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Tony Robbins Ultimate Edge Program – Inner Strength
Welcome to the Ultimate Edge™—your guide to getting the most out of life regardless of the circumstances that confront you and achieving the results you want, be it your finances, relationships, body, emotions, time—everything that matters to you most.
INNER STRENGTH
SESSION 1: DECISIONS & DESTINY
UNDERSTANDING AND DIRECTING THE FORCES THAT SHAPE YOUR LIFE
To take our lives to the next level, we need to understand that the external world is not the driving force in who we become or what we choose to create for our lives. We all want to
take control of the internal forces that shape the direction of our lives so that we may fully realize our emotional, physical, financial and spiritual potential.
During the times in life where we get frustrated or overwhelmed or maybe even feel stuck, often there is something that snaps—a moment when everything changes. Regardless of what stage of life you may be in (if you are on a roll and want to continue to the next level, or if you are experiencing challenges you need to turn around), the Ultimate Edge helps you to cultivate the inner strength necessary to forge a path toward true meaning and happiness.
The road to transformation begins with the foundation of the 3 Pillars of Progress.
FIRST PILLAR: GET FOCUSED AND CLEAR, AND MAKE IT COMPELLING
The first step is to clarify the results you desire in your life. What do you want most in the areas of life that are important to you? What is your definition of an extraordinary quality of life? What do you need to take your life to the next level?
Without a clear and compelling vision for what you want today, you won’t be able to even find the target of lasting happiness, let alone hit it. Your chances of knowing what your bull’s-eye looks like, however, depends on how honest you can be with yourself. When you’ve got a clear and compelling vision of what it is you want, it shifts your mind and emotions, giving you the impetus to shift your actions toward your goals.
SECOND PILLAR: GET THE BEST TOOLS FOR RESULTS
Once you’ve defined your target, you need an effective and efficient game plan to hit it. In order to close the “gap” between where you are and where you want to be, you need a proven map, an effective mentor and training to drive you to take action. Armed with proven tools, high-quality skills, an effective coach to constantly measure your progress and an empowering community to hold you to a higher standard, there is no way that you won’t get the results that you deserve!
THIRD PILLAR: GET INTEGRATED AND GET ALIGNED
However, sometimes tools are not enough: you need to unlock what’s blocking you and unleash your power. Why is it that sometimes we know what to do, we have great motives for change, and yet we fail to follow through? Or we make changes in the moment, but they do not last long term? What’s missing is a practical understanding of human psychology: why we do what we do and how to change it. By understanding your personal blueprint—how you create meaning and emotion and what causes you to think, feel and behave the way you do—you can not only gain the answers to these questions but learn how to create lasting change and fulfillment. Through the process of discovering, understanding and aligning your internal drives, you are able to channel them so that you naturally move in the direction you desire more—a direction that serves not only you but also all those you care about.
SESSION 1: DECISIONS & DESTINY
RESOURCES VS. RESOURCEFULNESS
The biggest illusion we have in life of why we can’t achieve something is that we start to believe that we’re lacking adequate resources. I don’t have enough money. I don’t have enough time. I don’t know the right people. I don’t have the right training. While any of these may in fact be true, there has certainly been something in your life where one or more of the above factors didn’t stop you. You found a way. You may not have had the money, but you were creative enough to get it. You may not have had the education, but you found another way to learn a skill.
If the obstacle seems absolutely impenetrable but you’re focused enough, will you find a way anyway? Of course you will, if you have enough determination, enough flexibility and enough creativity. The truth is resources are never the real problem. The real problem is a lack of resourcefulness, and the ultimate resource is human emotion. Human emotion is how we get the resources we need. We tend to forget this because we live and operate in a cognitively driven world, that is, we lean on our ability to figure things out. And if we reach a point where it seems like we can’t figure out a solution, that’s when the illusion of failure keeps us from reaching our goals.
But in reality, if we feel strongly enough about something, no amount of time or perceived lack of resources would keep us from achieving what we want.
The mind needs fuel. It operates very differently when you’re passionate about something than when you’re frustrated, angry, bored or dejected. Your mind will wire itself differently when you’re feeling excited, eager, enthusiastic, inspired or engaged in what you want to achieve, like there’s a real purpose behind your goals. That passion expands into your thoughts, actions and the way you interact with people.
Change the fuel that drives the mind, and you change the experience of anything you’re trying to accomplish. We’re either unresourceful or resourceful based on the habit of emotions that we use most often. Once you realize that you are in control of the fuel that directs your thoughts and actions, the next step is to recognize the power of the decisions you make from moment to moment and throughout your life.
TWO MASTER LESSONS OF LIFE
Gaining the ultimate edge in life requires mastering two skills: the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment.
Achievement—going from where you are to where you want to be—requires a plan, a specific strategy. You can achieve anything you desire simply by following certain laws. Whether you want to improve your financial outlook, enhance your relationships or sculpt your body into fantastic shape, following a set of scientific principles will guarantee results.
Fulfillment means experiencing tremendous joy in the process—so you feel not only the excitement of the pursuit but the enthusiasm and gratitude for the little things in life along the way.
If you’re going to feel happy, alive, excited and passionate about life, you must understand that these lessons go hand in hand. Consider the very famous—although they achieve the heights of success, some never feel fulfilled despite the money, accolades and more. Remember, success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.
THE POWER OF DECISION
Can you think about the areas in your life where you feel most fulfilled, be it your relationship, your career, your body or your family? The path to fulfillment is progressive—an ongoing journey or a project that engages your love, passion and time. More often than not, however, you can pinpoint a moment of significant change that inspired or triggered the actions that led to personal achievement. It is in these moments that you align and focus the power of your inner world to accomplish success and fulfillment in the external world.
The goal of the Ultimate Edge is to provide you with the knowledge and tools to create and take advantage of these moments of personal empowerment. Utilizing this power—this emotional fitness—to work against fear and doubt and overcome any obstacle allows you to become the architect of your own destiny instead of simply reacting to the forces in your environment.
The Ultimate Edge = Psychological Strength Mental edge and focus that maximize who you are, what you’re capable of and what you get to enjoy out of this life.
THE POWER OF DECISIONS
We are able to exercise this emotional fitness and psychological strength through action. Nothing changes without new action. It is also essential to remember that every action is parented by a decision. Before you take action, you have to make a decision. No matter how inconsequential a decision may appear to be, even the smallest decisive notion could change the outcome of your life.
It’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.
Decisions = Destiny
Each day we’re making new decisions and creating new actions, all fueled by the power of emotion. It is up to us to nurture the emotions that engender a level of positive activity and growth through consistent and focused decision-making. Some decisions may only have short-term impact, and others affect us far beyond what we could imagine in the moment. Either way, remember: decisions are shaping your life’s destiny.
THE THREE DECISIONS
There are three decisions you’re making every moment of your life, either consciously or unconsciously. Developing the capacity to make the changes you want to make in life depends on your ability to become conscious of the decisions that you’re making all of the time.
FIRST DECISION: WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO FOCUS ON?
Every moment of your life you have to decide what you’re going to focus on. If you don’t consciously choose where to point the lens, your brain just goes into the habit of what it usually focuses on. Most people focus on what they’re afraid of, and whatever you focus on, you feel. So if you keep focusing on what you fear, you bring it to life. As you think about it, it becomes alive inside of you. On the other hand, if you focus on the potential in an event or situation, then opportunities begin to present themselves.
SECOND DECISION: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
The minute you focus on something, your mind has to come up with a meaning for it. From an evolutionary standpoint, the human nervous system has to know: is this going to mean pain or pleasure? Whatever meaning you give to an experience, then that experience becomes that meaning because you make it real in your body and mind. If you don’t consciously choose what things mean, your old patterns show up. Come up with an empowering meaning, and you change how you’ll feel.
THIRD DECISION: WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?
Once you focus on something and give it a meaning, it produces an emotion. Those emotions filter what you do and trigger action, or even non-action.
If you’re angry, are you going to do something different than if you’re feeling grateful? If you’re fearful, worried or stressed, are you going to do something different than if you feel determined, curious or playful
It all comes down to these three decisions. They’re shaping your life moment to moment. If you take control of them, everything changes. You don’t have to wait to be emotionally fit in order to start down the path that will lead to your ultimate edge. You have to decide to raise the standard of what you expect for yourself now. You have to decide that it’s time to go to the next level.
SESSION 1: DECISIONS & DESTINY
THE TWO FORCES THAT CONTROL OUR DECISIONS
There are two forces that influence every decision we make:
Our Decisions
State (in the moment) Blueprint (long term)
- STATE
Ultimately, we want to feel states of empowerment, like confidence, certainty or adeptness, that will positively impact the quality of our decisions most of the time. Few people are in empowered states all of the time. But even “negative” states of emotion—frustration, anger, envy—can sometimes be useful to propel us to make changes. Being conscious of our moment-to-moment state gives us better control over how we feel, hence control over the quality of decisions we end up making.
- BLUEPRINT
Our Blueprint is our Model of the World—a specific set of beliefs about how we’re supposed to be, how life’s supposed to be or how other people are supposed to treat us, which determines what we’re even willing to consider doing or not doing. In short, our Blueprint will have a massive impact on the decisions we make both inthe short term and in the long term because it colors how we look at our lives
BLUEPRINT: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
We experience happiness whenever our Life Conditions (what is actually happening with our career, body, relationships, finances, etc.) align with our Blueprint or Model of the World. Since there is no gap between our expectations and reality in this area, we are happy.
Life Conditions = Blueprint = Happiness
But if there is an area of life that is causing you pain, it’s because your Life Conditions do not match your Blueprint.
Life Conditions ≠ Blueprint = Pain
THREE CHOICES
When we are unhappy and our Life Conditions do not match our Blueprint, we have three choices as to how we’re going to handle the challenge:
PAIN PROVIDES 3 CHOICES
Blame 1) Events 2) Others 3) Yourself
Change Your Life Conditions
Change Your Blueprint
FIRST CHOICE: BLAME
The first choice people have is to assign blame, and there are three things you can blame:
Event. There’s a story, something that happened, behind why things are the way they are. However accurate the story may be, blaming an event is convenient because it helps preserve an identity designed to shield us from our true fears: fear of failure and fear of not being loved or accepted.
Others. “I’m in this situation because this person …” Similarly, the story may be true, but it’s convenient and gives you comfort in the moment. “There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s this other person. There’s nothing I need to change.”
Yourself. Most people think that this is being responsible, but blaming yourself will not make it better. There’s a difference between responsibility and beating yourself up—between “Here’s a pattern that I’ve got to change” and “I’m not good enough.”
SECOND CHOICE: CHANGE YOUR LIFE CONDITIONS
Take a new action, something that will help you make significant progress. If you want to have happiness, you have to understand one thing: progress = happiness. If you feel like you’re making progress in an area of your life, you will start to be pleased in that area. You start to get more focused and specific about what you want to change, and you build momentum toward the results you want. If, for example, you want to open your own business, find an achiever to mentor you. Get focused on why you want to make the change and commit to something new in your life.
THIRD CHOICE: CHANGE YOUR BLUEPRINT
Sometimes things are outside of your control, but you CAN control how you configure your rules about how things should be. Your happiness is going to be limited if you want success but aren’t willing to ever be judged or want love but distrust the opposite sex. Sometimes adjusting your Blueprint means compromising some of your rules that are difficult for you and others to live up to or are simply impossible to fulfill.
When it comes to the three choices you face on how to handle a problem, the first choice isn’t really a choice at all. Blame leaves you stuck, spinning your wheels with no options to change as you tell yourself, “There’s nothing I can do about it because …” We all use blame at times, but the quicker you can get out of it, the faster you’ll be empowered to either change your life conditioning or change your perspective, both of which are real, tangible options that can instantly transform a relationship, your career, your finances or your life.
MAKE A NEW CHOICE
EXERCISE: Write What an Extraordinary Life Would Be Like for You Today …
Write a paragraph or two to answer this question: What would your life be like if it was exactly the way you wanted it to be today? In other words, start with the ultimate end in mind.
If your life were extraordinary—life on your terms—what would that look like? How would you change? What would you enhance? Who would you spend more time with? What would you appreciate more? What would you do?
SESSION 2: YOUR HOUR OF POWER
THE KEY TO PERSONAL
TRANSFORMATION AND RESULTS
There are two forces controlling every decision in our lives:
State: How you feel in any given moment.
Blueprint: Your structure of beliefs and values.
Hour of Power is designed to help you create rituals to condition empowering emotional states. Gaining the ultimate edge in life means experiencing the primary emotions you want regardless of life’s events, not just attaining a life that works out every way you want it to. Sometimes, life rains on your parade, but you can control what it means to you. And when you control what it means to you, you have the edge, the ultimate advantage.
To make that happen, you must recapture what’s missing—time for yourself, time to heal mentally and emotionally so that consistent space facilitates a shift in your habitual thoughts and feelings. You don’t want to wait to attain a goal you’ve been looking to reach for a long time before you start feeling good about life. You want to direct the course of your life. Fulfillment is not an automatic result of success. Fulfillment is an emotion you must nurture to enhance your quality of life as you work toward your goals and beyond.
TAKE STOCK OF YOUR EMOTIONS
Which emotions do you feel on a regular basis? Make a list of all the emotions you consistently experience in an average week.
Empowering/Positive Emotions Disempowering/Painful Emotions
THE THREE PATTERNS THAT CREATE ANY EMOTION: THE TRIAD
Anything in life you want, you only want because of the feeling you think obtaining it will give you. But the truth is that you could have that feeling right now—simply by changing
the following three patterns:
Your Physiology
Emotion is created by motion. Whatever you’re feeling right now is related to how you’re using your body.
Your Focus and Beliefs
Whatever you focus on is what you’re going to feel whether it is true or not.
Your Language
Questions: Thinking is nothing more than mentally asking and answering a series of questions. Eliminate any habitual questions that do not serve you (e.g., “What’s wrong with me?”).
Words: If you want to change your life, pay attention to the words you repeat to yourself.
Certain words can change the way you feel: I think you’re mistaken vs. I think you’re wrong vs. I think you’re lying.
Incantations: When you repeat a phrase with enough emotional intensity, you start to believe it. Utilize the power of incantations by using the ones that support you the most.
SAMPLE INCANTATIONS
Every day and in every way, I’m getting stronger and stronger.
At last, at last, the past is past; I’ve broken free and won. And now it’s time to love myself and really have some fun.
With each and every breath I take, with each and every stride I make, I feel joy and love from deep inside me.
Day by day I live my life with happiness and harmony. I share my gifts, my dreams, my heart, and love has set me free.
Tap Into Your Awareness
Get into the habit of evaluating your triad and conditioning yourself to experience the great emotions you want. What are you doing with your body? What are you focusing on or believing? What are you saying to yourself?
YOUR DAILY HABIT FOR EXTRAORDINARY HEALTH AND HAPPINESS
Train yourself to jump out of bed immediately, with no hesitation, and start your day with movement. PHASE 1: Move and Breathe (5 Minutes)
PHASE 2: Get Grateful and Visualize (10 Minutes)
PHASE 3: Use Incantations and Exercise (15–30 Minutes or More)
SESSION 3: YOUR PERSONAL BLUEPRINT THE ULTIMATE PATH TO PLEASURE OR PAIN
In the first session of Inner Strength, we discussed how the parent of action is our decisions.
However, our decisions are controlled moment to moment by our state and by our Blueprint.
In Session 2 of Inner Strength, you learned how to get into the habit of evaluating your Triad and conditioning yourself to experience the emotions you want, maximizing an empowering state, hence empowering yourself to make better decisions and gain further control over the quality of your life.
Now that you’ve listened to Personal Power and Get The Edge and really started applying the strategies to begin that process of transformation, we turn back to what ultimately controls your thoughts, feelings and emotions: your Blueprint.
BLUEPRINT: A DEEPER LOOK
When any stimulus in life happens, how do you know if it’s good or bad? How do you know if you should be angry or excited? How do you know if somebody just insulted you or teased you? When anything occurs, our minds have to decide how to respond. Whether we realize it or not, we’re constantly feeding our minds a detailed outline for why we do the things we do.
There are people who have endured incredible pain and suffering but are happy and feel more alive than others who have not had those same challenges. Why? Because they have a Blueprint that helps them find an empowering meaning behind anything that happens in life, even pain. Becoming conscious of your Blueprint gives you ultimate control to head in the direction you want to go instead of being subconsciously guided by values, beliefs or rules that aren’t serving you.
Sometimes, fine-tuning the schematics of your Blueprint may just require minor tweaks and adjustments to experience a truly fulfilling life. Other times, it may require going back to the drawing board altogether. But either way, you don’t have to be a master architect of the mind in order to create a Blueprint that works for you through good times or bad. You just need to take a closer look at the forces that impact your Blueprint.
THE THREE FORCES THAT CONTROL YOUR DESTINY
We judge whether or not we’re being punished or rewarded by life’s events based on our needs, beliefs and habitual emotions. The mind has to decipher: Is this the end or is this the beginning? Should I be angry about this situation, or should I be excited?
Unlocking the three forces that are moving you through life unconsciously, and redirecting these influences consciously, could change your life dramatically, eliminate pain, avoid unnecessary difficulties and give you more joy than you can imagine.
- THE DRIVING FORCE: THE 6 HUMAN NEEDS
Although we all have different Blueprints, different beliefs about different things, and can respond with different emotions to the same event, one thing we have in common is that we all have the same 6 Human Needs.
To review briefly from Personal Power, the 6 Human Needs are:
- Certainty: to be comfortable, avoid pain and have some level of consistency.
- Uncertainty: we need variety and change to feel alive.
- Significance: the need to feel unique, special and important.
Love and Connection: to give and receive affection and support from others.
Growth: to become more, break through stagnation. We either grow or die.
Contribution: to give beyond ourselves.
Although every single person has the same 6 Human Needs, not everybody places the same importance on the same needs. If you put more emphasis on certainty, you’re going to look at life completely differently than if you think the center of life is contribution.
Focusing more on any of the 6 Human Needs than the others is neither right nor wrong, but that focus will either create different opportunities and different problems, depending on where you are in your current Life Conditions. If you emphasize significance, giving it priority in your Blueprint may cause a conflict in the area of love and connection.
Additionally, the greater the difference is between your Life Conditions and your Blueprint, the greater the difference will be in your pleasure or satisfaction with the areas that you value most.
If you can pinpoint which needs you value most in practice—that is, which needs you strive to fulfill operationally in your everyday actions—and the needs you truly value most but may not consciously strive for, you can then close the gap and match your Blueprint with your Life Conditions.
THE THREE FORCES THAT CONTROL YOUR DESTINY
- THE GUIDING FORCE: MAP OF MEANING AND ACTION
Think of your belief system like a map. Your beliefs tell you how you get from where you are to where you want to be. Or you might think there’s a rule that says, “I’ve got to create the kind of relationship where there is always unconditional love,” or “I have to be aggressive, funny, giving,” etc.
We have a map or rulebook in our unconscious mind that guides us in how to meet our needs and hit our targets. This becomes the way we think we need to be in order to get what we want.
To change your life, you must value one of your other needs more than the top two you value now.
If one of your top two needs is love, learning to value another need more doesn’t mean that you don’t want love, or shouldn’t want it. But if your focus is, How can I GIVE love (which can meet the needs for significance, growth or contribution) instead of How do I GET love, you literally change the direction and, ultimately, the destination of your relationship or your life.
THE FUEL OF CHOICE: HABITUAL EMOTIONS
Whatever it is you say you really want, whether you really get there or not is all going to come down to the habit of emotion you get into most. If your habit of emotion is frustration, feeling like a failure or feeling like you’re not enough, that’s what you’ll unconsciously act out. However, if the habit of emotion you have is one of passion, determination, courage or playfulness, you’ve got a chance of getting the results you want.
Have you ever known someone who always finds a way to get upset or somebody who’s not really funny—but they think they are—and you find yourself laughing anyway because they’re having such a good time laughing at their own joke?
There’s a center of gravity emotionally that you come back to on a regular basis—in your relationship, in your career or with your kids or partner. You can make a billion dollars, but if the primary emotion that you feel all day long is frustration, boredom or fear, your life will be one of frustration, boredom and fear. The emotions we live with day to day control the quality of our life more than anything else.
The quality of your life is the quality of your emotions.
THE THREE P’S OF SUFFERING
Earlier we took a look at the formula for happiness, when Life Conditions equal your Blueprint.
Likewise, when Life Conditions are not equal to your Blueprint, then there will be unhappiness.
We also know that when we experience unhappiness, we have two real choices: change our Life Conditions, or change our Blueprint. But sometimes that sense of unhappiness becomes so internalized that it feels like there’s nothing you can do to change anything. That’s when unhappiness reaches a peak and turns into suffering.
Suffering is when Life Conditions don’t equal your Blueprint of how things should be, and you feel like you have no control to change it.
Psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., defined suffering as a form of learned helplessness. When you feel helpless—especially if you don’t normally think of yourself as a helpless person—that feeling intensifies the suffering. The truth is there are no victims—there are only volunteers. However, the feeling of suffering comes from three aspects:
You think the problem is permanent. No problem is permanent. No matter how big the problem is, no matter how intense it seems, it’s going to have an end. It may not end when you want, and it may not end the way you expected, but it will end. We do not always have control over life conditions, but the illusion that we can control everything except meaning is what makes us suffer.
You think the problem is pervasive. “Because this relationship is messed up, my whole life is messed up. Because my finances are in ruin, everything is over.” No problem is pervasive. It just looks that way because you keep saying it’s pervasive. Whatever the problem is, it doesn’t have to affect everything. As long as you are alive, the problem is not permanent. Again, we go back to meaning.
You think the problem is personal. “It’s something wrong with me. There’s a character defect in me. It’s just the way I am.” When you think it’s the way you are, you are not going to change it because you don’t think you can. It’s an identity issue.
No problem is permanent. No problem is pervasive. No problem is personal. It’s just a matter of shifting your Blueprint. A Blueprint can change. Everyone has had some beliefs years ago that they would have fought for, which in hindsight would be almost an embarrassment to admit today.
Blueprints change all the time, and you can accelerate that change and eliminate suffering by getting clear about where your Blueprint is strong, where it’s the essence of who you are versus something that you’ve practiced and adapted, where it’s meeting your needs and where it’s not. You can make empowering choices, change the conditions or change your Blueprint—so you are no longer controlled by something that you were previously unaware of.
