Unlimited Power Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: Unlimited Power is a self-help classic, which breaks down how Tony Robbins has helped top performers achieve at their highest level and how you can use the same mental and physical tactics to accomplish your biggest goals in life.

Read in: 4 minutes

Favorite quote from the author:

Unlimited Power Summary

Audio Summary

Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account:

Tony Robbins is like a giant bear with a huge heart. If you watch any interview with him or a clip of one of his workshops, you can instantly tell that he really cares about whoever else is in the room. He’s spent most of his life helping people with their performance and level of personal achievement, but has been venturing into other topics, like personal finance, in recent years.

Unlimited Power is the first book he’s written, but the third and final of his books to make it on Four Minute Books. After his absolute classic, Awaken The Giant Within and Money (one of the top 3 reads on Four Minute Books), this will complete the set.

Published in 1986 (!), this describes the new science of personal achievement, in Tony’s words, much of which still applies today in the very same way it did 30 years ago.

Here are my 3 favorite lessons:

  1. Use the 5-step modeling process to match the work of elite performers.
  2. Improve your memory and creativity by looking in the right direction.
  3. Find the right way of communication to make sure your relationship lasts.

Ready to unleash your inner reservoir of unlimited power? Here. We. Go!

If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.

Download PDF

Lesson 1: Perform like the elite by modeling their behavior in 5 steps.

Tony is a big fan of modeling. Basically, this comes down to looking at how the best of the best in any given field go about their work, and then trying to emulate it as best as possible.

For example, when Tony was approached by the US army to help its soldiers improve their shooting accuracy, he instantly took the job, knowing full well he had no clue about shooting guns. But he didn’t need to. When he arrived, 70% of the recruits passed the final test. When he left, 100% did.

What he did was to simply take the top performers, analyze how they thought, moved and behaved, and then told the other recruits to model their behavior in what he calls the 5-step modeling process:

  1. Find a top performer and study their exact movements and actions.
  2. Practice imitating these movements.
  3. Visualize the top performer in perfect flow, excelling at their craft.
  4. Imagine yourself as that performer, executing it all perfectly.
  5. Step up and go for it!

This way, you’ll cut the learning curve short and reach a higher level of achievement much faster.

Lesson 2: Look in the right direction to improve your memory and creativity.

Yup, you read that right. Where you look can change how creative or good at memorizing you are. For example, can you think of a classic image of someone who’s thinking hard about something? Where do those person’s eyes go?

I’m sure you can think of at least one example where someone’s holding their chin with their thumb and index finger, while looking up and to the right. The reason this is a classic symbol of thinking or trying to remember something is that it’s what we actually do. It’s a standard reflex when we want to recall something – and it really helps. Try it the next time you want to recall your favorite recipe’s ingredients!

Note: For left-handed people, this can sometimes be looking up and to the left.

There’s even a similar trick for creative thinking: If you have to come up with a creative solution to a problem, like an idea for what images to use on a website or in an ad campaign, look sideways and to the right. Looking sideways helps our brains tap into their creative potential and come up with new images.

Crazy, huh?

Lesson 3: Figure out your partner’s favorite way of communicating to show your love the right way.

When we’re in love, we all have different ways of expressing it. You might be the kind of person who constantly says “I love you,” or gives lots of compliments. Or, you’re a bit more like me, and love to write little notes, give gifts, and show your love that way.

Whichever love communication style you have, it makes one thing pretty clear: your partner has one too, and it’s important for you to figure it out.

If your girlfriend loves hearing you say “I love you,” yet you only ever leave her notes, she’ll at some point feel unloved. Not because you don’t love her, but because she doesn’t receive it, simply because of the way you communicate it.

The three most common types are:

  1. Auditory – someone who loves to hear words of appreciation and places importance on what is said.
  2. Visual – a person who places emphasis on visual cues, like love letters, notes, flowers, and other tokens of appreciation.
  3. Kinesthetic – someone who prefers touching and physical communication, like a pat on the back, stroking their hair, etc.

Of course people can also be a combination of the two – so experiment with all of them, find out what makes your partner tick, and thus make sure you get your love across.

Unlimited Power Review

Unlimited Power is a great starter’s book for people new in self-improvement. Not as wishy-washy as most of the newer books, covers all areas of life and is still rock solid. If you just recently got into personal development, give this a go!

Who would I recommend the Unlimited Power summary to?

The 22 year old Marine applicant, who hopes to get into the military soon, the 33 year old creative writer, who spends much of her time coming up with new ideas for articles, and anyone who feels like their partner sometimes doesn’t appreciate their compliments.

Last Updated on August 6, 2022

Rate this book!
This book has an average rating of 4.6 based on 9 votes.

Niklas Göke

Niklas Göke is an author and writer whose work has attracted tens of millions of readers to date. He is also the founder and CEO of Four Minute Books, a collection of over 1,000 free book summaries teaching readers 3 valuable lessons in just 4 minutes each. Born and raised in Germany, Nik also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration & Engineering from KIT Karlsruhe and a Master’s Degree in Management & Technology from the Technical University of Munich. He lives in Munich and enjoys a great slice of salami pizza almost as much as reading — or writing — the next book — or book summary, of course!