Awaking the Giant Within is one of the best books on life and motivation.  This is a great book for a number of reasons.  This type of book would be in the category of self help or motivational and what it does it really allows you to see how your thoughts, word choice and experiences which he calls references points shape your life. And he applies this advice to help you control both your emotional, physical well being, relationships and financial goals.  

So much of success in life is dependent on being mentally sharp.  He states that:   

3 decisions that control your destiny are:

1. What to focus on 
2. Your decision about what things mean to you 
3. Your decision about what to do to create the results your desire 

Robbins says that if anyone is enjoying greater success, they are making decision differently in some context.  This is a theme throughout the book that how we interpret experience is based on the words we use, metaphors and reference points.  This internal process of what are experience mean determine our level of success. He uses the example do you process failure as meaning you should give up; or keep trying, that you are making progress toward a solution.  He quotes the famous Thomas Edison quote:  That he do not fail but device more intelligent ways to start over.  

He continues throughout the book explaining how decision are made and really providing insight into how we think; he states:

Your brain has an internal system for making decision.

1. Your core beliefs and unconsciously rules 
2. Your life values 
3. Your reference states 
4. Habitual questions you ask yourself 
5. The emotional state your experience in each moment 

Robbins states:  The synergistic relationship of these five elements exert a force that is responsible for promoting you to stopping you from taking action, causing you to anticipate and worry about the future, make you feel loved or rejected and dictating your level of success and happiness.  

We do not have to allow programming of our past to control our present.  You decide what you are absolutely committed to achieving; You are willing to take massive action.  You continue changing your approach until you achieve what you what using whatever life gives you along the way 

Success is the result of deciding to contribute, deciding to feed your mind rather than allowing the environment to control you—these small decisions create the life and experience we call success.  It can be complex to keep your mind focused on positive things and moving in the right direction all the time.  That is why is important to continuously read and listen to Audio books to keep your mind focused on these ideas.   

To succeed you must have a long term focus and link more pleasure to achieving your goals than pain in accomplishing your goals.  By changing what we link pain and pleasure to we instantly change our behavior.

How does what we believe in our mind move us toward or away from our goals?  The key questioning is whether belief strengths or weakens empowering or disempowering.

The only true security in life comes from knowing that every day you are improving you self in some way; that you are increasing the caliber of who you are. That you are increasing your value to your friends and family 

What beliefs you have empowering and or disempowering.  

Here are some of my take away; that I have been limiting my ability to help people in the legal community and other lawyers but not thinking big enough.  I plan to work on being a better leader, finding people I can teach law to so that we can help more people find the best representation possible in Court.  

I need to find people to help me achieve my goals; 

I need to find people to help me with my goals; I can be a good leader.  I can grow my business.  Do more be a better leads to help the public and legal community.  Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:    to the dull mind all nature is leaden; to the illuminated mind the whole world burns wind sparkles with light.

Your behavior is not the resul of your ability but the state you are in at the time.  Robbins suggests try to think about these things:

The following questions in the morning

• What am I happy about in my life right now
• What am I excited about in my life right now
• What am I proud about in my life right now
• What am I enjoying most in my life right now
• What am I committed to in my life right now
• Who do I love
• Who loves me
• Evening questions
• What have I given today

He asks these question that are a good way to focus you and make sure you are making the best use of your time.  

How has today added to the quality of my life; How can I use today as an investment in my future

The Words we use

His Chapter on the Words we use I think is a very insightful chapter and helpful to anyone.  

People with impoverished vocabulary live an impoverished emotional life; people with large vocabularies have a multi-hurled palette of colors with which to paint their experience, not only for themselves but for others.  

Improve our consistent vocabulary to make sure that is is pulling in the direction we want to go;Simply by changing your habitual vocabulary the words you consistently use to describe your emotions of your life can instantly change you think and feel.   

Right down three words how you feel; someone asks how you feel, say spectacular instead of okay; it creates new patterns in your neurology.

METAPHORS how we view the world

All metaphors either empower or disempower.  We all use metaphors use them to enrich your life and give it greater meaning.

Here is a metaphor I like to tell Mazie.  

Reading is like talking to the most interesting people alive 

It is like if you could walk into a room and talk to anyone that has ever lived or anyone that knows a great deal about a subject you can; just pick up a book.  

Robbins discusses many of the most common emotions of life in the big.  He deals with anger:

Ask yourself and empowering question:  in the long run is it true that this person really care about me; What can I learn from this?  How can I communicate the standards I hold for myself that causes them to want to help me, and not violate my standards in the future.  

If someone comes to you with hurt and anger, you consistently respond to them with love and warmth eventually their date will change and their intensity will melt away.  As long as we structure our lives so our happiness is dependent on something we cannot control we will experience pain; so if you feel angry or upset with someone remember its your rules that are upsetting you, not their behavior

Curiosity:  if you really want to enjoy your life:  cultivate curiosity and your life will be an unending joy.  

Goal Setting

All goal setting must be immediately followed by the development of a plan and massive and consistent action in fulfilling it.  

Look at your goals daily:  To ensure the you achieve your goals rehearse the emotions of achieving your goal

• Write a paragraph to describe all the character traits that you would need to achieve your goal 
• Develop a list of simple actions to formulate your goal 
• Develop a list of simple things every day to create a chain of success to achieve your goals 

If you are a looking to improve your life, keep thoughts and ideas like those taught by Tony Robbins in the front of your mind; I have read this books several times and find it keeps me focused on what I need to do to be successful in life.  Feel free to follow me on Facebook to learn about updates in the law and for future book recommendations.