The Western world LOVES the idea of make-overs.

For decades now, here in the States, television shows that have to do with people getting
fashion, grooming, make-up, plastic surgery make-overs… as well as home, bar,
restaurant, automobile, etc. make-overs have attracted huge audiences.

You’ve seen something very similar happen with information as well.

With her book, The Secret, Rhonda Byrne took the old 1950’s “Think and Grow Rich”
philosophy popularized by dudes like Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, W. Clement
Stone and vajazzled it for the current times.

But the person who has done the very best job of “Making Over” and then improving
content in the personal development arena is Tony Robbins.

 

As a kid who was trying to find his way in the personal development world he saw the
vast potential NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) had… but could clearly see that it
was never going to touch as many lives as it could if it was presented the way the
founders of it were going about both teaching and promoting it.

So, he took what he learned from getting certified, mashed it together with what Jim
Rohn had taught him and went about teaching NLP in a way that took it from wearing
coke-bottle glasses, no make-up, and being draped in a muumuu dress… to looking and
sounding as sexy as a Playboy playmate.

And THAT is the reason why millions of people know about NLP today.
Left in the hands of the purists who were teaching it in the 90’s, NLP might never have
expanded beyond the 20-seat hotel meeting rooms in California it was being taught in.
With this being the case, it is no surprise that Russell Brand’s make-over of
the storied and anciently-worded Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 Steps grabbed
Tony’s attention.

Tony Robbins’ father-in-law has 50 years in Alcoholics Anonymous program. His
daughter gave him Russell Brand’s book, Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions and
asked him to tell her what he thought of it. He liked it and gave it his stamp of approval.

So, after his sister-in-law tells Tony about this along with her own experience with the
book, next thing you know Tony is doing a 90-minute interview with Russell for his
podcast.

 

I’m going to share a quick excerpt from the introduction of the book below so that you
can get the beginning of an appreciation of how Russell did this make-over…

 

 

So imagine my initial resistance to this system, the 12 Steps, ‘Don’t tell me what to do,
I’m an individual, I’m a maverick, I’m a hustler, I’m a poet wandering through the wind-
lashed wilderness screaming my song into the po-faced and judgmental world.’

The first time I saw the Steps, I thought, ‘Hmm, a bit religious, a bit pious, a bit
ambitious’.

There was the ‘Christiany’ feel. Look at the third step, ‘turn our will and our lives over to
the care of God’ –steady on old boy, that just sounds like a cosy version of ISIS.

But now I know that you could be a devout Muslim with a sugar problem, an atheist Jew
who watches too much porn, a Hindu who can’t stay faithful, or a humanist who shops
more than they can afford to and this program will effortlessly form around your flaws
and attributes, placing you on the path you were always intended to walk, making you,
quite simply, the best version of yourself it is possible to be.

In my case, as you will see, this includes a good many flaws, some odd thoughts and
occasional behavioural outbursts.

If this is your first time looking at the steps, note your own feelings toward them.

1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had
become unmanageable.

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs.

6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

 

9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so
would injure them or others.

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.

11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with
God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the
power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this
message to addicts, and to practise these principles in all our affairs.

Here is how I look at these steps now, and it’s how I invite you to look at them too. It
certainly demystifies it. I’ve probably overcompensated with the ‘f’ word, but my point is
that this is a practical system that anyone can use.

1. Are you a bit fucked?

2. Could you not be fucked?

3. Are you, on your own, going to ‘unfuck’ yourself?

4. Write down all the things that are fucking you up or have ever fucked you up and
don’t lie, or leave anything out.

5. Honestly tell someone trustworthy about how fucked you are.

6. Well that’s revealed a lot of fucked up patterns. Do you want to stop it?
Seriously?

7. Are you willing to live in a new way that’s not all about you and your previous,
fucked up stuff? You have to.

8. Prepare to apologize to everyone for everything affected by your being so fucked
up.

9. Now apologize. Unless that would make things worse.

10. Watch out for fucked up thinking and behaviour and be honest when it happens.
11. Stay connected to your new perspective.

 

What about my precious individuality though? I can’t subject my unique mind to a
system, ‘the philosophical prison ain’t been built that can hold me, baby!’

That may well be and resisting authority is all fine and dandy, but the point of that surely
is to resist being oppressed or exploited by that authority? There is no oppression or
exploitation here.

Furthermore, and dim the lights and cue the Twilight Zone music, ‘Who is the me that I
am trying to protect?’, that’s a question that we’ll ponder over these chapters and
possibly answer. Although, I’ll be honest, the riddle of understanding the true nature of
Self has baffled the finest minds humanity has had to offer since time began. Still, I like
a challenge.

Now, in the way I had to substitute the word ‘addiction’ for ‘drugs’, you might need to
make a substitution of your own. For food, tech, gambling, obsessive relationships, porn
–in fact whatever it is that you want to change. Think of yourself as a computer with a
virus and this as a code that will cleanse you. If you follow this path, if you do the things
suggested in this book, it will induce a change in you.

END OF EXCERPT

Same core message… worded in a way that younger people who consider themselves to
be hip and people who have zero interest in a “Christiany” tone can hear.

What does nobody want to read (but should read) in your niche because it is written in
stick-shoved-up-the-ass, overly formal-tone of voice?

How could you go about re-wording the commandments so that people in today’s day
and age would genuinely get excited about an invaluable message that is being avoided
because it is currently wearing a 1920’s grandma bathing suit instead of 2020 barely-
there bikini?

And more importantly, how could you go about marketing this re-imagined, re-tooled
philosophy?

If you’re at all interested in getting your perfect prospects lathered up about a dead
message that you’re breathing new life into, then you definitely want to get your hands
on the notes we took on Dan Kennedy’s Business Building Concepts seminar where he
laid out some of the greatest ideas he’s come across for BOTH creating and selling
information…

 

 

See you on the other side,
Dexter Abraham