Part 4 – Review of Tony Robbins’ Ultimate Edge

Day 6 of PPC – The six human needs, and how to use them
In this session, Tony discusses how all human experiences can be boiled down into four classes, each determined by the pleasure we feel, if it serves us, if it serves others, and if it serves a greater good.

Experience Class Matrix

	Class 1	Class 2	Class 3	Class 4
Feels good	Yes	No	Yes	No
Is good for you	Yes	Yes	No	No
Is good for others	Yes	Yes	No	No
Serves the greater good	Yes	Yes	No	No

We all love Class 1 experiences; these are the ones that feel effortless for you; things that you really look forward to doing. On the other hand, most people try to avoid Class 2 experiences because they get any pleasure from it.

On the flip side, we have Class 3 experiences that feel good, but ultimately destroy our quality of life and give us pain. An example of a Class 3 experience would be eating to excess; it feels good in t the moment, but ultimately it will lead to poor health. Finally, Class 4 experiences are negative through and through. An example here would be smoking, which most people would say doesn’t feel good the first time they did it, yet they continued to do it… and we all know the long-term effects of smoking.

According to Tony, the key to a happy and fulfilling life is turning Class 2 experiences – the ones you try to avoid despite them being good for you and others – into Class 1 experiences. But how? The secret is understanding and using the six basic human needs, which are:

1. Certainty – feeling of comfort
2. Uncertainty – variety, surprise
3. Significance – sense that we are unique in some way
4. Love and Contribution – sense of connection with others
5. Growth – everything that is alive is either growing or dying… we need to grow
6. Contribution – a need to grow beyond ourselves

This session’s assignment is to take a good look at a Class 2 experience in your life and then analyse the six basic needs to find out how that experience ranks for each need. Then, figure out what you could do to make that experience a positive one in each of the six basic needs, which then turns it into a Class 1 experience.

My thoughts
Since I listened to this session, I have used my new knowledge of the 6 human needs several times, both in comprehension my own motivation and the motivation of other people. In particular, this new knowledge has helped me better understand why I tend to avoid taking certain actions, even though I know these actions would ultimately benefit me.

So, this is a great session that provides indispensible understanding of what motivates human behaviour.

Day 7 of PPC – RPM, the Rapid Planning Method
If we’re really honest with ourselves, we’ll all admit that we’ve set goals for ourselves and then never followed through with action to achieve that goal. Haven’t you ever set a New Year’s resolution—like getting back in shape, for example—and then did nothing, or very little to achieve it? Maybe you went out and joined a gym, and worked out a few times, but you were pretty much done by February or March. I know I’ve been guilty of that! The reason? It’s because I didn’t have a compelling enough reason and a good enough plan.

In this session, Tony focuses on time—specifically achieving what you want to achieve in the time you have. Most of us have tried our hand at various methods to manage our time, from calendars to day planners and agendas on our laptops or smartphones. And I would guess that most of us have used those tools to some level of success, but we really didn’t achieve what we want to achieve. Here, Tony introduces us to a method he calls RPM, the Rapid Planning Method, which turns our focus on what we want to achieve, and why, rather than on our ‘to-do’ lists.

In brief, RPM boils down to answering three questions:

1. What’s the result I want to achieve?
2. Why do I really want it?
3. What’s my plan to achieve it?

The assignment for this session is to look at several areas of your life – for example, your health, finances, family, career, etc. – determine what you’d like to achieve in that area in the next 90 days, the next 30 days and this week, then think about why you want to achieve it and then come up with a MAP (Massive Action Plan) to achieve your outcome.

My thoughts
As I mentioned in one of my earlier reviews, the first step to getting anywhere is knowing where you want to go. This session really helped me take a look at several areas of my life where I felt I needed to make some improvements. I completed this session several weeks ago, and at the time I wrote down actions I intended to take to achieve my goals. Looking back on my notes, I’m happy to say that I’m still on track with most of them. So, I’d have to say that RPM is a worthwhile method to achieving your goals.

Next up: the Get the Edge sessions…