Tony Robbins -Re-Awaken_the_Giant_Within

of me?” you’re going to focus on how you’re being taken advantage of, whether it’s true or not. If you
ask, “How can I turn this around?” you’ll get a more empowering answer. Questions are such a powerful
tool for changing your life, I’ve reserved the next chapter to talk exclusively about them. They are one
of the most powerful and simple ways to change the way you’re feeling about virtually anything, and
thus change the direction of your life at a moment’s notice. Questions provide the key to unlocking our
unlimited potential.
One of the best illustrations of this is the story of a young man who grew up in Alabama. About fifteen
years ago, a seventh-grade bully picked a fight with him, punched him in the nose and knocked him
out. When the boy regained consciousness, he vowed to get revenge and kill the bully. He went home,
grabbed his mother’s .22, and set out to find his target. In a matter of moments, his destiny hung in the
balance.
With the bully in his gun sight, he could simply fire and his schoolmate would be history. But at that
very instant, he asked himself a question: What will happen to me if I pull the trigger? And another
image came into focus: a picture as painful as any imaginable. In that split second which would take the
boy’s life in one of two very different directions, he visualized, with chilling clarity, what it would be like
to go to jail. He pictured having to stay up all night to keep the other prisoners from raping him. That
potential pain was greater than the anticipation of revenge. He rearmed his gun, and shot a tree.
This boy was Bo Jackson, and as he describes this scene in his biography, there’s no question that at that
pivot point in his life, the pain associated with prison was a force more powerful than the pleasure of
satisfaction he thought killing the other boy would bring. One change in focus, one decision about pain
and pleasure, probably made the difference between a kid with no future and one of the greatest athletes
of our time.
EMOTIONS OF POWER
I’d like to introduce you to a fellow named Walt. Walt is a good, decent human being who always tries
to do the right thing. He has his life down to a science: everything in its proper place and in the correct
order. Weekdays he arises at exactly 6:30, showers and shaves, gulps down some coffee, grabs his lunch
pail filled with the requisite bologna sandwich and Twinkies, and runs out the door by 7:10 to spend
forty-five minutes in traffic. He arrives at his desk by 8:00, where he sits down to do the same job he’s
been doing for the past twenty years.
At 5:00 he goes home, pops the top on a “cold one,” and grabs the TV remote control. An hour later
his wife comes home and they decide whether to eat leftovers or throw a pizza in the microwave. After
dinner he watches the news while his wife bathes their kid and puts him to bed. By no later than 9:30
he’s in the sack. He devotes his weekends to yard work, car maintenance, and sleeping in. Walt and his
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