38. Robin Sharma: Author of The 5AM Club

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 38 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. I would like to take a moment to reflect and give some thanks before we jump into today's interview. I'm recording this on December 31st, the very last day of 2020, a roller coaster year for all of us. And I've been blown away at the overwhelming support that we've received during the launch of this podcast. I mean, Time flies. We're now 7 months into interviewing some of the world's top authors. Our goal starting out was simple. It was to connect you, our listener, with new books, new mentors, and new resources that you could use to achieve more and live better. Moving forward, we'll definitely continue to do just that, but we're also promising to find new ways to provide even more value. So thank you so much for every listen, download, subscribe, review, positive DM, and especially every piece of constructive feedback that you've given us. We can't wait to see who we'll bring on this show in 2021 and where this journey will take us. So today is a day full of gratitude, the best gratitude, the ultimate gratitude. Again, thank you very much. Now in this episode, we have the pleasure to interview one of my favorite authors, Robin Sharma. Robin is widely considered one of the world's top leadership and personal development advisors. His clients include famed billionaires, professional sports superstars, and many Fortune 100 companies. The author's number one bestsellers such as The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, The Greatness Guide, and The Leader Who Had No Title are in over 92 languages, making him one of the most broadly read writers alive today. A quick Google search actually reveals that he sold 15 million copies of his books. which is super impressive. Our conversation today is about a more recent release of his, The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life. I have always looked up to Robin because he is a humanitarian, someone who is always looking to improve human welfare. I actually read this book for the first time in January of 2019 during a solo travel trip down to Buenos Aires, Argentina. And during that trip, I would wake up in the morning and I would read this book out on my balcony overlooking the city as the sun came up. It was such a beautiful experience, and I've always looked forward to having Robin on the show. So without further ado, please enjoy this amazing conversation with Robin Sharma. Robin, thank you so much for joining the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm doing great, Nick, and thank you so much for all the support around The 5 AM Club. You've been amazing.

Yeah, well, thank you. You've sent me a couple signed copies of the book, and I'm a huge fan of your work, so I can't wait to dive into today's conversation. For those in the audience that aren't familiar with who you are, and there probably aren't that many, but can you introduce yourself to everybody and give a little bit of a bio?

Oh, sure. Uh, I'm a human being. I'm a father. I'm a family man. I'm a writer. I'm, um, a mentor on leadership and elite performance. I work with a lot of the Fortune 500 like Starbucks and Nike and IBM and organizations such as NASA. And I've been helping people achieve it and fully express their, their genius and do amazing things for going on to 25 years. So I've been at this a long time.

And so this book right here, in the audio introduction for the book, I think you said that it took you about 4 years to write this book. And so what was that experience like and why did you decide to write this?

The experience was hard.

It was.

It was, Nick, it was hard. It was long. There was a lot of suffering. There was a lot of beauty. As I mentioned in that introduction, I wrote the book at different places around the world because I find you get a lot of energy from different places. And so I try to strategically travel, just like I know you do, so I can get the vibe and the energy and the inspiration from various places. And so I wrote a lot of the book in Rome. I wrote a lot of the book in Mauritius. I wrote a fair number of chapters in St. Petersburg, Russia, some in New York, some in Los Angeles. So it was— look, I just, I just, I don't want to put anything out that doesn't represent the best I could possibly offer. And so I don't— yes.

Oh, I was just going to say, well, I think that this is the best that you can offer, or one of the best books that you've written. And you do reference that it did take 20 years of coaching and mentorship and working with high-level individuals to come up with a lot of these concepts. And so I think you wrote a beautiful book and I'm excited to dive into some of the concepts today.

I appreciate it. Yeah.

Speaking of travel, by the way, as we talked about before, before I pressed record, we're both travel lovers. And so where is one place that you're excited to visit once coronavirus is over?

Oh, you know, like I'm just longing to get on an airplane. That's, that's absolutely for sure. I would say I'll probably head over to Italy on the first trip. One of my favorite places on the planet. I just, I just find the beauty there is striking. The culture is amazing. The food is incredible. The sunsets in Rome are remarkable. So I'll definitely do that. Yeah.

My family had a trip to Rome scheduled prior to coronavirus hitting. So we did have to cancel that. It'll be rescheduled soon, but I've never been to Rome. I can't wait though, because I'm a big fan of Stoic philosophy. and Marcus Aurelius and the work that he's put out into the world. And so I can't wait to walk the same streets that he was walking, and I'm sure I'll find some of that artist inspiration in the same way that you do.

Yeah, you know, I think, I think one of the, one of the models, as you know, Nick, in The 5 AM Club is joy is a GPS. And I think it's really important as a producer, as a creative person, as, as someone who wants to be a leader, and anyone who wants to do amazing things in their lives, to go to the places that fuel your joy. And for me, there's just, when I land at Fiumicino, right on the runway, my soul comes alive. And for you, it might be wherever, it might be Latin America, and I love Latin America, but I think it's important for us as human beings to trust our bliss and to follow our joy. And that could be the places we want to visit, but it also could be pursuing the projects that our soul wishes we will do, because I think it dishonors us if we don't do the things we know we need to do. And it's one of the things I really tried to focus on in The 5 AM Club, which is, you know, allow not your fear to smother and suffocate your bigness. I think human beings have such talent. We have such genius. We can do so many things with our lives. And yet we allow this fear and this doubt this negativity to smother us so we really don't get to do the things we're meant to do.

There's a quote that I'll actually read for everybody who's just listening today and hasn't checked out The 5 AM Club yet. So, it's on page 10 and it reads, the place where your greatest discomfort lies is also the spot where your largest opportunity lives. And you continue to go on and talk about the bigness. But for those in the audience that do feel a little bit of fear and maybe they know there's something that would fuel their fire, but they just can't get the confidence to get there, what are some things that they can do to intentionally cultivate, uh, an intention to seek discomfort?

Well, I think the first thing is we become fearless by pursuing things that cause us to be afraid. I mean, you want to be a great chess champion, you know, start off as an amateur and practice until you become a master. You want to be a great skier, you know, you, It's about the training required to overcome your inability until you reach mastery.

Mm-hmm.

And so how do you become less scared? You lean into your shadows and you embrace your dragons and you suffer and you get a little bloodied and you get knocked down. But as you advance, you, you get stronger and that's just the way life works. So I think that's the philosophical idea. Then I think, you know, things like, Again, having a really strong morning routine so that you become a bigger person and a stronger person and a more loving person and a more intentional person and a wiser person. That's really very powerful because, as I say in the book, the way you begin your day sets up the way you live your day. That first hour that I call the Victory Hour and running through that 20/20/20 formula, that is, that is a profound method to build your personal strength. So things like reading books of heroes, having a conversation with the— with an author can change you. Things like meditating will make you less fearful. Things like prayer will introduce you to that inner hero and shut down that chattering voice of your ego. Something I did very early this morning for hours, which was journaling. Very powerful to reclaim and remember your strength in a world that wants to make us feel very insecure.

All very good points. And we'll do a deep dive into the 66 days and the 20/20/20 formula in just a couple of minutes. But on the discomfort piece in the book, kind of halfway through the book, I think you reference a couple physical experiences you could put yourself through to cultivate some of that discomfort, including sleeping on the floor and taking a cold shower. And so are those things that you've done in your past personally?

Actually, not really. You know, everyone's talking about the cold baths and the cold showers, Nick. I just, I don't like being cold, period. So I do different things. I mean, one of the things— so you're talking about parts in the book where I talked about Aristotle's practice and some of the Spartan warriors' practice. And there's that, I think, incredibly important line from the Spartan warrior credo, which is sweat more in training and you'll bleed less war. So, I used some of those warriorship examples on physical toughness and building character. Personally, one of the ways I do it is to do difficult things. For example, I think, you know, I'm working on this new book and this is month number 11 of working on this book. And this is probably my 15th round of editing and rewriting and polishing it. And I just spent about 9 days alone in a room, in solitary confinement, essentially fasting for about 5 to 6 hours a day and not really doing— of course, not— no digital devices, and just going page after page. And some of the chapters, you know, they were very technical and they were very dense and they were very hard, but I I said, you know, my honor depends on me doing this work. My readers depend on me, and I have the opportunity and the privilege to serve. And so I must continue until I get to the end. And so just doing difficult work, for example, work that terrifies me, work that feels like suffering, work that brings me to the razor's edge of my talents, that's a way— like when I finished this book or when I finished The 5 AM Club, I would— it's not just I did the best work I could possibly do for my readers. I went— and it's not just I was— I'd elevated my craft by pushing myself to the limits. I changed myself as a human being. So, you know, that's one of the ways that I— I'm no guru and I'm no one special, but I really, in my life, I try as much as possible to pursue the projects and do the things that make me feel uncomfortable because I think that is where your growth really does lie. lie. Even, you know, we all face difficulty. I don't know if you face tragedy, but I've faced some very, very hard times in my life. And I consciously try to stay in those difficult times, believe it or not, because those are laboratories and crucibles that actually purify you. If you look at the greatest women and men of the world, the Mother Teresas, the Mandelas, the Rosa Parks, the people who are the real heroes of humanity, they all have one thing in common. They have suffered more than most people. And so even when I go through a difficult season of life, I try to stay in it and I try to feel it and I try to befriend the suffering so it actually makes me more humble and more vulnerable and, and, and more awake to the wisdom that I think we all are made of.

Well, there's, there's 2 things that I'd like to unpack specifically because they were fan questions. As I mentioned, I put a post out on Instagram and I said, hey, does anybody have any questions for Robin? And we received, I think, over 100 questions. And one of them had to do with your writing process. And so we mentioned at the top of the episode that this took you about 4 years to write, The 5 AM Club. And this new book, you're about a year into it, 15 revisions. You're going through solitude and fasting to focus on the book and make sure that it's your best effort. A lot of people asked about your writing process and they said, what's his writing process look like? How long does it take to write books? And so is there anything else that you'd like to mention around your writing process that you think might be unique to you or that you think readers might be interested in learning about?

It's a great question. I'd be happy to talk about that. So, you know, in The 5 AM Club, there's the twin cycles of elite performance, and that's a very— that's how I live my professional life. When I'm working on a book, I'm in that high excellence cycle. So there's the fasting, there's the pushing myself relentlessly, there's, you know, not a lot of technology. There's going as deep as possible. And then after I finish the book, I go into that second cycle, which I think is incredibly important, which is the deep recovery cycle. Then I'll sleep more, I'll travel, and I'll enjoy the fruits of my labor, and I'll just enjoy life. And that's actually— that recovery is a necessity because it allows me to regenerate and refuel myself. In terms of specific tactics, when I write a book, I will Start the day with some coffee because coffee is a fantastic cognitive enhancer and it's a great antioxidant. I just really like to have 1 or 2 cups of coffee. And then I like to sit down around 7:30 or 8 o'clock because, you know, that's sort of— I have my morning routine and then I sit down and I really do go into solitary confinement. So I talk about in the book the tight bubble of total focus. There's no technology around me. There's no notifications. All those things are completely blocked out. I go dark. I go ghost to the world. No one can find me. And my team knows, you know, they need to run the business without me. My family knows they need to figure things out on their own because I spend this time doing it. Then I have a concept called the 5 Great Hours. I believe that, you know, working longer doesn't make you any more effective. If you can do 5 intense, sweaty, world-class hours with monomaniacal focus on your project, you're done. Then take a nap, then go to the art gallery, go for a mountain bike ride, hang with your friends, but just that. So I try to do 5 hours, and that could be— it could end up 4 hours, it could be 6 hours if I'm really in flow state, but I aim for 5 hours. I hydrate a lot when I work. I work quickly, I work swiftly, and even if I feel like getting up, I discipline myself to sit there. And after you keep on doing it, you know, it becomes, it becomes pretty automatic. Final few things I'd say is I work in hotel rooms. Even in this pandemic, I've worked— I rented hotel rooms in my own city just to give me some change, because variety is very, very important. And, and, you know, when we're not in a pandemic, I love traveling because Different places give me a lot of energy and a lot of inspiration.

Well, thank you for giving a little bit of a deep dive on that process. It's very interesting to me as an aspiring writer. I have not started my writing journey yet, but a lot of people ask questions about process because I think there are a lot of authors or soon-to-be authors in the audience. So I appreciate that. And the other fan question, and I'm actually going to read this one, it has to do with tragedy, which you mentioned you've had a lot of tragedy in your life. And so there's The kind of most upvoted question on here reads, I've noticed a theme in his books with some of his, uh, with some of the mentors passing or having an illness. The 5 AM Club, The Leader Who Had No Title, The Saint, The Surfer, and The CEO. Is there a reason for this? Is, is there a reason for why that's a consistent theme in a lot of your books?

Well, I just, I really do think we learn more from hard times versus easy times. You know, we become better leaders, we become better human beings through the things that break our heart. I mean, Rumi, the great philosopher, said, keep breaking your heart over and over until it opens. I learned very little from, from success. I learned a lot from tragedy.

Mm-hmm.

And I think what happens is, you know, when you're knocked down and you're on your knees, you're closest to your most heroic self. I don't like hard times. I don't actively seek them. And I don't encourage anyone to go look them. But I think, you know, Nick, the very nature of a human life is you're gonna have times in the sunshine and you're gonna have times in the daylight. And when you're in those times, enjoy them. And we're gonna have times where sudden things happen that we couldn't expect. And when those things happen, embrace them. Learn not to judge them as bad. A bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul and, and exploit the difficult times because strong seas make terrific sailors. And, and on the point about writing, I do want to mention, you know, I listen to country music a lot when I write because I'm listening to a lot of Chris Stapleton. I don't know if you know who he is.

Mm-hmm.

Right, but I'm like, I've got these— I make playlists on this new book. And so one of them is, you know, country lockdown playlist. Got Chris Stapleton and all these kinds of country, because I find country music— I don't know if it does it for you, but it opens my heart.

Yeah, there's a lot of pain.

There's a lot of pain, right? Their dog died and their pickup truck broke down and their, their, their Bud Light was flat. And, you know, and I'm joking, but it's, it's Look, I'll put it to you this way. I was once on an airplane sitting next to an artist. We were flying to Paris together, and he told me, he said, I choose relationship partners with women who break my heart because it makes my art so much better. And so when I write, I listen to country music because it gets me into my heart. And, you know, the more honest you can be when you write, the more powerful it's going to be. And another tactic I just realized is I rush to beta and then I optimize to mastery. And what I mean by that is, you know, I started this new book I'm working on. I was in Tribeca. I rented a hotel room for 15 days to get away from the world. And by the time I finished, I had my draft. And psychologically, Nick, I said, I'm done. I've got the draft. Little did I know, you know, it would be another 11 10 months and I'm still on it. But psychologically, by having this manuscript, you then drop into, oh, the heavy lifting is done. Now I just need to polish and iterate, which makes it feel a lot easier even though it isn't.

Well, that's amazing. I, I love that metaphor about rushing to beta and then you polish to mastery because, you know, in business, and there are a lot of young professionals and entrepreneurs in the audience, the idea of putting out an MVP and then collecting consistent feedback on your product is very similar to your writing style, which I really appreciate. That's awesome. Well, before we go into the actual 20/20/20 and the 66 days and everything about The 5 AM Club, the core of the title, there's one more subject that I want to touch on, and it's right out of the beginning of the book. On page 7, you have a quote that says, ideas are worth nothing unless backed by application. The smallest of implementations is always worth more than the grandest of intentions. And so Book Thinkers has a community of people who love reading personal development, nonfiction, and business books. But oftentimes we see that real learning does require behavior change, yet people are just reading these books and they're not actually acting on them. And so what kind of advice do you have for people who are struggling with that, who are reading and they have good intentions, but they're not actually implementing anything?

I think the very definition of heartbreak is being on the last hour of your last day and surveying how you have lived and realizing you learned a lot of ideas, you talked to a lot of mentors, you had noble intentions, and yet you postponed living your primal genius, you postponed taking risks, you postponed doing great things for your family. You postpone producing your masterwork. You postpone taking the trips to Rome and living a beautiful life. And so, you know, I think it's really important what you're talking about. I often think that— look, Book Thinkers is doing amazing things in the world, Nick, you know, and I adore knowledge. Books, you know, if you look around me, like my home is filled full of books. My dad said, one thing you never have to worry about me buying when I was growing up, my dad said, you know, buy books. I think a home full of books is a very beautiful, soulful home. Having said that, I also think we can use education as an escape route and as medication to cause us to avoid getting in the game. So I think, you know, We must learn philosophy and ideology and new ideas, incredibly important, but then we must have the bravery to exercise execution around that information. Otherwise, it becomes a drug. It becomes an escape. It's, you know, it's no different than playing with your phone. So, you know, I think that's a really important point that we can have good, good intentions, but You've got to act on them, and people always ask me, "Well, how do you act?" You act. You have power. We're not ducks. You know, we're human beings. We have agency. Even in this world right now, you see a lot of people behaving as victims, and a lot of the Five Am Club—it's a manifesto from shifting from victimhood into leadership and heroism. And there's a lot of people right now—it's like world save me. You know, there's so much going on, so much volatility. It's, oh, I need help. Well, own your power. Stop giving your power. What makes a fun, heroic human being is we say, yes, this is the situation in the world, but I have the power and I have the agency to affect change. And how do you do it? One step at a time. And is it easy? No. But if you do hard things, you'll have a much easier life. And that's the paradox of leadership.

Well, I love that, the moving from a story of victimhood to a story of heroism. That is a great way to look at The 5 AM Club. And I know a lot of people are probably listening today because they want to understand a little bit more about actually waking up at 5:00 AM. And so let's transition over to the mother of all routines. What is The 5 AM Club?

Well, I call it the mother of all routines because I really believe that if you get that, if you join the 5:00 AM Club and get that first hour right, it creates an upward spiral of success where you start to have more energy, you start to be more productive, which makes you stronger and more confident, less fearful and insecure, which makes you braver, which makes you more creative, which makes you more loving, which makes you more heroic. So if, you know, if my kids said, Dad, what are— what's the best habit you could offer to us? I'd say really 2 things. I'd say get up at 5:00 AM and work on yourself for at least an hour every day because your income and your impact reflect your self-identity, Nick. We can work on marketing, we can work on branding, we can read the productivity hacks, but if you're full of self-loathing and shame and guilt and low energy and you don't like yourself very much and you really don't believe you can change the world, you're gonna find ways to subconsciously sabotage yourself. So I'd say get up at 5:00 a.m. And I'd say also to my kids, I'd say make sure you read for at least an hour every day, which is great for book thinkers, right?

Yeah.

So what is The 5 AM Club? Well, it's a method that I've been— a methodology I've been teaching to the billionaires and the NBA stars and the film icons. And these people I've been mentoring for the past quarter of a century. And essentially, you know, let's go to the science of University College London. They say to install a new habit, it takes roughly 66 days before you reach a point of automaticity. So any one of your followers can join the 5 AM Club and rise before the sun and get that incredible psychological advantage to be more productive and more effective. But the thing is, most people try it for a day or two and it's hard and they give up. That's like saying, I want to win an NBA title. I practiced for 2 or 3 days. I didn't have the title. I guess I'm not the kind of person who can be a champion. It's like saying, I want to be an incredible master chef and I watched a video or two and it didn't work. So, I mean, if you look at all world-class producers, they fall in love with the process and they have this virtue that most people don't practice anymore, which is patience.

Hmm.

So, be patient and remember that line in the book, all change is hard at first, it's messy in the middle, and it's gorgeous at the end. Then once you're up at 5 o'clock, what do you do? Well, the 20/20/20 formula, I get into it in very granular ways in the book, very high level for now. First 20-minute pocket of the 20/20/20 formula is called move. You want to sweat. That'll release BDNF, this incredible neurotransmitter, neurochemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which will actually increase your mental processing. It'll promote neurogenesis, which increases the connections in your brain and it will actually repair brain cells damaged by stress. Sweating and exercising for that first 20-minute pocket of the 20/20/20 formula release dopamine, which makes you feel brave. It is the inspirational neurotransmitter. It will release serotonin, which will make you happy even if you are a very cranky person. It will release, listen to this one, it will release norepinephrine, which gives you more focus in this age of Dramatic distraction. Now it's 5:20. You feel fundamentally different because you've electrified your neurochemistry and your neurobiology. Second pocket of the 20/20/20 formula, 5:20 to 5:40. This is where you reflect. How many people in the world right now where we're addicted to social media, we're addicted to entertainment, we're addicted to being busy, how many of us take the time To be heavyweight thinkers, to read some philosophy, to write in a journal, to pray, to meditate, to ask ourselves some big questions like, if I had 6 months left to live, how would I live? If I could only live by 5 virtues or values, what would they be? If my life could stand for one word, what would the word be? So 20 minutes, a 20-minute pocket, 5:20 to 5:40. you reflect so that your day is deliberate versus reactive because your days are your life in miniature. You live great days, you're going to live a great life. And then the final pocket of the 20/20/20 formula, and I think you'll love this one, it's grow. So, when I mentor the corporate titans, when I work with companies like Starbucks, Nike, IBM, YPO, the best of the best all have one thing in common. They are devastatingly curious. And these people love to learn. They just, you know, most people, it's they want a new app or they want a new TV show or they just want to distract themselves. Not judging, just reporting. If you look at the heavyweights, the real productives, the people having massive impact, these people are less about entertainment. They're much more about education. So, this is 20 minutes, 5:40 to 6 o'clock, where you watch a podcast, you read a book. I really love reading books, like real books, because it uses a completely different part of your brain rather than snacking on digital snacks.

Yeah, no, I'm with you. I'm with you on that.

You study and that process of Reading a book and studying, it opens new gateways. It makes you a heavyweight thinker which allows you to achieve heavyweight results. That in, you know, a little bit of a nutshell is the 20/20/20 Formula that is currently helping millions of people upgrade their productivity, performance, and impact.

Well, all of that is built into my morning routine. And everybody on Book Thinkers who's been a longtime follower knows that I I love talking about my morning routine because it really is one of the reasons why I've been able to grow and to be successful in my own right over the last couple of years. I always like to say bookend your days. If you can control the morning and you can control the evening and you have solid routines in place that do things like support cognitive function and give you energy and whatnot on the front side and help you tone down and become reflective before you go to bed, you have a much better chance of controlling everything else in the middle. And so, Your book gives a fantastic formula for that. Yeah.

Thank you, Nick. And you make a very important point, which is the secret to a world-class morning routine that sets you up not only for a productive but a peaceful and soulful day. You know, let's not just be only be about success in our society. There's a line in The 5 AM Club: success without soulfulness is an empty victory. And that's why there's a lot of chapters in the book about lifestyle and freedom and spirituality and service. But you make a really important point, which is the key to a world-class morning routine is a pristine pre-sleep ritual. So, joining the 5 AM Club is not about sleep deprivation. Sleep is actually your secret weapon. And I believe sleep and recovery is not a luxury. It's a necessity. So setting yourself up that last hour before you go to sleep is really part of the key to getting up at 5:00 AM.

Sleep is one of my superpowers. I always pride myself on my sleep, and I do believe it's very important. You're totally right. It's not about sleep deprivation. It's about kind of easing into the night, doing the proper things so that you can have a rockstar morning. And there's another quote that I'd like to read about this because Talking about implementation, which we discussed a little bit before, it's very important to be implementing and trying things out from the books that we're reading. And a lot of people listening are reading a lot of books and not implementing enough. And so there's a quote that comes from page 188 that says, one habit installation after another habit installation is how the pros play. Over time, their winning behaviors become automated, systematized, institutionalized. And so for me, I love the idea that it's going to take some willpower. It will be tough up front or hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end. And then once it's gorgeous at the end, you now have that available willpower to implement something new, to give it another shot. And once you have all of these automated habits in place, life gets a little bit easier. You live in that state of bliss that you mentioned a little bit earlier, and that's when your soul becomes happy. And you can make a good impact on the world. So it's a beautiful way to live. And I'm very happy that we were able to have this discussion today.

Great, Nick. Well, thank you so much. And again, I appreciate all the support for The 5 AM Club. Keep up the great work you're doing.

Before I let you go, I'll have one or two more fan questions and then we'll get—

Sure. Happy to.

So a lot of people asked me about what, what do you read? A lot of people said, hey, if he had to recommend a few books, or maybe the last couple books that he's been reading, what does he recommend to the world?

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, Hope for the Flowers by— I think it's Trina Pauling, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, As You Think It Thinketh by Hello, Book Thinkers family.

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The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. What do I have in the background? The biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. Even his book on Steve Jobs is, is just masterful. I'm looking at a book on Nelson Mandela. If you can get your hands on a book called The Mandela Way, it's a very personal book of his. My life changed when I stood in his prison cell where he lived for 18 years. By the way, he was a member of the 5 AM Club. And if you could get up at 5 AM in a prison cell on Robben Island and run on the spot and do push-ups every morning, Before the sun came up, I don't think we have a lot of excuses. I'm looking at Ayn Rand, The Atlas Shrugged, which also makes me think— I love books, so I better, I better stop soon. Otherwise, I'm gonna be telling you about every book I love. But I don't know if you've read Anthem by Ayn Rand. Have you read that?

No, I have not. All right, I'm adding it to the list. I'll put all these in the show notes.

Yeah, have you read Fahrenheit Fahrenheit 451?

I did a long time ago, maybe in middle school.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And have you read Catcher in the Rye?

A long time ago again. And those are— those were too early for me to appreciate them when I, when I read them in middle school or early high school. So I'll have to revisit those.

Last 2, last 2 I'll offer. There's an amazing book called Chasing Daylight by Eugene Kelly. He was the former global CEO of KPMG. And he was given 90 days left to live because he had inoperable brain cancer. And so that's about how he spent his last 90 days. And related to that is a book I just reread again. It's called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's about the former French editor of Elle magazine who was outside of Paris in the countryside with his son. And they were driving along and he suffered from massive stroke, which left him with locked-in syndrome. He could only move— his brain worked perfectly, his heart beat perfectly, but he could only move one part of his body, his left eyelid. And he actually blinked out that book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, with his left eyelid using a code he'd made up with his therapist. And he talks about life. Wow.

I really appreciate the theme of mortality in some of those books because for me, reminding myself that we only have so much time left on this planet helps me prioritize my time and it gives me a lot of energy. I actually have a tattoo on my chest that says memento mori, remember your own mortality, and it just, it's a great reminder every day. One last question that I'll ask, and this was a big theme throughout the people who submitted fan questions, but my friend Mark, who's a big fan of your work. He says, what was the inspiration for writing The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari? Is there a story behind the story? And a lot of people ask questions about that book. It's had a really big impact on a lot of people in my community. So is there anything that you'd like to mention there?

Absolutely. I, I was a lot like the narrator. I used to be a litigation lawyer when I was in my late 20s. I was a successful litigator. I had all the, you know, a lot of the nice material things, and yet I'd wake up and I felt completely empty. I had success, but I had lost that access and connection to my soul. And so I went on an odyssey of sorts. I started meditating and trying different habits and routines and rituals, and I started reading the great autobiographies and a lot of the great works of wisdom. And I started traveling to different places interviewing mentors and elders. And I started to learn some ideas on real wisdom and how does a human being learn to express their potential and live their promise while living a life of service as well and also having some fun along the way. And so I wrote the— I wanted to share what I learned. So I wrote The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. It was a self-published book. People didn't give me much of a chance, you know, and that's another thing about— you asked about my creative process. Don't listen to your naysayers. You know, that's just an opinion. And any— anything original, anything innovative is going to threaten the status quo because you're going to threaten their— the foundations that they live on and you're going to threaten their authority. So I think you can change the world or you can listen to your critics, but you can't do both. So yeah, that's why I wrote The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. And, you know, this is when it, when it was released, it wasn't a time of podcasts. It wasn't a time of social media at all. People just read the book, Nick, and they started sharing it all around the world and it grew into this movement. And then I walked in one day and I left my, my law career and I started writing and led me to write The 5 AM Club.

And now this And what is the new book that you're working on? Can you share just a brief 1 or 2 sentences and then we'll end the podcast?

You know, it's a, it's a, it's an eccentric work. It's part memoir, part handbook for exponential productivity, part spiritual manual on how to, how to find great peace and great strength and great power deep within yourself.

Can't wait for it. Can't wait for it. Well, for those in the audience that want to learn a little bit more about you, a little bit more about The 5 AM Club, where should they go? What should they do?

Sure. One thing I'd like to mention is that the end of The 5 AM Club is a 66-day video-based training program, no charge whatsoever. But you mentioned a lot of people read books, but after that they put the book down. There's no transformation. So what I wanted to do was people will finish reading The 5 AM Club, they'll learn all the models, all the rituals, all the science, all the methodologies that I've taught some of the most successful people in the world after all these years. And then they can get this free course, and the information is at the back of the book how to access that video-based course. Where can they get it? They can get it on Audible. People are loving the audiobook. They can get the book on Amazon and in bookstores around the world. And if they want to follow me, they can follow me at Instagram. @RobinSharma. And also I have a podcast, it's called The Mastery Sessions. They can just, you know, search The Mastery Sessions and Robin Sharma, and they can find it on YouTube. Oh, and robinsharma.com, that's the mothership of all of the things that I do.

All right, it'll all be in the show notes for anybody that's listening. And, uh, again, thank you so much for the conversation. This book is full of circles and notes and highlights and questions and stuff like that. So this has been a long time coming. I got this book in December 2018, right when it first came out. I read it in Argentina. I tore through it. So I've been a big fan of your work for a long time. This conversation was a long time coming for me, and I can't wait for your next book. So thank you again.

You've been an amazing encourager, Nick. Keep up the great work that you're doing for so many people.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this week's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. To discover more books, more mentors, and more resources that you can use to achieve more and live better, make sure you check out our website at www.bookthinkers.com. There you'll find links to our mobile application, more podcast episodes, our shop so you can get some Book Thinkers swag, and our socials. With that, I'm signing off and I'll see you for next week's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books.