The Easiest Way to Master a New Skill: Robin Sharma on Learning

Hi, it's Robin Sharma, author of the 5am Club and the Everyday Hero Manifesto. I'm here in my room in Mexico City. I just flew in from Europe last night and I wanted to. I've just been here in my room. Tomorrow I have a big event for a large group of leaders and I'm just locked in my room here. Today I had an early morning workout and I went and got my coffee. It's just a nice vibe in here. It's springtime in Mexico City. The door behind me is open. I hear birds singing. I hear horns honking. But it's a full day where I'm just sort of catching up on thinking and reading and working on what I call my game charts so I can plan out the future. It's really just a day to myself where I can think and ponder and capture my ideas. Anyway, why I wanted to shoot this, it'll be a quick video. But it also occurred to me that there is huge power in an appetite for learning. And I really get that's obvious. But there's a pivot I want you to think about that's very powerful and very heroic and very helpful. And it's the victim to hero pivot. I talk about it a lot in my book, the Everyday Hero Manifesto. It's a very powerful book where I've distilled the information I've taught to billionaires and sports stars and members of royalty over the past 28 years. Read it if you're interested. The point I'm trying to make today, that I really want you to stay open to is there is a pivot to think about. It's the victim to hero pivot. Victims make excuses. Victims blame. They blame the system. They blame their boss. They. They blame their past, they blame their culture, they blame the time that we're in. And heroes are very different. That's the leap or the pivot I want you to make. They're much more about possibility in difficulty. They see opportunity. Heroes are very much about execution versus talking about what they're going to do. And here's the key and why I recorded this video. Heroes love to learn. So Carol Dweck has this idea that she wrote about in mindset called the growth mindset. And there's the growth mindset and the fixed mindset that she talks about. And the growth mindset is basically, well, if I don't know a skill, I can learn the skill. I can read the books and I can get a mentor and I could do the training and I can get great at that the fixed mindset is, oh, Federer and Serena Williams and Basquiat and Einstein and Elon Musk and Steve Jobs and Hedy Lamar. Well, they were gifted and born into their genius. I am not like them, so why even try? So I want you to think about the fixed mindset and I want you to think about the growth mindset. And I know you're a believer in learning and the growth mindset, otherwise you wouldn't be following my work. And here's the real key. There's an idea I want to offer to you, and it's simply this. It's a principle. It's if I don't know it, I can learn it. Come on, repeat that again with me. Because it is powerful. If I don't know how to publish a book, I can go online, especially these days on YouTube, for example, and learn how to publish a book. If I don't know how to build a startup, I'm not going to complain and say, oh, I can't do it because where I live or because it's hard because I don't know, or because I don't come from an entrepreneurial family. I will learn it. And so that mantra is powerful. If I don't know it, I will learn it. Even if it's new language. I'm learning Italian almost at the age of 60 and it's un po complicato ma un lingua molto interne sante e bello. And so I'm learning it. I'm on duolingo and I get lessons and I stumble and I fall. But if I don't know it, I can learn it. And so I want you to think about that. Let me give you three practical ideas to bring this idea of the person who learns the most wins, or this growth mindset, I call it like a. It's like a leadership mindset versus a victim mindset. So number one, pick a subject that you want to master right now. Maybe it's Italian, maybe it's Portuguese, maybe it's Mandarin. Whatever it is, find a subject or a skill you want to master. Maybe it's cooking, maybe it's coding. So identify that one skill that if you. Let's call it a keystone skill or a tent pole skill, the one skill that if you master it will lift every other skill in your life. Second thing, each day, iterate and optimize. Remember Confucius said it. Well, the thousand mile journey begins with a single step. So incrementalism is very powerful. Little micro wins each and every day. It's stunning how far you get. Final thing, understand that growth isn't easy. So the skills I've tried to learn, whether it's the craft of writing over the years. I started off as a litigation lawyer. I wasn't artist for a living. Now I am, I'm a writer. But all changes. And I write about this in the 5am Club and it's helped a lot of people. All change is hard at first. It's messy in the middle and it's beautiful at the end. So as you're learning this new skill and you hit the wall, which you will understand, that's time to maybe take a break. So you come back stronger. And change is meant to be hard because you're rewiring your neural soul circuitry, you're optimizing or you're changing your emotional architecture. You're becoming a new person. And so who you were yesterday must experience a death of sorts so you can become who you need to be tomorrow. Anyway, I want you to keep on learning. It's a great secret of happiness. It'll obviously help you in your craft and in your work and it'll help you make the world a better place. Because as you push your best self into the world, then you inspire everyone around you to do the same. If you want to go deeper, have a look at the information below. I'm offering an amazing resources. It'll help you grow, it'll help you be a better leader. And it's a video course. There's no charge whatsoever. It's just my way of being of service to you and applauding you for following my work and being here with me on this video. I also very much encourage you to read the 5am Club. It's helped millions and millions of people calibrate their daily habits, their morning routine, their pre sleep ritual and their work habits. So they take it to a whole new level of impact and effectiveness and it really works. And that's why many millions of people are using the book. And the 5M Club has grown into a global movement. Also, if you want to go deeper, encourage you to read the Everyday Hero Manifesto. I wrote that book with so much love, so much calibration, and I have a lot of the models that form my methodology on elite performance and legendary productivity in the Everyday Hero Manifesto. So for a relatively small sum, you get sort of a distillation of the methodology that I've taught to the NBA stars and the film stars and the billionaires and the big companies that I've mentored. So hope all this helps. Go out there. Keep on learning. And I wish you all the best. Bye.