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Jay Shetty PodcastRobin Sharma ON How To Release Your Toxic Beliefs and Getting Back To Your Higher Nature
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55 min read · 10,779 wordsRobin's Early Rising and the 5 AM Club as the Mother of All Routines
Robin Sharma 0:00 We get seduced by the beliefs of the people around us, and we go from this awe and wonder and intimacy with our glory, our primal glory. That's, that's just the human condition, and we start to forget who we truly are. And as our dreams start to fall apart and as we lose that connection with our best selves, and as we get sad and disappointed, and as we fail, that's just part of life, a lot of us shut down. And we don't know how to process through that pain, so we, we repress it.
Jay Shetty 0:28 [upbeat music] Thank you so much for coming back to listen. I'm so grateful to have an incredible community like yourselves, and I'm so excited to share today's conversation with you. Today's guest is Robin Sharma, widely considered one of the top leadership and personal optimization coaches across the world. He's worked with Fortune 100 companies, worked with billionaires, and sports superstars. Today, he's here to talk about his new book, The 5 AM Club, which is all about owning your morning and elevating your life. For me, he's been an inspiration from a distance for potentially over about 10 to 15 years. I've been reading his work, studying his life, and I'm so grateful that I get to sit with him today. Robin, thank you so much. It's really my pleasure and honor for, to have you in my home. Thank you.
Robin Sharma 1:23 Jay, um, it's, it's my pleasure, and thank you for your generous words, and I have to congratulate you for your amazing success and impact on so many people.
Jay Shetty 1:32 Thank you. I'm so grateful for that. So I'm so excited to talk about your new book today, The 5 AM Club. I love talking about the book because if you're watching at home, you're watching at work, wherever you are, if you like today's conversation, I really urge you to go and get the book. It's really a life's work put into a very small segment. But the question I want to start with today is, what was your morning routine before you joined and created The 5 AM Club?
Robin Sharma 1:58 Oh, I don't think I've ever been asked that question, and it's a great question. Um, I, I still got up early. Um, I've always studied the great women and men of the world, and one thing they had in common, they were early risers, and so I didn't get up at 5:00, but I was still an ear- early riser. Jay, I've always had a fire in my belly. I've always wanted to serve. I've always wanted to optimize myself. Um, but really, my life transformed when I discovered this 5:00 AM routine. And as you might know, I've been working with billionaires and, you know, many of the most successful people on the planet for over two decades, and one of the things, if not the single best thing that I've helped them with, is dialing in their morning routine. Because the way you begin the day sets up the way the day unfolds, and consistently great mornings cascade into amazing days. Great days build great weeks, quarters, months, and years. So I, I often say that The 5 AM Club and the 20/20/20 formula, what, that the book-
Jay Shetty 3:00 Mm-hmm
Robin Sharma 3:00 ... is based on is the mother of all routines. You get that one habit right, and everything else escalates.
Jay Shetty 3:06 Right. And specifically, why 5? Not four, not six, not three, not seven. Why 5?
Robin Sharma 3:12 Well, I hear you. Um, The 5 AM Club, I first wrote about it in The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.
Jay Shetty 3:18 Yes.
Robin Sharma 3:18 And it just stuck, and it just... People resonated with it. But you're right. I mean, if you look at the great sages and saints of the world, as you know, you were a monk, um, they had one thing in common, and they understood the pristine hours before the sunrise-
Jay Shetty 3:35 Mm
Robin Sharma 3:35 ... have a magic to it. And we live in a world where a lot of people, this is right out of the book, "An addiction to distraction is the death of creative production." There are a lot of cyber zombies on the planet. There are a lot of people on the planet right now giving the best hours of their finest days to the white screen of-
Jay Shetty 3:54 Mm
Robin Sharma 3:54 ... attractions. And I, I really think that betraying your genius, every single person on the planet has primal genius within them. That's scientifically proven. We can talk about it. I go into it in the book. But playing with your phone versus pursuing your monuments of mastery is betraying not only yourself, I think it's betraying the world. And so I really believe, and I've experienced it for two decades with my clients, getting up at 5:00 AM and running this calibrated 20/20/20 formula-
Jay Shetty 4:21 Mm-hmm
Robin Sharma 4:21 ... that much of the book is about will take any human being to a new level of creativity, productivity, prosperity, and service to humanity.
The 20/20/20 Formula: Move, Reflect, Grow
Jay Shetty 4:31 Let's dive into that 20/20 formula-
Robin Sharma 4:32 Sure
Jay Shetty 4:32 ... seeing as you mentioned it twice already. Let's break it down for the audience listening.
Robin Sharma 4:36 Sure. So it's, it's, it's, it's simple. B- um, you get up at 5:00, and people go, "I'm not a morning person. Um, you know, Mom couldn't get up at 5:00. Grandpa couldn't get up before the sun. I don't have early rising genes. I can't win the battle of the bed." Um, here's what the science confirms from University College of London. Any new skill can be installed with 66 days of practice.
Jay Shetty 5:05 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 5:06 And so a lot of pe- we all can change. We all can embrace The 5 AM Club and join the club, so we start our days well. We just don't give it enough time. So the first thing is make a commitment for 66 days to install this habit.
Jay Shetty 5:21 Set that intention.
Robin Sharma 5:22 Completely. It's, otherwise, it's like, "I want to learn Italian. I tried it for six days, and I'm not fluent. I guess I'm not the kind of person who can speak Italian." Right. So now, you know, what do you do over these 60 day, 66 days of habit installation? Well, it's the 20/20/20 formula. Very quickly, um, I get into it deeply in the book, but it's the first 20 minutes, the first pocket is called Move. Why? Because when you sweat first thing in the morning, you release BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which increases the processing ability of your brain. You release dopamine. That's the inspirational neurotransmitter. You probably know this, Jay. You wake up first thing in the morning, cortisol, your fear hormone, is highest. Work out first thing in the morning, you actually increase your metabolic rate and energy as an entrepreneur, business builder, empire maker, history maker. Energy is even more valuable than your intellect. So that first 20-minute pocket, it's now 5:20, you're on fire. You release serotonin. You're happy even if you're cranky. I mean, what's that worth? Then the second pocket of the 20/20/20 formula, it's all about reflection. We live in a world where there are a lot of people who are busy being busy, but what's the point of being busy around the wrong things? Just, just imagine getting to the end of the year, end of your career, last day of your life, and you say, "You know, I was incredibly focused, but I climbed the wrong mountains."
Jay Shetty 6:51 Mm.
Robin Sharma 6:51 So the second 20-minute pocket, you can reflect and you can write about your... You can ground in your values. You can meditate. You can visualize, and we know about epigenetics. We can talk about that. But as you start visualizing, you actually step into the higher version of yourself.
Jay Shetty 7:08 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 7:08 And I love writing in a journal. I did it before I came here today. I, I wrote out a written prayer of, you know, serving and making a difference for all your followers from around the world. So the second minute, the second is y- you anchor for the second 20 minutes. And then the final pocket is all about growth. You know, the billionaires I work with have one common denominator, and that's they're curious.
Jay Shetty 7:29 Mm.
Robin Sharma 7:29 And they have a white belt mentality even though they are some of the most famous people in the world. And so the sec- the final, uh, pocket is about reading, studying, developing your skills, and most importantly, developing yourself.
Jay Shetty 7:44 Mm. I love how you've simplified it into what can be achieved in an hour because it seems manageable, it seems realistic. And the beautiful thing is that, that anything that starts working for people, they can then stretch that section. So I'm sure you've seen that the people that you've worked with, sometimes that exercise will grow from 20 to 40 minutes or maybe even more. That reflection period grows. Or have you seen that it actually stays tight to that 20/20/20?
Robin Sharma 8:07 Oh, you're absolutely right, Jay, that, you know, I, I call the 20/20/20 formula the minimum viable morning routine.
Jay Shetty 8:14 Right. Right.
Robin Sharma 8:14 It's going to work. It's gonna give you the energy. It's gonna bring on your fire. It's gonna help. An- another thing, it's not only gonna allow you exponential creativity and productivity, but in The 5 AM Club, I say tranquility is the new luxury.
Jay Shetty 8:28 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 8:29 So whether you're a homemaker, a professional athlete, an entrepreneur, a pizza builder... Well, I, maybe that's not the term of art.
Jay Shetty 8:36 [laughs]
Robin Sharma 8:36 You know. Uh, but you do your best work, we have our greatest impact, and we are most true to our best selves when we're tranq- tranquil, peaceful, and serene. And that's another value of joining the 5:00 AM club because those hours before the sun rises are the most peaceful, magical, quiet period of the day. And if we can anchor in who we truly wanna be before we go out into a messy world, well, we're gonna fundamentally behave differently.
Jay Shetty 9:08 Absolutely, because so much of our lives, we just get up and we start doing, right? We start doing before being, and that disconnect creates so many challenges. But I've, I've got a really interesting question that, that sparked me when I was researching and reading through your book. You've worked with sports superstars, billionaires. What was their biggest block as a pattern that you saw-
Robin Sharma 9:26 Mm
Jay Shetty 9:26 ... to the 5:00 AM club? Like, what was the pattern of the block?
The Four Interior Empires: Mindset, Heartset, Healthset, Soulset
Robin Sharma 9:29 Well, it's the same block we all have, Jay. Um, I believe that potential unexpressed turns to pain. And when we are born, we're born as children into awe and wonder. Adults are nothing more than deteriorated children. But as we leave the perfection of childhood where, where we're intimate with our gifts and our talents and awe and wonder, our parents, doing their best, say, "You want to be an astronaut? Be practical." Then we go to school and we say, "Well, I want to be a rock star, and I want to be an actor, and I want to be Jay Shetty when I grow up." And they say, "No, no, he's a different kind of... Cut from a different cloth than you."
Jay Shetty 10:12 Mm.
Robin Sharma 10:13 And we, we, we get seduced by the beliefs of the people around us, and we go from this awe and wonder and intimacy with our glory, our primal glory. That's, that's just the human condition, and we start to forget who we truly are. And as our dreams start to fall apart, and as we lose that connection with our best selves, and as we get sad and disappointed, and as we fail, that's just part of life, a lot of us shut down. And we don't know how to process through that pain, so we, we repress it. And so the great sports superstars or the billionaires I work with or the, you know, companies like Starbucks, FedEx, Nike, IBM, when I work with their leadership teams, what I do is I help them move through that well of blockage within themselves. Because in the book, there's a very disruptive model, and it's called the four interior empires. And just really quickly, so many people are talking about mindset. Would you agree?
Jay Shetty 11:08 Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Robin Sharma 11:09 Right? Everything is mindset.
Jay Shetty 11:11 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 11:11 If you just dial in your mindset, you're gonna go out there and you're gonna change the world. Well, here's, here's what that model is about. I, I think mindset is only 25% of the personal mastery equation.
Jay Shetty 11:21 Yep.
Robin Sharma 11:22 And, and here's why. It's very important to have a great mindset. That's your psychology. You want to wire in the beliefs of world-class, no question. But a great psychology with a broken heart or a heart full of pain, if you haven't forgiven the unforgiven, if you're stuck in the past, you can read the books and go to the courses and get a great mindset and you're all on fire, but you sabotage yourself because your emotional life is toxic.
Jay Shetty 11:49 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 11:49 So it's not just mindset. There's this second word I'm introducing which is-
Jay Shetty 11:53 Heartset
Robin Sharma 11:53 ... it's going to transform people. It's heartset.
Jay Shetty 11:56 Mm.
Robin Sharma 11:57 But it's not only purifying your heartset. You want to calibrate your mindset, purify your heartset, and then it's this other word I'm introducing, healthset. That's the third interior empire. Because if you want to change the world, don't die. [laughs] Right? You know?
Jay Shetty 12:12 Yes.
Robin Sharma 12:12 So the, one of the keys to legendary is longevity. And there's a lot of the book on how to, how the best in the world, the great geniuses manage their vitality so they were like in their 90s still rocking their craft.
Jay Shetty 12:24 Mm.
Robin Sharma 12:24 So it's mindset, heartset, healthset, which is your physical life. And here's a key that I think will resonate with you. It's the fourth interior empire is your soulset.
Jay Shetty 12:34 Yes.
Robin Sharma 12:34 Now, some of your listeners from across the planet will go, "Well, I'm a business builder," or, "I want creativity, productivity. Why are we talking about soulset?" Well, if your ego is running the day, you're never gonna go out there and change the world. You know, a, a bad day for the ego is an awesome day for the soul.
Jay Shetty 12:51 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 12:52 So working on your soulset so you are a titan of humanity, and you're intimate with your highest nature, and you're wiring in the great values, and you're living for a cause that's bigger than yourself, that's what allows you to go out in the world and move through failures and really own your domain. So those four interior empires, once you work on those, you go out in the world and automatically everything you touch is golden.
Jay Shetty 13:20 Love that you brought the four together in the book, and it's, it's, it's so fascinating having this conversation right now because you're answering so many questions already that I had-
Robin Sharma 13:28 Cool
Jay Shetty 13:28 ... which is, which is beautiful to see. Because that was one of the big things for me, is how you've managed to expand on not just settling for mindset.
Robin Sharma 13:36 Yes.
Jay Shetty 13:36 Because as we all know in our personal experience, that that doesn't do the trick, and I completely agree with you. That's something I'm really fascinated by right now, is healing people's childhoods.
Robin Sharma 13:46 Yeah.
Jay Shetty 13:46 Like, I feel like healing that emotional, you know, the heartset that you're speaking about, being able to give up that baggage that comes from our childhood experiences, our, our backgrounds, where we grew up, the types of friends we had in our teens. You know, all that baggage that's just accruing year upon year and, and I really feel like you break that down really well in the book. So anyway, the, the, where I wanna dive in is around a lot of people listening may be thinking, "Jay, I've been trying to work on my health for a while. I've been trying to work on my mindset. You know, I know I've got emotional stuff to deal with and, and yeah, I'm kind of getting to that soulset," right? Like, like you said, like, "I'm not, I'm not even sure I'm there yet." Habit formation. You talk about the habit formation protocol, right? You talk about actually building habits, and I personally feel that building and breaking habits should've been the first thing we learned at school.
Robin Sharma 14:38 Yeah.
Jay Shetty 14:38 Because it feel, [laughs] it feels like the thing that affects our whole lives. I look at any change, and it's always about habits. Walk us through your approach to building and breaking habits.
Releasing Toxic Beliefs and Healing Childhood Wounds
Robin Sharma 14:47 Absolutely, and I totally agree with you, Jay. They teach us history, and they teach us arithmetic. They teach us geography, and they teach us, you know, whatever other language is in school. Why don't they teach us the four interior empires? Why don't they teach us... You, you, you said something very powerful. Why don't they teach us how to work through wounds? You don't get invited to a birthday party in fifth grade, there is a wound there. You lose a love when you're 16-
Jay Shetty 15:18 Mm
Robin Sharma 15:18 ... there is a wound there. You start a business when you're 22, there is trauma there, and I think that is in many ways the missing link in leadership and personal mastery. And that's really... You know, I'm passionate about the 5:00 AM club because I get into that in, in the book, and I worked four years on the book. But it's really 22 years of my, my learnings and teaching in the book, and that is a missing link. Because everyone's talking about psychology, and people are talking about habits, and I'll answer your question, of course.
Jay Shetty 15:50 Mm.
Robin Sharma 15:50 But what about dealing with trauma? You know, Carl Jung said we all have this shadow side. I mean, we all have this well of repressed pain, and anyone who's listening who goes, "Well, that's not me," it's subconscious, so a lot of... Unless you've done the work, you don't even know about it. But it's that pain and self-loathing and self-hatred. In the 5:00 AM club I say, you know, we have a magic inside of us. The saints call it the light or God or nature or a luminosity. And what happens is when you do the work to release your toxic beliefs and move through your pain. And, and how do you do it? You just feel it. And as you feel through all the toxicity, and the hurt, and the wounding, and the disappointment that's called a human journey, what is left as you release it, you access your light. You access your primal genius. You access creativity. You're productive because you don't have all this emotional baggage you're carrying through the day. You've, you know... I believe that the real art of s- the, the real key to success is joy and inner peace. Like, that's why all the, a lot of the billionaires, they have all the things, and they're not happy. You, our nature is joy, peace, bliss, love, and when you release that trauma, it just shows up because that's who we truly are. So yes, we should, we should teach. I wish they were teaching this in school, and then our leaders would be pure leaders like Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa, and Mahatma Gandhi. And I'd love to talk about those heroes-
Jay Shetty 17:28 Let's do it
Robin Sharma 17:28 ... because as you know, that last chapter is about that.
Jay Shetty 17:30 Yes.
Robin Sharma 17:30 And we all, we all can be heroes.
The Habit Installation Protocol: Destruction, Installation, Implementation
Robin Sharma 17:32 But on, on, uh, habit installation, so the research, as I mentioned, at, uh, University College of London says it takes 66 days for any human being to wire any, in a, in a habit. And we all have a gift called neuroplasticity, so we all can do it. And then the model I, I, I share in the book is called the habit installation protocol, and basically it's 22 days called installation. Uh, excuse me. Called destruction. To, to get up early, you've gotta destroy your old neural patterns and emotional signatures of getting up later.
Jay Shetty 18:05 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 18:05 That doesn't happen in an instant. All change is hard at first, messy in the middle, gorgeous at the end. So that first destruction phase is 22 days. There's nothing wrong. Society says it's hard, so it's bad. I'm suggesting it's hard, so it's good. That's what real change is. As you, with that awareness, you can stay with it and get into the second phase, which is installation. And that's like a house renovation, which is messy, and that's why change is messy in the middle. Your old pathways and ways of being are falling apart, but you know this because I s- I sense you have a very deep grounding. In that middle part, you have to i- in some ways let go of who you were.
Jay Shetty 18:48 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 18:48 It's called a dark night of the soul.
Jay Shetty 18:50 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 18:50 So for 22 days, it's, it's messy in the middle because you're letting go of who you were. That's not easy, and that's why habit installation, you need to have some bravery. But that's only 22 days. Stay with it because then you get to the third phase, which is implementation. So destruction, integration, implementation. Well, now we're on the short roads, and the neuroplasticity has kicked in, and the researchers call it automaticity. You will. Every human being can get to a place 66 days later, approximately, where it actually gets easier to get up at 5:00am than to stay in the bed. And the point is au- it's called automaticity, and that's, you know, we all have that ability. We just need to stay with that three-stage process for 66 days.
Jay Shetty 19:33 Yeah, and I think that's really smart advice. Anyone who's listening right now, I just want you to know that with the depths that Robin can go to, I'm, like, torn between trying to help him answer tactical questions-
Robin Sharma 19:44 Right
Jay Shetty 19:45 ... because I know they're going to benefit you today. And then, so th- there's always two things in my world. There's existential questions and circumstantial questions.
Robin Sharma 19:53 Mm-hmm.
Jay Shetty 19:53 And with Robin, you can go and do both. So I'm, I'm, I'm in that middle ground right now of going between tactics and soul, tactics and soul. So I'm, I'm enjoying that because I want people listening to get something really practical, tactical, stuff that they can start tomorrow, which the book is full of. But at the same time, you can speak to the soul, Robin. Like, you can really go deep. You were just speaking about our, our natural nature, right?
Robin Sharma 20:18 Yes.
Jay Shetty 20:18 Habit change in a much more mature way than just, hey, start this on day one and start this on day two. So forgive me if I'm going in between the two, but I'm doing it because I'm, I'm trying to win for both the audience long term and short term.
Robin Sharma 20:31 Well, you know, I, I wish your audience was in the room here with us because I feel what you just said, and I know you want to go deep. And yet I know you want people to get the 5:00am method, and you want them to get the 20/20 formula and all those rituals. And what I would suggest, we can touch on more of them as you like. I- if I may, I suggest trust your instinct because it's always wiser than your intellect, and let's go deep. And I think it would be, you know, y- your, your followers, let's challenge them, push them to the jagged edges because they're smart people.
Jay Shetty 21:05 Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I completely agree, and, and I'm happy to do that, happy to do that. Let's, let's go there. Let's do that. Let's-
Robin Sharma 21:11 I'm, I'm all in.
Lessons from Mandela, Mother Teresa and a Life of Service
Jay Shetty 21:12 Let's, let's dive into the minds of the few people you mentioned because I think that's a nice place to start. It's a nice kind of bridge over to that side. You just mentioned Nelson Mandela. You mentioned-
Robin Sharma 21:21 Yeah
Jay Shetty 21:21 ... Mother Teresa and Gandhi, two of which I have pictures up on my wall behind you.
Robin Sharma 21:25 Mm-hmm.
Jay Shetty 21:26 Uh, Mother Teresa's practic- seems just so humble that I can't find a picture of her. Like, it's so hard to find a really good picture of her that I can get on my wall. So speak to me about those three individuals and why you mention them.
Robin Sharma 21:39 When I grew, when I... My, my father is in his 80s. Uh, he's been a, an icon of, uh, possibility in my life, and he retired recently after 54 years as a family physician. And he said, "Robin..." I, I said, "Dad, why did you stay in the game so long?" And he said, "Because my patients needed me." He's a man of service, and he used to share a, a, a quote with me from Rabindranath Tagore, and it was, "Robin, when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced." He said, "Son, live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice." Now, I, I've seen your work, and you're doing an amazing job, and some of your posts are, you know, don't worry so much about likes, and I think you're right. I think we're in a, in a lost world in many ways. Um, and I don't think it's about likes, and I don't think it's about yachts, and I don't think it's about jets. And are those things wrong? Absolutely not. We're, we're sensual human beings having a journey. But I think there's a different game that the true legends and titans play, and it's about joy, enjoying the journey, but it's really about making an impact on humanity. And there's not one of your listeners who can't do that, whether it's if you work in a coffee shop or you're a teacher or you're a street sweeper. We all have a calling on our lives to elevate those around us. And so service has been very big to me. My life changed, um, on two occasions. Number one, I, I sat in Mother Teresa's bedroom in Calcutta, now c- now called Kolkata. And it was interesting to me. She had nothing but a bed and a table because she would reach a level of maturity where her bliss and joy didn't come from material things. It came from love and service. Two years ago, I st- I stood in Nelson Mandela's prison cell, and my life changed standing there because he was in there for 18 years. I stood in the limestone quarry where he chipped away at limestone that they didn't even use to degrade him because he had no purpose. I stood in the showers where he would shower naked as an elderly ma- statesman while the young guards laughed at him, again, to torture him. In, in The 5:00am Club, I, I, I write a true story where he was asked on Robben Island to dig a grave. And Jay, they said, "Get in the grave." And he thought, of course, he was gonna die, and they urinated on him. And yet when he was freed from Robben Island, and then he went to Drakenstein Prison in Paarl, South Africa- When he was released, he actually, um, found the prosecutor who fought for the death penalty and took him to dinner. And he actually went to the jailer who kept him in prison for 18 years on Robben Island over a total of 27 years of confinement, and he seated him near the front at his inauguration as president of South Africa. And he was asked, "Why did you do that?" And he said, "Because if I didn't, I would still be in prison." And so why do I mention Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr.? It's because The 5am Club and all these rituals, yes, be creative. It'll help your productivity. It'll make you money and that. But really, in many ways, this book is a manifesto about our responsibility to materialize who we are on the inside. You know? And there's n- I, I would take a bullet... M- Martin Luther King Jr. said, "If you have not found something you'd die for, you're not fit to live." I would take a bullet for the fact that every single person on the planet, if they run these rituals, and they do the work, and they stay in the game not only when it's easy but when it's hard, they're gonna live gorgeous lives in their own original way. So why wait for these heroes to show up? We're, we're, "Oh, I wish there were more leaders and heroes," when we all have it in us to be one of those heroes. But most of us aren't doing the right things to manifest our glory.
Jay Shetty 26:03 Mm. Thank you so much for sharing that so openly. I, I can only imagine what it felt like to actually be in those spaces and places and kind of absorb that energy. It definitely is such a powerful thing to do, and I recommend that to people. If you're inspired by anyone, don't get lost in what they look like they're doing now. Go to the places where they started, where they felt their pain, where they had their transformation, because you can soak in all of that energy and that journey much more deeply than you can by following them on Instagram or Twitter, which is only gonna give you such a minimal viewpoint of that person's life. But you reminded me of something, and I want to ask you about this very closely. I was speaking to a, to a Fortune 100 organization once, and I was sharing a story, and I was speaking about how when I decided to become a monk, it was because of service.
Robin Sharma 26:52 Mm-hmm.
Jay Shetty 26:52 It was because I wanted to be someone of service to humanity. That's what motivated me. I felt I want to use my life to give, and because the monks I was associated with were giving and generous and serving with everything they had, that motivated me. And one of the most beautiful thoughts and pieces of wisdom that I got at that time was, "Learn to plant trees under whose shade you do not plan to sit." And that, when I first heard that for the first time, it kind of just like, my whole, you know, my whole being came alive. I was like, "Yeah, that's what life's about." It's about giving without wanting to get back. It's about giving without receiving. And the crazy thing is, so I share this story, and then at dinner I'm sitting down with the leadership, and one of them says to me, he says, he said, "How old were you when you heard that and decided to start living it?" I said, "I heard it at 18. I started living it at, at 18 and three, uh, 18 and a quarter. I tried to start putting it in practice straight away." He said, "You know what?" He said, "The first time I started thinking about someone else apart from myself was when I had a child at 32." So what he was sharing with me is that this mentality that we're and you're being an ambassador for, of serving humanity, giving, you know, being someone of impact for society, that's so alien to us. It's actually something that people don't come to even later on in life because it kind of stops at your kids and your family. So how are you urging people in every stage of life to kind of go there? Because it requires, it's, it's a big, like, paradigm shift for a lot of people.
Giving, Generosity and Where Real Joy Comes From
Robin Sharma 28:21 Jim Carrey said, "I wish everyone could be rich and famous to realize there's no joy in that," to paraphrase his words.
Jay Shetty 28:27 Yes, yes, yeah.
Robin Sharma 28:28 And, you know, I, I, look, I, I, I've seen the best and the best. I've had Richard Branson on my s- on my faculty, Steve Wozniak, Shaquille O'Neal. I've, I've worked with s- real superstars, and, um, a lot of them are just really unhappy people. I'm not saying the ones I mentioned, but a lot of them are really unhappy people. And they'll show you their smiley face, but deep inside they're going, "I'm worth, you know, 3 billion, and I've got jets, and I've got m- multiple residences, but there's, there's gotta be more." And so how I would urge people to embrace the message of being a forceful servant for people is, first of all, if you're an entrepreneur, you have a lot of entrepreneurs who follow you, there's no better way than standing for generosity if you wanna own your domain. You know, what made Apple Apple, first trillion-dollar company, was Steve Jobs wasn't worried about the cash. He was worried about the craft. Someone came to one of my events and said, "You know, Robin, you mentioned Steve Jobs. I saw him six weeks before he died. I went into his den as he was dying." And he said, "I think it was just before the release of the iPhone," and it was like, "Um, you know that little thing we were working on? Ah." He had a monomaniacal obsession bordering on a possession to birth beauty into the world that would elevate the lives of his customers. That's generosity, not scarcity. So it's great for business. Secondly, if you want real joy, it doesn't come from getting. And l- a lot of the book is about how you materialize empires in the world. But the end of the book when Mr. Riley, the billionaire, we can talk about the story, he's on that Franciuk vineyard, and he shares his 11 letters, and he explains, he uses a word called the magic. And if you want to inhabit the magic, I've done it at parts of my life. I don't know if you have, but I've experienced bliss. And then it comes and it goes. But bliss has never come to me from getting. Bliss and joy and what Mih- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term flow from University of Chicago- When we are literally in that moment when we're in our magic, that comes from giving. It comes from being in the moment when you're writing that book going, "How can I be an instrument of service and bring all my craft?"
Jay Shetty 30:56 Mm.
Robin Sharma 30:56 Giving, like helping someone on the street, doing something for your fa- you know, I'm really into philanthropy these days. That's my joy. So that's how I would urge people, like if, if you want real empires, if you want real happiness, you want real bliss, you wanna elevate your immune system, look, there's lots of science, just go out in the world and give as much value as you possible and radiate possibility, and amazing things will unfold in your life.
Jay Shetty 31:22 Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more, and thank you for being such a strong ambassador for that message. It's, it's the message that I genuinely believe everyone needs to hear, and hearing it from you, from the work that you've done and the incredible career that you have, to hear it from you is, is super powerful. And for me, when you mentioned about feeling bliss or feeling flow state and that coming from giving-
Robin Sharma 31:43 Mm
Jay Shetty 31:43 ...
Channeling, Epigenetics and Intimacy with Mortality
Jay Shetty 31:43 I've also felt that that intention opens me up to exploring channeling, like the ability to feel like things are happening through you, not by you, right? Like, that's when I really feel flow. That's when I really feel my best. That's when I really feel bliss, when I recognize that this is way beyond me. This is not just what I think I have and do, and strategically, and like technical, and this step and that step, and that's all good. Like, I'm not against that. I'm also strategic, but it's when you re- ha- t- tell me if you agree, if you feel that way, if you disagree, like I'd love to hear your thoughts on, on channeling and, and, uh, higher, higher powers and higher energy and higher perspectives.
Robin Sharma 32:26 Well, you... When I said let's go deep, you, you're not shy to do that, right? [laughs]
Jay Shetty 32:30 You, you let me out.
Robin Sharma 32:32 Because-
Jay Shetty 32:32 I was-
Robin Sharma 32:32 [laughs] Be careful what you wish for.
Jay Shetty 32:34 [laughs]
Robin Sharma 32:34 Um, I've never been asked about channeling, and I'm, I'm very happy to answer. Um, there's a lot of emerging science saying, here's the reality, and anyone who wants to dismiss it is denying science, which is planet Earth is a tiny planet in a galaxy of trillions of planets. Um, my friend Deepak Chopra was on my stage, uh, at one of my events a f- a few-
Jay Shetty 32:58 Lovely man
Robin Sharma 32:58 ... months ago. He's a lovely-
Jay Shetty 33:00 Yeah
Robin Sharma 33:00 ... man. He just radiates goodness. And, um, he took us on a tour de force about cosmology.
Jay Shetty 33:06 [laughs]
Robin Sharma 33:07 And he's been a pioneer for so many years, and he, he confirmed the science, which is we are all part of an energy source, whatever you wanna call it, God, uh, nature, life, and you're absolutely right, Jay. Your intentions are creative. So we could come at it from a cosmo- cosmological point of view when you say, "Here's who I wanna be." You know, this morning in my journaling, I'm gonna meet Jay. I'm so delighted and blessed that he's invited me on his show because he influences so many people. How may I serve? That intention hopefully is creative. So we're very powerful. I, I'll come at it another way, which is epigenetics. Epigenetics, as you know, stands for the emerging field of science, which is you are not your genome. The old school said, "Your DNA, what you get from mom and dad, that's your destiny." We're now realizing that epigenetics means our environment, our daily rituals, like getting up at 5:00am, our thoughts, what we eat, our peer group, et cetera, literally affects the upregulation or downregulation of our genome. What does that mean? It means if you believe in yourself, if you do the work and the journaling, if you get up at 5:00am and do that victory hour and go through the 20/20/20 formula, you literally are recalibrating who you will become out in the world.
Jay Shetty 34:35 Mm.
Robin Sharma 34:36 So you're absolutely right. Then you start channeling your intentions, and you start t- stepping into your power. Like, we are awesomely powerful beings. Most of us have blocked our, our intimacy with our true power.
Jay Shetty 34:50 Wow. Blocked our intimacy with our true power. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's real. That's for sure. That's definitely real. I'm just taking that in. I think that's a really powerful statement. That's, that's a genuinely powerful statement. I want everyone to think that through if you're listening right now, you're watching right now. And, and that's, that's, I guess, the biggest challenge with all these rituals, all these steps that you're sharing, is really to remove that block.
Robin Sharma 35:16 Absolutely correct.
Jay Shetty 35:17 Right? Just to move out of the way.
Robin Sharma 35:18 We, we were born into brilliance.
Jay Shetty 35:20 Mm.
Robin Sharma 35:20 The saints and mystics and philosophers ha- have talked about it, you know?
Jay Shetty 35:25 Mm.
Robin Sharma 35:25 As we go out in the world, we take on the beliefs and the emotional patterns of those who influence us.
Jay Shetty 35:35 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 35:36 You know? And then what happens is we actually forget who we truly are. Um, one thing that I think is very important is also build intimacy with mortality. [laughs]
Jay Shetty 35:46 Mm.
Robin Sharma 35:46 Because, you know, sometimes people probably ask you this, they ask me this, "What do you want to be remembered for?" Well, I, I'm pretty clear. I'll be dust. Hopefully, I'll get to live a long life, but I'll be dust, and no one will remember me aside from my family, you know? And so why make it about ego?
Jay Shetty 36:03 Mm.
Robin Sharma 36:03 And as we connect with our mortality, we realize what life is really about, and that's a great thing to do from 5 to 6 o'clock in the morning, like in that second pocket of the 20/20/20 formula. Write in your journal, "On the last hour of my last day, what do I want said about me?"
Jay Shetty 36:18 Mm.
Robin Sharma 36:18 And have the discipline to architect your life so each day is a mountain climb towards that Mount Everest.
Jay Shetty 36:25 Mm.
Service Versus People-Pleasing and Fake Versus True Power
Jay Shetty 36:26 I'd love to dive into, we're speaking about this identity around service, humanity, talking about how these rules and rituals and principles can help us get there quicker, stronger, more sustainably. I'd love to talk about the difference between an identity crafted by service and an identity crafted by wanting to please everyone. Because I think service today with our l- with our childlike mentality at a early stage, service looks like pleasing everyone. It looks like doing the right thing. It looks like doing the thing that gets people to say, "You're great. I like you." Right? How, what is the difference? How have you seen power players play the difference between service and actually what is selfishness or ego?
Robin Sharma 37:10 I, I would say pleasing comes from fear-
Jay Shetty 37:15 Mm
Robin Sharma 37:16 ... and a lack of standing in your true power. There's a distinction I make in The 5 AM Club between fake power, big office, for example, lots of money, jets, titles. That's fake power. True power is Mother Teresa, M- Mahatma Gandhi. He died with under 10 possessions. That's true power. He, he did not get his power from who he was in the world and by pleasing people. He got his power by intimacy with his highest nature. That's true power. So what's the difference between pleasing and service? Pleasing comes from scarcity and fear, self-loathing and insecurity. If, if they don't like me-
Jay Shetty 38:03 Mm
Robin Sharma 38:04 ... then I'm not enough. Well, you know, any great genius, any, the great women and men of the world stood alone even if they were an army of one. Galileo, Coco Chanel, Katharine Graham, Shakespeare, Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Jay Shetty 38:19 Mm.
Robin Sharma 38:19 If you look at the great producers of the planet, they were ridiculed before they were revered. You, you can change the world or you can be liked by everyone, you don't get to do both. So service comes from, "Here's my vision." Maybe it's the internet, maybe it's Apple, maybe it's, you know, writing a book or a movie. "Here's my vision, and even if the world laughs at me, I am st- so strong in my vision to serve, to disrupt the field, to bring on value, and to live my truth, that even if they shoot me and take a bullet, I will continue at all costs." That is a titan. That's a legend. But a lot of us have not done the inner excavation, and that's why I go back to the four interior empires. That's why The 5 AM Club, 5:00 to 6:00, the victory hour, doing the protocols that I teach in the book, is transformational. Because suc- the doorway to success doesn't open outward. If you get it inward and build that core, that warrior-meets-poet self, you go out in the world, you're powerful.
Jay Shetty 39:29 I love that. You can please everyone or change the world. You can't do both. Yeah, that's gonna stick with me. I like that, and I think that's really important for people to remember because we feel that they have to be aligned. We feel that both have to come together, but it's not always the case, and it's actually rarely the case from the examples that you stated there. Yeah, phenomenal. Phenomenal. And so one of the things for me there is, now you've got me going. Now you've got me in-
Robin Sharma 39:55 Great
Jay Shetty 39:55 ... in the zone of-
Robin Sharma 39:56 Great
Jay Shetty 39:56 ... of going deep
Robin Sharma 39:56 I'm excited to
Jay Shetty 39:57 ... going deep. But it's funny, a lot of people ask me, like, I lived as a monk for th- for three years. We meditated for four to eight hours a day, and a lot of people tell me, like, "What powers did you get?" You know, like, "What kind of, what kind of, like, mystic powers did you get from meditating for so long?" And, and my answer often, especially when I get asked it in that way, is, like, actually, I just learned beautiful processes and meditations to overcome envy, ego, pride, lust, you know, all those things. Like, for me, that's a much greater wealth than being able to make money manifest or fly in the air or, you know, transport myself. Like, that kind of stuff, like you said, you were saying fake power, and it's almost like in the yogi world, like that's the fake power.
Going Deeper: Suffering, Self-Identity and Inner Work
Jay Shetty 40:39 And then tell me a bit about the work that you've done. There's a, there's a quote that you said. I've read this from you, I can't even remember when I read it, probably, like, six years ago, and it, it stayed with me for so long. You said that, well, I read it, you said, "You can only take the world as far as you've visited internally."
Robin Sharma 40:57 Mm-hmm.
Jay Shetty 40:58 And I was just like, ugh, like if, when I, you know, when you read that, it was like, I was like, "Yes, I, I fully agree." And I remind myself that often. When I take, no matter, and I really appreciate your encouragement to me of what I've done so far, and I'm like, "Yeah, but I, if I need to take the world further than that, I need to go deeper." Tell me about some of the work that you've done to really go deeper. Tell me about those moments of pain, those, those moments where you reflect and you were like, "Robin, you're not, you're not, you're not living up to what you want to do. You're not at that stage yet. You've got to go deeper to take the world further."
Robin Sharma 41:28 Wow. I w- I, I feel like we need another two hours or thr- or, or another day. We should do a day-long podcast.
Jay Shetty 41:34 Oh, we should do it again. I'm in.
Robin Sharma 41:35 You know, I would love to, but-
Jay Shetty 41:36 I'm in. [laughs]
Robin Sharma 41:38 Um, so many things I w- I would say. The first, the first thing is your self-identity determines your impact and your income. That's where the real work is.
Jay Shetty 41:49 Mm.
Robin Sharma 41:51 You, so what have I done? What have I gone through? Well, I mean, like any human being, I've gone through heartbreak, and the majority says if you go through heartbreak, if you're on your knees because your life is falling apart, rush out as quickly as possible. What I've discovered, Jay, is stay in as long as possible because difficulty is growth in wolf's clothing, and if you ... Nelson Mandela became Nelson Mandela, or, you know, Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs, or Phil Knight, who created Nike with Bowerman, those people became who they were because of their most difficult experiences. So the greatest people on the planet have suffered the most. Suffering is not bad. I'm suggesting suffering is awesome. The, the ego runs from suffering because it's the death of the ego. But I believe pain, difficult times, failure, loss ... is purification and preparation for personal heroism. And so I've used heartbreak, I've used disappointment, I've used difficulty. I- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, uh, that was a self-published book. I was ridiculed. I have to say even now, The 5 AM Club, because there's so many new ideas in it, some people are criticizing it, and they're not, because they're not understanding it. Because anything new threatens people. And so that activated my self-doubt. Have I missed the mark? Have I spent four years doing my very best for this book, and have I, have I got it wrong? And so all, I believe everything that hurts you can strengthen you. And so I've used all the difficult times to make me better. And tactically, if you want to shift to tactics, I'll, you know, I, I have an acu-
Jay Shetty 43:56 Tell me
Robin Sharma 43:56 ... well, I have an acupuncturist, I have a spiritual counselor I believe in. One of the m- the, the models of the 10 rituals of Daily Genius is the two massage protocol. That's transformational. I, I biohack, I get drips or drops or whatever they're called, I supplement, I meditate. It just goes on and on. I spend way more time even on my craft than I, uh, uh, e- on my s- developing myself than I do on my craft, and that's what makes my craft better.
Jay Shetty 44:24 Mm. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and I, and I, and I couldn't encourage people more that if you have a business, if you have a family, whatever, it's a relationship, anything you're trying to grow, recognize you have to grow first. Like, if you want to go three steps forward, you've got to go three steps deep. Like, it's not gonna come the other way. And if you feel like you're just trying to push forward the whole time, it's, it's, and it's not working, it's probably a good sign that you need to take a step back and go deeper. Yeah.
Robin Sharma 44:50 I would say to any one of your so many followers across the planet, Jay, anyone who is not living at absolute world-class, you are your own worst enemy. But because it's so subconscious, if you haven't done the deep inner work, we blame it on, "Oh, it's the supplier. Oh, it's the, the market is contracting. Oh, it's a hard time in the global economy."
Jay Shetty 45:15 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 45:15 The reality is there are people out there at every possible domain of wealth who are doing amazing things.
Jay Shetty 45:21 Mm-hmm.
Robin Sharma 45:21 If you're not living your dream life or at your absolute best, you're, it's because you're in your own way. And what is the solution? It's working not just on mindset like so many people are talking about. Mindset, heartset, healthset, soulset. And getting that, you know, acupuncture might be the way to do it, plus hypnotherapy could be doing it, and could be massage, and it could... All that inner work that a lot of people go, "Oh, that's not for me," well, that's how you move through the blocks of your shadows that are covering your primal genius.
Jay Shetty 45:59 Mm. Yeah. I, I, I totally agree. I love those four. When I, when I read those, I was like, "I'm so glad that you covered the four," because you're so right. That we, we s- it's, it's kind of like our human wiring, where we love, like, the one thing you have to do, right?
Robin Sharma 46:14 Mm-hmm.
Jay Shetty 46:14 Like, it's like, "What's the one thing I have to do?" And it's kind of like, well, no, you've got four things to do, right? [laughs] Like, there's not just one thing. And I think our minds don't like that at first. We, we struggle with that at first. We're like, "Oh, I've got to think about that, and I've got to think about that, and I've got to think about that." But when you start recognizing that they all actually are connected, they're interconnected, they're all assisting each other.
Robin Sharma 46:36 Mm.
Jay Shetty 46:36 If you get your health set right, it's gonna affect your emotional set. If you get your emotional set right, it's gonna, uh, affect your soul set, et cetera. Like, there's such a... And, and, and that's why I do think, and I couldn't agree with you more, that waking up early just gives you the time and energy to do all of this, right? Like, waking up early just gives you that opportunity. You're, like, setting yourself up to be able to put all of this in.
Why Waking Early Enables the Four Sets, and Living from the Heart
Robin Sharma 47:00 There's a line in the book which, it comes from the Spartan warrior credo, "Sweat more in trading, and you'll bl- sweat more in training, and you'll bleed less in war."
Jay Shetty 47:09 Yes.
Robin Sharma 47:11 Victories are won before you even step onto the field. You look at Kobe Bryant, you know, for example, or Shaq, or LeBron, or Federer, or Serena. These people m- made the moves they made that won them the championship, not because of what they did on the championship court. It was their sweaty, disciplined practice at 5:00 AM while the rest of the world was not watching that allowed them to automate world-class in times of pressure.
Jay Shetty 47:41 Mm.
Robin Sharma 47:42 So you're right. 5:00 AM, getting up at 5:00 AM, joining the 5 AM club, giving yourself that time and the quietude when the, it's the l- time of least distraction to do the work we're talking about, will revolutionize any human life. That's why I say it's the mother of all habits. That's why I'm so passionate about it. And then you say about mindset, heartset, healthset, and soulset. H- here's what I think, Jay, and I'd love to know your thoughts, but we live in a world now where we're actually numb to our heart, and we're numb to our feelings, and we're nu- numb to love. I was in the gym early this morning. There was a woman, she'd taken the weights from the weight area and taken them to the cardio area just for herself. No one else got to use them. Not judging, just reporting. She's numb to feeling empathy for other people who want to work out. As I walked to get my coffee this morning, I kid you not, 6:56, excuse me, uh, 6:56 this morning, a woman was banging on the door of a deli, yelling at the employee, saying, "Open up," because I guess she really wanted her bagel. What I'm saying is we're taught to numb out our feelings, so we live in our head, and that's why so many people are saying everything is mindset, because they're living in their head. But great art, great architecture, great businesses, great lives don't just come from the head. They come from your heart, your feelings, your passion, your gratitude, your, your, your body, your health set, and from, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to places people don't talk about. Yes, they come from your soul. Your soul is just your higher nature, before the world taught you not to believe in who you truly are.
Jay Shetty 49:30 Mm. Yeah. No, I agree with you. Listening to that, I agree with you. I've often said that we're wired for generosity but educated for greed.
Robin Sharma 49:38 Mm.
Jay Shetty 49:38 It's like we're shifted the other way, but as young children, we were wired for generosity. There's so many shows of that, where we live through our heart when we're kids. And all of a sudden, it's like living from here as we grow older, this grows older as well, and we start living-
Robin Sharma 49:51 Mm
Jay Shetty 49:51 ... from here, like you're saying. Like, we're, like, moving out of our heart and into our head as we get older. And I think one thing that I've noticed as to why people behave like that when I'm observing and reporting, is I feel that people have lived through, through their heart, and they've been hurt. Like, people have lived through their heart, and they've been hurt by people who also were not living through their heart. And now to protect themselves, people are now living through their head too, because they think, "Well, if you're on your head, I'm gonna work through my head too." That's, that's my perception. That's my observation. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, and, and how we can switch back. Because I agree with you, everything that's incredible in the world comes from our heart.
Robin Sharma 50:32 Right.
Jay Shetty 50:32 Everything that we admire. But we've stopped that because we're scared of living through our heart.
Robin Sharma 50:38 Well, it's, it's, it's a dangerous conversation, Jay, because it's easy for me and you to talk about mindset. That's easy. That's the status quo mentality. T- mentality.
Jay Shetty 50:48 Yeah. Yes. [laughs]
Robin Sharma 50:49 And yet, right? And, and, and, you know, Freudian slip, so I've got more-
Jay Shetty 50:53 Yeah
Robin Sharma 50:53 ... work to do. I need to go. [laughs] Um, no. I'm, I, I, we're singing from the same songbook. It's you didn't get invited to the birthday party.
Jay Shetty 51:02 Mm.
Robin Sharma 51:03 Your, your heart gets hurt. You needed the attention of your mom or your dad as a little child, and they were doing whatever. Your heart gets hurt. You go through life, and you don't get into the university you want, your heart gets hurt. And as this happens, it's as I was mentioning before, it's this s- it's this steady getting away from who we truly are. And you're right, so we contract, and the contract, it's trauma creates contraction. Trauma causes the heart to protect, and we then protect ourselves from, from being... W- we try to feel safe. Well, that's the way most people are living, and that's why we really don't have truly intimate relationships. That's why we can't build a team of Picassos, because we're not really loving and open in the workplace. That's why we can't create products that are so beautiful, we put them out in the world, and we create a cult around them because they're so amazing. Intellectually, our mindset, we get it. And I'm not saying mindset isn't important. It's, in, in the model, it's 25% of the personal mastery equation.
Jay Shetty 52:13 Yes.
Robin Sharma 52:13 But the missing link is heartset. And you're absolutely right. We don't do it because we're scared. Rumi said, "Keep breaking your heart over and over and over until it opens." And so the real work of a hero, as w- as well as a business builder and a legend, is working on your opening up your mind, installing that psychology of mastery, but purifying your heart, and we can get into tactics. So you release the past pain, but you also embrace your, your gratitude, and you l- you stand in love.
Jay Shetty 52:47 Mm.
Robin Sharma 52:48 And then you work on the third interior empire, your heart, your health set, because if you are diseased, if you... There's a line in the book which is, "Energy is more important than even your talent." You know, you can have great ambitions and great opportunities. If you can't execute with fire, you, nothing gets done. And then I get back to the fourth interior empire, which is soul set. And I think-
Jay Shetty 53:10 [laughs]
Robin Sharma 53:10 ... you know, entrepreneurs should be talking about soul set. And if anyone gets scared, it's not religion. It's, it's about building intimacy with your noble self. It's about finding that cause that you'd be willing to take a bullet for, that will not only allow you to live a gorgeous lifestyle, but serve the world in the process.
Rapid-Fire Questions and Closing Wishes
Jay Shetty 53:27 Absolutely. So well said. Robin, thank you so much. I hope that everyone who's listening and watching is thinking what I'm thinking, is that, Robin, we have to set a couple of days aside to really dive into so much more of this. Uh, we've gotta, we're gonna end, unfortunately, but I, I feel like what we've captured today in my, in my space, uh, for me, is this energy of getting people to move further and deeper. Like, that's what we've truly captured at the essence, of pushing everyone who's listening and watching, including myself, you know, I'm included too, pushing us to start living through that deeper space, our soul set, our heart set, as opposed to l- remaining on the, not superficial, but remaining on the levels that are above. But I'm gonna end as we always do, with our final five questions.
Robin Sharma 54:12 Sure.
Jay Shetty 54:12 This is our rapid-fire section. It's one-word answers, three-word answers max. So I'm gonna ask you them now. The first question is, the best city to be in when you're writing a book? And I knew you wrote this across a few, so... [laughs]
Robin Sharma 54:26 I, I, I wrote The 5AM Club mostly in Rome.
Jay Shetty 54:29 Rome.
Robin Sharma 54:29 It's a, it's a Rome of great, it's a place of great beauty and magic.
Jay Shetty 54:32 Beautiful. Second question, the best advice you've ever received.
Robin Sharma 54:39 Hmm. Wow. I, I would just say, as simple as it sounds, never rest on your laurels, and keep learning every day.
Jay Shetty 54:50 Nice. Third question, the worst advice you've ever received.
Robin Sharma 54:56 Hmm. Wow. Um, the worst... [laughs] What a great question, Jay. Forgive me for pausing here.
Jay Shetty 55:06 No, it's good.
Robin Sharma 55:06 I just want to be honest and true to you.
Jay Shetty 55:08 Yeah.
Robin Sharma 55:08 The worst advice I've ever received.
Jay Shetty 55:10 I'm trying to call out bad advice.
Robin Sharma 55:12 I, I think it's, it's- It's, mm, I, I think it's all about not being true to yourself.
Jay Shetty 55:27 Fourth, uh, that's great actually. That's a great answer. Not being true to yourself. I love that. Uh, the fourth question is a mentor that has mentored you without someone you ever met, someone that you never met that mentored you.
Robin Sharma 55:38 Nelson Mandela.
Jay Shetty 55:39 Beautiful. I love that. I thought that was going to be your answer.
Robin Sharma 55:41 [laughs]
Jay Shetty 55:41 But I wanted to check. And I love that. I love that you said that because it, I want people to recognize you can be mentored by people you never met. You don't need to meet all your mentors.
Robin Sharma 55:50 That- that's why being around art shapes you. That's why standing in Nelson Mandela's prison cell transforms you. That's why reading a book is having a conversation with the author. That's why getting on airplanes and traveling changes your creativity and who you are. You just need to get out there and be exposed to genius l- a genius level ecosystem, and that just reorders who you are in the world.
Jay Shetty 56:18 Awesome. And fifth and final question, your wish, intention for everyone who's going to, after this, go ahead, buy The 5AM Club, read it. What's your wish and intention for them?
Robin Sharma 56:28 Well, when I would write each day o- over the four years [laughs] of this journey, I actually visualized my readers connecting with their primal genius and their luminosity as they would turn the pages, and that is my prayer, that as your followers read it, they remember who they are, and they stop betraying their power, and they... And I also wish that they don't put the book down and think it's a magic pill. Um, I've built a 66-day free program. The details are at the, at the end of the book. So after they finish it, they get a free online program where I walk them through and mentor them for 66 days, so they install that 5AM club habit to automaticity. But let's just remember, please, that world-class is a process, not an event.
Jay Shetty 57:21 Mm.
Robin Sharma 57:21 And working on yourself and being noble and an amazing entrepreneur and creative and a light in the world, it's a great way to spend the rest of your life, and we've nee- we need to keep doing it until we no longer breathe. So my wish is that, at all costs, all your people, when it's easy and hard, and they have self-doubt, they just continue.
Jay Shetty 57:44 I love it. Thank you so much. There you guys have it. Robin Sharma's 5AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life. This book is not full of words, as you've just noticed. It's full of energy that has beautiful wishes and intentions for you. I hope that you're going to make the most of it. I know for a fact that waking up early changed my life, and I'd love for it to happen to you. This is the book that, the guidebook that's going to show you how. Thank you so much, Robin, for being here. I'm so grateful. Thank you to all of you for being here, too. Thank you again, Robin. Thank you so much.
Robin Sharma 58:12 Y- you're, you're such a gracious person. You deserve all your success. Jay, I think this is just the beginning of your ascent, and, um, I thank you for your time. It's been beautiful.
Jay Shetty 58:23 Thank you. If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book, Think Like a Monk, from thinklikeamonkbook.com. Check below in the description to make sure you order today.
Episode duration: 58:41
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