Tony Robbins -Re-Awaken_the_Giant_Within

Knowing a person’s values gives you a fix on their compass, and allows you to have insight into their
decision-making.
Knowing your own hierarchy is also absolutely critical because your top values are those that are
going to bring you the most happiness. Of course, what you really want to do is set it up so that you’re
meeting all of your values every day. If you don’t, you’ll experience what seems like an inexplicable
feeling of emptiness or unhappiness.
My daughter, Jolie, lives an incredibly rich life in which her highest values are almost always met. She is
also a wonderful actress, dancer, and singer. At the age of sixteen, she auditioned to perform at Disneyland
(something she knew would fulfill her value of accomplishment if she succeeded). Incredibly, she beat out
700 other girls to win a part in the fabled amusement park’s Electric Light Parade.
Initially, Jolie was ecstatic. We, along with her friends, were all so delighted and proud of her, and we
would frequently drive up on weekends to see her perform. Her schedule, however, was extremely
taxing. Jolie had to perform every weeknight as well as weekends, and her school term wasn’t over
for the summer yet. So she had to drive from San Diego to Orange County every evening in rush-hour
traffic, rehearse and perform for several hours, then drive back home in the wee hours of the night so she
could get up again early the next morning in time for school. As you can imagine, the daily commute
and long hours soon turned the experience into a grueling ordeal, not to mention the extremely heavy
costume she had to wear that hurt her back.
Even worse, however, from Jolie’s perspective, was the fact that her demanding schedule cut drastically
into her personal life and prevented her from spending any time with our family and her friends. I began
to notice her wandering about in a series of very unresourceful emotional states. She would cry at the
drop of a hat, and began to complain about things on a consistent basis. This was totally unlike Jolie
The final straw was that the whole family was preparing to go to Hawaii for our three-week Certification
program— everyone except Jolie, who had to stay home in order to continue to work at Disneyland.
One morning, she hit threshold and came to me in tears, undecided and confused. She felt so frustrated,
so unhappy and unfulfilled, yet she had achieved what seemed like an unbelievable goal only six
months earlier. Disneyland had become painful for her. Why? Because it became an obstacle to her
ability to spend time with all those she loved most. Plus Jolie always had felt that the time she spent at
Certification, where she participated as a trainer, helped her to grow more than virtually anything else in
her life. Many of her friends from around the country attended this program each year, and Disneyland
was beginning to feel frustrating to her because she really didn’t feel like she was expanding or growing
there at all. She would feel pain if she decided to come with us to Certification (because she didn’t want
to be a quitter) and pain if she continued to work at Disneyland because it would mean she’d miss out
on the things that seemed so important to her.
We sat down together so that I could help her take a close look at what her top four
values were in life. They turned out to be: 1) love, 2) health and vibrancy, 3) growth, and 4)
accomplishment. By turning to her values, I knew that I could help her get the clarity she needed to
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