” he said,
“Simple! I wake up in the morning, look around, and if I’m above ground then I’m successful.”
With that definition, he’s guaranteed to feel good about his success.
In my personal definition, success is based on growth. For me, success is a road that’s
always under construction, and I enjoy building the road, knowing it never ends, but always
expands and leads to higher and higher ground. I changed my definition of success from
achieving certain outcomes to experiencing joy while I contribute and produce results. Everyone
I know who is truly succeeding shares one trait: they enjoy life to the fullest. I call that living
with passion.
The way I define my success is to measure it daily. Each day I feel successful if I can
say “yes” to the following questions:
1. Did I learn something? By the way, it’s impossible for me not to learn,
because whether I achieve my goals or not, I’ve learned something.
2. Did I grow? The fact that I’m alive for me means I’m going to grow. If I’ve
learned anything, I will use it, and as I use it I grow.
3. Did I make a difference? I have a simple definition for this one: Have I made
a difference in the way people feel about themselves? I can do that by asking
questions, giving a compliment, encouraging someone to read a book, doing
some Neuro-Associative ConditioningTM on a person, or interrupting a limiting
pattern.
4. Did I enjoy? I finally realized that no matter what I’m doing I can choose to
enjoy it, whether it’s washing dishes or doing a seminar for 1,000 people. At any
moment in time I can enjoy what I’m experiencing if I simply choose to.
Essentially I’ve created a way for myself to win and succeed every single day regardless
of where I am, what I’m involved with or who I’m surrounded by. With these four criteria, I’m in
control whether I accomplish these four or not I’m going after the ends instead of the means,
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 4
and for me, to learn, to grow, to contribute, and to enjoy is the essence of life. I encourage you
now, before going any further…sit down and discover 1.) how you define success in you life? 2.)
what are your rules for success? 3) are they appropriate? Have you set yourself up for failure
because you simply haven’t found a way to measure whether or not you’re succeeding, or
worse—do you measure your success in a way that’s totally inappropriate, contradictory or
impossible?
Remember—whatever you focus on, you will experience. If you focus on the
means to success, you’ll get means, but you’ll miss the very meaning of your life. Make sure you
focus on what you really want in your life, and be flexible on how you go about getting it. My
actress friend has now found a variety of ways, including acting, that help her to feel that
incredible sense of meaning in her life. My attorney friend and I have done the same. We’ve all
realized that a twelve year old, and eleven year old, and a fourteen year old made decisions long
ago about what was best for our lives. Yet today we wouldn’t trust their judgement. Maybe it’s
time for you to re-evaluate decisions you made in the past and see whether you’re really on track
to achieve what you want in your life now.
So remember the tools: define what success means to you, create rules that work, focus
on your ends and be flexible on your means so you can achieve more of what you deserve. Next
issue I’ll share with you what I do each day so that I feel more joy, excitement, power,
contribution and success in my life. I’ll share with you the most important Success
ConditioningTM device that I’ve ever developed for myself and the people I work with. Sound like
a big promise? It’s one I’ll deliver on. Till then, remember, make you life a masterpiece and live
with passion.
Tony’s Personal Success Rituals: Part 2*
By Anthony Robbins
Remember when…Jimmy Carter was still the President of the United States? The Empire
was striking back, Yoda and Pacman were the rage, and nothing came between Brooke Shields
and her Calvins. The Ayatollah Khomeni had come to power in Iran, and held our fellow
Americans hostage. In Poland, an electrician from the Gdansk shipyards named Lech Walesa did
the unthinkable: he decided to take a stand against the Communists’ hold. He went on strike,
and when they tried to lock him out, he climbed over the wall they used to stop him from
entering his place of work (a lot of walls have come down since then, haven’t they?)
Do you remember hearing the news that John Lennon was murdered? Do you
remember when Mount St. Helens erupted, leveling 12,000 square miles? Did you cheer when
the U.S. ice hockey team beat the Soviets and went on to win the Olympic gold medal?
That was 1980, over twenty years ago! Think for a moment. Where were you in 1980?
What were you like? Who were your friends? What were your hopes and dreams? If someone
had asked you back in 1980, “Where will you be in 2010?” what would you have told them? And
are you today where you wanted to be back then? A decade can pass quickly, can’t it?
More importantly, how are you going to live your life for the next ten years? We’re not
only entering a new decade, we’re beginning a new millennium! The year 2000 will be here
before you know it, and in a mere ten years you’ll be looking back on this day remembering it
like you do 1990. Will you be pleased when you look back over the 90’s or perturbed? Delighted
or disturbed?
Back in the beginning of 1980, I was a 19 year old kid. I felt alone and frustrated. I had
virtually no financial resources, there were no “success coaches” available to me, no successful
friends, no clear cut goals. I was floundering and fat! But I did discover one power that I used
to transform my life, a power I now use every day to shape my personal destiny. It’s a power
that all of us share but a few people consciously exercise…THE POWER TO MAKE DECISIONS!
Think about it. Who you are at this moment is nothing but the sum total of effects that
have come out of the decisions you made consciously or unconsciously throughout your life. And
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 5
the decisions that you are making now will shape how you feel today and who you will become in
the 2000’s.
As you look back over the last ten years, were there times where a different decision
would have made your life radically different today? Either for better or worse? Maybe you
made a career decision – or failed to make one. Maybe you decided during the 1980’s to get
married or divorced, or to have children. Maybe you decided to move to another part of the
country. How have these decisions shaped your current life path? Did you experience emotions
of tragedy, frustration, injustice, or hopelessness during the 1980’s? If so, what did you decide
to do? Did you push yourself beyond your limitations, or did you give up?
Everyone in life meets hardship, tragedy, injustice, disappointment, disillusionment. Yet
the difference in the quality of our lives is what t we decide to do with these “life gifts.” Some
decide to escape temporarily through drugs. Others decide to use their pain to start a movement
(MADD – Mothers Against Drunk Driving – was started by such a person) and thus become part
of the solution that will save others from experiencing the same pain in the future.
More that anything else, I believe that it is our decisions, not the conditions of our life,
that shape our destiny. There is no doubt that some people are born into conditions that support
success (genetic advantages, family and environmental support, etc.). Yet you and I every day
meet, read, or hear about others who, against all odds, have exploded beyond the limitations of
their conditions to become examples of the unlimited power of the human spirit. If we decide to,
our lives can be one of these stories!!! How? Simple – by making decisions today about how we
still live in the 2000’s and beyond.
My whole life changed when I decided not just what I’d like to have in my life or what I
wanted to become, but when I decided what and who I was committed to having and being in
my life. You must also decide what you will not tolerate in your life – what you will no longer
stand for! You must set standards for what you consider unacceptable behavior for yourself or
anyone you care about. You see, in the absence of light there is darkness. If you do not decide
to exert the energy that creates light, you will automatically be in darkness. If you do not set a
baseline standard for what you will accept in your life, you will find it easy to slip down into
behaviors, attitudes, or a quality of life that is far below what you deserve.
To truly succeed you need to decide on, and set clear standards for, how you will live
your life no matter what happens -- even if it all goes wrong, even if it rains on your parade, the
stock market crashes, your present lover leaves you, even if no one gives you the support you
need. Every successful man or woman I know did what I also did over a decade ago. One day
they decided who they were as people was much more than they were demonstrating, and they
made a decision to make their lives consistent with the quality of their spirits. One day they
finally said, “This is who I am. This what my life is about, this is what I will do and nothing will
stop me from achieving my destiny.”
What does it mean, to make a decision? “To decide” in its Latin root means “To cut off
from” – the same as the word “incision.” A true decision means to resolve to do something and
then cut off all other possibilities. This “act of decision” carries with it tremendous focusing
power. When you decide you will no longer smoke cigarettes, for example, that’s the end. It’s
over. You no longer even consider the possibility. Those who have exercised the power of
decision in this way know exactly what I’m talking about. After making a decision, even if it was
a tough one, most people feel relief in getting off the fence and having a clear unquestioned
objective. This clarity gives power, and the results that come from making decisions give pride
and greater self-esteem.
The problem is that most people haven’t made a real decision in so long that they’ve got
very flabby decision-making muscles! So instead of making clear decisions they state
preferences: “I think I’ll go on a diet,” “I’d like to have more confidence,” “I should be more
motivated to study.” Contrast those statements with “I will now lose thirty pounds healthfully,”
or “I am now doing whatever it takes to develop a sense of personal certainty that creates
lifelong success.”
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 6
Most people out of their fear of making the “wrong” decision never make any real
decisions at all. They say, “I’ll try this and see what happens.” That’s not a decision – it’s a
weak prayer that you’re not providing the faith to launch. Consistent success, whether it be in a
relationship, or a business, in parenting, or creating the body of your dreams, only happens when
you decide “this is it,” that you must master this area of you life!
People who are unhappy as they look back over the 1990’s most often never consciously
took control of their decisions due to fear of making the wrong ones. The only wrong decisions
are those never made consciously, for not deciding to do something is in itself a decision. And
failing to make decisions about standards for your life is one of the biggest mistakes a person
could ever make. You see, ten years from now you will surely arrive. The only question is,
where? If you don’t decide today how you’re going to live you life, you will fall into someone
else’s plan for you and you may not like their plan!. Your insurance policy for the next ten years
could begin today, and it will come from making the decisions now that can shape your next
decade. Now is the time to plan the next ten years and their direction. Seize the moment!
If you fail to decide on the standards for your life you will fall prey to what I call the
Niagara Syndrome. Most people fail to achieve their dreams – in fact they take a major fall.
They get on the river of destination and don’t decide in advance where they want to go, what
their destination is, who they want to become. As a result, before they know it they get caught
up in the current of life and they’re no longer in control. Since they have no map, they allow the
river to make the decisions at the forks and rapids. Then one day they find themselves five feet
from Niagara Falls in a boat with no oars and they say, “Oh, shoot!” And by then it’s too late.
So how can you avoid the Niagara Syndrome? Start by realizing you have the power at
any moment to change anything and everything in your life SIMPLY BY DECIDING TO. This
concept is so simple it escapes most of us. Realize it’s true power! Today people in communist
countries are discovering the power of making decisions. What changed everything in Eastern
Europe? People changed it! How? People made new decisions as to what they would stand for,
what was acceptable and unacceptable to them. Some of Gorbachev’s decisions helped pave the
way – but so did Lech Walesa’s.
Often I ask people I meet, “Why did you come to work today?” (especially if they’re
grumpy). The response I most often hear is, “Because I have to.” No, you don’t have to go to
work at this particular location – not in America anyway. You don’t have to do what you have
done for the last ten years. You can decide to do something else, something new. You can do it
right now this moment! You can make a decision to go back to school, to master dancing or
singing, to take control of your finances; to turn your body into and inspiration within six months,
to fly to Fiji and live on and island. If you truly decide to, you could do almost anything. If you
don’t use your power you might as well live in a place where this freedom does not exist. Others
have died for the freedom that you and I often take for granted. Use it!
You can make a decision now that could immediately change your quality of life, a
decision about a habit you will change, about a skill you will master, about how you’ll treat
people, or a call you will now make to someone you haven’t spoken to in years or someone who
could take your career to the next level. Or you could make a decision to experience and
cultivate the joyous and positive emotions that you deserve to experience daily. Make a decision
now. That can send you in a new positive and powerful direction of growth and happiness!
Here are six quick steps to utilizing the power of decisions:
1) Remember the true power of making decisions! It’s a tool you can use at any moment
to change anything in you life!
2) Realize the hardest part is making decisions. So make them quickly! Once you’ve
decided, the rest is often easier than making the decision was. So make decisions
intelligently, but make them quickly – don’t labor forever. Studies show the most successful
people make decisions rapidly (because they have clarity of their own values) and change
decisions slowly if at all, while people who fail usually make decisions slowly and change
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 7
them quickly. Also, decision making is and act! It is a cause set in motion. And often the
effect of making a decision helps to create the realization of a larger goal.
3) Make decisions often! The more decisions you make, the better you get! Muscles get
stronger with use and so it is with your decision-making muscle. Enjoy the power you
unleash by making new decisions.
4) Learn from your decisions! There is no way around it – at times you are going to screw
up! When the inevitable happens, instead of beating yourself into the ground, learn
something! This “failure” may be an unbelievable gift in disguise. If you use it to make
better decisions in the future you may gain some real power from your “problem” You may
gain the power to make future decisions that will save you time, energy, money, or pain, and
give you the ability to succeed at a whole new level. Remember – success in life is the result
of good judgment. Good judgment is the result of experience. Experience is often the result
of bad judgment!
5) Stay committed to your decisions but stay flexible in your approach! Once you’ve
decided who you want to be person, for example, don’t get stuck on the means. It’s the end
you’re after. Too often people decide what they want for their life and they pick the best
way they know how to make their dreams happen, yet they fail to notice new possibilities all
around them or they get rigid in their approach. BE FLEXIBLE. A great example of this is the
scientist from 3M Corporation, who decided he wanted to contribute to society by inventing
the ultimate bonding glue. He failed miserable – in fact, he developed a glue that would no t
permanently stick to anything. Fortunately he was flexible enough that he began to ask
himself how he could use this to achieve his goal of contribution, and he came up with the
idea for the famous “Post-it” notes that people now use around the world. Flexibility is
power. Use the results of all your decisions to empower your life.
6) Enjoy making decisions! Remember, every decision you make opens up new
opportunities for your life. Often little decisions your make can positively shape your entire
life. Certain seminars I decided to attend, books I chose to read, tapes I decided to listen to,
have altered my life forever. You never know when or what could change your entire life, so
live with an attitude of positive expectancy! A decision I made years ago to do a seminar in
Denver, Colorado caused me to meet my wife Becky. My decision to do a firewalk six years
ago caused me to be recognized in 19 countries around the world. My decision to take a
business partner years ago definitely affected my life – “he misappropriated” $250,000 and
ran my company $758,000 in debt. Yet my decision at the time (in spite of all the advice I
received) not to declare bankruptcy and to find a way to turn things around created one of
the greatest successes of my life. What I learned from that experience not only helped to
create my long-term business success, but it also provided the distinctions that allowed me
to found the science of Neuro-Associative ConditioningTM
Robbins Research, the company that I decided to create has become the most successful
personal development company of its kind in the U.S. The book, Unlimited Power, that one
day I made a decision to write, is now published in eleven languages around the world. My
TV show Personal Power! is the most successful direct response television show in the U.S.
viewed in less than nine months by over fifty million people. In ten years, 200,000 people
have attended my seminars, and my books and tapes have been utilized by over one million
individuals, and the ideas, distinctions, skills and strategies that I have learned by my failures
and successes (from my effective and ineffective decisions) I have organized into a body of
knowledge and a series of seminars I now have organized into a body of knowledge and a
series of seminars I now facilitate on videotape through my partners…in over 50 cities
throughout the U.S. (I decided to master the secret of being in many places simultaneously!)
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 8
What a difference a decade can make! All these changes have happened in my life in
ten years by making decisions. And by the way, did I make all the fight decisions along the
way? Of course not, and I didn’t expect to. But I decided that no matter what decisions I
made, I’d look at the consequences, learn from them and utilize that learning to make better
decisions in the future.
So how do you shape your next decade? Realize what’s going to shape the next ten
years of your life is the decisions you’ll make, not your conditions. What will affect your
decisions will not be the events of your life, as much as the way you interpret them.
If you’re going to succeed in navigating the river of life, if you’re going to find yourself
ten years from now pleased with where you are, feeling grateful, happy and fulfilled,
knowing that in this decade you’ve lived life to the fullest, then you must:
1) Decide on the standards you will live by for today and beyond. Take out a piece
of paper right now and write down exactly where it is you want to go in the next ten
years. Who do you want to be ten years from now? How do you want to live? Who do
you want to have around you? What do you want to be doing? What do you want to be
able to say about these ten years and how you lived tem? One way to figure out how
you want to be is to see what you didn’t like in the past and think of the antithesis.
Don’t get emotional about it – just say “Hey, what happened ten years ago that I don’t
want to happen now? And what do I want to happen in this decade that didn’t happen
in the 90’s at all?” Now is the time to plan the millennium. Seize the moment!
2) Get an effective and proven plan or map. Without a plan you’ll be lost the first time
the river gets rough. Where do you get such a map? Simple: find a role model,
someone who has already been on the river you’re about to travel on, and learn from
their experience. They can save you years of pain and keep you from going over the
falls. Certainly, no matter how good you map is, it's not going to be the same as the
river. It’s a guideline, but you need some guidelines on how to navigate. Part of the
plan needs to be a set of commitments, things you’re going to do each and every day to
make consistent progress in the direction of our goal.
3) Take action! Now that you know what you want and you’ve got a map, get on the
river! The biggest reason people fail to navigate the river effectively is they are
paralyzed by fear. They’ve had some poor “river” experiences in the past that they don’t
want to relive, and thus they never get in and play. They come to the end of their life
and find out they only lived one-tenth of it. Equally bad is a person who gets on the
river but keeps looking behind instead of ahead. If you’re looking at rocks behind you,
the ones that you smashed into in the past, you’re sure to smash into new ones in front
of you! Learn the lessons of the past, but make sure your focus is on the present. And
more importantly, look ahead! If all you’re doing is looking at the bottom edge of your
boat, your sure to shipwreck. You’ve got to be able to anticipate. Take action and keep
looking ahead at what’s occurring now and what will probably happen in the future.
Long term vision is the way to avoid Niagara and insure success.
4) Pay attention and keep track of where you are! No map is the same as the
territory, so notice as you travel along, are you on track? Most people set goals only
once or twice a year, at New Years and birthdays. Often we give special attention to
years that have zeros on the end of them (I can relate to this knowing that that the end
of February I will be entering my 30th year on the river of life). But the problem is,
people write these goals down, they decide how they want their life to be but they don’t
check in until the next New Year’s or until ten years later when they’ve hit the next level,
thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, or above. That’s too late. If you want to truly succeed in your
life, you need to measure your progress on an ongoing basis. The more often you
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 9
measure, the better chance you have of staying on course. If you check in once a week,
you’re going to be better off – once a day better still. The tool I utilize to check where I
am is a personal journal. I’ve kept hardbound journals for the last ten years, and I can
go back and review what’s happened in my life in detail. What were my goals ten years
ago? What was I trying to accomplish? Those journals are invaluable. They’re my
wealth. All the books I’ve read, the tapes I’ve heard, my simple and complex ideas, I’ve
captured in those journals. And they are something I will be able to pass onto my
children. Keeping a journal on a daily basis is a great way to evaluate the level of
progress you’re making in your life. May people feel like they’re losing when they’re
really winning, just because they’re not keeping score. A journal is an excellent way to
keep score, and it’s one of my most valuable tools for success. Remember, if your life’s
worth living, it’s worth recording. The final key to being effective on the river of life, to
make sure you end up where you want to be, is:
5) Enjoy yourself along the way! If you only focus on where you want to be ten years
from now, you’re out of balance, because in life you’re going to spend more time on the
journey than you are at the destination. You’ve got to enjoy the journey. Some people
so to the other extreme, and they say, “I’m going to just enjoy the journey in the
moment, and not look to the future.” Those are the people who become victims of
Niagara. Just remember, everything in life is a balance.
Remember, too – if you’re on the river of life, you’re going to hit some rocks. I
know you didn’t plan for that but you might as well. That’s not being negative, that’s
being real. There are going to be challenges, there are going to be walls. But as Lech
Walesa and the people of Eastern Europe have learned, you can decide to climb over
walls, or you can break through them. And no matter how long a wall has stood (In
Germany’s case, 28 years), no wall has the power to withstand the continued force of
human beings who have decided to persist until the will to win, the will to succeed, to
shape one’s life, to take control, can only be harnessed when you decide what you want
and that no challenge, no problem, no obstacle will keep you from it. When you decide
that your life will be shaped not so much to conditions as it will be by your decisions,
your life will change forever. To the future with passion!
* This article was formerly titled “Back To Your Future*
Money!
What it is, what it’s not, and how to get
more of it*
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 10
By Anthony Robbins
Money! It’s one of the most emotionally charged issues of our lives. Most
people are willing to give up things that are much more valuable than it in order to get
more of it. They’ll push themselves far beyond their past limitations, give up time with
their family and friends, or even destroy their health. It’s a source associated to both
pain and pleasure within our society, often used to measure the difference in the quality
of lives, the separation of the haves and have-nots.
Some people try to deal with money by pretending it doesn’t matter, but
financial pressure is still something that affects them every day of their lives. For the
aged especially, a lack of it often translates into a lack of critical resources. For some, it
holds mystery. For others, it is the source of desire, pride or even contempt. Which is it
truly? The maker of dreams? A means to be utilized to support those in need? The root
of evil? A producer of possibility? A Tool? A weapon? A source of freedom? Power?
Security?
You and I intellectually know it’s none of these things. We “understand” that it
is merely a medium of exchange, a way of simplifying the process of creating,
transferring and sharing value within a culture or society. It’s a convenience we created
for society’s growth, a vessel that allows us to specialize in our life’s work, and save us
the laborious, time consuming and imprecise process of barter. Yet throughout the ages
money has become something more. Though it is merely a token with no real value of
its own, money is accepted by everyone everywhere as a source of value. The bank note
or coin or check can be translated into all the foundational necessities of life: food, drink
and shelter. It can be converted into the symbols that represent accomplishment and
pride, or used as a tool to measure growth and expansion. It can be used to give
choices, resources and comfort to others. Money itself has become the sinew of world
wealth. Without it – and the economic systems and financial organizations that have
grown from it – the wheels of industry would grind to a halt, trade would cease and
society as we know it would crumble. Man would return to a primitive battle for a day to
day survival, dependent on what each individual or group could personally grow, hunt or
produce.
We have learned to associate some of our most potent and debilitating emotions
to a scarcity of this commodity: anxiety, frustration, fear, insecurity, worry, anger,
humiliation, overwhelm, depression, to name but a few. Political systems have been
toppled by the pressure associated to financial deprivation (as we are now witnessing
daily in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe). What country, what corporation,
whose personal life has not been touched or “pruned” by the experience of financial
stress?
Many people make the mistake of thinking all of the challenges in their lives
would go away if they just had enough money. There could be no bigger lie – ask the
“John Belushi” of the world. The only lie that could equal it would be to tell yourself that
greater financial freedom would not offer you even greater opportunities to expand,
share and create value for yourself and others.
I bring this up simply because I wonder if you’re at all like me. For years without
realizing it, I focused on “true” success. And I became successful (that is, I managed to
consistently expand the qualities of my life) in my relationships, in my physical health, in
my relationship with my Creator, in my intellectual and mental capacities. Yet one area
remained constant: Financial. It rarely moved, and when it did, it usually moved in the
wrong direction. But no matter – after all, that’s not what life’s about, is it? It wasn’t
until I hit a major threshold of pain about sixteen years ago. That I began to realize
what I was missing by not creating abundance in this area of my life consistent with all
the other areas. It was incongruent for me to be a possibility person, wanting my life to
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 11
be an example of what human beings were capable of, and be stressed about paying
rent!
That was the year I changed everything in my life. I went from earning thirty to
forty thousand dollars to over one million dollars in a year. I moved from my 400 square
foot condo in Los Angeles to my home now, the 10,000 square foot castle overlooking
the Pacific Ocean in Del mar. You cannot imagine my excitement when suddenly I
proved to myself that I could now create growth in the financial world as powerfully as I
had in my emotional world. It didn’t make me more money hungry – it created even
greater appreciation for every aspect of my life and made me want to share the
experience with others.
Over the last sixteen years of high income earning I’ve learned that earning
more doesn’t create financial freedom. The world is filled with millionaires, movie stars
and sports heroes who today are broke. Their ignorance of financial distinctions robbed
them of the ability to live free of financial stress. I’ve also learned that learning by your
own experience can be very expensive. As a result, in recent years I have begun to
model some of the top financial people in this country, how they evaluate and make
financial decisions, Their answers as to what it takes to systematically build lasting
wealth have profited me immensely. These strategies are the focus of this two-part
article, as well as the basis for our new Financial Destiny seminar ( now part of Tony’s
“Mastery Program”)
Let me ask you a question: When was the last time you experienced financial
stress? For most people, regardless of their income level, the answer is “not long ago.”
This is usually magnified in April, especially near mid-month! Maybe a better question to
ask is, when in your life do you remember being completely without financial stress? A
good friend of mine (a very wealthy man in financial terms) and I contemplated this
question together recently, and the answer was scary. He said it was before he was
seven years old. Like me, he grew up quite poor financially and he remembered the
family’s stress and his need to contribute in some way to help the family get by. I
remember feeling a similar way when I was five and six years old. I also remember the
Thanksgiving when I was eleven, when we had no money, no food and a local
organization gave us food – a painful experience. That day I decided to make certain my
future family would never go through that, and return the favor that had been given to
my family by feeding other, which we have done every Thanksgiving since I was
eighteen.
Why do so many people fail to achieve financial abundance in a country where
financial opportunity surrounds us literally at every moment? We live in a country where
people can generate net-worths of $100 million to $500 million starting with a little idea
for a computer in their garage! All around us there are models of unbelievable
possibility, people who know how to create wealth and maintain it. What is it that drains
us and keeps us from getting wealth in the first place? How can it be, living in a
capitalist country where our forefathers died for our right to live, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness, where economic reform was a major stimulus for independence, that 95%
of the American population by age 65, after a lifetime of work, cannot support
themselves without help from Government or family?
As I pursued the answers to building lasting wealth, one thing came up again
and again. Creating wealth is simple. Most people never build it because they have
holes in the fabric of their financial base. They have internal conflicts or poor plans
which guarantee financial failure. I call these financial destroyers Wealth Wounds.
These “wounds” create financial bloodletting for even those who manage to begin
creating substantial wealth. The harder a person works to build wealth, the quicker
these elements take hold to sabotage financial success. Wealth Wounds are the seven
major reasons most people never maker it financially. Turn them around and the
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 12
foundation for financial wealth is laid. In this article, let’s touch on the first three, and
next issue we’ll go into the final four in depth.
Wealth Wound 1
The first Wealth Wound, the number one reason most people don’t make it
financially, is not that they can’t make the money or that they can’t save, but simply
because they associate negative meanings to having an abundance of capital. They have
major negative associations to having “excess” capital, when in reality it can provide the
freedom to create what you want for your family, friends and for yourself. So many
people say they want financial abundance because it will bring them “freedom,” or
“security,” or “happiness,” but they consciously or subconsciously associate “hard work,”
“less family time,” “more responsibility,” “being shallow,” to having a lot of money.
Worse they condemn others who have wealth and then wonder why they can’t attract it
to themselves! They are sending conflicting messages to their brain, and the brain
doesn’t know what to do when it associates both pleasure and pain to the same stimulus
– it becomes immobilized, or sabotages your efforts.
One of the first elements in our Financial Destiny seminar (Now “Mastery”)is to
discover which, if any, of these negative or mixed associations exist inside people.
Whether these associations are conscious or subconscious, they still do their deadly
work. If you don’t clear them up, long term financial success is merely a dream: turning
these associations around is the best financial insurance you can have. In order to have
lasting financial wealth, you must change the associations you make to it in your
nervous system. You cannot have lasting wealth if you link both pain and pleasure to
having it.
Riches do not consist in the
possession of treasures,
but in the use made of them.
-Napoleon
Wealth Wound 2
The second Wealth Wound that drains financial opportunity from most people’s
lives is the fact that most people have never made having an abundance of money and
absolute must in their lives. The interesting thing about human beings is that we always
get what we have to have; our “musts” are always met. The problem is that for most of
us our “musts” are paying the bills, meeting the mortgage. Even in the toughest of
times, the majority of us find a way to meet our “must” obligations. In order to become
wealthy, financial excess – having much more money than you absolutely need day to
day or month to month – must become as important to you as paying your monthly
mortgage. You need to make money a priority, and then handle it!
The cure for the second Wealth Wound is to set in your mind a dollar amount that for
you represents total abundance. How can you ever achieve the goal of being financially
independent if you don’t know what financial independence means to you? The first step
to making abundance a “must” is to define the amount
You must set, not only in your mind but on paper, a dollar amount that is well beyond
what your absolute needs are, that you must have every single month to make
investments with and build your eventual financial freedom. Beyond that, you must
decide how much income you would realistically need annually to be financially secure
and free. Remember, clarity is power. With the definition of financial independence,
you’ve taken the first step toward achieving it. I’m not saying that you should make
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 13
money be your be all and end all, but you must have a clear representation of the
financial abundance you’re committed to having in our life.
Wealth Wound 3
The third major reason that people never become financially independent is they
either have no plan or they have an ineffective strategy for building wealth in the first
place. Most people have no plan for financial independence, and the few that do usually
have a plan based around the false belief that the only way to become wealthy is to hit
the jackpot overnight, to win the Lottery, get a hot stock tip from a small amount of
money, and the use of compound interest, anyone can become wealthy through the
power of geometric progression. But you notice, of these four, three cost you nothing!
Developing the fight plan is a critical distinction, one that deserves in-depth discussion,
so I’m going to reserve the details of this for our next issue. But one thing I want to
make absolutely clear: If you want to be successful financially, you must think of your
personal life as a small business. In order to succeed, you must make enough money so
that at the end of the year, you’ve not only covered your expenses and survived, but
you’ve made a profit to invest. In a business if you never make a profit and only barely
survive you know you’ve got problems, and the same is true in your personal financial
life.
In order to create the financial abundance you want, you need to include three
kinds of strategies for your financial life:
1) You need to discover how to attract money into your life in the first place - how to
create that initial income you’ll need to get your financial future started.
2) You need to know how to manage that money so that you can invest it, and get
money to be your servant instead of you being a slave to your money. Get your
money to make you more money, so it’s not taking more of your time and physical
effort, and you can begin to leverage yourself. When this occurs, you can work only
because you want to, because you’re earning income off liquid assets even while
you sleep.
3) You need to develop strategies on how to share money so that it gives you a
tremendous amount of joy. To me, that’s critical, otherwise why are you going to
keep getting it? Your brain has to link pleasure to making and managing your
money, or it won’t continue to work for it. Giving things to yourself is fabulous and
you should definitely reward yourself but if you can learn to share your financial
abundance with other people, it will give you all those pleasurable feelings you
really want and more.
Once you’ve developed a plan to develop wealth (and we’ll go into this in depth
next time because it deserves plenty of discussion) the only thing your going to need is
to develop a good vehicle. Part of your plan should be to get the vehicle that will create
for you the financial independence that you’re committed to. The vehicle you choose
should be based upon your risk tolerance. If you’re looking for little or no risk, you’re
going to need to look at something in the range of a six to seven percent return. If
you’re able to tolerate high risk then a twenty or thirty percent or more return is
possible, but there’s also the possibility of losing everything you’ve invested. So in the
next issue we’ll take a look at your own personal risk tolerance, so that you can make
clear decisions about the best types of investments for you. I can make clear decisions
about the best types of investments for you. I will tell you this in advance: how you
allocate your assets - that is, where you put your money, the balance between what you
put in something that’s secure and builds long term, and that which you risk - will
probably determine more than anything else your ultimate financial destiny. Knowing
Anthony Robbins & Associates page 14
how to balance a solid plan that is secure with investments that have potential for loss is
critically important.
We’ll speak in depth on this next month. But right now, let’s start with “curing”
the first two Wealth Wounds. Please do the following:
1) Take out a piece of paper. Write down the words “financial independence” and for
approximately five minutes, write down every word you associate to it. Next, do
that with the word “wealth” and then with the word “excess” (you may discover you
have some negative associations to this one!)
2) Write down all the benefits you would have in your life, for your family, your
friends, your ability to contribute, the toys you could purchase, the way you could
play, how you could live, if you were totally financially independent.
3) Write down all the fears you have about what it would take to be financially
independent, or any subconscious negative associations that didn’t come up in step
one of your homework.
4) On paper, define how much money you would need as an annual income that would
support you in feeling totally financially free - an annual income that if this income
came in, you would only work because you wanted to, not because you had to.
5) Determine how much additional money you could put aside each month if you were
committed to developing savings to invest.
6) Make a list of all the reasons why having financial independence is a must for you,
all the reasons why you must have it now.
Do this homework and I’ll look forward to talking to you about developing your plan and
vehicle next issue. Until then - live with passion!
* This article was formerly titled “Money! Wealth Wounds Part One”

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