PNTV: The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma

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The Leader who had no Title Subtitle A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life Robin Sharma is one of my favorite people and one of the world's leading leadership coaches, consultants, kind of authorities. He works with a ton of Fortune 500 businesses to help transform their organizations and he's just one of the most inspiring people I've ever met. In a recent interview we did I literally wanted to stand up midway through. I was standing up as I was doing it, but I wanted to give him a standing ovation because it was just so ridiculously inspiring. He talks a lot about being the best in the world at what you do. It's a key theme of this book and the rest of his work. Robin Sharma is the best in the world at what he does. I unbelievably inspiring. We also featured another one of his fables called the Monk who Sold His Ferrari. Check out our notes on that and check out that book as well. If you're into fiction as a kind of vehicle to tap into some great wisdom, it's a fantastic read. In fact, it's kind of like the last note that we did or one of the most recent notes that we did was on a book called the Leadership Challenge by two of the world's leading researchers on the science of what makes a great leader. As I was reading both of the books, it was funny to see that these academics unbelievably inspiring ideas. Basically, Robin brings those ideas and more to life in the context of this fable. So it was really fun to see that connection. So either way is a great way to go. The. More Here you go. Academic standard book approach or the fable approach of learning within a story so, philosopher's note, bunch of my favorite big ideas. Let's look at five of them here. So the basic idea, the leader who had no title. The idea is you don't need a title to lead. We all have an inner leader and we don't need to wait until someone bestows us with a title or we get the corner office or whatever to exert a tremendous amount of power and influence in our lives. What we need to do, among other things, is flip the switch. We need to flip the leadership switch. And the basic distinction we need to make is we need to claim responsibility for our number one thing that we can choose. We can choose to be a victim, or we can choose to be a leader. We can choose to complain about life's problems and challenges and our circumstances in our life, or we can choose to do something about them and create the most empowered response we can and create a better future. Victims complain, leaders create. You need to flip the switch if you want to have an extraordinary life. And he says, the moment you flip that switch and you quit blaming things outside of yourself and you take 100% responsibility, the extreme ownership style is the way that the Navy Seals guy put it in their book on leadership, right? No more complaining, blaming, criticizing, etc. It's all on you. You are going to choose your most empowered response. When you do that, your life changes within minutes. Now, that's not a do it once and it's done kind of thing. You need to continue to flip that switch because it has a way of falling into the off position, the victim position. So it's a moment to moment thing. But just notice how often you're complaining. Flip the switch, be a leader, be relentlessly solution oriented is another way to think about it that we've talked about in these episodes. Flip the switch, victim to leader. Second big idea here is the idea that when you are exposed to an idea that fires you up, or you have a brilliant idea, or you hear something, whether it's in a session like this or reading a book or in a conversation or a workshop or whatever, you just have this distillation of clarity of you know what, that's true. That's what I want to do with my life, or that's an idea distinction I want to bring into my life. He says, the moment you have that idea, you need to take action immediately. Take white hot action. He says on red hot ideas, don't let the time come in between your inspiration and your action. We talked about this in a different context with Jim Rohn, where He said, it's the law of diminishing intent. If you're super fired up and you give it time, your intent is going to wane, and the odds of you actually taking action are going to go down. Law of diminishing intent. The longer the time elapses between your inspiration and your action, the less likely it is you'll ever take action. So take action on ideas that fire you up. That's the essence and the magic here. We got to move from theory to practice, consistently. Make it doesn't matter how small the baby step is. Just do something to make progress. Take action. Third big idea. Robin walks us through four leadership conversations with four eclectic leadership teachers. In the story, right? So we meet these fictional characters who teach our hero how to do certain things. One of the ideas and the main concepts of the book is that turbulent times create great leaders, which is exactly what we talked about in the Leadership Challenge. Those researchers and interviewed over a thousand people, and they said, hey, tell us about your personal, best leadership experiences. Right? Every single one of those people told the researchers about a time when they were challenged. Not one of them said, yeah, I performed at my best when things were super mellow and not a lot was going on. All of them talked about the crucible of challenge that brought out the best within them. And Robin talks about this in. In some really powerful ways. In the section on the fact that turbulent times create great leaders, he says challenges are just an opportunity for you to step up heroically. And you need to know that your fear. Every time you move into your fear and you're able to go past your comfort zone, you just expanded your comfort zone. We talk about this in the context of the tools, guys who say, bring it on. Let me bring on that fear. Move past my comfort zone. That's where my infinite potential is. And then I have a new comfort zone. So if this is your current comfort zone and you're bopping your head against it, but you're willing to go outside of it, whoa. Your comfort zone goes out where what used to freak you out now doesn't freak you out so much. You keep on doing that, and your comfort zone expands incrementally over time in magical ways. Embrace challenges if you want to do extraordinary, great things. Fourth big idea. I think it was the third conversation. The first conversation principle was that you need to lead without a title. You don't need a title to be a leader. The second one was that turbulent times create great leaders. The third one was all about the fact that business and life and Leadership is all about relationships. Again, the Leadership Challenge guys ended their book by saying that love is the best kept secret of business, of leadership. It's the secret sauce, right? Loving what you do with the people with whom you do it, treating them with respect, etc. So in this book, and with true, deep, profound love in this book, Robin says a number of things, but here's the most or one my favorite kind of practical life hack. He says, be helpful. You want to strengthen relationships, be helpful. He says, think about it this way. Try to be the most helpful person you know. Go through your day, today or tomorrow, whenever, if it's the end of the day, being the most helpful person you know, that's an extraordinary way to very practically apply the idea of being more loving. How can you be more helpful and in fact be the most helpful person you know and have your business be the most helpful business it can possibly be? It's a really cool idea. Tiny little opportunities that benefit the individual you're blessed and able to serve, and you get the immediate boost. Research is unequivocal. The fastest way to boost your own mood is to do something nice for somebody else. It's both the quickest way and also one of the most robust ways to sustain a positive mood. And then the next big idea is related to the fourth element of the leader, lead without a title philosophy, which is the first person you need to lead is yourself. You need to be a great human being if you want to be a great leader. And Robin walks us through the fundamentals. Eating, moving, sleeping, etc. And he says, think about an athlete who tells a reporter in the locker room after a game one day, he says, you know what this athlete says? I'm done practicing. I'm not going to prepare before games anymore. I'm kind of over that, you know, no more training, no more practicing, no more prep, and I'm going to still show up at a superstar level. Robin says if someone actually said that, you'd think they were a bit crazy, because that's not going to happen. The higher you go, the more you need to train, the more you need to practice. That's what the elite performers know. And one of my favorite things that Robin introduced me to 10, 12 years ago, I think it was in the greatness Guide. He said, look, great people differ on their fundamentals, what they actually do, because to be great. But what they all have in common is they rock their fundamentals. They've identified the few things that they need to do to be truly world class. The best in the world at what they do and they unflinchingly do those things every single day. People who don't perform at that level either haven't taken the time to figure out what they need to do on a consistent basis or they don't have the discipline to actually do it consistently. But it's those, as Darren Hardy says, unsexy, mundane little things that when you identify them, you need to do them ruthlessly again and again and again and try to get 1% better aggregate compound that over time, magic happens. So don't be the athlete who says, yeah, I don't need to practice or train anymore, but instead approach your life like a world class athlete. How would you show up? What would you do if you were an athlete training to win an Olympic gold medal or a championship in your area of expertise, what would you do? How would you eat? How would you sleep? How would you train to be the best in the world at what you do? The athletes give us such a powerful model and a context. It's very straightforward. Well, they do this and this and this and they want to perform well. Well, we need to figure that out. We need to figure out what the key things are we need to do and then do them as if we're going after the gold medal or the championship. Because what else is worth going after? Define what that is for you and go out and perform at your best and be helpful in the process. Think about that. How can you be the most helpful person you know in every aspect of your life, not just creatively and professionally, but with your family, etc. As you approach your fear and you realize the turbulent times create great leaders and that you need to be challenged if you want to perform at your best, you can lean into your fear and see your comfort zone expand. Take action. When you get inspired by an idea, take action no matter how small. Don't let the law of diminishing intent creep in. And then flip the switch. Quit being a victim. Be a leader. It's a choice. Moment to moment to moment. Lead without a title. Flip the switch and become the leader you're capable of being and destined to to become. That is a quick look at this great book. Hope you enjoyed. What was the number one idea that fired you up the most? Take action on it now. What can you do to make it a more practically applied embodied part of your life starting today? Get on that and have another awesome day. See you. Isn't it a bit odd we went from math to science to history but somehow missed the class on how to live. For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do is something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book and into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101 business 101 meditation 101, that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus Fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. 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