Robin Sharma explains how to turn any job into a craft through four practices: treating all work as dignified, relentlessly improving small details, using imagination to stay sharp, and committing to productive obsession. He uses stories of a carpet installer named Bert and an airport janitor to show how craft leads to mastery and respect.
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 mastery session is all about how to leap from a job to a craft. Let me tell you about Bert, if I may. So a number of years ago at our office, we were doing a renovation and a gentleman shows up. And his role in the renovation was to install carpets. But this man, he was from Ireland, installed carpets like Van Gogh painted. He installed carpets like Lady Gaga performs. He installed carpets like Hendrix played the guitar. I mean, he was the Jimi Hendrix of carpet installing. He was the Warren Buffett of, of laying down carpet. And so I want to just tell you what he did. Like, this is a man who didn't see his job as a job. He saw his work as a craft. And all these years later, I still remember him. Because your work can linger in the minds of your customers long after you've met them. If you see your job not as a job, but as a craft. And ultimately leadership and high performance are. It's about impact. It's about using your work to live on in the minds of those you've touched. And if you actually think like that, you'll become legendary. And so what he did was he said, I just watched him work. And he did his work with such oad obsessive attention to detail. He did his work with such passion, you could still see the sparkle in his eye. Please never lose the sparkle in your eye. I still remember him saying, you know, I usually lay down the carpet, but I'm going to go the extra mile. Go the extra mile. Every craftsperson goes the extra mile. And he laid down a border along each side of the carpet that went up the stairs. And now every time I go into my office or I probably say 80% of the time, I still remember Bert because he has brain tattooed his mastery onto my mindset by his high performance. And he wasn't a CEO, he wasn't a billionaire. He was a quote unquote, ordinary carpet installer who is one of my heroes. And so let's deconstruct Bert so you can be a Bert and so you can take your work from where it now is, make it a craft. And why would you do that? So that every witness at your organization views you as the icon of what you do. It's a great way to get promoted. It's a great way to be self respected. It's a great way to grow your income. It's a great way to impact the marketplace. It's a Great way to go through the rest of your life. And the first thing I want to offer to you is this. To lift your work from a job to a craft, install the perception that no work is ordinary. I mean, you've probably watched a previous mastery session where I talked about the janitor I met at the Johannesburg airport. He didn't see himself as a janitor. He saw himself as an ambassador. Get this, an ambassador for South Africa. His bathroom, his washroom, call it his wc, whatever you call it, from wherever you are around the world, it was spotless. He was laughing when I walked into the bathroom. He goes, welcome to my office. You see, this man had installed a perception that all work has dignity. I'm going to repeat that again because it's so fundamentally important. All work has dignity. All work is a chance for you to be creative. All work is. Is a chance for you to lift up other human beings. All work is a chance for you to go to your edges and transcend your fears. All work is for you to become a strong. A chance for you to become a stronger human being. And so install the perception that your job is no longer a job. It's an opportunity for you this day to practice your craft. And with that core belief that you install, you will start with reading the books, going to the seminars, practicing a craft. Because the great chess champion or the great cheese maker or the great shoemaker, they don't just go to work. They don't just show up. The great Swiss watchmaker. It's a craft they study. They get a mentor, they become an apprentice. And every day, they just practice their craft. And day by day, the days slip into weeks, the months slip into years. And that tiny act of progress every day makes them masterful. Number two, to take your work from a job to a craft, be all about optimization. Everything you touch, leave it better than you find them. If you look at the great craftspeople, every single day, it's about optimization. Little incremental acts of making things better. That's how the great companies become great. It's not by one act of revolution. It's by this obsession around iteration. Make the user experience a little bit better, make the product a little bit better, make the culture a little bit better. And small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results. You've heard me share that brain tattoo of mine many times. Small daily acts of optimization, when done consistently over time, lead to a tsunami of greatness. Number three, imagination. You know, the moment you fall in love with your truths is the moment you are on the path to obsolescence. The moment you say these are the elements of the winning formula that have made our business great, or made my performance great, or made my life great, the moment you fall in love with those, you become addicted to those core beliefs is the moment you're on the path to irrelevance in your skill, irrelevance in your industry, irrelevance on your rise to iconic. You literally want to have the guts to challenge the things you know to be true. And that's where imagination comes in. What got you to where you now are as an a player will not get you to where you want to be. So you want to literally have the bravery to challenge your winning formula at least once a week. Be imaginative if usually you spend time with other entrepreneurs, other managers, other business builders, other leaders, hang out with 18 year olds, hang out with people who do startups, hang out with yoga teachers, hang out with chefs, hang out with strangers on the street, have the guts to go to places where you don't usually go, figuratively speaking, because that is going to breed new levels of imagination into your life. And then the final way to lift your job to the realm of craft is commit to obsession. Here's a brain tattoo for you. An obsession is only unhealthy if it's an unhealthy obsession. You want to be obsessed with being the icon of your industry. You want to be obsessed with lifting your job to a craft. You want to know more about the work that you do than anyone who has ever done the work that you do. You want to be so great at what you do. Then when we watch you in action, we start to cry because we say, I've never seen someone that good. That person inspires me. That person is breeding masterpieces into their community or into their industry or into that marketplace. And that only comes from obsession. You know, the people that I work with, the people who show up at the Titan Summit, many of the highest performers on the planet who want to get to their next level. When I coach billionaires, when I coach the best entrepreneurs, they are monomaniacally obsessed with their vision. They want to be biw best in world at what they do. And so they are constantly going to conferences, they are constantly curious, they are constantly reading, they are constantly looking for what I call the mindset advantage that will give them their next level of behavior, that will give them their next level of results. Wow. Well, I'm full of energy because obviously I love this concept of leaping from a job to a craft. Why? Because I know it'll serve you. I know it'll help you so much in your career, I know it'll help you so much in your industry, and I know it'll allow you to bring on awesome amounts of value to the people that you are privileged to serve. And that's my greatest wish for you. Thanks for being with me. Hi, it's Robin. I invite you to subscribe to this podcast and definitely go over to robincharma.com for more information, tools and resources, Mastery, elite performance and living a world class life.
