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Lessons in Mastery

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Most of us struggle daily to pay the bills, take our jobs to the next level, nurture our relationships, support our health and maintain our peace of mind. Wouldn't you like to say goodbye to the endless struggle to balance our lives, and greet the dawning of an exceptionally satisfying and empowered existence?

If you're ready to take command of your future and achieve your dreams, then you're ready to experience Anthony Robbins' unparalleled Lessons in Mastery.

The time to take action is now. With Lessons in Mastery, you will learn how to:

Experience true happiness Harness your decision-making power Decode the language of emotion Anticipate and prepare for major life changes Commit yourself to daily improvement Replace dormant resources with new assets that will improve the quality of your life Empower Yourself to take the right moves at the right time

Once you realize that you can make a clean break with the past you can turn your weaknesses into strengths and transform even your wildest fantasies into exciting, new realities. You will wonder why you waited so long to experience the power of Lessons in Mastery.

6 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1, 1998

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Tony Robbins

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
Profile Image for Vaishali.
1,154 reviews313 followers
December 13, 2021
An older volume of his... but an excellent, informative instruction manual on changing mental states and being ahead of the game.


NOTES :
============

There are no negative emotions. They :
-- serve a powerful purpose.
-- are a signal that a change is needed.
That’s valuable information; we don’t want to deny that emotion.


Every emotion has a message to do 6 things :
-------------------------
1. Identify the emotion
2. Acknowledge/appreciate it is offering you a message
3. Get incredibly curious
4. Feel reassured; you’ve worked this out in the past
5. Get certain; rehearse using this emotion as an empowerment tool
6. Take action


10 Emotions & Their Messages to You
------------------------------
1. UNCOMFORTABLE
Message: Change your state to clarity

2. FEAR
Message: Prepare yourself to deal with a future event

3. HURT
Message: An expectation has not been met, and you’ve accepted loss. Change your way of communicating your needs.

4. ANGER
Message: A rule was violated by someone (maybe even you), so communicate your rule upfront.

5. FRUSTRATION
Message: Change your approach to reach your goal

6. DISAPPOINTMENT
Message: Change your expectation to something more appropriate

7. GUILT
Message: You’ve violated your own standard, so clean up your act.

8. INADEQUACY
Message: Do something to get better at it

9. OVERLOADED
Message: Handle one item, you will feel like you are in control of your world.

10. LONELINESS
Message: You need a specific connection with someone.



Negative Emotions are “Action signals”
----------------------------------
- Identify the signal
- Change your state
- Clarify what you want
- Communicate or do what expresses what you want to feel or have

All signals ask you to change either your:
1. Perception
2. Procedure
If you ignore the signal, it doesn’t go away… it intensifies.

** Nothing has any meaning in life except the meaning you give it.
** Choose meanings that empower you.
** Decision is the father of actions.

Definition of Success:
----------------------
1. Consistency to build a relationship with everything you do
2. Constant increase in the quality of all areas of your life


The 2 controlling elements of decision-making:
------------------------------
1. Personal Standards
2. Core beliefs
--- Raise the quality of these two
--- Commit to constant, never-ending improvement

** The biggest mistake people make in their lives is they hate repetition

** The best time to solve a problem is before it becomes one.

** L.U.C.K. = labor under correct knowledge

** Success in life can only be measured in the level of our fulfillment.

** Whatever you look for, you will find.

** Whatever we feel is not based on reality, but our focus.

** Ask : “Who’s already getting results that I can model?”

** Martin Luther King didn’t give up the question until he found real answers. That’s a leader. That’s the ability we all have.

** Keep asking. The answer will come.


Questions create momentum. They immediately change :
------------------------------------
1. Your personal focus & state
2. What you’re considering or deleting from your life
3. Your resource base

Empowering Questions :
-------------------------
1. Focus on solutions
2. Move you to action
3. Make you responsible & give you the power to change
4. Give deeper sense of meaning
5. Help you learn anything from the situation

Disempowering Questions :
-------------------------
1. Focus on the problem only, not the solution
2. Make the problem bigger than it really is
3. Make you unresourceful and stuck
4. Make you feel hopeless
5. Create endless/loop questions

** If you want to be a leader, you cannot live your life in reaction.

** Your life metaphors (life’s a game/test/journey) don’t have to be elegant. They just have to be effective in getting you to take action.

** It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

** If you don’t have strong enough references, create them or go get them. Every leader in life made up their own references.

** If you don’t take control of this process, you’re going to pay a big price.

** Everyday we need to use faith in order to survive and succeed.

** God’s delays are not God’s denials.

** You want to be a hero? Learn to create certainty in a climate of fear.

** Fears cut away at our power.


Do a 7-Day Positivity Challenge
----------------------------
1. Establish the habit of noticing what you do have, not what you don’t have.
2. Decide right now to be curious of instead of judging people
3. Find something to appreciate
(Warning: after 4-5 days of this going well, something negative will happen... a test to see how committed you really are.)


** There is a price for going with the flow.

** Feel joyous and excited

** Information x Focus = Personal Reality


Ensure clear, honest information :
---------------------------------
1. What is the best source of info ?
2. What info do I specifically need ?
3. What is the timeline to make it happen ?


How to Change :
-------------
1. Decide what you want. What's preventing you from getting it?
2. Get leverage.
---Link enough pleasure to the idea of changing
---Present situation must become so painful that change becomes a must
---Change is not a matter of ability, but motivation
3. Interrupt the old pattern
4. Create a compelling alternative
5. Condition new pattern til it remains consistent
6. Test it.


HOW TO WIN THE GAME OF LIFE :
------------------------
** Anticipation is the ultimate advantage

** Success is defined by your ability to solve problems

** What will be the standards tomorrow, and how can we create those today?

** This is done in sports, where Gretsky shot the puck to where it was going, or where basketball players pass the ball to where their teammate is about to run


Art of Regeneration:
----------------
1. Reinvent yourself
--- Envision how you want things to be
--- Decide to do it
--- Communicate what the new commitment is
2. Re-engineer your systems
3. Reassure the team
4. Retrain team for maximal efficiency
5. Revitalize by taking immediate action


** The media massively shifts societal rules

** You must study paradigm shifts. Ignorance equals poverty.

** People get unemployed because they're so caught up making a living rather than designing a life


How to avoid being caught up in your own paradigm :
------------------------------------
1. Beware of your arrogant or short-sighted convictions
2. The only certainty is that there will always be uncertainty
3. Life happens in cycles; think cyclically, not linearly
4. Ask questions no one has the courage to ask
5. Recognize life's inconsistencies as possibility, variation, and opportunity


Anticipate trends :
----------------
1. Study technology changes
2. Ask: "What does society sees as necessity, rather than accessory ?"
3. Study the consequences of actions
4. Those who eliminate pain are leaders of our culture as a whole
5. Know what people value


Become a trend-creator or paradigm-shifter :
----------------------------
1. Clear vision
2. Ask "What is currently impossible in my industry that - if it were possible - would change all the rules of the game?"
3. Break the rules
4. Life rewards those who contribute on a massive scale



.
Profile Image for Amir Tesla.
163 reviews769 followers
April 2, 2017
Well, this one was actually very good, lots of great ideas and great psychological tips and tricks to employ for both emotional well being and business improvement.

Emotions:
The first part was about emotions and how to manage them. A great insight I learned is that each emotion we feel, is there to send us message, for instance:

1. FEAR: Prepare yourself and get ready to deal with a future event
2. INADEQUACY: Do something to get better at it

3. HURT: An expectation has not been met, and you’ve accepted loss. Change either your way of communicating your needs or alter your interpretation of the situation.

4. ANGER: A rule of yours was violated by someone (maybe even you), so communicate your rule upfront.

5. FRUSTRATION: Change your approach to reach your goal
6. DISAPPOINTMENT: Change your expectation to something more appropriate,

7. GUILT
Message: You’ve violated your own standard, so get yourself together and rebuild your self-esteem.

In short, Tony argues that emotions are actions signals, and after detecting one, there are two approaches you can take:
1. Change your perception (interpretation)
2. Change your procedure
Not taking action leads to amplification of the emotion.

Regarding personal development, Tony argues we make our decisions based upon two factors:
1. Our personal standard
2. Our core beliefs

He also believes the fundamental attribute to life mastery is what he calls "CONEI": Constant, Never Ending Improvement (it actually is the core philosophy of Jim Rohn to whom Tony Robins was a student)

Questions:
One of the greatest things Tony focused on all over the tape and I've had the privilege incorporating this awesome fact into my life is "Asking the right questions". Whatever you ask you shall receive an answer for. So for instance in case of an event imagine which of the following questions provides you a better answer:
1. Oh god why all these happen to me? Why me? Why am I so unlucky?
2. How can I benefit from all these? How can I prevent further occurrences of such events?

This is actually one of the core mechanisms of our brain, providing answers in form of insights to questions we deem important. So constantly ask yourself empowering questions. If you want to be great, ask great questions.

Metaphors
In the next part of his recipe for mastery, Tony makes a great emphasis on metaphors we opt for different areas of our lives, and actually it's incredible how these metaphors subconsciously forms and drives our emotions and actions. For example What is life?
If you perceive life to be a war, you begin to adopt a series of beliefs that effect the way you feel and think about life.
So beware, of the metaphors you choose for your life, your career, your relationships etc.

The power of contrast
One of the most potent tools to overcome bad emotions is unarguably to use contrast. A kid was complaining of his bad shoes, her mom took her and showed him children not having legs...
It's actually one of the core philosophies of stoics. So use the power of contrast in hardships and push yourself forward

Personal Reality
A vitally important attitude in life is the input we feed out minds, I've seen numerous times from different great achievers like Elon Musk, Tony Robins, Deren Hardy, Peter Diamandis advocating this idea of not watching the news, and the reason lies in this very basic formula:
Information*Focus = Personal reality. It's really simple, daily exposure to certain ideas and behaviors shapes your mental model of life which crystallizes into reality. So beware of what you read, who you spend your time with, what you watch and what you listen to.

Creating rapid, sustainable changes:
An awesome part of this program was the recipe for change which is as follows:

1. Decide what you want. What's preventing you from getting it?
----Example: Instead of stating what you don't want like I don't wanna smoke, I don't wanna be fat, say what precisely want. Usually what prevents everyone to make their desired change is the pain they've subconsciously associated with the new behavior or it's simply the fear of change itself.
2. Get leverage.
---Link enough pleasure to the idea of changing
---Present situation must become so painful that change becomes a must
---Change is not a matter of ability, but motivation
-----Example: As long as you try to go on a diet but dieting means pain to you, you're resolution is doomed to failure.
3. Interrupt the old pattern (visualize vividly in your mind's eye a delicate situation of the new change)
4. Create a compelling alternative (replace the routing (smoking, eating sweets etc) and replace them with something healthy)
5. Condition new pattern til it remains consistent (repeat the new behavior until it's hardwired in your brain and automated). You can actually condition your mind by merely visualization since the mind doesn't know the difference between the reality and imagination.
6. Test it. (You can test to see if the change has taken place by sheer act of visualization again, imagine the tempting situation see in you're minds eye if you succumb or pierce through)

Final word
I used to think that Tony is just another show man of pop-psych culture but after doing some research and occasional exposure to his teachings here and there I noticed, dude, he really is a big guy. After all I guess it would be wise to listen to who has built a 500 million dollar fortune out of nothing ....
The program was very informative and insightful and definitely recommend it.

If you had trouble finding this program just let me know to provide you a direct link.
58 reviews1 follower
June 7, 2012
I've listened to a and learned from this book at least 50 times the whole way through and it has honestly changed my life. This is a must for everyone as far as I'm concerned.
Profile Image for Connie Clay.
Author 2 books13 followers
April 15, 2015
There are several great lessons in this book. One of the things I learned is that change happens in a moment. Robbins advises the reader to start the process by making a decision such as deciding to stop smoking or deciding to start exercising. Another important lesson is that joy and happiness are a choice. We can choose to be happy now. We don't have to wait until we're debt free, self-employed, etc.
87 reviews46 followers
July 10, 2015
it was ok. i'm a tony robbins fan no doubt, and his speaking and passion was quite valuable to me in the past. i think the lessons in this book are also valuable but not very new to me anymore. not to say i've mastered his teachings here, but i feel i dont need to read this stuff as much and do need to go out and just do it..
Profile Image for Cara.
Author 21 books101 followers
Currently reading
June 14, 2025
6/13/25 - listened to disc 2 yesterday, close to the stress climax of a launch. (for my future self reading this, it was Bestseller Launch Studio.). Three things stood out:

1. The point of goals is not whether you achieve them or not. It’s who you become in the process.

Damn, when you write it down, it just sounds like the same shit I’ve heard a million times before! But it felt totally different. It’s not some motivational poster bullshit. It’s like, what did you come here for, really?

I believe I came to this life to spread love and have adventures—and to grow, grow, grow!

To me, what this is saying is that the goals are just the mechanism by which we do that—the practice exercises for spiritual growth. When I remember that, I care a lot more about doing the hard things and leaving it all on the field, and a lot less about whether that results in the $X I was hoping for.

For example, all this time I’ve been thinking the certification program I offered a few years ago was a success because I sold all the seats and everyone’s launches went well. But the bigger success was becoming the person who could sell all the seats in that program and then deliver it.

For that program, I knew that was the game going in, but usually I don’t. TR has made me realize that’s always the game. And since it is, the money now seems like no big deal, just like everyone says it will! This is so cool!

2. The bigger the obstacles and challenges on the way to a goal, the bigger the transformation and the bigger the hero you become.

Also, if you’re at the part where it’s all pain and misery, and it seems impossible, and you just want to give up… that’s great news! It means you’re almost through it the transformation and everything is about to get awesome. Woohoo!

3. If you’re not doing incantations every day, you’re really following his programs! I didn’t think they were that important, but before hosting a workshop, I went for a walk and did “Now I am the voice. I came to lead, not follow. I came to believe, not doubt. I came to create, not destroy. I am a force for good. I AM a leader. Set a new standard. Defy the odds. Step up!”

It really did put me back in a state like i was in the live/zoom thing of his I attended in March. I felt so strong and calm and confident! I went in there and delivered an absolute smash hit of a workshop—best I’ve done yet, by far.
Profile Image for Gediminas.
228 reviews15 followers
September 26, 2017
Tony Robbins is a remarkable man, as I feel he could talk about anything hook you with unmatched passion. There's much to learn from that.

As I was not looking for a specific fix, I did not get immersed in the content - my takeaways are just some tips, structure or metaphors.

Would recommend to anyone who's not happy with their life situation, though.
343 reviews17 followers
September 29, 2020
I'm not a big fan of Tony, in fact, I don't like him much at all. BUT as a NLPer, I got a ton of his programs in the past and have decided to parse through some of them now. This program is excellent! I greatly enjoyed my time with it and learned a lot of things about emotions and stress. Really changed my opinion of the guy, at least older Tony. Highly recommend.
Profile Image for Seemy.
892 reviews10 followers
December 21, 2023
Really good audio...tony takes some of his best principles and compresses them to take action steps now, highly recommended to fellow Robbins fans...

To Our Continued Success!
Seemy
https://Waseem.tv/Blog

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Profile Image for Sven.
Author 1 book4 followers
December 14, 2016
Tony Robbins describes negative emotions as "action signals" that need to be dealt with immediately by taken action, otherwise we'll remain in a state of unhappiness.

He puts them into ten broad categories:

1. Uncomfortable
2. Afraid
3. Hurt
4. Angry
5. Frustrated
6. Disappointed
7. Guilty
8. Inadequate
9. Overloaded
10. Lonely

This is especially helpful for writers, because it connects a person's feelings to the actions this person has to take in order to overcome his problems.

Tony Robbins' motto is: Master your emotions. Don't let them master you.
Profile Image for Jo.
297 reviews15 followers
September 20, 2014
It was a very inspirational audio book with an interesting perspective on life. It is a 7 hour recording so it took me a good few days to listen to the whole thing. But I enjoyed it. I even took down notes. What I didn't like is that every suggestion came with at least 5 steps and sometimes each step had a few steps within them! In a nutshell he teaches that we have more control over our own lives and our happiness than we realize.
Profile Image for Lisa.
79 reviews2 followers
February 9, 2015
Tony is great. I love listening to his audiobooks because he has so much energy and enthusiasm. He really gets my attention! I was already familiar with most of what he talks about in this book, but it is good to hear it over and over again. What you put into your mind matters, and it might as well be good, positive, encouraging stuff (most of the time).

If you haven't listened to Tony yet, now would be a good time!
Profile Image for Shawn.
605 reviews50 followers
May 27, 2011
Great life lessons to live by. This one will be on my shelf to be listened to again. The enthusiasm that Tony Robbins displays is infectious and helps you implement many of these valuable lessons to help master many of these fundamental rules or suggestions.
Profile Image for Mark Manderson.
599 reviews36 followers
August 27, 2016
Anything of Robbins has provided me with so much value.
Highlights of these audio sessions:
Ask Yourself Daily:
1. What did I learn today?
2. What did I improve or contribute today?
3. What did I enjoy today?
Anticipate problems before they happen.
Profile Image for Ashik Uzzaman.
237 reviews16 followers
December 5, 2016
A good read. Not that all the info in this book are new to me, but what I got at different times in different contexts - I see it conveniently collected in one place. And of course a few new things as well.
Profile Image for Cindy.
353 reviews
September 12, 2008
Outstanding lessons for life. Tony Robbins is an awesome motivator! I will listen to this again!
Profile Image for Howard.
3 reviews6 followers
January 12, 2009
I will be listening to these CD's again, excellent material
Profile Image for Dan.
74 reviews11 followers
May 27, 2010
Tony Robbins always has some great ideas to help improve your life.
22 reviews
Read
October 22, 2010
This is a great audio book, I listened to it at least twice and its about 6 CD's
Profile Image for Emad Fouad.
7 reviews1 follower
March 25, 2013
I've only listened to some tapes of this book. they are fantastic. I think they can make the stone move !! but I want a free version of the book to read
Profile Image for Martha.
214 reviews
June 30, 2013
Robbins is always a motivational speaker. listening to this book was much more powerful than reading. Just the rich amount of information vs. motivation.
2 reviews
July 8, 2013
Very insightful. Helps you ask interesting questions about yourself. If you follow the different techniques that he lays out, you can honestly change your life.
Profile Image for Nate Hewitt.
67 reviews2 followers
November 15, 2013
This Audio book was great. So much life changing advice, tools and ideas. Tony is one of my all time favourites.
Profile Image for Robert Laffoday.
66 reviews2 followers
May 1, 2014
THis is the only one better than Dale Carnegie's,in my opinion
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