Awaken the Giant Within

Anthony Robbins

Shamou's Words of Wisdom

- Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within

"We don’t believe what we hear; rather, we are certain that our perceptions are accurate"

Doubting the accuracy of our perceptions is extremely pertinent when reading or listening to Personal Development material since what is presented in whatever it is that we are studying might be slightly or completely different from our previously held beliefs.

Many times we will be reading something and through some unbelievable trick, the brain will interpret it to be something else completely. The subconscious will do that because it wants for us to be constant at all cost. Adopting a new belief or a new way at looking at something is seen as a threat and even as an affront to our ego. After all, we already had made up our mind about certain things so, why should we replace it with somebody else’s opinion.

I have studied Awaken the Giant Within intensively for over a decade and the most challenging part was to see the book’s point of view for exactly what it was and not my own version of the subjects presented.

What I finally had to do was to read the important passages of the book, close the book and write longhand what I thought that I had just read then compare the two versions. I was amazed at what an opinionated person I was. I kept substituting my own slant on ideas and concepts instead of assimilating the ones that were presented. I was not reading Tony’s book, I was seeing what I believed to be true and not what Tony was saying. No matter how many times I had read the same passage the same distortions kept repeating themselves.

We are drawn to believe what we want to believe and most of the time, we resist any changes of long held opinions. Case in point. Creationists believe that the Universe was created as described textually in the Bible. It has been proved scientifically numerous times that such scenario was totally impossible yet, they will not change their mind, no matter what.

Just as Tony said, when a previously held belief faces a cold hard fact, the belief will always win. “We don’t believe what we hear; rather, we are certain that our perceptions are accurate.”

Return to Awaken the Giant Within - Shamou's Words of Wisdom

Return to the Regulars section

Return to the Personal Development Forum Home Page