Unlimited Power

This book is a personal development classic, written by Tony Robbins when he was 25 years old.

These are the principles that Robbins used to go from living in a 400 square foot apartment and washing his dishes in the bathtub to a millionaire many times over in less than three years.

They are the same principles that he has gone on to teach millions of people around the world in one form or another.

We live in an age with more information than we ever thought possible. If information was the answer then we would all be happy, successful and have six pack abs, but we don't.

The missing ingredient is the ability to take massive action to work towards our most important goals. Infact, the definition of the word power is "the ability to act."

There are seven fundamental character traits that the world's most successful people have cultivated within themselves that give them the power to take action.

Here's a reminder of what they are:

1. Passion

The world's most successful people have discovered an all-consuming purpose that drives them to do more and be more.

Almost all of them tap into the power of goals and defining the outcome they are looking for.

Robbins gives us five rules for formulating our desired outcomes:

1. State the outcome in positive terms.
2. Be as specific as possible. How does your outcome look, see, feel and smell? Engage as many of your senses as possible.
3. Have an evidence procedure. Know how you will look, how you will feel and what you will see when you achieve your goal.
4. Be in control. The outcome must be created and maintained by you. Make sure you choose something you can influence directly.
5. Verify the outcome is ecologically sound and desirable. The outcome must be one that benefits you and other people.

Now that we know the five rules for defining outcomes, we can move on to creating a master list of the things we want in our lives. There are 12 steps to this process.

1. Make an inventory of your dreams, including the things you want to do, be and share. Don't limit yourself - be bold.
2. Estimate when you expect to reach the outcomes.
3. Pick the four most important goals for you this year.
4. Review these four goals against the five rules for outcomes to ensure that they are aligned.
5. Make a list of the important resources you already have at your disposal. This will be your inventory of strengths, skills, resources and tools.
6. Focus in on times you used those resources well. This will prime your mind to see yourself achieving your goals.
7. Describe the kind of person you would have to be in order to attain your goals. Will it take discipline? Education? Something else?
8. Write down what prevents you from having the goals now. This is helping you identify the roadblocks that might get in your way.
9. Create a step-by-step plan on how to achieve your four goals.
10. Come up with some models - people who have achieved great success. Write down one main idea that each of those people would say to you if they were speaking to you personally.
11. Create your ideal day from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed. Feel what having all of your goals accomplished will be like.
12. Design your perfect environment. Where will you be during your perfect day?

2. Belief

As Robbins points out, our beliefs about what we are and what we can be precisely determine what we will be. What you believe is possible will determine the trajectory of your life.

If we are going to model beliefs that create excellence, we need to understand how beliefs get developed in the first place.

1. Environment. The environment you spend time in will impact what you believe is possible.
2. Events. Some events have such a big impact on our lives that they change our brains forever.
3. Knowledge. No matter how grim your circumstances are right now, if you read about the accomplishments of others, it can create the belief in you that you can succeed too.
4. Past Results. Do something once and you'll forever know you can do it again.
5. Creating the Future in Your Mind. You can "step into your future" any time you want by creating a mental image of it.

So that's where beliefs come from. Now let's review the seven beliefs that Robbins suggests will help you foster excellence.

1. Everything happens for a reason and a purpose and it serves me.
2. There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.
3. Whatever happens, take responsibility.
4. I do not need to understand everything to be able to use everything.
5. People are my greatest resource.
6. Work is play.
7. There is no abiding success without commitment.

3. Strategy

Now that we know where we want to go and the beliefs that will help us get there, it's time to figure out the actions that will help us get there.

People that are able to consistently produce outstanding results follow a specific set of actions and mindsets. The quickest path to replicate their results is to adopt their actions and mindsets.

In order to create a "recipe" we can follow, we need to to have a system to describe what to do and when to do it. Robbins calls this syntax - the way people order their actions - and it makes a huge difference in the kind of results that we produce.

Here is the shorthand notation:

• V Visual
• A Auditory
• K Kinesthetic
• e external
• i internal
• d digital (words)
• t tonal (tone of sound)

For instance, when you see something in the outside world, it's represented as Ve. When you have a feeling inside, that would be represented as Ki.

The combination of those things can help you create a recipe for whatever you want to create in your life. The trick is to find the right sequence of thoughts and actions that produce the results.

So, we find somebody who has created the results we are looking for, we do something that Robbins calls "strategy elicitation."

Here are the steps to making it work:

1. Get the person in the appropriate state by having them remember a specific time when they felt motivated, loved, or whatever strategy you are looking to emulate. For instance, you might ask them "Can you remember a time when you were totally motivated to do something? Can you go back to that time and step back into that experience?"
2. Ask them clear, succinct questions about the syntax of what they said, heard and felt. You might ask them "As you remember that time, what was the very first thing that caused you to be totally motivated?"
3. Then, find out what specifically about what they were experiencing caused the person to get in that state. You might ask "After you heard that thing, what was the very next thing that caused you to be totally motivated to do something? Did you picture something in your mind? Did you say something to yourself? Did you have a certain feeling or emotion?"

As you listen to the person you are talking to, record down their answers and you'll have yourself a recipe for getting the results you are looking to achieve.

4. Clarity of Values

Every successful person is clear about their values. Values are your own private, personal and individual beliefs about what is most important to you.

We can learn to produce the most effective behaviours, but they need to support our deepest needs and desires. Without this we have internal conflict and lack the ability to generate success on a grand scale.

Your values can change over time and have certainly changed since your childhood. You also have different values in different areas of your life.

In order to understand the most important values, do the following:

1. Start by listing the most important areas of your life. That will likely include home, work and relationships.
2. Then for each of those areas, ask yourself what's important in that area. Don't filter, just write them down.
3. Finally, rank order the things you wrote down in that area. This will become your value hierarchy.

This is not only an important exercise to do with yourself, it's an important exercise to do with the people in your life that are the closest to you.

5. Energy

The world's most successful people seem to have an unending reservoir of energy. How do they do it?

They understand that your mind and your body are connected to one another in what Robbins calls a cybernetic loop.

You've heard the adage "act as if." Most of the time it's been distorted in the personal development world to mean "act as if you are rich, and you'll become rich." However, there's a lot of science that proves that your physiology has a lot to do with what happens in your mind and with the state you are in and because you have complete control over your physiology (what you do with your body), you have complete control of your mental state as well.

As a simple example, if you want to feel happy, smile. Try feeling miserable while you are smiling - it's almost impossible.

The Power of State

Robbins suggests that the key to producing the results you desire is the put yourself into a resourceful state so that you are empowered to take the types and qualities of actions that produce the desired results.

The best way to put yourself into a resourceful state is to use an anchor, which serves to trigger you into the desired state.

For instance, you could use the anchor of balling your hands into fists and screaming the word "yes!" to put yourself into a state of high energy (a little intense for me, but you get the point).

Here are the 4 steps to making it work.

1. Put yourself in a fully associated, congruent state, with your whole body involved. Basically, to continue with the previous example, you need to put yourself in a high energy state.
2. Set the anchor at the peak of the state.
3. Use a unique stimulus or trigger. This should be something that you don't do very often otherwise.
4. Replicate the anchor exactly. If you set the anchor by touching a part of your body, you should to it in the exact some spot, with the exact same amount of pressure and so on.

6. Bonding Power

The world most successful people are masters of creating bonds with other people.

One of the ways the do this is through mirroring and matching.

You've heard that words only account for 7% of our communication, our tonality accounts for 38%, and our body language accounts for 55%.

That's why when you match another person's physiology and tonality during an encounter, you build rapport with that person in minutes.

In order to do this well, you need to look for things that you can mirror as unobtrusively and naturally as possible. As Robbins points out, if you mirror a person who has a terrible twitch, they'll just end up thinking you are mocking them.

Once you get into a rhythm of rapport with the other person, you can start doing something called pacing and leading. This is when you gradually change your posture or tone of voice. If you've created rapport with them, they will naturally start to follow your lead.

7. Mastery of Communication

Successful people are masters of using communication to get what they want in business and in life.

First, they understand how to ask for what they want. Follow these five steps, and you can too:

1. Ask specifically.
2. Ask someone who can help you.
3. Create value for the person you are asking.
4. Ask with focused, congruent belief.
5. Ask until you get what you want. Not necessarily from the same person.

Second, they understand how to deal with resistance using the agreement frame. There are three phrases you can use to get another person to see things from your point of view without any resistance:

1. I appreciate and...
2. I respect and...
3. I agree and...

By replacing "but" or "however" with "and", you completely bypass the automatic resistance other people have to those words, keeping their minds open to what comes out of your mouth next.

Conclusion

The principles of Unlimited Power are timeless, and if you start incorporating them into your daily and weekly routine, you'll start to see an uplift in the results you are generating in your business and life.

Hope you found that useful. Until next time...

(Click Here for Original Source)

Jeff Bezos @ Amazon

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

1) CURIOUS CREATOR AND INNOVATOR 2) SELF AWARENESS 3) FUTURE POTENTIAL 4) THINK LONG TERM 5) CORE PRINCIPLES FROM GIANTS 6) CUSTOMER BEFORE ANYTHING 7) MARKET OWNER

Eat That Frog

If you had a frog to eat everyday then on which time would you like to eat it according brian tracy the best time to do this would be early in the morning . here eating frog is metaphor for doing your tough and most important task first. do the most important tast in the morning because at the time our will power is also maximum.

When we finish a work our brain releases endorphin which gives us a natural high.we should make a natural addiction for this to achieve success PRINCIPLE NO 1 : SETTING THE TABLE
Avoid confusion and lack of clarity to use your time properly . 7 steps for goal setting and achievement step 1 decide exactly what do you want step 2 : think on paper step 3: make deadlines step 4 - make a list step 5 - organize step 6 - take action on your plane step 7 - resolve yourself to do things everyday that moves you towards your goals. principle no 2 : plan everyday in advance
Create 4 four list 1st master list - which include all lifetime work , goals etc 2nd monthly list - work that need to be done in a month to achieve master list goals 3rd weekly list - work that need to be done in a week to achieve monthly list goals . Last and 4th day list - works that need to finished today itself. for week goals completion principle no3 : abcde technique priority technique to make sure we use our time well and don't waste time.

Note:

Tracy references the 80/20 rule, also called the Pareto principle or the law of the vital few. It states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Some examples of the Pareto principle in action:

• 20% of motorists account for 80% of accidents
• 20% of streets account for 80% of the traffic
• 20% of product flaws account for 80% of problems
• 20% of clients account for 80% of profits
• 20% of clothes in your closet are worn 80% of the time
• 20% of beer drinkers drink 80% of the beer

What does that mean for your life? It means that 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions. Put differently, it means that 20% of what you do leads to 80% of the results. On the flipside, it also means that 80% of what you do leads to only 20% of the results. In other words, you are wasting 80% of your time on low-value activities.

The solution? Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize.

Stop pursuing low value activities and focus on high value activities instead. In other words, select the most important task!! Stop being busy being busy… focus on what matters instead.

Brian Tracy’s advice: Apply the 80/20 rule to everything in your life. And, before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?”

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DO NOT WAIT, the time will never be right

Seven Step Method

1. Decide exactly what you want
2. Write it down – thinking on paper is critical
3. Set a deadline on your goal
4. List the steps necessary for achievement
5. Organize the list into a plan (priority and sequence, visual layout)
6. Take action on your plan immediately
7. Do something every day to move closer to that goal

Reasons for procrastination (and their solutions)

• vagueness/confusion around objectives and how and why to accomplish them (write down goals, list specific steps)
• feeling of inadequacy, lack of confidence, inability in key area of task (identify and learn key skills)
• attempting to begin task while fatigued (protect energy level with diet, exercise, regular breaks/vacations)
• important tasks seem large and formidable upon first approach (resolve to do single step or limited time period)

Organization

Always Work From a List

Four lists: master list (to capture all ideas), monthly, weekly, daily

• Make a list of every step needed to complete project, organize by priority and sequence
• Just go as far as you can see, and be confident will be able to see farther at that future point
• Make the next daily/weekly/monthly list at the end of the previous day/week/month
• Transfer items from Master -> Monthly -> Weekly -> Daily
• When a new task comes up, add to list before doing it
• Tick off items as you complete them

ABCDE Method

Place letter next to each item

• A: task you must complete, very important, major positive/negative consequences (rank many A items with A-1, etc.)
• B: task you should complete, mild consequences
• C: task is optional, would like to do but no consequences attached
• D: task can be delegated, do so ASAP
• E: task can be eliminated without any real difference

Never do a B task when an A task is left incomplete

Begin Immediately and Persist Until the Task is Complete

• Once you know the highest-value task, everything else is a relative waste of time
• Take action on the most important task first thing every morning
• Once you start, keep working to full completion (task switching costs are a major time sink)
• Notice if you are becoming distracted by conversation or low-value activity
• Most identifiable sign of high-performing people is action-orientation, they are in a hurry to complete key tasks
• Urgency will generate action instead of discussion: focusing on specific steps, concentrating on results

Tricks to Get Started

• It is easier to commit to doing a small piece of work, and momentum often keeps us working beyond the initial steps
• Divide large/complex projects into distinct smaller steps, and resolve to do one of them
• Resolve to work for a specific short time period, as little as 5-10 minutes (even shorter works too)

Create Deadlines

• Imagine you have to leave town tomorrow, what absolutely must be done before you go?
• Set deadlines (and sub-deadlines as appropriate) for every task and activity
• Determine how many minutes/hours each task will require, add a 20% buffer, then make it into a game to beat your own estimates

Create Blocks of Time

• Set aside 30/60/90 minute blocks for important tasks
• Getting up early and working for hours before going to work is a key productivity habit
• Time planner on day/hour/minute level enables you to see and consolidate blocks of time
• Plan your day in advance and schedule fixed time periods for particular activities (e.g. sales calls 10-11 AM)
• During these work times, turn off electronic communication, eliminate any distractions, work nonstop
• Use transition periods (“gifts of time”) to complete small steps in larger tasks
• If you fly often, plane rides are a great unbroken block of time, plan your work for the entire duration

Review your goals and performance at the end of every day/week/month 

Efficiency

Three Questions for Maximum Productivity

• What are my highest value activities?  (Think to yourself, then ask others)
• What can I and only I do that if done well will make a real difference?
• What is the most valuable use of my time right now?

The more accurate your answers are to these questions, the easier it will be to set priorities and do the most valuable task (epistemic rationality!)

Apply 80/20 Rule to Everything

• Law of Forced Efficiency: There is never enough time to do everything, but there is enough time to do the most important things
• A handful of your tasks are likely much more valuable than any of the others
• You get your time and life under control only insofar as you discontinue low-value activities
• If you want to add something new, you must complete or discontinue something old
• Completing high-value tasks is more satisfying
• Continually review responsibilities to identify tasks which can be delegated/eliminated without loss

The most powerful word is “no”

• Say no to anything not a clear high-value use of time
• Say it clearly so that there are no miscommunications
• Say it regularly as part of your time-management strategy
• Say it early and often!

Question to Ask: “If I were not doing this already, knowing what I know now, would I start doing it again today?”

Improve Rate-Limiting Steps

• There is always a rate-limiting step in every task
• Identify that choke point, and make a single-minded effort to weaken that constraint
• 80% of the limiting factors exist internally within you or your organization
• Take an honest look at self and company, accept responsibility for your life and look to yourself for both the cause and cure of the problem
• Accurate identification of the limiting factor can bring about huge progress quickly, otherwise you solve the wrong problem (epistemic rationality!)
• The key constraint may be small and not entirely obvious, make a list of every step in a process
• Behind every rate-limiting step is another one, so target the next one and alleviate that as quickly as possible

Questions:

• What is holding you back?
• What sets the speed at which you achieve your goals?
• What determines how fast you move from here to there?
• What holds you back from doing the most important tasks?
• Why haven’t you already achieved your goal?

Workspace

• Clear everything off your desk until only the task at hand is in front of you
• Have everything you need to complete task in hand before you begin
• Make your work area comfortable, attractive, and conducive to working long periods
• Once you complete preparations, begin working immediately
• Assume the body language of high-performance: sit up straight, sit forward away from back of chair

Electronic Communication

• DO NOT check voicemail/e-mail first thing in the morning
• Tech is your friend, there to increase speed/efficiency/accuracy of information transfer, but can be addictive
• Just because someone sends you an e-mail does not mean you have an obligation to respond (if the e-mail is important enough, the sender will resend)
• Delete 80% of e-mails unread immediately. Only 20% of those remaining are urgent, put the rest in a file to respond later
• Create zones of silence in your life where no one or nothing can reach you
• Maintain inner calm by pausing on a regular basis to listen to the silence

Identifying Your Strengths

What Are Your Unique Talents?

Do what you love to do, and do it well!

• What gets you the most compliments/praise?
• What affects the performance of other people the most?

Ask yourself these questions:

• What am I really good at?
• What do I enjoy the most about my work?
• What has been the most responsible for my success?
• If I could do any job at all, what would it be?
• If I won the lottery, what work would I choose to do?

Rule of Three

Three core tasks provide most of your value, focus on optimizing those

In thirty seconds, write down your three most important goals in life right now

• Giving people longer rarely results in different answers
• In most cases people have a financial/career goal, a personal relationship goal, and a health/fitness goal.

Expand to three most important goals in:

• Business/career
• Family/relationship
• Financial
• Health
• Personal/professional development
• Social/community
• Biggest problems or concerns in life

Key Result Areas

Your work can usually be broken down into 5-7 key result areas (KRA), where you are completely responsible

• Make a list of important output responsibilities, tasks which feed into others
• Determine key result areas and grade yourself on 1-10 scale
• Your performance is only as strong as your weakest KRA
• We tend to avoid jobs where we performed poorly in the past
• Refuse to rationalize/justify/defend weakness, instead identify clearly, and make a plan to improve

Big Seven in management: planning, organization, staffing, delegating, supervising, measuring, reporting

Big Seven in sales: prospecting, building rapport and trust, identifying needs, presenting persuasively, answering objections, closing the sale, getting resales and referrals

Question to Ask: “What one skill would have the greatest positive impact on my life?” (ask others as well) 

Optimize Self

Skill Acquisition

• Identify the most important things you do, and make a plan to continually upgrade those skills
• You can learn any skills necessary to be more productive/effective

Three Steps to Mastery:

• Read in your field at least one hour/day
• Take every course/seminar available on key skills
• Listen to audio during downtime

3 D’s of New Habit Formation

1. Decision to learn new habit
2. Discipline to practice
3. Determination to persist until habit is encoded

Optimizing Mood

• To perform at your best, you need to be in a good mood!
• Level of self-esteem is critically important for motivation and persistence
• The way you interpret things determines how you feel
• Resolve to become an optimist

Four Behaviors of Optimists:

• Look for the good in every situation
• Seek the valuable lesson in setback/difficulty
• Look for the solution to every problem (vs. blame/complain)
• Think and talk continually about your goals

The biggest enemies are fear of failure/rejection and accompanying doubts

• The way to overcome fear is to do precisely that thing
• Act as if you already had the courage and behave accordingly

State maxims to yourself on a regular schedule, to internalize positive beliefs

Visualize

• Imagine being your future awesome self, self-image has a powerful effect on behavior
• Visualize how the world would look with your goals completed

Generate Intrinsic Motivation

• See yourself as role model for others
• Set higher standards for yourself than others set for you
• Make it into a game!

Energy Level is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT for Motivation

• Utilize the specific time of the day when you are at your best for top-priority tasks
• Sometimes your best use of time is indeed to quit early and get a lot of sleep
• Take one full day off every week: no work or electronic communication or anything taxing. Instead do activities which replenish you
• Take regular vacations every year, both weekends and 1-2 week breaks

Big three for energy level:

1. Sleep
2. Diet
3. Exercise

Questions:

• What am I doing physically that I should do more of?
• What am I doing that I should do less of?
• What am I not doing that I should start doing to maximize performance?
• What am I doing that affects my health should I stop doing entirely?

Work/life balance is not optional

• Time management is a means to an end: freeing up time to do the things you love
• The more in-person time you spend with loved ones, the happier you will be
• What matters is quality of time at work and quantity of time in rest of life
• When you work, work – wasted work time comes out of personal life

You are shaping yourself into a new, superior human being.  Be an ascending spiral of personal effectiveness.