Thursday, September 01, 2005

Awaken the Giant Within

A giant best seller. Almost everyone familiar with self-help is aware of Anthony Robbins and NLP (google it if you aren't). I was skeptical before reading Awaken the Giant Within, but am now impressed. Sprinkled with Christian verbiage, Tony doesn't syncretize beliefs, at least in this book. Very practical, great exercises, too many ideas to summarize with one quote, but I did find his explanation of our Reticular Activating System (RAS) helpful.
This shift in mental posture aligns you more precisely with your goals. Once you decide that something is a priority, you give it tremendous emotional intensity, and by continually focusing on it, any resource that supports its attainment will eventually become clear. (p. 288)
This makes more sense to me than magically "magnetizing" wealth into our lives. Simply put, when we focus on a question or problem our mind goes to work to find solutions. An example is when we car shop. We never noticed lime green VW Bugs before, but now that we're buying, everyone is driving one! That's your RAS at work.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay, that was just an invitation to comment, wasn't it? ;-) We, of the lime green bugs, can't help but grin every time we get behind the wheel. :-)

Anonymous said...

You must either be a very fast read, or you skim, or you have tons of time on your hands. Which is it. Come clean now.

Thanks for the review! You keep giving me great ideas of what to read next.

Lyn said...

Wayne,
Okay, here's the "secret" . . . I started reading self-help lit about 4 years ago and have about a 100 books under my belt (okay 75 self-help and theology and 25 scifi/fantasy :-) - which is really only about 2 a month. My goal is one book a week and am almost on track for this year. What this means is that I have a "backblog" of about 50 reviews that I can post on Thought Renewal over the next few months.

I've started out with some obscure reads just to get my rhythm, but am going to tackle some popular titles soon. In fact, I'm thinking about posting my take on Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen for the next Christian Carnival, as that book has been blasted recently on some Christian critique blogs (I'll tip my hand: I liked it).

But just so you don't think I'm a pansy :-) I am currently reading An Evangelical Christology by Bernard Ramm and just finished Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free by F. F. Bruce. What are you reading?

Thanks for your comments,
Lyn

Jh said...

Tony is a great teacher and inspiring to watch. I worked one of his seminars in Nashville years ago, and one of my friends went to one where she walked on coals.

The basics are all there: what you put your attention on increases. That's the same reason that when we focus on our kids' misbehavior, it gets worse, or when we praise them they get better. Or when we diet we get fatter, and forget about it and enjoy life, we slim down. Not the best of examples, I admit.

Think on "these things". Phil. 4:8. There are many reasons we are exhorted to praise and give thanks. It realigns our focus, intention, and attention.

Where was I? Oh yes, just wanted to say I like your blog, will be reading more of it. Thanks!

Jenny