Barack Obama, Tony Robbins, and Change

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama made “change” the overriding theme in his successful quest for the office. Now that he has made it to “the top”, how will he be able to effect that change?

I’m a fan of self-improvement guru Anthony Robbins. As a matter of fact, I wish I had instilled within myself more of his suggestions about how to view my life and how to go about fulfilling my own dreams. In his book Giant Steps, Robbins distills the concept of “change” into three crucially important statements. First the change MUST happen. Making it anything less than an absolute requirement dilutes its importance and gives in to the inertia of stagnation that stands in the way of change. Second, I MYSELF must make the change. This means that the one who wants the change must assume the personal responsibility and exercise the personal authority to bring that change about, without just sitting back hoping that someone else will do it. Believe me, chances are that no one else will! Third, if I want to change something, then I must believe that I CAN change it. There has to be a sense of hope and optimism regarding the attainability of the desired change. Otherwise, it would be too easy, as soon as the going got tough, to stop and downsize one’s goals for change.

I wonder whether our new president will apply Tony Robbins’s suggestions for making change possible. Not that he would have necessarily read the passage from Giant Steps that I read, but Obama strikes me as one who may have been a student of his teachings at one time. It will be interesting to see how he tackles the inevitable obstacles in his path toward the change he desires for America.