Amplify Your Positivity With a Lockdown Journal | Robin Sharma

Well, I wanted to do this live to talk about journaling, first of all, while we wait for whoever wants to be on this Instagram live to show up.

I wanted to say, first of all, I hope you and your family are safe and healthy and strong in this period of enforced quietude. You know, it's a time where we get to refocus on what's most important when we're out in the world experiencing the busyness of everyday life. Often we're not that reflective. But what's the point of being busy and, you know, following the crowd if you're.

Going down the wrong road? You know, what's the point of climbing mountains over your life only to realize at the end of your life you've climbed the wrong mountains when it's only in silence, stillness, and solitude where we can hear the silent whispers of our strongest and wisest selves. And now what we're getting the opportunity to do is we're in lockdown and we're at home, and it's a great time to reflect and ponder and read some amazing books and learn how to keep a journal. And so I have been evangel. This is my journal for the period that I'm in right now. And.

In the spirit of service for you, I thought, you know, you're at home. And rather than.

Using the time to maybe watch too much entertainment or eat too much processed food or eat too much ice cream. Not that I have anything against ice cream, but it's a great time to install some new habits of self mastery so that when you come out of.

What we're experiencing, the COVID 19 pandemic and the global economic collapse, you will be stronger and more heroic, more centered, more creative, more productive. A lot of people who follow me are business leaders, industry titans, and entrepreneurs. You want to be asking yourself, how can I retool my business, bring more products and services to the marketplace so I can serve more people? So when we enter the post COVID 19 world, you're flying.

It's great to see. Denmark is coming out of lockdown, and Italy is starting to think about coming out of lockdown. And other countries are starting to see that brighter light at the end of the tunnel. So anyway, let's see who's here with me. I've got Paula. Nice to see you, Paula. And I've got Mama. Mama. Nine, seven, seven, seven. Nice to see you, Mama. And I've got Vikas Kumar from India. Fantastic. We have lots of people from around the world. Why don't you tell me where. Where you're from Sushil says. Thanks for all your guidance and support, sir. You don't have to call me sir. And please know what a privilege and honor it is to be service through Instagram Live, or my books or the content. By the way, if you're just joining me and you haven't received or read the War Measures Manual. The War Measures Manual. It's a document I released about a week ago, and we're close to 75,000 people who have read it. And they're finding it remarkably valuable to bulletproof their mindset, protect their hopes, stay strong, and fireproof their businesses in this difficult time. If you want the War Measures Manual, it's my gift to you. Absolutely no charge whatsoever. Go to the link in my profile. Click on the link in my profile. Download the War Measures Manual completely free. Awesome value. It's only about 10 pages, but awesome tactical value in using this situation to come out even stronger. Grow yourself and grow your life.

Colombia. Alejandra. I appreciate your time as well. Look, I'm going to. It's nice to see everyone here and I'm going to get right into. I'm going to get right into.

Why you should keep a journal. Okay. And a lot of people have been asking me, and I've sort of deconstructed it into seven reasons why you should keep a journal, starting now, while you're at home in lockdown. Number one, the very nature of taking vague thinking that most of us suffer from and having to pull out a pen. Remember these and write your thoughts down. That process clarifies your thinking. Here's a brain tattoo to think about. Vague thinking leads to vague results. Vague thinking leads to vague results. Members of the majority suffer from vague thinking. You say, what are your high value targets for the next quarter? I don't know. What must happen in your business over the next 12 months to be the best 12 months you've ever had in business? I don't know. What does your ideal teammate look like? I don't know. What. What needs to happen between now and the end of this year for this to be the best year of your life for you and your family? I don't know. And so if you suffer from vague thinking, then you're going to have vague performances. Let me try to show you here.

In the 5am Club, it's called the three step success formula. I don't have a copy of the book, but.

So the three Step Success formula is with better awareness. With better awareness, you can make better choices every day with better daily Choices, you're going to see better daily results. I'm going to repeat it again for you because I really want you to understand it. With better daily awareness.

Journaling will give you better awareness. With better daily awareness, you're going to make better daily choices. Better daily choices. Of course you're going to see better daily results. It's the three step success formula that I explained in the 5:00am Club.

Hand washing. Hundreds of years ago, people didn't. Human beings didn't wash their hands. The simple insight, the simple data point. The simple awareness that when you wash your hands you can stop the spread of infection.

Create a better awareness. With better awareness, we make better choices. We wash our hands. Better choices, we see better results, less infection.

If you read the book I'm reading right now, the Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson on Winston Churchill in World War II, it'll give you better awareness. With better awareness of what great leaders do at wartime, you can make better daily choices. Better daily choices. Better daily results. The three step success formula. So transformation begins with awareness.

So writing in a journal every morning about what you're learning about what you're learning from life in lockdown, let's call it that. About what you're learning about yourself in lockdown. Writing in your. In your journal. That's my journal.

Writing in your journal about how you're feeling. Writing in your journal about what you've been learning about.

Survival in difficult times. The very act of forcing yourself to write it out causes you to clarify your thinking. You actually have to find. Here's the key. You have to find words to define your thinking, which clarifies your thinking. So benefit number one of keeping a journal. This is my journal. Is you increase your clarity of thought. And when I work with the industry titans, the billionaires, as I have for 24 years, mentoring the best of the best in sports, business, arts, politics.

These people, the true titans, they are incredibly clear thinkers. Number two, the second benefit of keeping a journal is processing low grade or toxic emotions. So when I have been in pain in my life.

My journal has saved my life. You, let's say you're feeling heartbroken. Let's say you're feeling scared. Let's say you're feeling lonely right now, as a lot of people are. You open up your journal, my great friend, and you write about how you're feeling in the 5am Club. One of the transformative insights. The four interior empires. So many people talk about mindset. Work on your mindset, calibrate your mindset, understand optimize, your mindset. Is that good advice? Absolutely. But I don't think that mindset is everything for personal mastery. Because as human beings, we are more than just our psychology. We are also our heart sets, the word I introduce in the 5am club. We are not only our psychology, our emotionality, and we're not only our mindsets and heart sets. We are our health sets, our physicality. And we are not only the first interior empire of mindset, the second of heart set, the third of health set, we are the fourth interior empire soulset. And it's only when you work on all four interior empires, and I explain in detail, if you're interested in the 5am Club that you can experience exterior empires of creativity, productivity, performance, impact, service to the world. So benefit number two of keeping a journal. If you're just joining us, this is my journal.

This is what I wrote the other day.

Point benefit number two is it's a space to process. If you're lonely, if you're sad, if you're disappointed, if you feel guilty. You know what a lot of people are feeling right now? They're alone. They're starting to feel guilt over all the ways they've mistreated people.

Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, said most of man's miseries derive from his inability to sit in a room by himself. I want you to think about that. You know, nature is pretty wise. We're all confronted with being alone or with our families.

We can't escape into busyness anymore. We can't escape into living like a five alarm fire. We can't escape into hanging out with our buddies all the time. We can't escape into our drugs of choice, whether it's too much worry, too much of a schedule, too much entertainment. So we're confronted with ourselves right now. So benefit number two of keeping a journal is you get to process through what's coming up, which is gold.

This is the benefit of tragedy. This is how you triumph over adversity. You use how you're feeling to release the feeling. Because here is a profound idea and I pray that you get it. To heal a wound, you must feel the wound.

And so you can feel the wound by writing about the wound. Your wounds, your hurts, they just want to be acknowledged. Society tells us to repress them. Trauma, micro trauma, macro trauma. I encourage you, keep a journal, write about how you're feeling, release the toxic emotions and build intimacy with the higher emotions.

Let me know by a thumbs up. Is this helpful? Thumbs up? Thumbs up. I'm just curious. I want to see. Hi, Natasha. Good to see you. I remember meeting you at the Titan Summit in December. It's great to see you. I hope you guys are safe and healthy. Lucy says thumbs up. Nikki says thumbs up.

Awesome, guys. Okay, so we'll keep going. Thumbs up. Should we keep going? All right, good. Third benefit of keeping a journal in lockdown, deliberate gratitude. So a book that I love is the how of Happiness. It's by Sonia Lyubomirsky. She's one of the, one of the.

Preeminent positive psychologists. Yeah, positive psychology experts. And I actually hit her at the Titan Summit last year. And for everyone asking, I'm not doing the Titan seminar anymore because I don't want to repeat a winning formula. I need to keep on innovating and the Titan Summit is no more. Anyway, last December, Sonia Lubomirsky, this amazingly wise positive psychologist stepped onto my stage and one thing she talked about was deliberate gratitude. See, for gratitude to be valuable, dosage is important. That was an interesting point. She said, you know, it's not just every single day, it's the right dosage of gratitude. Pretty interesting point, right? But she also said the happiest people, and right now, a lot of people are suffering from anxiety. So deliberate gratitude is the antidote to anxiety. Is an antidote to anxiety in your journal. Benefit number three, you can practice deliberate gratitude. You know me, I'm missing my morning Starbucks coffee.

I'm missing fresh honeycrisp apples. So I'm writing about those everyday graces that I took for granted. I try to be very grateful, but I'm missing those things. And so I write about how grateful I am that I got to enjoy them. So I hope that makes sense. Benefit number three of keeping a journal, deliberate gratitude. If you've got a roof over your head, if you've got food in your belly, if you still have a job. In the final three weeks of March, 10 million Americans lost their jobs. And that's just in America.

If you still have a job, write about. If you've lost a job but you still have good health.

Write about it. If you have two eyes, write about them. If you have fresh air to breathe, write about them. If you have family around you at home, honor them and write about them. Deliberate gratitude is the antidote not only to anxiety, which is low grade fear, it's the antidote to apathy.

Point number four. Benefit number four.

Of keeping a journal is recording the beauty and the benefits of your life. So when I, when I travel, when I travel, I go into a restaurant and I will take the business card of the restaurant and I'll glue it.

This is my yes, I'm a creative, whatever you want to say. But this is what I travel with on airplanes. And I always carry my journal with me. And if I go to a restaurant that I enjoy or stay at a hotel that I find inspiring, beautiful, I'll take out my glue stick and I will. Or here's something I do unexpectedly, but I've got a boarding pass right here. And so what I'll do is as everyone is boarding the airplane, I'll take the boarding pass and I'll pull out my journal and I'll use my glue stick and I'll put the boarding pass into the journal and then I'll write about the moment and I'll write about my travel. Maybe it's a speaking tour to teach leadership without title to an organization around the world. And I will write about it. So benefit number four is you get to record the fine, wonderful moments of your life. And when you record them by writing them out, you actually get to relive the experience and deepen it not only in your mindset, but into your heartset.

Benefit number five of keeping a journal. A space for dreaming. I have recorded my pains and sufferings in my journal, but I have also recorded my creative ambitions and my highest hopes.

Habit researchers call this a pre commitment strategy. By writing about your intentions, you deepen your self discipline and commitment to getting them to happen. So it's very powerful to write about the woman or man you want to be become. It's very powerful at 5am While the rest of the world is asleep to write about the day ahead as you want to see it. Your ideal day. It's very powerful to say here's what I want this week to look like. So you live your ideal week. It's very powerful to write what I call the big five. I wrote about it first about 15 years ago in the greatness guide. Your big five. Your five biggest ambitions that you must achieve this year for this to be the greatest year yet.

The sixth.

Benefit from keeping a journal is you can record your wins. It's, you know, as creative people, as leaders without titles right now, we must protect our hope. Use the news as a tool, not as a drug. Don't follow toxic people on social media. Avoid as much as possible the dream stealers and the energy vampires. Yes, we know people are losing their jobs. Yes, we know good people are dying. Yes, we know it's a dangerous time to be on the planet. Learn about it so you can do what's required to self isolate and protect yourself, your family, your team, your community. Absolutely.

But please don't allow yourself to be overcome by the negative information.

As leaders, as hopefulists, as possibilitarians.

As craftspeople, as servants of the world.

We must protect our hope at all costs. Because if I lose my hope.

If I lose my energy.

If you lose the fire in your belly.

We'Ve lost everything.

Because how can we live our potential and serve our communities and our customers and our families if we've lost our hope?

Viktor Frankl was in a Nazi prison camp.

And you know, he realized hope was the highest human gift.

And so use your journal to record your wins.

You know, whatever those wins are could be getting up at 5am and running the 202020 formula that I teach in the 5am Club book, which so many of you have read. Your win could be you fast for a few hours to reduce inflammation, increase immunity. Your win could be you hydrate more, which will boost.

Clearing out toxins as well as mitochondrial function. I don't know what your wins are, but when you record your wins, it promotes hope. You see, the brain suffers. The human brain suffers from a negativity bias.

Our brain is hardwired to focus on threats in the environment and it served us well when we were primitive on the savanna. If we didn't, if we were not hyper vigilant, that's a key word. If we were not hyper vigilant, searching for threats, war, saber toothed tigers, starvation, warring tribes, we would die. And so those of us who've survived, survival of the fittest. Now here we are in this day and age, but our brains still suffer from negativity bias. We have, let's say, lots of good things in our lives, but we focus on the little thing that's not working. We're public speakers and a thousand people give us a rousing, glorious standing ovation. We focus on the one person in the front row who didn't stand up.

We have an amazing partner, an amazing family, and we focus on the three words someone said to us at dinner last night that sort of broke our fragile hearts. That's the negativity bias of the human brain. I talk about it a lot in the 5am Club, which is not only a book about the morning routine of billionaires and superstars and a players, the 5am club is a book of philosophy as well as tacticology of how do you navigate difficult times to triumph over tragedy and how do you live your heroic instincts and how do you do amazing work in a world where too many people are members of the cult of mediocrity. And how do you live a soaring life.

When so many people are saying you just have to be average? That's what the 5am Club is about. That's what the book is about. That's what the method is about. It's about taking one hour from five to six every morning called the victory hour, and building yourself people losing their jobs. Here's something I would say, build yourself up so you're so good at what you do that we cannot ignore you. To use the words of comedian.

Steve Martin.

If you're indispensable to your organization because you're amazing at what you do, why would your organization let you go? It's not only that though. From 5 to 6 in the morning. This is the value of the 5am Club method. If you're scared now.

If you're lonely now, if you're anxious now, you're feeling guilty now.

If you're feeling disappointed now, well, first of all, I want to share with you it's okay not to be okay.

Our society says, oh, you need to always be strong and brave. How about we be human.

And how about we make it okay not to be okay? But I also would suggest to you that you have a gargantuan competitive advantage. A gargantuan advantage or opportunity right now, which is get up at 5am, go to sleep a little earlier. It's not about sleep deprivation. You want to keep your immune system strong so you can fight the virus. You've got to absolutely build immunity and reduce inflammation.

But once you're up at 5am Your family's probably asleep. The world is certainly asleep. That is when you do the deep mindset, heart set, health set, soul set. The four interior empires that I walk you through in the 5am Club. It's not just mindset. And you do that work for an hour. You read the books, you do the prayers, you write in the journal.

You run on the treadmiller, do jumping jacks or push ups, or you skip or you run on the spot, or you do yoga. I guess that's probably not doing yoga. But you, you know, if you're gonna find an excuse for not working out, if you're gonna find an excuse for not using this time to build yourself into a better leader. Because great leaders were built not during times of ease. Great leaders were built in the Robben island moments. And this is the time that you must, and I use that word with love, respect and Intentionally, you must. I must step into the fires of the volatility and use this time to forge a better humanity.

And if we do it, then what's happened to our world will be.

Of service to the rest of us.

And please don't say, well, you know, I'm just one person.

Mother Teresa was just one person. Rosa Parks was just one person.

Martin Luther King was just one person. Nelson Mandela was just one person. Copernicus was just one person.

Oprah Winfrey started off from humble beginnings just one person.

All it takes is one person to step into their blazing heroism and use this time to build a better self, to inspire the rest of us. Okay, I hope that's been helpful. I hope you will keep a journal starting today. Don't make excuses. Because excuses are nothing more than your doubts coming to get you. You are more than your excuses. Your excuses were taught to you. Disbelieve them, please, because they are your chains on your highest life. And.

Here'S something important I want every single one of you to do. This is your homework.

About seven days ago, I released a document I put my heart and soul in. It's a completely free document called the War Measures Manual. It is full of rich content and daily tactics that will help you use what you're going through and increase in creativity, product productivity, service and impact.

If you want the War Measures Manual, I encourage you. If you do one thing today, read the it's only 10 pages. No charge whatsoever. All you need to do is go to my profile here on Instagram, click on the link, you'll see War Measures Manual and you'll get access to it. My gift to you. All I ask you to do is this. Read it. Study the tactics which teach you how to battle. Proof yourself during these difficult times so you stay positive, strong hopeful of service to your family, your team, your community and the world. And not only read the War Measures Manual, share it with your family. Share it with your friends. There's a feature at the end that allows you to share it. My gift to you. No charge whatsoever. Go to my profile. Click on the link, you'll see War Measures Manual. Start reading it if you want to go deeper. Because a lot of people are asking me, how can we be mentored by you? Robin? Very simple. Go to the circle of legend. Thecircleoflegends.com Thecircleoflegends.com this is my digital mentoring program. The membership is soaring right now because so many people are at home. So many people are looking for guidance, not only to stay strong inside and positive and confident and productive. They're asking, Robin, can you help us to navigate this, our businesses? How can we fireproof our businesses so when we come out of this, we're even stronger? If you'd like my help mentoring you on creativity, productivity, business building, fireproofing your business in adversity and serving the world right now, then just head over to TheCircleOfLegends.com and all the information is there.