6 Big Lessons to Win at Life | Robin Sharma

This mastery session is all about big lessons to win at life. And what I wanted to do is let you in under the kimono a little bit and share, you know, a number of the lessons that have been of service to me as I've walked through the journey of my life so far. And, you know, I must confess to you, I am no guru. In my book, the Greatness Guide, one of the first things I said, I think it was the first chapter, which is, I'm no guru. I'm a work in progress. I am not the ideal, but I have a lot of ideals. I am far from perfect. But my dream and my hope is that by the end of my life, and I hope I get to live a long life, I live so many of the ideals that I aspire to. And I think that's the part of being human. You know, we have these ideals and every single day when we fall, we get back up. When we get a little off course, we have the opportunity to get back on course. I was a number of summers ago, I was flying from Zimbabwe to White River, South Africa. And we were in a little plane and the pilot allowed me to fly the plane. And it was really a fascinating experience because, you know, behind the controls there was this needle, this dial, and he said, just make sure the needle stays at the center of the dial and we're going to be absolutely fine. And so literally there was the winds and the forces taking this little plane off. And all I had to do was sort of turn the. I don't know if you call it his steering wheel, but the controls back to bring the needle front and center. So we stayed on course and we get off course and on course. And isn't life like that every single day we get taken off course? You know, we get busy versus focused. We want to do the run or we want to do the workout, but there's a seduction by some kind of a distraction. We have an idea of being world class in our work, but there's an attraction to sort of taking a little shortcut. And so literally every single day is an opportunity to get back on course with that needle of your world class ideals. And so I wanted to offer you some ideas that have really served me well because I'm just like you. I'm trying to aspire to the top of the mountain over the course of the rest of my life. And the first idea that life has really taught me is really this small wins matter. I mean, we sometimes think that an epic life occurs one sunny Friday afternoon when the Stars line up and something revolutionary occurs. And what I'm suggesting to you, with great love and great respect, is a great life is built not by revolution, a great life is built by evolution. Small and steady wins the race. What you do every day is far more important than what you do once every decade. I want you to really think about that idea. What you do every day is simply your life in miniature. And as you live every single day, so you're crafting your life, what you do over the next hours is really building your future. And if you can just get, and I can just get every single pocket of 24 hours right as best as we humanly can, the rest of our life is going to take care of itself. So small wins matter. You know, the moment in front of the customer where the pull was to go average and you become merchant of wow sets you up for the next day of a way of being of wow. The little win with your family when you feel like watching TV sets you up for another win the next day. A little win of getting up at 5 o' clock and running your morning routine sets you up for a habit of a 5am Club morning routine. Small daily improvements over time will lead you to stunning results. Tiny wins are the way to greatness. And that's one of the things life has taught me. When you look at the great companies, whether it's an Amazon, whether it's, you know, some of the tech startups coming out right now, whether it's a Zappos, Whether it's a FedEx, whether it's a Nike, whether it's a General Electric, whether it's some of the, you know, the little shops in your neighborhood that we really admire because people still cook the food with love or they serve the food with love, or people have an attention to detail. Great companies are built by those small, steady optimizations every single day. If you look at any great product, it wasn't just one day that built the great product. It was a culture and a mindset of daily innovation and optimization when done consistently over time, which led to world class even relationships, a great relationship. It's all about those small daily wins when done consistently leads to a lifetime of love. I was walking in the woods last week and there was an elderly couple walking in front of me and they really stood out because they were moving fast.

And they were also like, they had these ski poles and so this is the autumn in my hometown and they were walking with these ski poles and so I sort of joked as I walked by them because pretty Much only the three of us in this deep forest. And I said, you're missing the snow. And they sort of laughed. And we actually walked for about half an hour and we started going pretty deep. And they said to me, you know, we've been married 52 years. And I said, 52 years, what's your secret? And the woman says, well, I've had to put up with a lot, which made me laugh. And then it was all about the little, small daily things they did to foster a lifetime of love. And that's my metaphor for you on rule number one. Rule number two. Nothing fails like success. You're successful. Maybe it's in your health, maybe it's in your finances, maybe it's in your career, maybe it's in your family life, maybe it's in the way that you show up in the world. Awesome. You're in a really vulnerable place right now. It is one thing to be successful, it is another thing to sustain success over the coming decades. Is that not a powerful idea? I mean, let's go to the entertainment industry. It's very hard to be a one hit wonder. Let's not knock a one hit wonder. But it's even harder to become an iconic rock band or hip hop band. Let's go to the arts. It is very hard to come up with your Sistine Chapel. Got is even harder to become a Michelangelo. So are you playing the short game or are you playing the long game? This is rule number two or lesson number two that life has taught me. Play the long game. Aim for legendary. Don't just say, I want to be world class in my dominant pursuit for a little window of time. Say, I want to have the guts and the grit and the acumen and, and the mindset and the capability and the commitment to create enduring success. And that's why I say nothing fails like success. You look at the restaurant that is hot in your neighborhood right now, they're on the path to obsolescence if they're not really careful. Sure, they went from a little neighborhood shop that made beautiful pasta that had great service, that had the owner on the floor shaking your hand, getting to know your name. Then they got written up in the magazines and then they got interviewed. And then word of mouth spread like wildfire. And what happened? They became arrogant. You see, success can be so toxic. And it happens. It is such a pull on every human being. It just plays with your mind. And you literally shift from humility to arrogance. You shift from humility to arrogance. And once the arrogance sets in, in A mindset. It starts to populate every other person on the team, every other person in the culture, and every other person in the community. And it is a very short fall from success to irrelevance. So lesson number two is nothing fails like success. As you become more successful, become more humble as you become more successful, work even harder as you become more successful, care even more about your product. As you become more successful, learn even more. I invite you, when you are the titan of your industry, be sitting in the room with 18 year olds beginning their game. When you are the icon of your field, be the person who is up, not at 5 o' clock anymore, let's play at 4 o'. Clock. Reading, listening to the podcast, writing in your journal, setting your goals, focusing on your intentions as you become more successful, be more humble. As you become more successful, be even more punctual as you become more successful, become even more passionate. As you become older, become even younger. Yesterday I was walking on the street and I met this man in his 80s. He said, Robin, I finally retired. He's probably close to 90 and he is a legendary clothier in the country that I live in. And he just retired and he started his shop, which is now an Empire, in 1954. So I don't know what that is, but that is decades and decades and decades and decades. And he did not want to retire, he just retired. But he is still on fire to do amazing things. Age is just a number. Do not let an old person into your body. Nothing fails like success Number three. Life has taught me, no ask, no get. There is huge power in asking for what you want. You see, a lot of times we can have what we want, we just don't ask for it. So the world around us doesn't know what we want. And if the world doesn't know what you want, how can the world deliver what you want.

In your personal relationships? We're not mind readers. If you don't tell your partner what you want, then your partner doesn't know what you want. So you can't get what you want. If you don't set your goals, then you cannot get those goals because your brain doesn't know what you want.

In your business, if you don't speak up and ask your client what you want. If you don't, I mean, you talk to any great salesperson, they say you need to ask for what you want and ask for the order, and if you don't, you don't get the order. But the fundamental mindset I'm trying to Invite you to play with is ask, ask, ask, ask. I share it with my children all the time. No ask, no get. And if you ask and you don't get, at least you learn. It's not really a failure. The only failure is not trying. The fourth thing that life has taught me, and it's a big lesson, is prosperity is really a reflection. I want to get this right. Prosperity is really a reflection of value delivery. If you want to make millions, serve millions, you want to make billions, help billions. And so the marketplace really rewards the value you produce. And you know, Jim Rohn talked a lot about that, the great personal development expert and a lot of other people talk about that. And yet it's so easy to forget. You know, in my mindset, my attitude is really, when I wake up in the morning, one of my favorite mantras to meditate on is how may I most be of service to as many people as possible? My obsession, I call it the 10x value obsession. My obsession in our businesses is to give our customers 10 times the value that they have any right to expect, so that every product, every event, every book is considered free. But my point to you is simply this. Do you have a mindset of someone who is just producing epic amounts of value and just pouring it into the marketplace? And if you do, you're going to start developing fanatical followers. I mean, why under Steve Jobs would people line up two days before at three in the morning to get the new product? It was because he produced such outrageous amounts of value in the user experience of each product that the people, it became a cult, the cult of Apple. So the point is simply this. You want more money, help more people. Bottom line, number, law, whatever law is next is, and it's a big one. And life has taught me this, which is those who don't make time for exercise must eventually make time for illness.

Exercise really is a game changer. I mean, when you get up at 5 o' clock in the morning, you spend those first 20 minutes in intense exercise, you sweat, you release BDNF, which is miracle growth for your brain. Your brain just lights up, you release dopamine. So you start feeling inspired, you increase your metabolic rate, you start to feel absolutely phenomenal. So there's one tradition that once said, when we are young, we would sacrifice all of our health for wealth. And when we get old, we would sacrifice all of our wealth for one day of good health. And health really is the crown on the well person's head that only the ill person can see. And my invitation to you and it's a lesson that I've learned from life is few things are as valuable as getting into the finest fitness of your life. That is a decision that changes every other element of your life. You want to be fit like a pro athlete. You want to wake up in the morning. You want to do the run, do the yoga, do the swim, do the burpees, do the jumping jacks, do the skipping. And it will change every other dimension of your life. What else has life taught me?

It's taught me that failure is the price of greatness.

I love the Teddy Roosevelt quote man in the arena. And to paraphrase it, it is. You know, respect belongs not to the critic, not to the person in the bleachers, not to the audience. Respect and admiration belongs to the person in the arena who has the dream, who has the vision, who rolls up her sleeves and has the guts to get the vision done. Anyone can be a critic and here's what I've realized. Critics generally criticize the work they most wish they did. My invitation to you is simply remember a lesson life has taught me, which is failure is the price of greatness. Adversity is the price of ambition. And I would rather get to the end of my life bloodied and marred and scarred and say I didn't spend the best years of my life chit chatting around the water cooler. I didn't spend the best hours of my best days condemning and criticizing and being a naysayer. I spent the best years of my life gloriously standing in the fire of ideals, my goals and trying to get what my heart's desires said I should do. Done. Even though I fell and I was bloodied and I was laughed at and I was criticized, sometimes hated and people tried to tear me down. That to me is what life is all about. And I think I should probably end on that invitation to you. Get your dreams done because the world will be a better place to because you were in it. And that is my prayer for the rest of your life. Hi, it's Robin. I invite you to subscribe to this podcast and definitely go over to robinsharma.com for more information, tools and resources on Mastery, elite performance and living a world class life.