I remember the day I bought the book ‘Unlimited Power’ by Anthony Robbins distinctly. It was the day after my 18th birthday from a local Waterstones bookshop. You see, I been kindly given some vouchers as a present, and with £40 burning a hole in my way-to-baggy jeans, I decided to go and blow the lot on a selection of books.
At that time I was really into Eastern philosophy, and the whole Zen Buddhist vibe. So naturally I went straight to the Mind, Body & Spirit section, and picked out ‘The Beginners Guide To Meditation’ and ‘An Introduction to Zen Buddhism’ and another title that eludes me right now. With about £15 left and all out of ideas, I started randomly looking around other sections, now fully confuzzled with information overload, I scanned the last shelf before leaving. Like a full moon on a clear night, something shiny caught my eye. That something was the big gold lettering of ‘Unlimited Power’ with a picture of a cheesy looking yuppie chap called Anthony Robbins on the front cover.
I hadn’t heard of Tony Robbins back then, and to be fair hadn’t really been explicitly aware of the personal development movement either. It was before the world-wide-intraweb and mobile access, so I only had my own wits to go on. At £12.99 it was a gamble of sorts, but that gold billboard font looked so impressive I knew I was going to be taking it home!
Ironically, despite being initially impressed, I didn’t start reading the book until about 3 years later. However as soon as I stared reading I knew that it was a match made in heaven, it just seemed to summarise my own feelings of disillusionment, and the nagging doubt that I wasn’t making the most of my abilities. Not only did it fill me with feelings of empathy, it had the solutions written down in black and white!
Every page I turned, opened up a new set of possibilities, of directions I could go in. ‘Why didn’t I come up with that!’, ‘That makes total sense now’, Must sleep, eyes heavy’ were some of the reoccurring thoughts that flittered through my mind over the next few days of intensive reading.
I think it’s important to realise that this book is over 10/15 years old now, so upon re-reading it can sound a little dated in places, especially when discussing NLP, or NAC (Neuro-Associative Conditioning) as Robbins like to refer to it. But despite it’s maturity as a product, it’s still has bags to offer to the first time reader. It’s witty and compelling to read, inspiring throughout and laced with great one-liners and examples of how the techniques actually work. It’s written in a really down-to-earth conversational style that leads you into each chapter nicely, and keeps the pages turning long after it was time to stop.
For those that like to know the specifics, the chapters in this book are as follows:
- How to find out what you really want
- The Seven Lies of Success
- How to reprogram your mind in minutes to eliminate fears and phobias
- The secret of creating instant rapport with anyone you meet
- How to duplicate the success of others
- The Five Keys to Wealth and Happiness
Unlimited Power was a breakthrough work for Tony Robbins, it managed to compress all that he was teaching in his seminars, and living by as a dedicated member of the personal development club, into one 448 page book. There’s a part where Tony talks about the writing process for Unlimited Power, and describes how he forced himself to write chapter after chapter late into the night whilst touring the country doing his energy filled, fire walking seminars. The lack of free time to write and the tight deadline set by his publisher, pushed Tony up a gear… The result, is nothing short of a concise personal development classic.
In closing, I’m not really one for over-hyping, at the end of the day it’s just a book, but it’s a book that I can’t really fault in terms of content, especially for someone looking to take a cheap entry point into the work of the multi-talented personal development king Anthony ‘Tony’ Robbins. My copy has been read at least 6 times, and hasn’t lost any of it’s appeal over the years. It’s an easy read and one that can give you a good sharp burst of inspiration and motivation to get your life on track when you need it.
If that floats your boat, you can get more info on Unlimited Power using the amazon.co.uk link (right)
