Short excerpt from a Robin Sharma talk (YouTube video) arguing that relaxation, rest, recovery and deliberate leisure are essential to high-level performance. Sharma promotes working intensely for limited hours (his 'five great hours' concept) and then recovering via activities like mountain biking, massage, nature walks, sailing, and family time; he cites historical creators (Einstein, Churchill) as examples.
Chapters
Relaxation and rest enables peak performance.
Enables it.
You can't perform at dominant levels without being incredibly relaxed, rested, fresh and happy.
And what I'm going to suggest to you is this.
Work.
Work less, you'll succeed more.
The most effective geniuses, scientists, business builder.
Athletes are really, really good at recovery.
I want you to be really good at having fun. How many of you in this room, you're scared to have fun. You feel guilty. You feel guilty if you're not working, if you're not checking your phone, if you're not with your team, if you're not producing, you feel guilty. What I want to suggest to you.
Just a heretic or disruptive idea to offer to you. You will be so much more creative, productive, effective, influential. If you're rested, relaxed and you recover.
At Titan, I teach the five great hours concept. Work five hours a day, that's it, five intense hours. Then go mountain biking, then go get.
A massage, then go watch a documentary, then take your children to an art gallery, then do a barbecue with your significant other. It's so. It's such a weird way to work.
But if you study the great writers, if you study the great scientists, if you study, I mean, Einstein would work intensely, then he'd go sailing.
A lot of the geniuses of the world had one thing in common. They spent hours in nature walks every day. Churchill, in the middle of the war, would go to his room and sleep and then take a shower.
Study the great geniuses.
The great geniuses were amazing at having fun, resting, recovering and relaxing.
