Memory Exploration

document

Tony Robbins … from Awakening the Giant within

1: Dreams of Destiny

-concentration of power -success conditioning -personal rules -quality questions -emotional management -leverage

Master

  1. Emotional Mastery
  2. Physical Mastery
  3. Relationship Mastery
  4. Financial Mastery
  5. Time Mastery

2: Decisions … The Pathway to Power

-the power of decisions -“decided who and what I was committed to having and being in my life” -interested in vs committed to it -“If you don’t set a baseline standard for what you’ll accept in your life, you’ll find it’s easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that is far below what you deserve.” -congruent decisions -once you have decided … you will find a way -“Making a true decision means committing to achieving a result, and then cutting yourself off from any other possibility” -information is power when it’s acted upon -repetition is the mother of all skill -keys in shaping destin based on 3 decisions

What to focus on

What things mean to you

What to do

-The Niagara Syndrome

Your internal system for making decisions

  1. Your core beliefs and unconscious rules
  2. Your life values
  3. Your references
  4. The habitual questions you ask yourself
  5. The emotional states you experience in each moment.

-“there are no failures in life. There are only results.”

  1. Clearly decide what it is that you’re absolutely committed to achieving.
  2. You are willing to take massive action
  3. You notice what’s working or not
  4. You continue to change your approach until you achieve what you want

-in order to succeed, you must have a long-term focus

(So repeating here but …)

  1. Remember the true power of making decisions.
  2. Realize that the hardest step in achieving anything is making a true commitment – a true decision.
  3. Make decisions often.
  4. Learn from your decisions.
  5. Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.
  6. Enjoy making decisions.

3: The Force That Shapes Your life

-pain and pleasure -“But if we fail to direct our own associations to pain and pleasure, we’re living no better than animals or machines, constantly reacting to our environment, allowing whatever comes up next to determin the direction and quality of our lives.” -“what you link pain and pleasure to will shape your destiny”

(Gets kooky / thereapeutic here)

-“what drives our behavior is instinctive reaction to pain and pleasure, not intellectual calculation.” -“Although we’d like to believe it’s our intellect that really drives us, in most cases our emotions–the sensations that we link to our thoughts–are what truly drive us.” -by learning to change what we link pain and pleasure to, we will instantly change our behaviors -discussion of Michael Jackson and Pepsi

4: Belief Systems … The Power to Create and the Power to Destroy

-“It’s not the events of our lives that shape us; but our beliefs as to what those events mean.” -“The challenge with all these beliefs is that they become limitations for future decisions about who you are and what you’re capable of … most of our beliefs are generalizations about our past, based on our interpretatoins of painful and pleasurable experiences.”

  1. most of us do not consciously decide what we are going to believe
  2. often our beliefs are based on misinterpretation of past experiences
  3. once we adopt a belief, we forget it’s merely an interpretation

? Global Beliefs: giant beliefs we have about everything in our lives: beliefs about our identities, people, work, money, and life itself, for that matter.

-Is a belief empowering or disempowering

-“If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.”

-Dr. Martin Seligman … patterns of beliefs

-“Often the best thing you can do to create mastery in any area of your life is to raise a beliefe to the level of conviction.”

-“With enough emotional intensity and repetition, our nervous systems experience something as real, even if it hasn’t occurred yet.”

5: Can Change Happen In An Instant?

-mentions Gestalt therapy -Ericksonian hypnosis -NLP

-“I argued, we could stop the endless process of analyzing why things had happened to us, and if we could just simply change what we linked pain and pleasure to, we could just as easily change the way our nervous systems had been conditioned and take charge of our lives immediately.”

-lots of discussion on NLP and conditioning; reinforcement -“Neuro-Associative Conditioning” -it is the step by step process that can condition your nervous system to associate pleasure to those things you want to continuously move toward and pain to those things you

-Quote Henry David Thoreau … “Things do not change; we change”

-“The first belief we must have if we’re going to create change quickly is that we can change now.”

-“The second belief that you and I must have if we’re going to create long-term change is that we’re responsible for our own change, not anyone else.”

more talk on Neuro-conditioning and behavioural decision Making

6: How to Change anything in your life: The Science of Neuro-Associative conditioning

6 steps:

  1. Decide what you really want and what’s preventing you from having it now
  2. Get leverage: Associate Massive Pain to NOT changing NOW and Massive Pleasure of Changing it NOW
  3. Interrupt the Limiting Pattern.
  4. Create a new, empowering alternative.
  5. Condition the new pattern until it’s consistent.
  6. Test it

7: How To Get What You Really want

-lots of discussion on how body movement (physiology) can effect emotions -discussed facial expressions -“Your body leads your emotions” -exercise, jogging, skipping -laughter -“But the real key in life is to be able to make yourself feel good when you don’t feel good, or when you don’t even want to feel good.” -"… to create patterns of movement that create confidence, a sense of strength, flexibility, a sense of personal power, and fun." -"… you could focus on things that haven’t happened yet, and feel good about them in advance. This is the power that goals offer …" -“Focus on where you want to go, not on what you fear.” -“The most powerful way to control focus is through the use of questions.”

-discussion of submodalities and 5 senses and mentions Bandler -“our ability to change the way we feel depends upon our ability to change our submodalities.” -“The key in life is to have so many ways to direct your life that it becomes an art. The challenge for most people is that they have only a few ways to change their state: they overeat, overdrink, oversleep, overshop, smoke, or take a drug–none of which empower us, and all of which can have disastrous and tragic consequences.”" -“If you don’t have a plan for pleasure, you will have pain.”

8: Questions are the Answer

-“Our questions determine our thoughts” -“So if we want to change teh quality of our lives, we should change our habitual questions.” -“Remember, it’s not only the questions youask, but the questions you fail to ask, that shape your destiny.”

a bit over the top as usual but he says … “superior evaluations create a superior life”

So how do questions work?

  1. Questions immediately change what we’re focusing on and therefore how we feel. -“What am I truly happy about in my life right now?” -“What am I truly grateful for?”
  2. Questions change what we delete. -so the idea is that what questions we ask helps us focus on things and to NOT focus on other things which ultimately are forgotten or in his case “deleted”
  3. Questions change the resources available to us.

-“the key, then, is to develop a pattern of consistent questions that empower you.”

  1. What is great about this problem?
  2. What is not perfect yet?
  3. What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it?
  4. What am I willing to no longer do in order to make it the way I want it?
  5. How can I enjoy the process while I do what is necessary to make it the way I want it?

so in the line of micro habits and affirmations … he uses the “The Morning Power Questions”

  1. What am I happy about in my life now?
  2. What am I excited about in my life now?
  3. What am I proud about in my life now?
  4. What am i Grateful about in my life now?
  5. What am I enjoying most in my life right now?
  6. What am I committed to in my life right now?
  7. Who do I love? Who loves me?

And … the “The Evening Power Questions”

  1. What have I given today?
  2. What did I learn today?
  3. How has today added to the quality of my life or how can I use today as an investment in my future?

9: The Vocabulary of Ultimate Success

-“Realize now the power that your words command if you simply choose them wisely” -“If we want to change our lives and shape our destiny, we need to consciously select the words we’re going to use, and we need to constantly strive to expand our level of choice”

NLP stuff I think … ways to shift your vocabulary in a positive/empowering manner

10: Destroy The Blocks, Break Down The Wall, Let Go of the Rope, And Dance Your Way to Success: The Power of Life Metaphors

-discussion on power of metaphor -“when we don’t understand something, a metaphor provides a way of seeing how what we don’t understand is like something we do understand.” -"… changing one global metaphor can instantly transform the way you look at your entire life." -the example changing metaphor from “life is a competition” to “life is a game”. -these metaphors are like the Goblins and/or Gremlins in the Computer

11: The Ten Emotions of Power

  1. Avoidance
  2. Denial
  3. Competition
  4. Learning and Using -“If you want to make your life really work, you must make your emotions work for you.”

Six Steps to Emotional Mastery

-“I have found that whenever I feel a painful emotion, there are six steps I can take very quickly to break my limiting patterns, …”

Step One: Identify what you are really feeling. Step Two: Acknowledge and appreciate your emotions, knowing they support you. Step Three: Get curious about the message this emotion is offering you. Step Four: Get confident. Step Five: Get certain you can handle this not only today, but in the future as well. Step Six: Get excited, and take action.

The Ten Action Signals:

  1. Discomfort
  1. use sills already learned to change your state
  2. clarify what you do want;
  3. refine your actions. try a different approach and see if you can’t immediatley change the way you are feeling.
  1. Fear
  1. fear is simple the anticipation that something that’s going to happen soon needs to be prepared for.
  1. Hurt

  1. Anger

  2. Frustration

  3. Disappointment

  4. Guilt

  5. Inadequacy

  6. Overload or overwhelm

  7. Loneliness

The Ten Emotions of Power

  1. Love and Warmth
  2. Appreciation and Gratitude
  3. Curiosity
  4. Excitement and Passion
  5. Determination
  6. Flexibility
  7. Confidence
  8. Cheerfulness
  9. Vitality
  10. Contribution

12: The Magnificent Obsession – Creating a Compelling Future

-“Giant Goals Produce Giant Motivation” -“Goals Take You Beyond Your Limits To a World of Unlimited Power” -“Settings goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible-the foundation for all success in life.” -“The conception of your goals is the master plan that guides all thought.”

-“All goal setting must be immediately followed by both the development of a plan, and massive and consistent action toward its fulfillment.”

-“Its not just getting a goal that matters, but the quality of life you experience along the way.”

13: The 10 Day challenge

14: Ultimate Influence: Your Master System

-“If someone is doing better than we are in any area of life, it’s simply because they have a better way of evaluating what things mean and what they should be about.” -“The goal, then, is to be able to evaluate everything in your life in a way that consistently guides you to make choices that produce the results you desire.”

  1. The first element that affects all of your evaluations is the mental and emotional state you’re in while you’re making an evaluation.
  2. The questions you ask.
  3. The third element affecting evaluations is your hierarchy of values.
  4. The fourth element is your global beliefs.
  5. A hodgepodge of reference experiences. -“Masters are often people who have more references than you about what leads to success or frustration in any given situation.”

15: Life Values … Your Personal Compass

-“A man’s character is his guardian divinity” … Heraclitus

-“We must remember that all decision making comes down to values clarification.”

-“We must get clear about what is most important in our lives and decide that we will live by these values, no matter what happens.” -“The only way for us to have long-term happiness is to live by our highest ideals, to consistently act in accordance with what we believe our life is truly about.”

-“Anytime you have difficulty making an important decision, you can be sure that it’s the result of being unclear about your values.”

-“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

-“people don’t just pursue pleasure, but they clearly also move away from pain.”

the source of self-sabotage: values conflicts -“people will do more to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure.”

Feelings that you value moving towards: love, success, freedom, intimacy, security, adventure, power, passion, comfort, health.

Feelings that you value want moving away from: rejection, anger, frustration, loneliness, depression, failure, humiliation, guilt.

The goal is to evaluate both sets and make sure they are appropriate for the goals you have. -“Ask yourself a new question: “What do my values need to be in order to achieve the destiny I desire and deserve?” Brainstorm out a list. Put them in order. See which values you might get rid of and which values you might add in order to create teh quality of life you truly want.”

16: Rules … If You’re Not Happy, Here’s Why!

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Dr. Steve Peters .. The Chimp Paradox

Introduction:

Choosing the Sun.

“The Sun in the system represents the perfect place you want to be. Clearly, if we can get all these planets in order, then the Sun will shine!”

1: The Psychological Mind

-the three psychological brains in our model, the frontal, limbic, and parietal, are called the Human, the Chimp, and the Computer. -The Chimp is an emotional machine that thinks independently from us. It is not good or bad, it is just a Chimp. -You are not responsible for the nature of your Chimp but you are responsible for managing it. -One of the secrets of success and happiness is to learn to live with your Chimp and not get bitten or attacked by it. To do this, you need to understand you your Chimp behaves, and why it thinks and acts in the way that it does. You also need to understand your Human and not muddle up your Human with your Chimp -The third part of the Psychological Mind also has storage area for thoughts and behaviors called the Computer, which is spread across the whole brain.

2: The Divided Planet (Part 1)

Two Different Ways of Thinking

-The Chimp interprets this information with feelings and impressions. When it has a feel for what is going on, it uses emotional thinking. -The Human interprets information by searching for the facts and establishing the truth. When it has done this, it will put things together in a logical manner using logical thinking.

-When there is a disagreement, the Chimp is the more powerful and therefore gets control of your thoughts and actions.

-the basis of emotional thinking is impression and feeling

(This is where Munger’s Lollapalooza comes in) -The Chimp doesn’t necessarily work with facts but it works with what it believes is the truth or w/ a perception of the truth or, even worse, with a projection of what might be the truth. It is quick to form an impression on little, if any, evidence and usually won’t give way.

Traits of emotional thinking:

-the basis of logical thinking is facts and truth

Traits of locial thinking:

Two different agendas:

-The purpose and agenda of the Chimp is survival -The purpose and agenda of the Human is sulf-fulfillment.

-The Chimp operates with the “Jungle Center” that is based on instincts and drives. Features of the jungle center include:

The FFF response … Fight, Flight, Freeze

-Chimp gets anxiety if can’t decide which FFF.

Typical drives

3: The Divided Planet (part 2)

-all information goes to the chimp first -can’t arm wrestle with a chimp -willpower is not a good way to try and manage your Chimp -emotional chimp is 5x stronger than human -need a management plan

Accept offer … all ok Reject offer … human now needs to manage an upset Chimp.

The order of dealing with the Chimp … a) nurture first then b) manage

Managing you Chimp:

-ex on feeding … a mini habit that blocks the Chimp from thinking (getting out of bed … reward after task half completed)

-Develop the human -“expect Human fulfillment by constructive accomplishments, such as hobbies and interests that are not crucial to survival but that bring us satisfaction and a richness to our lives. -“When we have a sense of purpose in life, it brings with it a sense of meaning and this in turn leads to achievement, satisfaction and well-being.” 4: The Guiding Moon (part 1)

The Computer

-when born it is essentially an empty hard drive -“Potentially the Computer is more powerful than the Chimp and the Human because it is the reference source that both of them look to for help and guidance.” -Computer works about 4x the speed of the Chimp. -Computer works about 20x the speed of the Human.

What is in the Computer?

Autopilot

-based on learned behaviors, learned beliefs and automatic programs -We can add or remove things from the Computer if we stop and take time to maintain it. Most don’t.

-autopilots are the positive, constructive beliefs, behaviors, and automatic functioning that help us be successful and happy in life. -can be put in the Computer at any age.

Goblins & Gremlins

Opposite of Autopilots. -Goblins are typically put in when young. More hard-wired. Occur before the age of 8. -Gremlins are soft-wired and when found can be removed.

-Chimp can possible help the Gremlin … “Fridge Door Goblin” and the Chimp’s troop drive. -examples of Gremlins include “unrealistic expectations” and “unhelpful expectations”. -more examples include

-both the Chimp and the Human use the Computer for reference -the issue is that the Chimp can pick Gremlins and the Human autopilots but … the Chimp is more powerful and has first dibs. -lots of Gremlins in the Computer can be destabilizing.

The Stone of life

-The Stone of Life is your ultimate reference point. It is where your “Truths of Life”, “Values”, and “Life Force” are all inscribed. The Chimp and Human gauge everything by the Stone. -The Truths of Life are how you believe the world works and you can “prove” they are true by examples and experience. You have either worked them out or accepted them form somewhere (parents, education, experience, and so on.)

-they are a set of beliefs that you believe are true.

-“unwritten values that you believe to be important to you.” -values are personal judgment calls versus evidence based truths.

-the answer to the question just before you pass … “What should I do with my life?”

The Mindset

-“So a Mindset is the basis that we work from when dealing with ourself, others, and the world.” -“These beliefs tend to come in clusters of Autopilots and Gremlins, which group together to form a characteristic presentation.” -This isn’t your personality but a set of beliefs in your Computer that create a pathway. It can influence your personality though.

5: The Guiding Moon (Part 2)

Both the Chimp and Human check the Computer first for past experiences/rules/stored information Gremlins often are hidden (i.e. hidden belief) Gremlins must be replaced by Autopilots -done by introducing an Autopilot

-example … “You might complain that you just can’t say “no” to people and this eventually makes you feel upset because you take on too much or feel a bit angry that you have more work to do.”

-ask questions! “What do you believe saying “no” to someone will imply about you?” “What are the consequences of you saying “no” to someone?

if the answer is that you are seen as lazy or selfish … that’s likely a Gremlin replace with reasons why “no” is appropriate

-it’s helpful to break a cycle early … give the Human a chance to evaluate (Let System 2 contemplate!)

-“A giant Gremlin called SHOULD”

-“The differences between the two statements are that using the word “should” often evokes a sense of judgment, a command, guilt or a feeling of failure, whereas using the word “could” usually evokes feelings of possibility, hope, an option, a choice, empowerment and potential for change.”

-Could and Should ….. Might and Must

-You have to decide on what is your “truth”

-Dancing with the Gremlins … they reinforce themselves (think Lollapalooza effect)

example being to new people (partner’s relatives)

Gremlins could include:

Remember that experiences (discussions, education) are put into the Computer. How it is interpreted is whether it becomes an Autopilot or a Gremlin. “Therefore, it is important when inputting into the Computer that you think carefully through the experience that you have had and interpret it correctly.”

and remember that the Chimp isn’t always wrong and the Human isn’t always right.

“The whole point of getting your Universe in order is to let the Sun, which is at the center of your Universe, be the focal point of everything. This Sun is what you believe life is all about and is about self-fulfillment.”

“It is the Stone of Life that holds the key to stabilizing your entire Universe.”

“True friends like us for our values and personalities, not for our achievements, position, and possessions.”

Chapter 6: Personality and the Mind (How your mind works and influences your personality)

How does the Guiding Moon (Computer) stabilize the Divided Planet (Human & Chimp)

If everything in the environment is relaxed then Computer is accessed. Daily routine tasks can be done w/out much thinking (i.e. conscious effort).

So pathway is:

  1. Input
  2. Chimp … Danger/No Danger a) If danger … Extreme/Not extreme
    1. Extreme … Chimp
    2. Not Extreme … Computer … Either Chimp or Human or Computer b) If no danger … Familiar / Not Familiar
    3. Familiar … Computer
    4. Not Familiar … Human … Either Computer or Human

To manage Chimp can use Human or Computer -more energy to use Human -better is you can get Autopilots installed

-importance of having your Stone of Life squared away

-personality is a mix of guiding moon and divided planet -all three can be either constructive or destructive -“It is critical to understand that your Chimp’s personality has nothing to do with you; it is a machine that was given to you to work with.” -Mindset is in the Guided Moon -“Remember: the person that you want to be is the person that you really are.” -any deviation from this is due to being hijacked by the Chimp.

Developing aspects of your personality take time. Developing the Human and bringing out the best is about:

Chapter 7: The Planet of Others (How to understand and relate to other people)

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David Rock … How the Brain Works

David Allen … GTD

11: The Power of the Collection Habit

-The Source of Negative Feelings

-“Where do the not-so-good feelings come from? Too much to do? No, there’s always too much to do. If you felt bad simply because there was more to do than you could do, you’d never get rid of that feeling. Having too much to do is not the source of the negative feeling. It comes from a different place.”

-“But what are all those things in your in-basket? Agreements you’ve made with yourself. Your negative feelings are simply the result of breaking those agreements–they’re the symptoms of disintegrated self-trust. If you tell yourself to draft a strategic plan, when you don’t do it, you’ll feel bad.

To eliminate that negative feeling:

12: The Power of the Next-Action Decision

13: The Power of Outcome Focusing

-“It’s all connected. You can’t really define the right action until you know the outcome, and your outcome is disconnected from reality if you’re not clear about what you need to do physcially to make it happen. You can get at it from either direction, and you must, to get things done. -Quote from Steven Synder … “There are only two problems in life: 1) you know what you want, and you don’t know how to get it; and/or 2) you don’t know what you want.”

There are 2 solutions if this Snyder’s position is true:

A) Make it up. B) Make it happen.

-“The truth is, our energy as human beings seems to have a dualistic and teleological reality–we create and identify with things that aren’t real yet on all the levels we experience; and when we do, we recognize how to restructure our current world to morph it into the new one, and experience an impetus to make it so.”

-“Everything you experience as incomplete must have a reference point for “complete.””