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Jay Shetty PodcastJay Shetty Podcast

The Happiness Expert: Don't Fall For This TRAP! How To Live A Purposeful Life | Robin Sharma

Robin Sharma is widely considered one of the top leadership and personal mastery experts in the world.

Robin SharmaguestJay Shettyhost
Apr 8, 20241h 2mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 4:26

    Intro

    1. RS

      What's the point of climbing this mountain that the world says we should climb in order to be successful and happy, and realize at the end of a career, at the end of a life, we've climbed the wrong mountain?

    2. JS

      International bestselling author

    3. RS

      20 million plus copies sold

    4. JS

      One of the world's top leadership experts, Robin Sharma.

    5. RS

      I've mentored a lot of super rich people, and money is all they have.

    6. JS

      How does one balance ambition without attachment?

    7. RS

      Mm.

    8. JS

      [gentle music] Hey, everyone. I've got some huge news to share with you. In the last 90 days, 79.4% of our audience came from viewers and listeners that are not subscribed to this channel. There's research that shows that if you want to create a habit, make it easy to access. By hitting the subscribe button, you're creating a habit of learning how to be happier, healthier, and more healed. This would also mean the absolute world to me and help us make better, bigger, brighter content for you and the world. Subscribe right now.

    9. RS

      The number one health and wellness podcast.

    10. JS

      Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.

    11. RS

      [laughs]

    12. JS

      When we talk about living a rich life, when we talk about living a full life, it's a really interesting conversation because I think all of us have grown up with definitions of what a good life looks like. And obviously, in the book, you break down the eight hidden habits, as you call them, of, of the areas that matter. But you, you have so many amazing chapters in it that they dive into the depths of it. And the one first one that resonated with me was Don't Be a Resentment Collector. And when I looked at that chapter, I was thinking about people I know in my life. I was thinking about people I speak to. And I realized that actually it's very easy because life can be hard, because life can be challenging to collect our resentments, to place them on a wall almost as art, and to refer to them and talk about them and find validation and value through them. What's a resentment that you've seen people carry around for the longest period of time?

    13. RS

      Well, so you said a lot of interesting things in there, and the first, the first thing is there has been a cultural hypnosis, Jay, that you are rich when you have a lot of money. You're rich when you have a big stock f- portfolio. You're rich when you get to the top of the financial mountain. And for 15-plus years, this is something I've experienced mentoring billionaires, sports superstars, CEOs, movement makers. A lot of these people, sadly, are cash rich and they're life poor. And so what's the point of climbing this mountain that the world says we should climb in order to be successful and happy, and realize at the end of a career, at the end of a life, we've climbed the wrong mountain? So this book is based around, as you know, the eight forms of wealth. Now, I want to be really clear, money is one of the forms of wealth. Money puts food on the family table. It gives us freedom. It allows us to do great things for people in need. Having said that, there are seven other forms of wealth. The first form of wealth is growth. We were talking about that before we started. To be in hot pursuit of your finest self is a form of wealth. To spend your days doing a little bit of work on yourself so you know more of your gifts and your talents, so you build wisdom, so you build wonder, so you build bravery is a form of wealth. And so in that first section, there's 25 chapters, one of them is Don't Be a Resentment Collector, and I really do think that a lot of us go through life and people hurt us, and rather than process through it and metabolize the hurt and use pain as a purifier, we swallow it, and we allow it to build up. And it creates what I call in the book a, a resentment stack. And it's that old idea, you know, heal what hurts you so you don't go out there and bleed on people who didn't cut you. And so moving through as, you know, entrepreneurs don't really talk about forgiveness, and athletes usually don't, but if we move through the forgiveness and let the people who've hurt us off of our backs, we build intimacy with our creativity. We get to know ourselves. Energy rises.

  2. 4:26 – 8:47

    Don’t Be A Resentment Collector

    1. RS

      Wellness rises. And, and we just become more of the people we're meant to be.

    2. JS

      Mm. I find often, don't you feel this, that humans oscillate between extremes. So often we have a culture that idolizes money, and then we sometimes develop a mindset that demonizes money. We have a culture that may idolize fame, and then we demonize fame. We idolize success, and then we demonize success. And we're not great at finding the neutralized, the purified version, which not only are we deeply seeking, but seems to be the healthiest place to land. And so you spoke about, and I was very happy to see, that money is one of the forms of wealth, and you're just expanding that there are seven others. But I find that often when people hear, like... And, and I think I've, I've been very clear that I've never talked about how money doesn't buy happiness because I think money is a really powerful energy and powerful resource, which you of course talk about in this book as well. But why do you think or how do we stop ourselves from idolizing and then oscillating to demonizing, and what is the middle path? Like, what is that perspective that we need to develop?

    3. RS

      That's a beautiful question. Allow money to be your servant, not your master. And it's that old proverb, "Be in the world, but not of the world." So be in the world, make money. There's 25 chapters on how the billionaires do it. Make money, have nice things, go through life, treat yourself, treat your family. Having said that, don't identify with your wealth, your financial wealth. A lot of people, they, their self-identity is determined by their net worth. Makes me think of Jim Carrey. We're in the land of films and movie stars right here, and he said, "You know, I wish everyone could be rich and famous to realize it doesn't make a difference." And so it's almost as if we're going through life, we all have holes within us, and we're looking for outer things to fill the holes. And I guess what I would humbly suggest is nothing on the outside will ever fill the holes we're trying to fill on the inside. So have the nice car, have the nice house, take the great vacations, but don't be defined by those, and don't think those things are gonna somehow make you wake up one Fr- Friday morning feeling fantastic. And that's where the other seven forms of wealth come in. Money is one of the forms of wealth, but there are seven others. For example, growth, wellness, family, craft, and those kinds of things as we pursue them. I mean, I, for example, number th- form of wealth number three, family. I've mentored a lot of super rich people, and money is all they have. And I've been to places where I remember one in particular I write about, and I was asked to a- attend, um, a, a, an assignment to mentor someone. Most beautiful house I've ever seen. I walked by his art collection, walked by his car collection indoors, walked by his book collection, went to a subterranean passage, smelt cigar, finally got to the room where the titan of industry was, and we talked for two hours. And through the conversation I asked him, I said, "You know, so who do you share all this with? You know, must be amazing. You must be able to do anything with the people you love." And there was just a long, long silence, and he has no family, and they won't talk to him. He's all alone. And so what's the point of having the beautiful house and all the nice things if you don't have someone to share with, uh, with? You know, I was, um, recently with my parents. My dad will be 87 in, in June, and the more years I get behind my belt, the more I realize, like, family is so incredibly important. Uh, there's a chapter, have three great friends.

    4. JS

      Yeah, that-

    5. RS

      That's-

    6. JS

      That's one on my list

    7. RS

      ... right? Not, not 1,000 or, or whatever digital friends. Three great friends that allow you to be seen and you can be yourself with, and that's a, that's a form of, of riches. In that chapter on, or that section on family, there's

  3. 8:47 – 12:33

    Money Is Your Servant, Not Your Master

    1. RS

      also something called the 10,000 dinners rule.

    2. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RS

      And that comes from Ayesha Vardag, one of the UK's most famous divorce lawyers. And she was asked, "You know, look, you've seen so many relationships fall apart. Can you share what makes a great relationships?" Number one, she said separate bedrooms, and number two, she said 10,000 dinners. If you can see yourself having 10,000 dinners with someone, because looks, and fades, lust might dissolve, but if you can see yourself having 10,000 dinners with someone, hold them close because great love is hard to find.

    4. JS

      How does one balance ambition without attachment? Because I feel that the natural cause of events for most of us is we have ambition or drive, we then have achievement, and then that achievement leads to attachment because our value becomes our ability to get things or our ability to have achieved. How do you have but not have the attachment is the question.

    5. RS

      I think human beings are built to progress. I mean, I think we are happiest not when we're resting. I know there, there's, there's a lot in The Wealth Money Can't Buy about recovery, enjoying life, and all those things. Having said that, I think we are happiest when we are materializing our pl- primal gifts. We are happiest when we are chasing what I call your project X. We're happiest when we're moving in the direction of our Mount Everest. That's... So ambition is not a bad thing. I would say, what's the root of it, though? What's driving you? Are you driving it... Are, is it driving you from an unhealthy place? Are you doing it for FFA, fame, fortune, and applause? Are you doing it because really deep inside you're overcompensating? You don't like yourself very much, so you're hoping to get the applause in the world to make yourself feel better. But if you are ambitious and creating your Taj Mahals or your Catching the Rye or your Moonlight Sonata because you wanna push magic into the world, if you're doing it because you're in pursuit of a craft, the fourth form of wealth, pursuing a craft, if you're doing it because you wanna be of service. Mahatma Gandhi, I know one of your heroes as well, he said, "To lose yourself in service in others is to find yourself." So if that's what's driving you, then I believe your ambition is absolutely healthy and, and, and only good.

    6. JS

      Mm. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more, I think. And what's really interesting about that way you process ambition is that it's so internal. Externally, two people could look like they're living the same exact life, but internally they're living a completely different one because one is motivated by attachment and one is motivated by service, right? One is motivated by FFA, as you said, and one is motivated by service. It's, it can only a- actually ever be known by the individual and those closest to them. And one of the things that I know my audience struggle with, I know that my friends struggle with, I know people in my life, and I read this chapter and I was like, "This is the one that I'm gonna tell them to Listen to and read immediately. You say the best way to start is to start, and I find that everyone I know, or a lot of people I know I should say, struggle to start because they're so scared of what people will say. They're so scared of what people will think. They're so scared of rejection. They're scared of failure. I spoke to a friend the other day. He said to me, he said, "Jay, I struggle with trying new things because since I was young, I kind of followed a path. I

  4. 12:33 – 15:01

    When Are We Happiest?

    1. JS

      went to college. I knew I was gonna study this particular thing, so I got that degree. I only applied to two jobs, and I got both of them because I'd studied the right degree, and so I've never really had a door shut on me before. So now that I want to do something different, it's impossible to think that nine out of 10 doors may close." So I find that so many people struggle to start even though we know it's the place to start because they're so scared of rejection, lack of validation, or failure. So how do we, how do we start when that's what's going on in our head?

    2. RS

      How do you write the book that'll change the world? You go home, and you write the first page. How do you get super fit if you want to get super fit? You go on the first walk. How do you find true love if you are all alone? You talk to that person in the grocery store. As simple as it sounds, if you look at the great monuments, Taj Mahal, 22 years, one of the wonders in the world, it started with the first block. Another wonder of the world, the Great Pyramid of Giza, 2,500 blocks, 50,000 workers, one of the monuments the world looks to, it started with that first stone. So I was in Dubai on a radio show, and this wonderful broadcaster asked me, like, you know, "This is all fantastic, and so where do we start?" And I think you're right. The very question speaks of some degree of fear because underneath it is really exactly what you're saying. If I stand in my true power, if I live my values, if I chase my epical ambitions, if I live the life I truly want to live, if I let go of the energy vampires and fill my life with people whose lives I want to be living, if I become all those things, what if I fail? What if I stumble? What if I get laughed at? And that's where I think it's really important to remember the shortness of life. You know, that's why people when they talk about mortality, they go s-- they almost apologize. "Sorry to talk about the shortness of life or..." But I think talking about the shortness of our lives is inspirational because when we remember how quick a, a human life goes by, no matter how long we get to live, and when we may be every day in our meditations or in our

  5. 15:01 – 19:12

    Where Do We Start?

    1. RS

      journaling and our private conversations, we remind ourselves, soon or late, we will be nothing more than a pile of dust on a mantle above a fireplace next to Little League trophies. Number one, we don't take ourselves too seriously, and number two, we live to the point. I think what we are as human beings is we are great postponers. We are busy being busy. We are maximalists versus minimalists. We put off. We're gonna do these things later, but accident, illness, death, all those things are a part of life, and I think it-- as simple as it sounds, it's really important. One of the chapters in, in the book is put your last day first. Another chapter at the end is having-- have a living funeral. Buy the cake. Buy the daisies. Invite your family. Hear what they would say about you. Tell them how much you love them, and remind yourself that life is really very short.

    2. JS

      What have you seen in the people that you've coached, people that you've worked with, seminars for, you know, 25 years or more now? What have you seen has allowed people to give themselves the permission to fail? Like, where have you seen people become comfortable with discomfort and failure? What has been that habit or that practice that has made them go, "This is okay. This is normal"?

    3. RS

      Wow. I would say, first of all, MVP. As you know, in athletics, MVP is most valuable player, and that's an acronym I use for meditation, visualization, and prayer.

    4. JS

      Mm.

    5. RS

      So, you know, I wrote "The 5 AM Club," and for years, I g- I get up at 5:00, and I do the victory hour. But these days, I get up at 4:00, and it's really beautiful for me. I, I live in this old farmhouse in Tuscany, and I hear the roosters off in the disc- distance, and I hear these dogs barking, and I just lay there in bed, and I meditate, and I visualize, and I pray, and it really works. Now, it doesn't transform your life in a day. What does? But small daily seemingly insignificant improvements when done consistently over time and that practice of meditating on becoming less fearful, visualizing yourself as the person you want to be, maybe in a scenario, maybe it's in a business, maybe it's in a presentation, maybe it's asking someone out, maybe it's running a marathon or just getting to the gym, seeing yourself with your eyes closed while the world is asleep and just feeling at a cellular level and the colors. Visualization is incredibly powerful. And then prayer. It's so easy to forget this time-honored truth. Every prayer is heard, and if you don't believe in God or you don't believe in spirit, then I'm sure you believe in your subconscious. And so prayer, MVP is a very powerful tool. Second tool, I call it the pre-performance paragraph. So what you write about deepens commitment. What you write about sets a default about how you're gonna be. So writing a paragraph as part of your morning routine in your journal about who you wanna be in that day, brave, strong, resilient, positive. Writing it out in detail, just a paragraph, is a very, very powerful tool. And then the third thing, I could continue, but the third thing is you become your conversations. The sixth form of wealth in "The Wealth Money Can't Buy," and it's a form of wealth, is your community. You become your social circle. It's like, I don't know if you like good wine, but great wine comes down to a great terroir. The terroir is the surrounding, the ecosystem, the wind, the soil, the sun, et cetera. Well, as human beings, we become our terroir. And if we are around toxic people, if we are around people playing victim, if we are around people who stand for low standards, we are around people who minimize the power of personal growth, we are mo- around people

  6. 19:12 – 23:37

    3 Daily Practices

    1. RS

      who are takers, we will become the people we surround ourselves with. And we could get into the s- science of mirror neurons, which cause us to mimic our social circle. We could talk about emotional contagion, which is the scientific phenomenon of us adopting the dominant emotions of the people we are around. So those would be three things. The third thing is really clean out your social circle. Get rid of the toxic people. I think you can change the world or r- be around negative people. You can't do both.

    2. JS

      Yeah. The last one's such a, you know, we know it to be an age-old truth, yet we struggle with it so much, and I always wonder why that is. And before I ask you that, I wanted, I wanted to share, yeah, I find that I've found that whenever I'm complaining about someone in my circle, I am in that process becoming more like them. Like I remember years ago, I was complaining about someone because they always were complaining, and I found myself [chuckles] becoming the biggest complainer I knew because I was complaining about this individual. And so often we're becoming like them, not because we're even mirroring them. We're becoming like them because we're behaving like them subconsciously without knowing. Why do we find it so hard? We've heard that million times. Why do we find it so hard to change our circle and to transform the terroir around us? Like, why do we struggle so badly even though we know that we are the average of the people we spend time with? Why is it that we're still stuck in the same circles?

    3. RS

      Often it's because we love them.

    4. JS

      Hmm.

    5. RS

      And I would, I would say reason, season, lifetime. Some people come into our lives for a reason. Some-- There's that old idea which is some people come back into your life to see if we're still stupid.

    6. JS

      [laughs]

    7. RS

      [chuckles] So, you know, some people come into our lives for a reason, some people come into our lives for a season, and then some people come into our lives for a lifetime. Like I think of my, my partner, Elle, you know, she's just that person who gets me, that person who, you know, I could have 20,000 dinners with. So I think we struggle because sometimes these energy vampires, Jay, are our parents or our sisters or our best friends. And so we say, "Well, I love them. That's been my friend for 10 years or five years." But I would say, you know, if, if you're growing and you're reading and you're doing all these m- modalities and you wanna live a true-- your richest life, and you wanna materialize your gifts and talents and live at your best, and someone isn't growing and they're always questioning you, or you say, "Here's a new idea or project," and they're just going, "That would never work. Here are the reasons," et cetera, then you really have to ask yourself if that person is, is, is good for you and healthy for you. And I would say if you love them, maybe it's a parent, then love them from afar or practice selective association and see them once a month versus texting with them or chatting with them on the phone every day. I'd say the second reason why we keep people who are not good for us or who are bringing us down in our life is the human being doesn't like to change. We just don't like to change. And so it's so much-- I would put it to you this way. I would say the, the discomfort of growth is always less dangerous than the illusion of security.

    8. JS

      Hmm.

    9. RS

      And so I would say, yes, it's difficult to let people go, and yet that is always less dangerous than saying, "I'm gonna allow these people to stay in my life if they're just bringing me down."

    10. JS

      It's, it's-- That's an interesting thing because I often find also that as we're growing in our personal growth, self-development journeys, we're often becoming less compassionate in the beginning. Like, there's a immature arrogance that develops of, "I'm moving faster than these people. I'm better than these people. I'm, I'm, I'm the one doing the self-work, and they're not doing it." And even that mindset in itself is a sign that we've got a lot more work to do because if we're working so deeply on ourselves, our compassion should more likely expand, and hopefully we'd have the ability to set better barriers and boundaries with those individuals and develop the idea that we can have a

  7. 23:37 – 27:06

    2 Reasons Why We Can’t Change Our Circle

    1. JS

      group of people that we grow around, and then you have a group of people that you have to give to often, right? Like, I think that's what our life is made up of. Like, life isn't just-- We're not just surrounded by people that help us grow because we're obviously taking from them as well, and we don't want to be in a position where we're only giving. We want to be able to grow. So it's almost like we all have-- we have two sets of groups in our life at any real given time. Would you agree with that or?

    2. RS

      Well, I would just say trust, trust your joy.

    3. JS

      Hmm.

    4. RS

      I think joy is a great GPS. And so- Yeah. I'm not in any way suggesting be around people only who fuel you and who help you become you at your best.

    5. JS

      Yeah.

    6. RS

      I'm simply saying it's, it's about what's healthy. It's about your joy. It's about being around people who you vibe with, who understand you, who have similar values, who support you, and, and who encourage you.

    7. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    8. RS

      So I think your community is definitely a, a key, an absolutely key form of wealth. The f- form of wealth is, the fourth, excuse me, is your craft. And I think, you know, it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking a job is a job, and not realizing that our work offers us an opportunity to get to know who we truly are, you know? There's a, there's a chapter in there about do your project X, you know, which is build your... And I think the world right now needs more magic in the world, and I think a lot of us, what we do is we try to push out a lot of content, put out a lot, and I would rather do one master work than 1,000 mediocrities. And I think, you know, seeing your craft as a chance to change the world is, is, is a form of wealth.

    9. JS

      Mm. And what would you say to people who go, "Robin, you know what? I just wanna check into my job, clock my hours, and come home." Is that okay? Is there a better way to live? What would you say to that? If someone said-

    10. RS

      I'd say, of course. I mean, the great thing about a human life is we all get to live in the way that we wanna live. I, I've never subscribed to the hustle and grind culture. I think that rest is not a luxury, it's a necessity. I think we have to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Having said that, I think almost in the world right now, hard work has a bad reputation.

    11. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    12. RS

      And, uh, and I just think that, you know, seeing your work as noble, seeing your work as a chance to pursue mastery, seeing your work as a chance to serve and delight and astonish is a great form-- It's a great form of happiness. If someone wants to say, "I just wanna finish at 5:00 and go home," that, that's absolutely fantastic. I would humbly suggest, though, they might be missing one of the greatest sources of joy and wellbeing and inner peace.

    13. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    14. RS

      If you look at people, really happy people, a lot of them say, "I would never retire. Why would I retire? It's, it's my oxygen."

    15. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    16. RS

      And for me, I've got a great family life, and I, I think I have a good lifestyle, and yet I just, what I do, this is year 31 in the field of leadership and personal development, and the opportunity to calibrate the craft, I spent one year of my life on this book. I did 20 different manuscripts, probably 10,000 little optimizations every version, and I really suffered on this book.

    17. JS

      [laughs]

    18. RS

      And yet, you know, I, I have to-- I, it was suffering. It was hard. I felt like giving up. I could have mailed it in. The publisher would've said absolutely fine.

  8. 27:06 – 28:28

    Joy Is A Great GPS

    1. RS

      But there's a whole series of values here, like my family name is on that cover. I'm only as good as my last book. I think, you know, pushing yourself to the jagged edges of your potential is how you grow. And, and you know this, but I, I really feel I have a sacred trust relationship with my readers.

    2. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RS

      And you set an intention before we started. I set an intention here, too, which is, you know, to, to celebrate you for all the good that you do in the world and to have this, this studio full of light. And also, I j- I just did a little visualization and prayer before I came over here for all the people around, the millions and millions of people who listen to your show. And you know, as you know, these are real human beings with hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities. And, and I thought about as many of them as I possibly could. Some are at the top of the mountain. Some people are struggling. Some people are in bad relationships. Some people are in the relationship of their lifetime. Some people are starting a new tech company. Some people are multi-billionaires. Some people are entertainers. Some people are athletes. What am I offering? I'm, I'm simply saying I think through our work, we have a chance to change

  9. 28:28 – 34:35

    Why Rest Is A Necessity

    1. RS

      lives. I was in London recently, and I got into this taxi ca- on London black cab, and the gentleman outside it was almost like he was on guard doing noble work. Jay, his car was shining. His tires were polished. I walked inside. The carpeting on the floor was perfect. And as we went to Heathrow, I sort of tried to deconstruct his winning formula, and this is on this fifth form of wealth, the p- uh, it's the fourth form of wealth, seeing your work as your craft. And he said, "Well, you know, I take my job seriously. It gives me so much pride. I get to meet interesting people." And when we got to the airport, he goes, "Look, look what I do before every person comes in here." And he had this shampooer, and he goes, "Look." And he turned it on, and he started shampooing the carpet, and then he had, like, the, the Windex. And, and I'm just saying, you know, whether someone is a CEO or a billionaire or a famous tycoon or a pizza maker or a yoga teacher or an astronaut, work has incredible potential to help us build intimacy with our mastery but also give us incredible fulfillment, so it's a form of wealth.

    2. JS

      You know what? I love hearing that because I had personal experience of it as well just last week. So last week was one of my, my best friend's birthday. He was in town, and so I took him and a friend to Disneyland, uh, you know, which is not a couple of hours away, for his birthday, and it was amazing. We were fortunate enough to, you know, have a, have a, a private guide, like a, a tour, tour guide. Her name was Lexi. And I have not met someone This like, just for a long time I'd not met someone who was like that passionate, knowledgeable, smart, charismatic about their work. She knew every detail of history of the Walt Disney Park, right? She knew everything. She knew where Walt Disney had spent time. She knew what year that ride was built. She knew the little Easter eggs and the hidden stories about every single ride. Like, it was just spectacular to be around her and to learn from her. And when you're talking about mastering your craft, I was so amazed at how, you know, 26 years old, like fully mastered the craft of hospitality, tour guide, entertainment, knowledge, smarts. And I said to her at the end of the day, because we were just so happy with the experience, I said to her, I said, "You're gonna run that park one day. Like, you have that energy. Like, you're gonna run that park one day." And she said, you know, she said to me afterwards, she was like, "It's experiences like this that give me joy for what I do." And I was just thinking how special it was to experience that. I love what I do, but to feel that from someone, it was, it was amazing. So shout out to Lexi if you're listening. But, uh, it was, it was such a beautiful experience, and I think that what's happened, I feel, Robin, I know you work in leadership, you've worked with so many organizations all across the world, like I think for so long because culture perpetuates and cascades down, because you've seen the person above you not love what they do and not master their craft, but do the job, you then do the job and don't master your c- craft, and then the person who's coming up beneath you sees the same thing, and then we repeat that culture because we see it being rewarded. We don't see what you just said. You just gave this beautiful example of, you know, it took you a while to write this book. You suffered to write this book. It was, it was hard work to put it together. And you said, "I'd rather create a mastery than lots of mediocrities." But we see mediocrity being celebrated and rewarded, and masterpieces generally are hard to find these days, right? Because of the amount of consumption and the amount of creation. And so it almost feels that we have to be able to break generational cycles or break the generational curses or break multi-generational culture. How do we get the courage to do that when we see everyone doing the opposite around us?

    3. RS

      Well, I, I think there's a few things that come to mind, and the first thing is, you know, I, I love going to art galleries.

    4. JS

      Me too.

    5. RS

      And I am absolutely inspired. I don't know if all your viewers can see it, but there's, that almost looks like a Basquiat behind me, you know?

    6. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    7. RS

      So I, I'm just... I'm an aesthete. That's a French word, as you know, for a lover of beauty, and this is not expensive beauty necessarily. I love the beautiful flower. I love going to art galleries and seeing the work of the masters. And I often, I-- Here in LA the other day, I went to a whole bunch of galleries, and I was around Cy Twombly.

    8. JS

      Yes. Oh, I love Cy Twombly.

    9. RS

      I, I, I was around Forg, you know? And I, I just love these amazing, whether it's a Ba- Oh, I went to Basquiat. I don't know if you've seen the Basquiat in the Gagosian.

    10. JS

      Haven't yet. I need to go.

    11. RS

      Please, please go. And what I'm offering is don't do it, don't do beautiful work for the applause. The applause will come as a byproduct. Do beautiful-- Do your most beautiful work. Work hard on it. Calibrate it. Make it magic. See your wor- work as part of a magic shop for what it introduces you to within yourself. And even if no one sees it, I think about Vincent van Gogh, one of the greatest artists of all time. He sold two paintings. So he didn't do it for the money. He didn't do it for the fame, fortune, and adoration. He did it because he had to do it, and he did it because he was an explorer. He was a magician. It, it did something inside him that made him feel very good. I think about J.D. Salinger. One of my favorite books is Catcher in the Rye. J, he only wrote one book, and then he checked out into a subterranean passage in New Hampshire, and he probably wrote, I think it was 30 other books, but he never published one of them.

    12. JS

      Mm.

    13. RS

      So

  10. 34:35 – 41:07

    Breaking Multi-Generational Culture

    1. RS

      how do you develop this kind of a philosophy? Well, you stop plugging into the cultural majority and doing what everyone is doing, and you do-- you take a radical act, and you start thinking for yourself. And I think that's the power of The Eight Forms of Wealth the book is based around. It's a framework. It's a Mount Everest for the eight most important elements of a life well lived. It doesn't mean you're gonna do them all in a day, but every day you advance on growth, on wellness, on family, on craft, on money, on community, on adventure, and on service, and you start to think for yourself. And I guess what I'm trying to say is you start to live your own life versus your neighbor's life.

    2. JS

      Mm.

    3. RS

      And I think that's a, a, a powerful way to live. No one wants to get to our last day and say, "We lived like the tribe. We lived like our neighbors." I... There, there's a, an acronym in the book called PENAM.

    4. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    5. RS

      The five forces of PENAM. Parents, environment, nation, associations, and media. These five forces program us, and here's what they do. They cause us to forget who we truly are.

    6. JS

      Mm.

    7. RS

      And so I think we're born into genius, and then we resign ourselves into ordinary, and we become busy being busy, and we're playing with our phones, and we're doing what everyone else is doing. But deep inside, we have a voice of wisdom that sees the self-betrayal, and we're in pain because potential unexpressed turns to pain. So we're in pain, but we don't know it. And so that's why we medicate ourselves with too much phone, too much digital, too much work, too much Scrolling, too much gossiping because we don't like ourselves

    8. JS

      For sure. Well said. I mean, one of the-- It's so funny you say that. One of the things I work on with my clients that I work with privately will, uh, I'll ask them to-- We write a book for them, which is called their Book of Values, and it's a book of values, mindsets, habits that they practice. We design the cover, we print the book, only one copy, and they carry it around with them in their bag wherever they go. So wherever they go in the world, they can pull it out, and whenever they forget all the self-work they've been doing, they can look back at a guidebook for themselves. And I always tell them, "We're only ever gonna publish one of these. This doesn't get shown to your family. It doesn't go to your friends. It's not something you have to promote. You don't market it." It stays with them. And I was inspired by it because I remember reading, uh, Benjamin Franklin's, uh, thirteen virtues. To me, that was the idea of it. It's like, how could you have a book that you carried around that represented you, that held your identity, that made you like yourself because that's who you were, but you often had to remind yourself of who you were while you get caught in the penum, uh, you know, the, the five points you just mentioned now and, and, and I think that idea that-- And anyone can do that. You don't have to be well-known to do that. You don't have to be successful to know that. I know you talk about the value of journaling. Like that's what a journal is. It's, it's a space where you carry around your heart, uh, if you see it that way, right? You carry around your thoughts, and you can re-edit and f- you know, systemize your thoughts and make sense of them. Uh, and, and one of the things I've been hearing from a lot of people recently is this thought of like realizing they need to rewire their relationship with money. People have either been trained to believe that money is bad, money is evil, money doesn't buy happiness, money is the root of all evil, money will make you lose friends. There's so many statements about money that have been programmed into our penum, whether it was our parents, whether it was media, as you said, you know, all the others that have programmed us, and all of a sudden you get to a point in life where you realize, "Well, now I just have unhealthy beliefs about money. So whether I have it or I don't, I don't have a healthy relationship." How do you start rewiring that?

    9. RS

      I-I-If I could, before I answer that-

    10. JS

      Yeah, please

    11. RS

      ... you talked about something that I think is so important, your-- the book you do with your clients.

    12. JS

      Yeah.

    13. RS

      And I think that speaks to something that is so essential in the world right now, which is solitude. I think genius loves isolation. I think we are so in the world right now a-and there's so much noise, we can't hear the signal. And so I think spending some time every day alone is so powerful, whether it is in a journal, whether it is on a nature walk, whether it is one of the chapters in the, in the craft sections, Go Ghost For A Year. Take one year, go to Bali, go to Vietnam, go to Medellín, go to Stockholm. Leave your phone. Take the classics. Read them. Study them. Learn MVP, meditation, visualization, and prayer. Take long walks and get lost. Talk to strangers. Find yourself, and after that year or six months or three months, come back to the world reconnected with who you truly are. So I think being alone and going ghost-

    14. JS

      Mm-hmm

    15. RS

      ... is important. So y-you talked about how do we rewire our relationship with money. I think the DNA of transformation is awareness. So it's, it's the process of, first of all, realizing that money is something, but it's not everything. So our society says, "Measure your success by your net worth." In many ways, that's how society tells us to think. We pedestal the billionaire. We don't put the gardener or the teacher or the firefighter on the front cover of the magazine. So understanding that money is not everything, and it won't be the source of your joy. Like I've, I, I've met so many people who've sold their companies. I ha- I think of one person in particular. He said, "We, we had a liquidity event. We were waiting for the funds to wire into the account. My whole family was sitting around the table. We watched the funds go into the account." And he goes, "It went into the account, and I didn't feel any different." And it's that Zen proverb, "Wherever you go, there you are." So realizing that trap. Number two, realizing, of course, money's important. Gets you better way to journey through life, in m- in some ways less stress. You can do great things for your family. You can help people in need. You can get things that, that you like. There's

  11. 41:07 – 43:00

    Why You Need to Spend Alone Time

    1. RS

      nothing wrong with material objects, but not defining yourself by your art collection, not defining yourself by your net worth, because then that becomes just another drug of choice. So it's what I was saying earlier, which is making money, prosperity is a wonderful thing. I mean, if you look at the universe, there's no scarcity. There's flowers everywhere, and there's clouds, and there's, there's so much. The universe is abundant, so there's nothing wrong with abundant forms of money. I don't think we need to make it bad at all.

    2. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RS

      But not being, not using it and having it as our god to the point where actually we become so busy chasing money, we forget about the other seven forms of wealth. We forget about our family. We forget about our wellness. What's the point? There's, there's one wisdom tradition. They say, "When we are young, we would sacrifice our health for wealth, and when we get old and wise, we would sacrifice all of our wealth for one day of good health." So making money is not at all a bad thing, but let's not sacrifice the other seven mountaintops that are important for a truly well-lived life.

    4. JS

      Yeah, having a more expanse definition Is so required because we're often also only measuring our success in life and happiness based on that one metric. I think that measurement piece is so interesting because I was saying to a friend a couple of years ago, he really slowed down from his work because he fell in love and he found love, and he's gone on to get engaged to that individual and at some point soon they'll get married. And he always felt that that year was such a wasted year in his life because he was looking at it through the lens of the business didn't progress, the, you know, my financial life didn't

  12. 43:00 – 45:35

    Rewire Your Relationships With Money

    1. JS

      progress. And I, I've said to him so many times, I said, "That was one of the best investments of your life because you found love. Like, you'll look back at that year as the best year of your life of all time. But if you're only measuring your success..." And I was like, "You have no idea how that stability's gonna impact your career in the next few years. You could've been distracted looking for love for the next five years, and your work would've been distracted. Here you are, you found love in one year and now look, you'll, you'll have that stability." And it's so interesting what we measure makes such a difference, and I like that you're giving us eight things to measure as opposed to one thing, and then you start to realize how rich you truly are because no eight are gonna align every year anyway.

    2. RS

      These are eight priorities-

    3. JS

      Yeah

    4. RS

      ... of, of a truly great life. And you talk about that love story. You know, how, how rich, how wealthy are those, are those two people? I even think about the times that we are dealing with heartbreak.

    5. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    6. RS

      You know, the times we are dealing with tragedy. The ego says, "This is a waste of time." The ego says, "I should be productive." What's more productive than navigating the hard times and using the painful moments to introduce us to our strengths, using the difficulty to make us wiser, to teach us forgiveness, to help us learn the great human virtues of patience and understanding? So I think it's our ego-

    7. JS

      Mm-hmm

    8. RS

      ... that tells us, oh, we're wasting time if we're building love. We're wasting time if we're healing. We're wasting time if we're going through a hard season on our journey. But it's all grist for the mill, you know? I think the person who experiences the most wins. And work is important, but let's not confuse productivity with busy, and let's not confuse movement with progress. And I think a great human life has many different seasons and many different elements, and maybe there's a time for each of them.

    9. JS

      Mm-hmm. Absolutely. You, you talk about knowing your scarcity scars. This one really resonated with me because I think we don't realize what a scarcity mindset we've built up over time in all of these areas. I don't deserve love. I manifest bad health. I must be going to get sick. I'm gonna ruin this and throw it all away. Like, these are repetitive thoughts in people's minds.

  13. 45:35 – 48:22

    There Is A Time For Every Season

    1. JS

      In scarcity in each of these areas that you break down as the eight priorities, somewhere deep inside of ourselves we believe we don't deserve career success, love success, wellness success. Craft, I could never be good enough to do that. That's for special people. That's for the Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan. That's not, that's not for me. Like, those people mastered their craft. So these scarcity scars that exist, how do you even develop the idea that your scarcity scar doesn't have to be your reality forever?

    2. RS

      So there's an idea that I share called re- recruit a dead board of directors.

    3. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    4. RS

      And recruiting a dead board of directors is about the power of mentors, and all it takes is one conversation with an interesting person to revolutionize the way we see the world. And, uh, we talked about the pen and programming, the five forces. In so many ways we adopt the... W- when we're little kids, we have these social cues, and we watch and listen to how our parents see the world.

    5. JS

      Yeah.

    6. RS

      And that's what parents do. They teach us how the world works. And for a lot of parents, they teach us scarcity. Money doesn't grow on trees. I had one client, his father repeated over and over and over again, "All rich people are liars, cheats, and thieves."

    7. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    8. RS

      How many times do parents say, "Uh, that's a great idea. You want to be in the NBA," or, "You want to be a painter, you want to be a best-selling author, you want to be a billionaire, be reasonable." Makes me think of George Bernard Shaw. He said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in adapting the world to himself."

    9. JS

      Mm.

    10. RS

      "Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

    11. JS

      Mm.

    12. RS

      So what is recruiting a dead board of directors all about? Well, it's like if you can't have a mentor who's a possibilitarian and who mentors you and teaches you how to do it, then find some dead people through their books that influence you.

    13. JS

      Mm. I love that.

    14. RS

      And so how do we heal these, these scars? Well, we realize that genius is less about genetics and it's more about your daily habits.

    15. JS

      Mm.

    16. RS

      You know, if you look at the people we put on pedestals, the Hedy Lamarrs, the great actors, the great athletes, Aristotle Onassis, Nelson Mandela, one of my greatest heroes in, in my life, and you read their biographies, these people are all cut from the same cloth as, as we are. You know, the, the, the story of human greatness is all about people from ordinary circumstances

  14. 48:22 – 54:13

    What Are Scarcity Scars?

    1. RS

      wiring in new habits, taking risks, get knock, getting knocked down so much and being, and being r- resilient. So I think- Having a dead board, if I even think of Kobe, you know, you mentioned Kobe. So he actually said, "You know, I got in the NBA and I thought everyone would want to be best in the world and want to be iconic." And he said, "I realized a lot of people got in the NBA and that was their badge of honor. They were good and they just started partying and they might do one workout every day." And he said, "I realized that if I got up at 3:00 every morning, practiced from 4:00 to 6:00, went home, had breakfast, et cetera, went back, did another workout, 11:00 to noon, went home, had some lunch, recover, rested, did another workout, went home, had dinner, and did a fourth workout," to use his words, "after a period of four or five years, I would develop an, an advantage so great that no one would ever catch up." So all I'm saying is people whose lives we want to be living, they're not cut from some magical cloth. You know, scarcity scars. Like the richest people, I, I mentioned Aristotle Onassis. He started with $250. But they're just doing a series of practices and they're adopting different ways of seeing the world and they're not playing victim and giving away their power to external things. And steadily through time, they build the lives that we now admire.

    2. JS

      Hmm. Well said. I-- The reason why that resonates so strongly with me, I've, I've often said, and I love your language around it, I've often said that I've been mentored by people I've never met because I had the fortune of reading Martin Luther King when I was young, reading Steve Jobs, you know, when Walter Isaacson wrote his brilliant book on Steve Jobs, reading, uh, Einstein. You know, it's just, it's amazing that we're so obsessed with what people think of us as opposed to how people lived, and it's... We think a mentor is about who can give me direct advice, and we're so interested in advice as opposed to you can actually study the action that that dead board of directors did in that scenario. How did they deal with stress? How did they deal with pressure? How did they deal with failure? How did they deal with success? Like, what did they do? Like, it's so great to have a dead board of directors. I love that language because you can actually study the actions, not just the advice, and we often get so lost in advice that we miss out on realizing it's behavior change, it's action, it's, it's habit change, as you're saying, that really makes the shifts in our life. And you mentioned this earlier, I want to come back to it, was this three great friends rule, and I love that you talk about having three great friends. I heard recently somewhere, I can't remember, I was, I was browsing on social media and someone said, "You need 3:00 AM friends as well," like friends you can call at 3:00 AM and they'll pick up the phone. How do you know? What is the quality of a great long-term friend? What, what is a great friend? I'm not sure we even know anymore.

    3. RS

      A great friend is someone you can be yourself with and they still love you. A great friend is... I, I had a line in the book, you know, "You're in a foreign country and 3:00 AM, they hop on a plane and they come get you." A great friend is someone who you can laugh with. Great friend is someone who you're going through your most difficult times and they'll listen to you for hours. A great friend is, um, yeah, someone who, who accepts you, someone who helps you be seen. A, a great friend is someone who when you're with them, you feel joyful versus depleted. So I think it's really important, you know, in this world where we are maximalists, we want, we want to be all things to all people. We want to have so many different friends. Focus on three great friends.

    4. JS

      Mm.

    5. RS

      We want to read 100 books. Master three books. Maybe it's Jobs', uh, Isaacson's autobiography on Jobs like you mentioned. Maybe it's The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Maybe it's The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. Maybe it's Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, one of my favorite books of all time, you know. But I think just being a min- minimalist is, is so powerful. Build your life around a few things. Even in work, I mentioned it. Rather than pushing out 1,000 pieces of mediocrity, do one thing incredibly well, you know, even if it takes five years, 10 years. There's a chapter called Make Your Project X in The Wealth Money Can't Buy, and the example is the Duomo in Milan. You know how long they spent on it? In this world where we want to do something in an hour and then get the rewards, or maybe a week, maybe a month. It took 600 years to create the Duomo. The, these are values of a unspoken age. 600 years of calibrating, refining, optimizing to create the Duomo. And so that's what a Project X is. Rather than doing lots of things, you do one thing. Maybe it's one work of art. Michelangelo took four years of working on the chapel of the Sistine ceiling, but he got the job done. So minimalism i- is, is very, very powerful.

    6. JS

      Mm. And one of the things you said there, this idea of we're almost trying to be so many things to so many people that it's hard to find the right friends. One of the things you talk about is do not be a doormat, and I find that that becomes that people-pleasing mentality, that

  15. 54:13 – 57:10

    What Is A Great Friend?

    1. JS

      ability to I can mold and I can be whatever you want me to be and I can be lots of things, and we feel validated that way, but in the end, we're just becoming a doormat. Everyone crosses over a doormat, and a doormat welcomes everyone in the same way. So when I read that, I was like, how do we be kind but not be a doormat? How do we be service-oriented but not be a doormat? How do we- Balance that art of being welcoming but not being a doormat

    2. RS

      Well, I, you know, for, for many years, like you, Jay, I've talked about the power of just being, of being kind.

    3. JS

      Mm.

    4. RS

      You know, and it sounds so simple, but being kind. Staying in a hotel remembering there's someone cl- going to clean my room after I leave the room, so put the bath- the towels in the bathtub, straighten out the bed, leave the room service tray clean. Little acts of kindness not only are a gift you give to someone else, it's a gift you give to yourself. You respect yourself more. So then people come up... s- sometimes say to me, "Well, if I'm kind, people will take advantage of me." And I would say, "People will only take advantage of you if you allow people to take advantage of you." Let's not confuse kindness with weakness.

    5. JS

      Mm.

    6. RS

      There is a time to always be kind, but that doesn't mean you let people walk over you.

    7. JS

      Mm.

    8. RS

      And that makes me think of another idea that I write about, which is the importance of, you know, in this world right now, it's so easy to live the same year 80 times and call it a life.

    9. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    10. RS

      And there's one chapter called Be a Perfect Moment Creator, and the story I tell in there is of Eugene Kelly. Uh, O'Kelly, excuse me. And Eugene O'Kelly used to be the former CEO of KPMG, the accounting behemoth. And one day he walked into his doctor's office to get the results of a routine medical, and the doctor came out with an expression you never want to see on the face of your doctor when you go to get your results. And he was told he had 90 days left to live. He had an inoperable brain tumor. So confronted with his mortality, he realized for the first time he had never, in all his years as a corporate titan, he'd never taken his wife to lunch. He had missed so many Christmas concerts of his daughter. He had never spent time with his friends walking through Central Park and having conversations. And so he decided to re-engineer his last 90 days, and he said, "I wanted to become a perfect moment creator." And he spent those last 90 days. He actually died roughly 90 days after, um, the report from his doctor. But I think that's so powerful. You know, when you're with your family, when you're with your work, when you're with yourself, e- each and every day, find some way to create a perfect moment. Maybe it's giving a gift to someone through a compliment. Maybe

  16. 57:10 – 1:00:33

    Don’t Confuse Kindness With Weakness

    1. RS

      it's taking some time to do something that fills you with joy. But being a perfect moment creator, I think is a form of wealth money can't buy.

    2. JS

      Mm. For sure. Uh, Robin, I have one last question for you, which I think is such a interesting challenge for so many people right now. Your rule is see another's winning as your victory, and I think we live in a world right now where seeing other people winning is... We take it as a reflection of our losing, right? We see others winning as a reflection of us being inadequate. We see someone winning as a feeling of we're behind. We see someone else winning as a feeling of there's not enough space. It's too consumed. It's... There's, there's too many podcasts in the world. There's too many books in the world. There's too many Instagram reels in the world. Like, how can I do anything? Like, if that person's winning, then they've taken my spot. We live in a world believing that there's a finite number of seats in the theater of happiness and in the theater of dreams, and that there isn't a seat with our name on it, rather than seeing another's victory as our own. How do we train ourselves to do that?

    3. RS

      Well, this is such an absolutely important point. And you're right, a lot of us look on one of the social media feeds, and we see someone, and as we all know, a lot of that isn't real, so that's the first thing. We don't know the truth of how someone's really living. The second thing I would say is you do want to train yourself to see someone's victory as an example of possibility.

    4. JS

      Mm.

    5. RS

      And you want to train yourself. And how do you do it? MVP, meditation, visualization, and prayer. Prayer is very powerful. You know, or when you're writing, write about your insecurities. Write about how you're feeling when you see someone else winning. You know, metabolize the feelings of inferiority by noticing them, by journaling about them, simply by sitting with them, processing through. That's how you move through, as you know so well, how do you move through a feeling of insecurity, not enoughness? You acknowledge it, and you don't give away your power. You don't make excuses. You don't throw rocks at those people. You go, "What is it about their winning that is bringing up my in- not enoughness?" And you work through that not enoughness through journaling, through meditation, through prayer, through silence, through stillness, through nature walks. And so I think if we can train ourselves to say, "Wow, that person is doing so well," and applaud them and feel good for them and say, "If they can do it, I can do it," I think we're gonna be much more peaceful. I would also say about the podcast, someone is going to launch a new podcast that is going to do incredibly well. Why not you? Someone is gonna write that new bestseller tomorrow that is gonna dominate the lists. Why not you? Someone is gonna launch that new business that's gonna change the world. Why not you? And then the last thing I'd say about is we all know, but this kind of a way of being where we see someone else's success as something that brings out... You know, like we have resentment for it. It's coming from a place of great scarcity and fear versus generosity.

  17. 1:00:33 – 1:02:32

    Someone’s Victory Is Your Possibility

    1. RS

      And if we are stuck in scarcity, then we're never gonna bring our magic to the world. We're operating... I mean, everything we do reflects who we are. And if we're in scarcity and we're... Really, it's, it's about jealousy. And if we're feeling jealous at someone else's victory, then it has nothing to do with them. We need to work through our feelings of jealousy until we get to our next level of consciousness and evolution. I think it's a great opportunity to see what other people's success bring up for us.

    2. JS

      Robin Sharma, everyone. The book is called "The Wealth Money Can't Buy: The Eight Hidden Habits to Live Your Richest Life." Robin, I'm so grateful for your time, your energy, for pouring into this book, for us, picking some of my favorites today. But like I said, there is so much in this book to unpack. Please tag me and Robin on Instagram, on X, on TikTok, on any platform you use on social media with your greatest insights, the chapters that are speaking to you. Take pictures of the book and post them and tag us so that we can see which moments inside this book are resonating with you strongly and which ones you're trying to apply. And as Robin beautifully said, it's not about reading 100 books this year. About three that you can master. If we can learn to master "The Wealth Money Can't Buy," uh, it will hold such a deep and profound impact in our life that we'll value 30 years from now, 50 years from now. Uh, Robin, thank you so much again for your time, your energy, your presence. Uh, always grateful to be with you, and I'm so grateful that you put this book together.

    3. RS

      Thank you so much for your time, Jay. Keep changing the world and, uh, really a, a joy to see you again.

    4. JS

      If you loved this episode, you'll really enjoy my episode with Selena Gomez on befriending your inner critic and how to speak to yourself with more compassion.

    5. SP

      My fears are only going to continue to show me what I'm capable of. The more that I face my fears, the more that I feel I'm gaining strength, I'm gaining wisdom, and I just want to keep doing that

Episode duration: 1:02:32

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