The Answer

In the September ’08 IRON MAN I reviewed The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Assaraf and Murray’s The Answer takes the idea of the law of attraction and neural reconditioning to the next level so that you can better understand how reprogramming your subconscious can push you to success faster.

The subtitle is Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom and Live an Extraordinary Life, but much of its contents can be applied to bodybuilding goals as well. Throughout the book the authors provide space to write down your specific one-year goals, inventory of achievement so far, inventory of strengths and abilities, affirmations, etc. Those are all necessary to help you program your subconscious mind to believe so you can start achieving. 

You need to truly see yourself as you want to be and actually feel what it’s like. Otherwise the doubt and pessimism you’ve been programmed with throughout your life will dominate and hold you back: “When it comes to imagining and articulating a vision…the consious brain is brilliant. But for that vision to turn into reality, it has to be imprinted as a new set of instructions onto the nonconscious brain.”

In other words, you need to shed the hardgainer label and picture the muscular body you want, actually experiencing what it’s like to have that type of large, muscular physique. The book explains why that’s necessary and provides the exact methods for doing it. Remember how Arnold used to imagine his biceps as mountains? His belief was so strong that he imprinted the image in his subconscious, and his biceps eventually resembled miniature mountain peaks. This book shows you how and why that works—and how to make it work for you.

The book is filled with analogies tied to weight training. That’s because it’s a lot like strength training: “The real power of neural reconditioning lies not so much in exactly how you do it, but that you do it every day, day after day, week after week.” Why? “Your mind is like mental muscle, and you want to start out working this mental muscle just as you would a biceps or quadriceps.”

The answer to your bodybuilding and life success could very well be in The Answer. It’s a definite eye-opener,  a mind-expander and a must-read for bodybuilders or anyone striving for ultimate success. IM