A short mastery-session transcript by Robin Sharma explaining why criticism and 'haters' are a sign of influence and how pursuing mastery inevitably attracts cynics. Sharma argues that greatness requires different habits and sacrifices than the majority, that haters often react from guilt or unexpressed potential, and he urges listeners to choose disciplined habits and values over comfort and victimhood. The piece mixes psychological claims, cultural observations, examples of public figures, and a motivational call to act.
Chapters
Hi, it's Robin Sharma, author of the Leader who Had no Title, founder of the Titan Academy. Welcome to this mastery session. This mastery session is all about why to love your haters. I'll start off with a brain tattoo. You can be a history maker or you can be liked by everyone around you. You can't be both. I mean, the very nature of living your personal greatness and doing something otherworldly in our world of ours means you're going to have to think differently from the majority. You're going to have to install the habits and routines that most people don't do. You're going to have to live, talk, breathe, walk, work, produce, create in a way that most people who are card carrying members of the cult of mediocrity just don't buy into. When you look at most people out on the world today, and this is not judging, this is just reporting, but they're addicted to entertainment. They love gossiping, they're negative, they're toxic. Anyone who wants to do anything great, they want to bring them down. They dismiss the game changers and they're just coasting through life. And so the very nature of you, stepping up your game, living your greatest potential, owning your craft, dominating your field, and living a life that's legendary means you're going to have to leave the 5% and make a decision to live as very few people do. And what does that mean? It means you're going to be laughed at. It means you're going to be ridiculed. It means you're going to be misunderstood because leadership is a lonely sport. It means you just might be hated. And so this mastery session is me sharing some of my thoughts on why there is great value when people hate you. Now look, I try to be a decent human being. I work really, really hard on being loving. I try to treat people very, very well. A lot of my interior work is around compassion, living my values, operating from a place of grace, love, forgiving people, and being the most loving person in every room that I'm in. So please understand that's the context for this mastery session. Few things are as important as being kind and decent and good and operating from a place of your best humanity. So having said that, I think you're like me and you also want to do something great in your career. You also are fighting for your loftiest dreams. And you also understand that mastery breeds cynics. And so there is great value when people start to hate you. Because if you look at Jay Z, I mean, I was reading his biography and he said, you know, I really knew that I was having influence in the popular culture when people started hating me. If you look a lot of the great authors, when their books go to number one globally, a lot of the amateurs actually start to say, oh, that's garbage. I could put them down. I watched a documentary last night on Steve Aioli, the famous EDM electric dance music DJ who's getting so much traction in the world right now. And he was talking about some of the comments that he sees in the social media. And it was things like garbage and, you know, boring and amateurish music and whatever. Even though he's so skilled. I mean, you just watch the documentary called.
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead and you just see the skill. And you can just look at any great athlete and you can look at any great scientist, you can look at any great chef, you could look at any great artist, you can look at any great.
Author, you can look at any great statesman, you can look at any world class stateswoman. Anyone who has done something at an exceptional level breeds cynics and dismissers. So the point is simply this. The very nature of doing something that very few people are willing to do means that the majority will laugh at you. Why? Because deep inside they know they have the opportunity to do something great too. Your example makes them feel guilty. Let's go deeper. At a deep emotional level, it brings up the shame of potential unexpressed. And most people don't know this, this is very deep psychology. But when they see someone as a shining example of mastery, it brings up guilt, it brings up shame. And at a deep level, unconsciously, they knew that they were born into this innocence. We all are born into this ridiculously great potential. We all know you know this. You have so much more in you than you are currently expressing to the world. You know that you have the opportunity of mastery every day, but it is because of your and my weaker nature that we don't live it, that we watch too much tv, or that we gossip, or that we miss opportunities, or that we allow fear versus bravery to rule the day, or that we don't install the habits of mastery. I mean, here's another idea. Genius is less about your genetics and it's more about your habits. We all want genius, but how many people are willing to install the habits that will guarantee genius? And so what do we do? It's a lot easier to throw rocks at the icons than to do what the icons did to make them so successful. And let's not forget, when we See someone on an NBA court doing amazing things, or when we walk into an art gallery like Uffizi in Florence, or we walk into, we go to the Vatican City, we look up and we see Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. It's a lot easier to say those people are geniuses, those people have different genetic coding than we do. Then say, I could do that too, if I'm willing to make the sacrifices, do the learning, put in the training time, say no to the distractions, forget about spending my life every day doing what makes me feel pleasure and start doing what makes me feel what's truly important. And so that's why there's so many dismissers, cynics and haters in the world, because.
It'S easier to be a victim. You know, even society, it sells us this bill of goods, which is if you're doing something hard, you're doing something wrong. Actually, to be a great athletic champion, let's say you've got to go up against your limits. You've got to get up early and do the training time. You've got to be willing to suffer the pain of growing your muscles. Well, that's the case for any sport and any skill. See, so you have the majority that looks for a life of ease. Watch the easy videos, hang out with the easy people.
Speak the easy conversations, do the easy work. And then you've got the rare air producers who read the difficult books, they go to the difficult training courses, they make the time to get up early and, and watch the online training, they have the difficult conversations, they do the difficult runs that push them right to the edges of their limits. Because as you go to your limits, the limits expand and that's how they grow. And so that's why there's so few people who actually get to a place called world class. And all I'm suggesting to you, with great love and respect, is simply this. You do have a choice. You can listen to your haters, you can be one of the haters, you can join the victim herd, you can dismiss people who are doing great things, or you can reach into yourself and ask yourself this fundamental question. What do I want to stand for for the rest of my life? Do I really want to rise to mastery? Do I want to get to the last hour of my last day and know that I took every ounce of the human potential I was blessed with? Through easy times and difficult times, I brought it on. And as a result of my values, my mindsets, my heart set, my habits, my routines, my disciplines.
I owned my game. And I modeled possibility, and I served lots of people and I built a great lifestyle. Now it's the last hour of my last day and I'm surrounded by my loved ones. And even though people threw stones at me, I took those stones. And rather than being knocked down, I constructed a monument of mastery that stands as my legacy. And if you live like that, you'll be one of the great ones, which is my greatest wish for you. Thanks a lot for being with me on this Mastery session, and I'm going to talk to you really soon. Hi, this is Robin Sharma. I hope you received great value from this Mastery session. If you'd like to receive potent training videos, blog posts, learning tools, and information on my two live events, Personal Mastery Academy, and my flagship four day experience, the Titan Summit, go ahead and visit robin sharma.com.
