Transcript of a Robin Sharma mastery session (video) offering tactical productivity practices for staying energized and disciplined while traveling. The speaker reframes plane time as “game time,” recommends hydration, avoiding in-flight snacks/alcohol, journaling/working on the plane, and protecting travel hours for planning and creative work; he begins to advise upgrading hotel rooms.
Chapters
Hi, it's Robin Sharma, author of the Leader who Had no Title, founder of the Titan Academy, and welcome to this mastery session. This one is called Potent Productivity Practices While Traveling. I get this question all the time from our clients. Robin, I want to stay fit, but when I get on the road, it all falls apart. Robin, I want to run the routines you've taught me for exponential productivity or optimization. And yet when I travel, I lose my energy, I get off my eating plan, etc. Etc. And so what I want to do is be super granular, super tactical in this productivity session and walk you through a number of the practices that have worked really, really well for me. I've traveled very intensely for the past 20 years and there are certain things that I've done that are quite unorthodox, but they have allowed me to really stay on my game. Not only on trips and speaking tours, but, but really over many, many years of teaching people how to become leaders and how to really use their lives to play it world class. And the first one is simply this. See plane time as game time. A lot of people get on airplanes and they feel discouraged. Oh, I've got a five hour flight, what am I going to do? I want you to install the idea that plane time is game time. I mean, if you have a 10 hour flight, to me that is magical. I mean, see that as you getting 10 hours to do the greatest work of your lifetime. See that as 10 hours to refuel, 10 hours to plan, 10 hours to think, 10 hours to create. The other day I was on a plane flight from Los Angeles to Toronto and I was just looking around the cabin and it was fascinating to watch people's behavior. I mean, you look at a lot of people, I mean, let's say the B players or the C players, and they blame their circumstances for their performance. And then look at the A players and they say, well, I guess they're cut from a different cloth. I guess they just got lucky. And yet the quote unquote secret of high performance is less about genetics and more about your practice. It's less about being born into the right family and more about your rituals and your routines. And I was just watching people's behavior on this flight. It was a five hour flight and most people ate the nuts and the alcohol tray came down and they started drinking the wine and the spirits. And then the food came, the first course and then the second course. And then on this flight, it was an Air Canada flight, they serve fresh cookies and ice cream. So people start eating the Fresh cookies and ice cream. And it just went on and on. And people got more and more and more tired and you could sort of feel the energy going lower and lower. And by the time people got off the flight, some of them were purely exhausted. They had entered the realm of the living dead. And I'm saying that jokingly and kindheartedly, but you know, it's true. You just watch people on airplanes and what could be game time on an airplane they use as a time to deplete their energy. And so I want to share with you on this first insight which is use your playing time as game time. Some of the things that I do, number one, I super hydrate myself. So when the drink tray comes and they say, what would you like to drink? For me it's all about water with lemon. And that cleanses my system. It keeps me very, very focused. It prevents hydration, which fuels my creativity and my focus. Another thing I do, when they bring out the nuts, I say no to the nuts. When they bring out the chocolate chip cookies, yes, I wanted to have it, but I say no. When the tray might have dessert on your tray after the entree, I take the ketchup or I take the salt, I'm just letting you in under the kimono here and I take the salt or the ketchup and I put it all over my dessert so I just can't eat it. When non stop, there is distraction, I put my head down, they can see that I'm focused. So I drink a lot of water. I don't touch the nuts, I don't touch the dessert. When they say, would you like headphones? I say, no, thank you. And here's another thing. From the moment I get on the plane, I pull out my journal or I pull out my work. So I get into a zone. So I'm not even attracted to the entertainment. I mean, for all the years I'm flying, I watch so little movies. I mean, maybe sometimes I do. So if you see me on a plane, maybe it's at the end of a three week tour. So I give myself permission to recover and rest. But I have watched so few movies on airplanes, I don't participate in entertainment because, you know, victims love entertainment, leaders love education, ordinary people. And I'm not saying I'm so special, but you know what I'm saying? The ordinary producer loves leisure. The iconic producer loves learning. And so those five or 10 hours, I protect them to make sure I do my best work. The idea, use your playing time to do your best work. Number two. Another unorthodox idea. Upgrade your hotel room. I'm going to encourage you to invest the money in buying or renting or leveraging or booking.
