Book Review: Awaken the Giant Within

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Awaken the Giant Within

Author: Anthony Robbins

Date: 1991

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 0-671-72734-6

Length: 539 pages

Illustrations: several graphics

Quote: “[L]ots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know.”

For those who need encouragement, Robbins wrote this book. Plenty of people felt a need for encouragement in 1991; the book sold well. Plenty of people still do feel a need for encouragement; here is some. 

Did it stir up the “giants” some people who bought this book might have hoped to “awaken” within the relatives or employees to whom they gave it? Meh. Robbins was addressing primarily the employees of corporations that (horrors!) were prospering but not “growing,” which is a real problem if a business owner has planned and budgeted on the kind of financial “growth” that was not happening in 1991. “You can do it! Just reach down into yourself and pull out a way to make the business bigger and more lucrative!” failed the reality test for many frustrated yuppies. In some cases it led to downsizing; if the business was mortgaged on the expectation of profit growth and that expectation had never been realistic, the business had to cut losses. For some yuppies, if they had an inner giant, his name was Goliath, and those other people’s choices that psychological counsellors encouraged people to ignore were David. Those were the people Barbara Ehrenreich described as having been Bright-Sided.

What Robbins was doing, as a lecturer and “life coach,” was different. His successes involved people who really could use just a sliver of Neuro-Linguistic Programming with a wee dollop of Self-Esteem Psychology on top to help them do something they wanted to do: stick to a diet and exercise plan, run a marathon, finish a manuscript. If you’re in that situation, then Awaken the Giant Within contains enough suggestions that one or more of them can probably help.

Too many psychological “self-help” books had flooded the market in the 1970s and been accepted too eagerly in the 1980s. By 1991 many people were ready for Masson’s backlash Against Therapy; after a “bright-siding” experience it seemed as if everyone was. Even older books like Thurber’s Let Your Mind Alone and Price’s Leave Your Self Alone were rediscovered on the strength of their titles. 

However, there are still people who could benefit from the basic life lessons the rest of us got from the Age of Therapy: Think. Set your own goals--even if they include "I will not let myself become all Type A and excessively goal-oriented and a nuisance to myself and others"--and work toward them. Relax and check in with yourself regularly. Identify things you're doing that are productive or counterproductive. Communicate honestly, in words, rather than relying on hints or "high-context communication" or nonverbal communication, to make sane relationships possible. Tell yourself the truth. Pray/meditate, exercise, and relax daily. 

If those are things you need further guidance to apply to your life, then you need to read (or reread) this vintage book. Either hardcover or paperback editions will cost $5 per book plus $5 per package plus $1 per online payment, but from that charge this web site will direct $1 to Robbins or a charity of his choice, and if you accept the paperback edition you can add another book of similar size (typically hardcover--this is a substantial book) to the $5 package.