What Everyone Gets Wrong About Personal Growth - Robin Sharma

what does true wealth look like to you rich Family Life pursuing my craft even if there's no applause Serenity I think the new luxury good treating my readers with respect and honoring what I call the sacred Bond enjoying my portfolio of enthusiasms is a form of well and doing whatever I can do to make the world a better place as as uh idealistic as that might sound it's a great source of Joy great source of Happiness to do whatever I can to make the lives of people better I like the idea of a portfolio of enthusiasms as opposed to a portfolio of Investments it's really what the wealth money can't buy is is about I don't I'm not saying a portfolio of Investments financially is not important but what's the point of worldly success with a empty heart so I think if you can make money and if you can be productive and Achieve worldly success but also do it in a way that sustains you and uh doesn't have the costs of getting to a Mountaintop and then realizing you missed the most important things I think that's the way to go you work with a lot of very successful wellknown people how common is it for those individuals at the top of their industry to have got to the top of the mountain and then hated it all the way up and realized it was the wrong one when they got there is that just a meme or is that something that actually shows up in practice absolutely true I had one client on his way home from work things were so unsatisfying even though he had all the money in the world he would pick up a a case of beer and medicate himself every evening uh there's one chapter in the book The multibillion in the very empty Mansion which is uh we received a call to Mentor very famous billionaire who you would know I decided to accept the engagement I showed up at his country showed up in his City went to this area that was populated by lots of embassies got into his driveway biggest house I've ever seen met by one of his AIDS escorted past his art collection amazing walked past his car collection with a glass wall LED down a set of set of stairs I heard uh Metallica For Whom the Bell Tolls playing I could smell cigar smoke something out of a movie and I walked down this hallway and in the room is this Mogul we spent two hours he talked about the businesses he built the money he'd made the beautiful toys he'd accumulated and then of course I asked him well who'd he get to share this with and he said uh a long pause and then he said I'm all alone and so I think it's more common than we could imagine people who we think have everything who they're cash rich and their life poor and it makes me think of what Jim krey said he said I wish everyone could be rich and famous to realize it will make a difference there's another quote I think it's from Tim O'Reilly who said try getting rich first and realize if you still need to be become famous I think that's another another level down that that um a lot of people think that they want adoration but what they really wanted was Financial Security and that there's a lot of prices that come with Fame do you think this is something I've been thinking about an awful lot do you think that that is a lesson that lots and lots of wealth won't fix internal insufficiencies or a need for validation or your mental pathologies or your sense of aloneness or the texture of your own mind being unhappy when you fall asleep on a nighttime is that a lesson that people can learn without closing the loop of achieving some degree of financial success first well first of all you you just offered a great quote on wealth and success and I'd love to reply with something I once heard uh someone once said the ultimate amount of the perfect amount of Fame is getting a great table in a good restaurant and and I think there's something wise in that in that statement so yeah I think the lesson is don't your productivity I'm a huge believer in creativity and productivity I think it's a great source of Joy I don't know about you but when I'm getting when I'm pursuing my Mount Everest and when I feel I'm being creative and productive and pushing whatever magic I can make into the world and helping people it's inspiring and it's it fills me with a great amount of happiness I I never want to retire having said that nothing on the outside is ever going to fill the holes that we have on the inside and I think that's one of the great drugs of wealth and overachievement we have these internal wounds I mean I can't tell you how many billionaires and celebrity tycoons that I've worked with their father or their mother never told them they were any good and so this world in many ways has been built with people by people with chips on their shoulder and unaware and subconscious they're accumulating and striving and Gathering all these things because they really don't feel they have enough and they don't feel very good about themselves and so I think the real key is still achieve and accumulate and build and Achieve worldly success but question your root intention is the building an accumulation because you're overcompensating and you have these holes within or is the building because you want to build monuments and you want to see how far you can go and you want to realize your Primal genius and you want to make the world a better place it's almost like when you see someone that has outlier results in life whether that be with success or uh failure you know the person who is uh permanently chasing gambling losses always in and out of jail or the other end of the spectrum the person that's got accolades and is adored by millions and lots and lots of money there is something non-typical about that person's makeup that made them get to that particular place their composition has made their production very non-typical and you have to ask yourself the question well do I want that like what is the price that you have to pay to be that person what's the price that you have to be to be the gambling addict criminal kind of plain no one looks at that but nobody ever questions okay and what is it that's driving the person that went to the opposite end of the spectrum as well I call that the upsides of your downsides what I mean by that is our curses are blessings and our blessings are curses so a lot of these Super Rich tycoons they're perfectionists nothing's ever enough they're selfish the etc etc but they wouldn't be who they are but for these curses so what's often unhealthy let's say in our personal life lives and in personal relationships often serves people very well in business so I think what's the solution this that that's why I've created this eight forms of wealth model I've been teaching to my clients for 15 years with really strong results money is one of the eight forms of wealth but the first form of wealth most people don't think about it personal growth the first for 12 I call it growth you wouldn't think that someone who each day is meditating and journaling healing through insecurity becoming wiser stronger more disciplined more loving has a currency worth celebrating but that is absolutely a a form of richness that's worth noticing I mean if we are each day incrementally and steadily materializing more of our Primal genius what's a greater I think that's worth more than all the money in the bank even if no one knows about it what do you think most people get wrong when it comes to thinking about own personal growth I think a lot of people think that they will develop themselves once they're successful in the world without realizing that your income and impact always reflects your self-identity your relationship in the world is a reflection of your relationship with yourself one of my clients he said he had his best year financially when he spent four hours every morning on his morning routine your Rel relationship with your family your relationship with your neighbors your relationship with strangers your relationship with your money your relationship with your craft your relationship with the world it all reflects your relationship with yourself there is where the I'm channeling mahat magami but he said he said uh you know the real devils live inside of us that's where the work is to be done so I think our s our society has caused us to forget that the doorway to success opens inward not outward and if we develop what I call the four interior Empires everyone talks about mindset mindsets important I don't think that's everything as many pundits say and I say that with a lot of respect I believe our mindset is our psychology but there's also the second interior Empire which I call hard set our emotionality we have emotional lives and then there's our health set which is our physicality and our soul set which is our spirituality and all four of those are important and someone I I I know a lot of business Builders and entrepreneurs follow you from across the planet Chris they might be saying how is soul set relevant to me soul set is not mystical it's not religious Soul set is simply your relationship with your higher or heroic self versus your egoic self your heroic self is the true part of you that you were intimate with before the world taught you to disbelieve in who you truly are your heroic self is good it's Brave it's resilient it's natural it's loving it's decent it's generous and as we go through life we're we get hurt and we forget who we truly are and we start to contract and feel the world is a unsafe place so as we work on our four interior Empires we go out there in the world and we have this bravery and this this true power versus fake power that creates all the outer outer results well ultimately presumably what people are trying to do when they achieve worldly success is give themselves a good enough reason to be happy and satisfied and peaceful so if you can shortcut it and actually get to the root of the problem which is the inner work this is something I'm hugely working on myself at the moment and thinking is there a is there a quicker route to the outcome that I want the way that I feel all it is is Vibes and values right it's just how how are you feeling in the moment and I I I genuinely believe that yeah uh focusing inward is probably a good place to start you've got this idea about uh not becoming a resentment collector what's that that's in the the first form of wealth of the book first form of wealth is growth and the chapter you're right don't be a resentment collector how many of us go through life and we get hurt and rather than processing through it and metabolizing it and releasing it we don't forgive the people who have hurt us in business or in our personal lives and metaphorically speaking it's almost as if we carry are carrying those people with us on our back it affects our creativity affects our productivity affects our energy creates inflammation affects our longevity so don't be a resentment collector is basically understanding that everyone who hurt you did the best they could do based on the level of Consciousness they were at and as Maya Angelou the Great American poet said if they knew better they would have done better it's also remembering that the people who hurt you are the very people who would introduce you to your strengths and your creativity I mean I was once on an airplane sitting next to a a painter and he said I pick relationship Partners who break my heart I said why would you do that he said well when I'm suffering I do my best work and so just I think we should remember that pain is a purifier and difficulty a bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul difficulty actually ser eres our rise incredibly well not just by making us Kinder and gentler and wiser I found the tragedies in my life caused me to help my craft enormously uh so don't be a resentment collector go through life let go of the PE don't and don't suffer from toxic optimism it doesn't mean that if someone hurts you betrays you you don't process through the Ang or sadness do that part of it but then a time will come where you need to let that person go because our past is a not a prison to be chained in our past is a school to be learned from let's exploit the past for the sake of a more beautiful brighter future why is deep growth meant to feel weird well one of my brain tattoos is all changes hard at first messy in the middle gorgeous at the end and if if changeed whether it was joining the 500 am Club launching a new business finding the love of your life starting a new spiritual Enterprise if it was easy at the beginning it wouldn't be valuable change so any form of change causes you to almost experience a little death Chris I think a great life is a series of little death why do I say a little death because who you were yesterday must experience a crucify fiction for the best part of you tomorrow to experience a resurrection so whether it's a new habit personally whether it's a new business Innovation whether it's a new way of operating out in the world you need to who you were yesterday needs to die so the better part of you can emerge it's not easy but I believe hard is easy and easy is hard I think it's a great principle to live by our society has said to us choose the Easy Life read the easy books watch the easy videos have the easy conversations launch the easy business take the easy workout it's when we do difficult things that we grow the first form of wealth but if you do those difficult things have the difficult conversation read the difficult books do the difficult workout launch the difficult project and stay with it until you've pushed your Project X out in the world you end up having a much easier life but also a strange one because it's so non-typical and it's going to be increasingly hard for you to find other people that are doing that as well it's the same as we said at the very beginning you know someone that has outlier outcomes has had outlier inputs and it means that it's going to be more difficult for them to resonate and find someone that is like them I also think when it comes to personal growth there is a risk of this never being done mentality this sort of never being good enough and I I think that you you think about this too with not letting self-care r winning your self worth yes I think it's like a lot of things in this world things have gone extreme so that chapter I mean hard work is a dirty word right now you know there's uh Mastery is getting a bad wrap right now so I think self-care may be going to an extreme I think I I believe balance Aristotle called it the golden mean and I think it's a very wise way to live I I believe I'm not a subscriber to the hustle and grind culture at all I've been writing about rest uh as a necessity not a luxury for many years having said that too much rest is just as out of balance as too much hustle and grind and so I really believe that self-care is incredibly important but I don't think it should come at the expense of creating something beautiful in the world pushing your Taj Mahal your Sy Chapel ceiling that takes work it takes drive it takes it takes bravery and that's just as important as taking time to put on your mud mask and meditate at 500m in the morning nothing against mud masks but both are but both are both of those things are important speaking of that obviously you've spent a lot of time deconstructing morning routines coming up with Wellness practices what are the what are the most impactful strategies that you find yourself relying on the most when it comes to a wellness perspective great question MVP incredibly powerful MVP as you know in sports I think you used to be a cricket player early on when you were in the UK and um so you know what an MVP is an MVP is the most valuable player well in my methodology MVP is meditation visualization and prayer and for years I was you know I wrote a book The 5 AM Club 5 amm was the time I'd wake up and I created that 202020 formula that I wrote about these days for the past eight or nine months I'll beginning up at 4 a.m. and I open my window and I listen to The Roosters grow in this old farmhouse I live in in Tuscany I listen to the dogs bark and I do 45 minutes of MVP I meditate I visualize and I pray and all I can tell you and I say this with a lot of sincerity for you Chris and all your millions of followers and watchers from around the world we're all looking for ways to become more truly powerful we're all looking for ways to do beautiful work we're all looking for ways to move through insecurity we're all looking for ways to become wiser in this world of poly crisis and to be more loving people MVP 45 minutes of meditation visualization and prayer every morning or even five days a week is so incredibly powerful to reprogram your mindset heart set Health set and soul set so that's a very powerful way to do it second question part of my morning routine is journaling we hear a lot about journaling I'd love to offer you five journal prompts that are helpful for me number one what am I grateful for we know gratitude is the antidote to fear we know from the work of positive psychologists like Sonia lurki that the happiest people in the world practice deliberate gratitude not once a year on New Year's Day because what you do each day is so much more important than what what you do once a year so I ask myself what I'm grateful for that reprograms the human brain tendency towards a negativity bias that served us well thousands of years ago the negativity bias causes us to scan our environment today and look for threats but gratitude causes us to look for the blessings second Journal prompt is where am I winning so if you can notice the micro winds every day that will fuel your hope it will protect your inspiration and it will give you energy third question powerful one what will I let go of today you don't want to be a resentment ctor so asking yourself today like three or four lines Why will I let go of today oh this person hurt me oh I'm frustrated that this person doesn't get my vision oh I will let go of what you said not feeling like I'm I'm enough you start to process through and metabolize that and you release a little bit of the resentment or frustration that you're holding fourth question what does my ideal day ahead look like one paragraph Clarity breeds Mastery one paragraph on your ideal day looks like it it gives you so much more Focus than being reactive in chasing your day Fifth and final Journal prompt question based on the importance of remembering the shortness of life I mean the fact the matter is you and I no matter how long we get to live before we know it we will be dust and I won't matter very much I will be a bunch of dust on a ear above a fireplace next to some little league trophies and maybe a few pictures and so asking yourself this final Journal prompt every single morning what needs to be said at the end by the people you love by the people you care about you fast forward to your last day you write one paragraph what that's going to do is going to allow you to live to the point focus on your priorities and actually not to hold back because if you knew you only had seven days or 30 days left to Live you wouldn't care about rejection and you wouldn't be busy being busy you'd get what's most important can you just go back through your meditation visualization and prayer process someone that maybe hasn't spent a ton of time on visualization or prayer what does that look like for you you is this a guided practice is there an app that you use is there a book that you've learned from sure when I meditate so 45 minutes 4 o'clock to 4:45 do it whenever you want 45 minutes 20 minutes might be the meditation the meditation I often focus on my breathing it might be inhale peace exhale fear inhale generosity exhale scarcity inhale humility exhale whatever that' be one way second thing it might be a body scan so mindset is not everything mindset without heart set is an empty Victory heartset is your emot life so 20 minutes of your meditation could be you scan your body and notice and and you you build fluency the more you do it like any practice so I might scan my body and Chris I might notice there's a tension in my solar plexus which for me would be fear and I'm on this big book tour I have this new book that's come out a lot of expectations on my shoulder spent a year of my life on a devotion almost boarding on an obsession to try to get it right now I'm finding what people think so maybe if there's a contra here I notic okay that's a little bit of fear about what's what's going on in my life by breathing into it you release it by acknow when you take a shadow and bring it into the sunlight it starts to dissolve Carl Jung the great eminent psychologist called it your dark side we all have a dark side by bringing light to it by awareness we start to move through that suppressed uh emotion and then part of my visualization then after the meditation the visualization have this concept your four beautiful projects every quarter set four beautiful projects so for a few minutes I'll see myself on my four beautiful projects as if they were done beautifully everything working out well and I'll just spend time in that future image and then prayer I prayer for my family I pray pray for strength I pray for my 87y old father my mother I pray for the world I pray to be a humble servant as much as possible so I just pray and if you don't believe even religious prayer absolutely fine then practice scientific prayer and you can go to the science and see the power of visualization and the power of prayer so MVP really works extraordinarily well what is omad that was another acronym that I wasn't familiar with before I read your book omad one meal a day so what I encourage this is the second form of wealth which is Wellness I mean come on we have we have to this world has programmed us into measuring wealth by how much money is in the bank or the stock portfolio or the or our portfolio of houses and real estate yet in one wisdom tradition they say when we are young W sacrifice all of our health for wealth and when we get old and figure out what life is all about we'd sacrifice all of our wealth for one day of Health I was in Qatar once and someone handed me a piece of paper and it said health is the crown on the well person's head that only the ill person can see so that second form of wealth is so precious and it's Wellness so what is omad well that's a chapter where I talk about the power of fasting the power of autophagy we know from science these days that the mystics have fasted for years in sedara one of my favorite books he said you know the person who can fast cannot be beaten so we don't have to fast every day there's good signs talking about caloric restriction and putting yourself into the state of photophy which is self cellular cleaning in that chapter I'm recommending omad one meal a day once a week and take the money you would have spent on the other two meals and go out there and give it to someone who needs some food so you benefit physically and the person need benefits as well yeah it's uh fasting appears to be going in and out of fashion very quickly at the moment it it was and then it wasn't and I feel like it's coming back in again so uh yeah I I I have to say feel fantastic when I do fast mentally mostly physically uh I I don't want to try and lift something too heavy if I'm on a 1 m a day day but if it's a time when I need to be dialed in mentally it is something that really really helps talking about family again one of the problems I imagine of the high performers that you deal with is the sacrifices they've had to make personally to achieve the successes that they've wanted professionally what have you learned about choosing developing and maintaining a healthy relationship with your significant other first thing I would say is a red flag is a red flag and if you think it's a green flag you might spend 20 years of your life dealing with the mess what you mean by that well how many of us have entered into a relationship where we saw the red flags right at the beginning in intimately as well as in business they were right there but we're nice people and we hope for the best I think hoping for the best without paying attention to reality is a recipe for misery and I didn't mean that for to rhyme but I think it's but I think it's true so when a red flag shows itself in a relationship pay attention to it and wish that person well love them from afar but remember one of the chapters in wealth money Camp bu your choice of mate is 90% of your joy and I think that is so true and when our home life is doing well and stable and peaceful and we're not full of drama watch what happens to you know this watch what happens to your mental focus your creativity your productivity your relationships at work so I would say a red flag is a red flag don't think it's green say your choice of mate is 90% of your joy and then one of the chapters is ask the 10,000 dinners question I know you're from the UK and Aisha veg is the UK one of the UK's top divorce lawyers she represents a lot of the footballers and movie stars and multi-billionaires and she was asked in the financial times Chris you know you've seen a lot of relationships fall apart what are your relationship lessons for a good relationship and number one she said separate bedrooms seems to work very well and the second thing and the second thing she said was second thing she said was 10,000 dinners and the interviewer said 10,000 dinners what do you mean by that and she said well looks fade lust dissolve but if you see yourself having 10,000 dinners with that person hold them close and fight for the love because great love is hard to find so what I'm saying there is find someone I don't believe Opposites Attract why I believe well you know there's this again there there's many ways to do this but in my experience I find when someone has different values and is and there's incompatibilities because they're opposite and there's a lot of negotiating like you've got to do what they want to do and then you right now my life partner L we just love many so many of the same things so a great evening for us is home chatting and reading um we we we see the world through a similar set of lenses there's very little drama so there's not a lot of negotiating we just love living life with one another doesn't mean it's perfect but it's really it's really very wonderful so I don't think Opposites Attract and I would you know there's this idea you know univers is Collide find someone where universes Collide I'd rather have universes Collide in the most Serene stable loving loving loving way you know that's how that's how I'd like universes Collide so I I think find someone who sees the world this the way you see the world and it creates a lot less drama and you know that brings me to another through line in the book which is you can change the world or be around toxic people but you don't get to do both and I want to go to some science here from uh Nicholas Christus at Harvard University and what he's realized is we are influenced not only by our friends but by the friends of our friends and the friends of our friends as friends and we could get into the science on that it's mirror neurons which cause us to mimic the people around us and emotional contagion which is the phenomenon where subconsciously we adopt the dominant emotions of the people people we spend most of our time with and so if we allow energy vampires and dream Steelers into our days into our companies into our home lives over time it dramatically degrades our creativity our productivity our happiness and our Serenity so doing um an energy vampire detox let's call it is really extraordinarily powerful then I always hear people say well you know that person is my mother or whoever I would say well will then practice selective Association maybe don't text them three times a day do it once a week but in some cases maybe it's a personal relationship maybe it's a friend you talked about it if you're on a path of growth very few people are on a path of growth friends who were your friends a few years ago might not Vibe with you anymore they might be bringing you down you've got to let them go or you could let them go I would say love them from afar yeah it's difficult with the family thing um I guess I'm maybe in some ways I'm Le I'm an only child and I've got Mom and Dad so for me the number of dice rolls that could have potentially thrown up a uh grenade in my life I only had two as long as Mom and Dad were great which they were and are uh I I don't have that but I understand that for people with bigger families you know you've got five brothers and sisters and a ton of close aunties and uncles and you know Uncle Jim is always causing havoc and it's a nightmare at Christmas and it's a nightmare at Thanksgiving and you always need there's phone calls and there's police calls the rest of it that's that's tough um you know I I in some ways wish that family was a bigger part of my life but in other ways I can see how it can be a total curse as well as a blessing for people I I totally agree with you one thing I mean my father is going to be 87 in a few weeks and as I put more years under my belt you know I do realize how powerful family is and um yeah your parent i' I've got great parents you realize your your parents and your family does their best and I think it brings you an absolutely great source of joy and that's why it's the third form of wealth and if it's not family it's friends you know we live in a world right now where we Chase 20,000 digital friends but I believe if you have three great friends you're a very rich person indeed three friends where when you see them after a few years you start on the last sentence after you saw them last time three friends where you can be yourself and they still love you three friends where you're down on your knees and they're there for you three friends where you're in trouble in a foreign country and you call them at 3:00 am. and they say hey hang on for a second Chris I'm G to be on the next plane you know that's a currency I think um that money can't by talk to me about this confusion between attachment and love well I just think there's I think there's a huge difference I think attachment is born of fear I think attachment is coming from a place where you don't love yourself enough so you can't be alone blae Pascal said most the French mathematician said most of a human being's miseries derived from their inability to sit quietly in a room with themselves if you haven't done the inner work required to be comfortable in your own skin then you're going to be attached to filling your life not only with relationship partners that make you feel better about yourself but other drugs of choice whether it's alcohol whether it's digital toys whether it's material things so attachment I believe is coming from a place of fear love is very different love is not needy love is truly wanting the best for the other person love is secure love is stable love is grounding one of the things that I think both of us have spent a good bit of time thinking about is craft and paying attention and doing things well and and sort of finding joy in the work for its own sake and I think craft is kind of it's definitely a missing word taste is another one I think that's missing from a lot of people's lexicons and the reason that craft is missing I think is work or the um offering that you have to give to the world is seen as it's optimal to get it to the point at which you can get the transaction for it from the market or from the other person and no further there is no reason to overd deliver there is no reason to take any more time than is required to deliver the minimum viable product to be able to get it to the market and ship it and make the money talk to me about how craft has sort of played a role in your life and how you advise it for other people well two words come to mind Van Go Vincent Van go a great movie to watch I I'm guessing you love film but please watch at eternity's gate with Will M defo and he's playing van Vincent Van go and you'll see the troubles and the suffering Vincent Van go went through and no one understood his art there's actually one scene in the movie where Vincent Van go is in an insane asylum and the manager of the insane asylum has one of Vincent Van Go's drawings and shows it to him and says Vincent do you actually think this is beautiful and Vincent Van go looks at it and goes yes I I really think it is and Vincent Van Go only sold two paintings in his entire lifetime lived his life in anonymity deep poverty and yet he pursued his craft not for the Applause and the fame and the fortune but he did it because he wanted to push Beauty into the world so I have all sorts of thoughts on the fourth form of wealth of craft you know even if no sees your work you're creating an app you're writing a book or doing a screenplay or you're launching a social social justice movement even if you do it not for the Applause you get but for the person you're becoming in Hot Pursuit of what lights you up do it do do it for doing hard difficult work creating what I call in the book your Project X your tajmahal your Great Pyramid of Giza your cistin Chapel ceiling don't only do it for the fame and fortune do it for what talents and strengths it introduces you too within you isn't isn't that a Priceless treasure on Mastery I I would also say generosity beats scarcity every day of the week you're right you go to most get on most airplanes I've been on so many airplanes on this book tour you can't believe the food they're serving you can't believe the user experience can't believe how many people are checked out generosity is is a is a deep value generosity is saying how may I how may I deliver outrageous value to as many people as possible it's so rare but in your work in your Mastery whether you're writing a book doing a podcast creating a business running a team ask yourself how may I distribute magic how may I push extraordinary quality out into the world and so many people what they do is they push minimum viable product that in the marketplace but I have this idea I call it the 10x value Obsession give your customers 10 times the value they have any right to expect and that's a formula for building a Global base of fanatical followers and then another thing I if I may I'd say about Mastery is genius loves Solitude there's a chapter which is just find your personal golden eye we live in a world right now where we don't get in a flow State we don't do our best work because we are constantly in the world but if you look at the great athletes they had practice rooms you look at the great scientists they all had Labs you look at great artists they all had Studios Winston Churchill had Checkers and Chartwell Andrew wyth had Chad's Ford Pennsylvania This Barn he would paint in and Cushing where he would Retreat to from the world to create his masterpieces one of my favorite artists is Jean Michelle Basia he said all medicine men live in caves and so that chapter find your own find your personal golden ey comes from Ian Fleming who created the James Bond novel he found this Cottage By the Sea in Jamaica and he called it golden ey and he would get away there and he would Retreat to do his most beautiful work and he was so monomon focused on creating what I call a tight bubble of Total Focus free of distraction the the gardeners when they would walk across his line of sight on the Atlantic Ocean he would say please don't ever do that and so if you want to create I think you can play with your phone or change the world you can't do both and I think spending time each day alone is incredibly essential we both agree that the no one will notice it statement that people have about craft is a lie I think that sure maybe not everyone will notice it not everyone will notice the extra steps that you go to to try and add beauty or or value or or effort to the work that you put out into the world but some people will and for the people that do I think it's worth so much more um I I I was I used to have an existential crisis at about 2 o'clock in the morning when I was coming back from nightclubs so I ran nightclubs for a long time and on my way home I'd realize I don't have any milk for tomorrow I don't have any bread for tomorrow whatever and I'd stop off at the 24-hour Supermarket on the way home and every time that I was in there I would always regularly think God what am I doing it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm buying bread and it's all quiet and you're on your own and uh I spoke to a friend and he said next time that you're in there when you see the people that are stacking shelves that you're having to navigate around just do something really nice wish them a good day or hope that they're okay or ask how the the the morning's going or whatever uh because that's an opportunity for you to do something that's meaningful and that's like I guess it's a little bit interpersonal but it's also kind of like the craft of being a human right like that that degree of effort is something that someone else will take pleasure in and I've seen this in reverse the reason I brought it up about the um Supermarket is that in Reverse there's everyone's had that one checkout assistant that's just been tried up to be there they don't need to you like I don't expect you to sing and dance and and you know put a performance on for me the goal is to get the stuff into the bags and for me to get back to my car but someone's there asking how your day is going and being bubbly and you just fired up about what's going on you think I actually feel better leaving and that's craft they didn't need to it's O overd delivering what they needed to in order to get the job done but I've left feeling uplifted so how is that an effort that's wasted oh we're singing from the same song book um a few a few replies to that so JK Rowling said for some to love you some must lo you I think that's very powerful so you're right we can't please everyone not everyone will notice it but for some to love you some must loathe you secondly you said not everyone would notice it what I would say is almost everyone feels quality I don't know if I'm saying it very elegantly but the intention with which you work is felt by the people who consume your products one of my favorite movies is Joker if you look at the behind the scenes work that's a piece of Mastery that movie is a piece of Mastery so people feel the quality and the intention that you're putting into anything that you do in terms of your craft if you are mailing it in versus bringing it on if you're doing it for the cash versus the magic if you are doing it for FFA fame fortune and Applause people will sniff the sincerity in the product third thing I'd say you talk about the grocery store I remember reading that you a nightclub empresario in your early days before your TV days I I had the center of the LA Lakers come to my one of my Live Events a number of years ago poasa and absolute gentleman and I drove him to the airport after the event and as we walked through the airport I saw something absolutely fascinating he was he had to get to a gate to catch a plane but every little kid who came up to him he stopped he listened he took a picture every adult who came and said can you sign this can you do this I have a story to tell you you inspired me he had the time and as we walked through the entire airport he had time for every single human being who took the time out of their day to stop po Gasol and at the gate I asked him I said po that's really quite amazing what you did you had time for everyone you were fully present with each human being and Chrissy said something I've never forgotten and I think it's a real truth he said Robin it takes so little to make someone happy you're at a you you were just here in Miami staying at a hotel go to a Starbucks box pick up another pick up a couple of Quant for the people at the front door you know you're on an airplane you're you're an author someone's nice to you say you know what I'd love to send you a book can you write out your address take a picture of it send it to your assistant or your team or do it yourself so you follow through on your promise and send them that in the book there's that story when I was a little kid I used to love this Canadian TV show called Mr Dressup Mr Dressup was this man who used to talk about you know like like Mr Rogers and he had these puppets and here I was roughly six years old a huge fan so I wrote him a letter but a week later my mom brings me this postcard it's a picture of Casey and Finnegan and Mr dress up and there's a handwritten note from Ernie Coles the man who is Mr dress up all these years later I still remember that act of humanity so you're right craft is not only pushing magic and calibrating your skills to be a merchant of wow in this world where there's just so much mediocrity craft is also delivering value by positivity and making those human connections last quick thing if I may I was in London and you're right you know a lot of taxi drivers they see a job as just a job and they can't wait till they get home and yet there was this one taxi driver I walked up to his London cab and it was glittering literally he was he was rubbing the the the rubber of the tires as I was walking up with my luggage and as we drove he was like regaling me with stories and he was telling me this and I asked him like deconstruct why you do this and there was still a sparkle in his eye and he goes I love what I do and I meet interesting people and I practice the knowledge I'm in a London cabie and I take great pride in this and as we pulled up to City Airport it was really interesting he goes you want to see what I do before everyone gets into my C I said sure he pulled out this Windex he goes I washed the windows and then he hit an electric shampooer and he goes and I shampoo the carpet that everyone puts their feet on before every guest comes in I think that's a great example of craft and Mastery it's not about being famous it's about the pride you feel on a job well done that's one of the reasons why I've got such a distaste for cynicism on the internet because it's quite easy for someone I if that cabbie was a YouTuber and decided to post that video about you on YouTube there would be an awful lot of comments saying this is pointless like why what are you even doing this for no one even cares they're putting their feet on the floor why does it matter how clean it is like you're rubbing the side of the wheels they're just going to get Mucky in any case and there is a a culture of people doing things that are quaint and effortful being disparaged and uh that would disincentivize someone from doing it and yet this taxi driver who presumably isn't posting this stuff on YouTube does it for the pure love of it and I think that if I could uh turn down the internet sort of critical cynical voice I think that a lot of people would do a lot more great things I think they'd lean into craft an awful lot more because craft is mostly what's hidden that doesn't really get seen and yes you're right there is utility Beauty and for the people who care about it they will notice job well done never wasted Etc but I do think that it disincentivizes some people and I don't think I think that enthusiasm around people doing hard things well and beautifully would help more people to do it and I think that uh a beautiful world would be something that everybody could benefit from a bit more yeah I don't I I totally hear you and I don't think there's anything quaint about it I think I think doing these things is hard and heroic and brave and honorable you know I think about you know Integrity is so much more valuable than money and even if no one sees that Taxi Driver you're the only person you're going to get to be with your entire life and when your head hits the pillow every night if you're alone or whether you're with someone you feel good about yourself and you have self-respect that's worth more than all the gold in the world I need to say that again because I deeply believe it's important Integrity is more valuable than money and if you respect yourself and you take pride that fourth form of weal in the book you see your you see driving a taxi or digging Graves or working in a coffee shop or writing books or being an astronaut or whatever it is if you do it with honor and integrity and a love of Mastery it's not only what it does for the world it's what it does for you yeah that's beautiful yeah like what's the point of having all these houses nothing wrong with it's the fifth form of we nothing wrong with these things I want to be super clear but what's life all about I think ultimately it's you know feeling good in your own skin feeling you're being true to yourself maybe it's you you started off the show the interview talking about you know peace I I think what we are chasing is not the things it's the feeling we that the things will bring I think that was your point and I think that's very true we don't want the jet we don't want the portfolio we don't want the 10 million followers we want the feeling that we're craving and missing that we think those things will bring and having been in this field 31 years and working with some very serious heavyweights in business Mastery Athletics I can tell you nothing on the outside will ever feel those fill up those inner holes is there anything wrong with pursuing a Mount Everest no it's beautiful we are a species that created the great art we are the same species that created the Eiffel Tower and the internet and flight I think we are meant to grow we're happiest growing go to the science the human brain craves novelty having said that I think if we are addicted to accumulating we could spend our best hours climbing a mountain only to realize at the end of this year a career or a lifetime we spent our finest moments climbing the wrong Mountain you mentioned money the most obvious form of wealth perhaps what's the Howard Hughes money trap long story short here is a man who was a great inventor a great Visionary I he he's the one who developed Vegas as you know he bought TWA he launched a Hollywood movie studio he was a man of great vision great Brave very great Charisma but how did he die he died he died alone in a from everything I've read a filthy hotel room with needles in his arms naked so that first chapter of that form of wealth starts with a cautionary tale which is allow Financial wealth to be your servant versus your master and be super careful about the dangers and I've seen this with my clients the dangers that great wealth brings I mean a lot of billionaires spend their days defending and protecting the generational wealth that they've made they don't enjoy it or they've made so much money they filled their life with complexity I start off the book talking about one of the happiest people I've ever met my instructor I was trying to get a level one ski course so I could teach it was one of my dreams in my 40s this is one of the happiest people I knew and one day we're going up a a chairlift and here's this man with rosy cheeks and always smiling super fit in his 60s he said Robin us ski instructors we're not rich but we have Rich lives and I I actually think he's richer than most of the billionaires in the world and I would say the same for that taxi driver and I would say the same for people who might not have a lot of money and a lot of things but they have integrity or great family lives or they paint or they do work that they're that lights them up and they might not be heading a company or on on the cover of a magazine but they sure do have joy in their hearts what role do you think scity and abundance as a frame that we view the world through plays in how people deal with the relationship to money super question generosity is how the the financially wealthy make money so money is a reflection of magic delivered into the marketplace another way to put it is I'll use the words of the billionaire Ted Turner the one who serves the best profits the most and he was using the words of the founder Paul Harris of rotary but he said the the one who serves the best profits the most if you're coming from a place of scarcity let's go to a restaurant you've been in a lot of restaurants I've been in a lot of restaurants the room isn't beautiful the culture isn't one where people are merchants of wow it always comes from the top so clearly the owner doesn't really CL care the food might not be fresh the the food is not beautifully done but what the owner seems to be trying to do is get as much money as possible while giving as little value as as possible I actually think that's the norm in business today I believe we are suffering from the collective deprofessionalization of business it's very rare to see a master in action or a merchant of wow I think all of this let's give as little value as possible and put out a cheap movie to get as much money let's go to create a restaurant where we our goods are not really ma Mastery and we'll try to take money I think all of that behavior is coming from scarcity coming from a place where there's not enough in the world coming from Fear the emotion of fear I better get as much money as possible because they're not there's not a lot there it's counterintuitive but generosity wins and so let's say it's your podcast and all the value you bring to millions of people let's say it's a restaurant where the food I live in Italy I see lots of restaurants like this the mozzarella DEA was brought up from pulia at 4 o'clock that morning someone you've got native Robin come back to us you've got native well no you you start talking about mozzarella DEA and something happens to my brain something it's it's like my little chy she got a new ball a little ball like I'm on the road so I sending me these pictures and our little she bought our chy this little ball uh because turys are ratters they love rats and the the ball not only squeals but it lights up and it's almost like too much for this dog's brain she just goes berserk and I start talking about mozzarella DEA and C Pepe and I but there are restaurants in in in Rome where they just care so much and you walk in and they treat you like you're a member of the family and the food food is so great and the room is simple but it's beautiful and it's coming from A Generous Heart and people might say you know give us some strong business strategies that is a strong business strategy the more you can work with love the more you can work from a place of generosity the more you can say how may I most deliver the greatest value for as many people as possible that's a recipe for building a Global movement around your products and services that's why Apple under Steve Jobs was so amazing he was not an entrepreneur he was an artist he wanted before the iPhone shipped he said I want the icons on the iPhone to be so gorgeous the users would want to lick the screen he was obsessed not with the bottom line he was obsessed with pushing Beauty out into the world you re you read isaacson's book Jo jobs etc etc that's a great example of generosity that comes from the first form of wealth growth that's why personal development is so powerful ful the more you can move through your scarcity issues what I call in the book your scarcity scars the more you can be a servant leader the more you can feel safe in the world that's what allows you to do beautiful work that inspires people and the byproduct is fame fortune and applies what's a way that people can deprogram those scarcity scars uh starting with self-awareness awareness is the DNA of transformation so journaling is a great tool for that just every morning free flowing start paying attention where may I be withholding being generous then also paying attention to how you feel so what are the things that activate you that make you feel insecure or or scared maybe it's buying something maybe it's you see someone on the internet having more than you have pay don't don't knock them down look in the mirror and say what's what's going on with me why do I feel jealous why do I feel bad and the more you can start doing this practice you'll you'll build fluency just like a Chessmaster who practices builds fluency with their Mastery when you start doing this emotional healing and start paying attention oh here this is what activates me here's who I'm jealous about you start the process of releasing that you become more aware and then you become at Choice also MVP meditation visualization and prayer is a great tool to release scarcity third thing working with a Healer talk therapy very very powerful fourth spending more time alone and just reflecting on that is is incredibly powerful and then I'd say the fifth thing the practice stuff being a giver versus a taker so so practice being how do you get to be generous you practice being generous even if it's that chap that story um value chain gratitude you talked about being in the grocery store store while you're waiting at the check out paying for your broccoli you do a silent thanks to the cashier for the work she's doing or he's doing and then you take a few moments and you're grateful for the stock person who put it on the shelves and very quickly you thank the trucker who brought it there and then very quickly you thank the farmer who made it and imagine if every step of the way even writing thank you notes to the grocery store owner or the grocery store cash cashier person and you you I'm in a hotel right now there's a nice I I made my I'm not saying I'm some kind of a guru but I made my bed today I put the bath towels in the bathtub and I'm making sure everything looks really clean because there's someone's family member walking into this hotel room after I leave and so the practice of giving if you do it consistently you get really good at it which makes you more generous and then it becomes like any habit any skill with practice you reach what researchers call automaticity and it becomes easier to practice the new skill than not to do it it's crazy how you don't just see this in relationships with strangers but in relationships with friends as well and the community that you build around you I've just got back from Miami it's one of my best friends birthdays there was 12 of us out there and all of those guys were happy to do like ridiculously over-the-top things just to make the rest of us happy we there for a birthday so maybe everyone's kind of on their best form and being a little bit more generous than they would be usually but uh it was just so nice and I think that you know in the same way as craft in your professional work is something that is it adds value that doesn't necessarily have a uh it doesn't appear on a balance sheet uh being generous in that way with strangers and especially your friends and your community adds value in a way that people maybe even can't identify it's not necessarily even going to be a memory that's going to sort of stick up there but it's going to uplift the way that they feel you I'd say to that I totally agree with you a gift given for the sake of a reward is not a gift it's a barter so the sincerity and intention of the gift is very very powerful I don't know if you've heard this but there's um a great Japanese word is called inku intoku is the Japanese word for the art of giving in secret so I would actually say it's great your friends give gift you give gifts we all do that amazing I think the highest form of giving is anonymous gift giving I think if you give a gift to have your name on a hotel Wing wonder about not judging just reporting I wonder about the intention of the gift but to give a gift in seek where the recipient won't even know who gave it is a real gift second thing I'd say giv giv a gift is a gift you give yourself as well so the recipient feels better about the world but you feel better about yourself even something as simple as wishing people a great day again I'm I'm using travel metaphors because I'm on this trip we we know what we're doing yeah right but imagine you're at a gate and you're giving the person the the ticket slip or you know they're doing the login code before you get on the plane you just wish them a great day and you take the time to wish someone else a great day those simple acts of humanity are not only good for the world they're good they're good for your they're good for yourself they're good for your they're good for your soul and and that is a a form of wealth that money can't buy and I think it's much more sustainable than money which can come and go or equities in the stock Market that have dips as well as bull markets so giftgiving is is super is super is a super powerful way to roll through human life what's the Stephen King lost letters rule so I was reading James Patterson's Memoir and he wrote about an instance where he wrote a letter called it was something like the the the death of Stephen King or something like that and Stephen King's publisher reached out to James Patterson said please don't do that you know there's some issues with stalkers etc etc and so James Patterson said absolutely I will remove the chapter as a matter of fact I will have my publisher remove the entire print run with that chapter in it thousands and thousands of books and James Patterson in his Memoir said I never received a thank you from anyone and the idea from that chapter is simply the power of thank you notes and the power of appreciation and the power of acknowledging when someone when you find someone doing good take the time to acknowledge it there's a Quaker saying that really speaks to me and it's something to paraphrase it it's something like if you have any opportunity to thank someone for doing something good do it now because you may not get that chance again and I think that's worth thinking about you see someone on the street or someone doing something nice for you we're all busy it's very easy to say oh I don't have the time to do it but pressing the pause button and walking over to that person and just going hey I just want to appreciate you for doing that that's amazing or the way you do your work it's really good I want to applaud you for that or you know here's here's a tip or here's a coffee or here you know I want to write a letter to the CEO of your company it doesn't take a long time but it really does make a profound difference what what else haven't we said when it comes to curating and creating the community that people want what do you think's missing a mentor my life changed because of my mentors I've had some incredible mentors when I was in my 20s there was this who fascinated me he lived a few doors down from me everyone else was working at 3: in the afternoon I was coming back from University and I always see him in his backyard sunbathing reading I said like who is this fascinating person who is this fascinating person who is so unorthodox and such a contrarian who lives like this so we became friends and one day we were walking along the ocean where we used to live in a city close to the ocean and he said Robin run your own race which to me has been so incredibly powerful like Robin run your own race we live in a world where a lot of us we define success according to the values and metrics s Society tells us we should define success by but what's the point of living someone else's life Leo to Tolstoy did a short story the death of Ian illich and at the end of the story Death and Ivan illich asked himself a fundamentally heartbreaking question what if my whole life was wrong so I think it's better to live your own life and be called a freak than to win at the world's life and find yourself being very empty so a mentor is incredibly powerful and and one of the ideas I offer is if you can't find a live Mentor then look for a dead one and the idea is Rec recruit a dead board of directors I find through their books I mean you can learn how m hatma Gandhi or Mandela or hady Lamar or Basia or Orville Wright Edison Einstein you can learn how history's great women and men of the world did it through their books and so what I'm suggesting is not only build a great library in this world where a lot of people love entertainment versus education but almost assemble a metaphorical dead board of directors so that when you have a big decision to make you go into a quiet room and it's almost asking yourself on a on a moral issue here's a great question what would Mandela do on a business question what would Onasis do on an artistic question what would du buet do on a spiritual question what would Osho do or whoever whoever you know you respect but assembling a a dead board of directors I I think is very powerful uh I I also would say it's super important to release the energy vampires like I mentioned uh but your community and your social network is incredibly important what about Adventure what role does Adventure have in a wealth seventh form of wealth Adventure without a rich heart uh Emerson without a rich heart wealth is an ugly beggar role does Adventure play I think we were born into genius and we get resigned into mediocrity we are as little kids we have eyes that sparkle we are curious We are brave we want to change the world and then we experience microt trauma and macr Trauma along with the psychological programming to be reasonable and ordinary and average and we're actually sold a bill of goods that the Geniuses and the great ones are Cut From a Different Cloth and we hear it so much we actually start to believe it so we lose that sense of adventure it sounds simple but a lot of us want more joy but we stopped doing the things that brought us joy when we were younger and so there's a lot of chapters on on adventure but you know one story comes to mind it's be a perfect moment Creator so Eugene o Kelly was the former CEO of KPMG the accounting Behemoth a Titan of Industry someone who was admired by so many people and one day he went into his doctor's office for the results of a routine medical and the doctor came back Chris with an expression you never want to see on the face of your doctor when you get the results of your routine medical and the doctor said you have 90 days left to live you have inoperable brain cancer and sadly he had roughly 90 days left before he did pass away but he did something very interesting he said I'm going to use one of the techniques I used to build my business and I'm going to reverse engineer the last 90 days of my life to create what he called perfect moments and he realized on his reflection and confronted with his mortality that he had never taken his wife to lunch in all those years as a top CEO he' missed out on his daughter's Christmas concerts in many cases and he never gone on long walks in Central Park with his friends and he decided to become a perfect moment Creator and that idea when I first learned it was very powerful to me I think the seventh form of wealth is Adventure and you don't need to go to Bali to do it you can find perfect moments in every day I mean it caused me to take my kids to maius and swiming the Dolphins which is one of the great highlights of my life but just the other day I was in Toronto on this trip and it was the day the book was released and it was a very intense day and the next day I woke up before getting on a plane I sat alone in a dark hotel room I had some good coffee and I took maybe two minutes to just feel some Grace and some gratitude on the opportunity to do what I'm doing and so perfect moments it could be 15 minutes in a park where you notice spring FLIR ing a perfect moment could be you put down your phone in the evening and you read The Prophet by khil Jabron or you're listening listen to some music Beautiful music and you're so present it brings tears to your eyes could have a perfect moment where this Friday you take your significant other to this Italian restaurant you eat some mozzarella DEA and have some ketchup Pepe there I go again with my but you know we're in a messy world right now and online you mention it there is a lot of cynicism I think it's really important to block out the noise and clean up your information diet and create a bubble and people might say well that's not realistic what what's more realistic than creating a bubble of information and your an ecosystem that allows you to be a polit a possibilitarian where you literally say okay life is short That's The Power of connecting with your morality life is short I'm going to surround myself with people who fuel my joy versus degrade my joy I'm going to follow people who inspire me and lift me up versus tear me down I'm going to read beautiful books that nourish me at all levels I'm going to eat great food I'm going to be a minimalist versus a maximalist and I'm going to live life on my own terms that's one of the key elements I would say about Adventure what were Alexander the Great's last three wishes eighth form of wealth service Society doesn't say you're helping people you you're lifting people up you're doing your work in a way that pushes value into the marketplace to show respect for your consumers and you're leaving people better than you found them even in the smallest of ways wow you you know you're a servant leader or you believe in service you're rich but it is form of riches when I was growing up my dad used to say Robin when you were born you cried while the world rejoiced live your life in such a way that when you die the world cries well you rejoice my dad will be 87 I mentioned that but he'll be 87 in a few weeks and he's the humblest most one of the most decent giving people I've ever I've ever met and so I've learned the power of of helpfulness through my father and many people my mother my mom always goes you always mention your dad in in your work what about me you know like and so she's a Titan she's she's a force of nature she's she really is very amazing and so that gets me to Alexander the Great's last three wishes he told his lieutenants he said Chris when I die I want you to do three things for me he said number one I want the world's finest doctors to be following my casket in the funeral procession number two I want you to take all my jewels and shiny toys and treasures and litter them on the road that takes me to the graveyard and number three I want you to make sure my hands are open for all the people who have gathered to see one Brave Lieutenant said why explain these three wishes and Alexander the Great said well I want the world's greatest doctors to follow me so that everyone realizes that even with the best physician you can't cheat death number two I want everyone to see the jewels so people realize that money made on Earth remains on earth oh how much of our life we spend chasing these shiny things only to realize at the end they made very little difference and he said the third requirement we're born with nothing and I want people to see that we die empty-handed so live richly versus be accumulating things most of your time if you want to live let's say a wealthy fulfilling happy and Serene life Robin Sharma ladies and gentlemen Robin I love your work I think your storytelling is fantastic where should people go they want to keep up to date with all of the things that you're doing and check out your new stuff uh Instagram Robin charma YouTube lots of videos Robin sharma.com the new book The Wealth money Camp buy is on Audible Amazon good bookstores in about 50 countries right now so I just want to applaud you Chris for the millions of people that you're enriching uh and the influence you're having on so many people and it's been a real pleasure to to meet you I appreciate you thank you mate if you enjoyed that episode you will love a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last couple of months and it's available right here go on give them a watch