Robin Sharma: YOUR 8 steps to true wealth (E253)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance App. true wealth is. I think you can live your finest life and change the world or play with your phone all day. You can't do both. When we are old and wise, we'd sacrifice all of our wealth for one day of good health. I just see so many people spending the finest years of their life chasing things that I don't think will give them the happiness, fulfillment, wellness, and serenity that they're looking for. That is Robin Sharma and this is High Performance. And this episode is a personal long-held dream for me because Robin's books changed my mindset, which changed my behavior, which changed my life.

1:11In all honesty, I don't believe that High Performance would exist without Robin. So Robin, thank you very much because he inspired me in so many different ways. So to get the chance to sit and have a deep dive with him about his new book, The Wealth Money Can't Buy, was an absolute career highlight for me. Listen, at this point, I suggest you get yourself a pen and paper because Robin is full of wisdom, full of information, so many takeaways from this episode. There are gems everywhere. So get a pen and paper and note down what you hear. Please also hit subscribe. It makes such a difference to us.

1:45If you subscribe, we can grow the channel and we can invite more incredible guests to come and have these kinds of conversations. But right now, let's do it and welcome Robin Sharma to High Performance. And before we get going, a quick word from our sponsors who allow us to give you this content for free.

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3:49Well, let's start with the question about wealth then. How would you describe the relationship that most people have with what we perceive to be wealth? I believe there's a cultural hypnosis, almost a societal seduction, which is wealth equals money. And I think that's most people's relationship. It's, okay, to be successful, I need to be financially successful. And what that does is it often causes people to spend the best hours of their finest days climbing a mountain only to realize at the end of a year, career or lifetime, they've climbed the wrong mountain. And so what the book is about is the eight forms of wealth.

4:34I think most people have a misconception about what true wealth is. So before we get into the eight hidden habits to really live your richest life, rich not in the monetary sense, but in the rich life sense, how have we got to this point? Why is it that money is such a huge conversation around wealth rather than the true hidden wealth? A number of factors our parents teach us often. Measure success by how much money you have. The media, look at the media right now, whether it's social media, whether it's old school media. In many ways, the people that we pedestal are the billionaires and the corporate CEOs and the superstars.

5:15And what about the gardener who works with a joyful heart? What about the teacher who helps 20 children every day with difficult resources, helping them become who they're meant to be. And so, yeah, I think in many ways we're celebrating the wrong people, but I want to be clear, Jake, money is one of the eight forms of wealth that I talk about in the book. Money puts food on the family table. Money allows us to have nice things for ourselves and there's nothing wrong with that. But I think about, I was just in Los Angeles before I came here to see you. And I think about what Jim Carrey said. And he said, I wish everyone could be rich and famous to realize it doesn't make a difference.

5:58He said, I had everything that the whole world would want. And I realized after 50 years, it didn't make a difference. So money is important, but there are seven other forms of wealth that when we tend to them every day will give us real wealth. Happy to go through some? Of course. Okay. So the first one is growth that you talk about in the book. Before we get into some of the key habits when it comes to growth, I'd love to know why you think we're so skeptical about this. I came from a background of being a sports broadcaster. When I created a podcast called High Performance, started talking about lessons and learnings and shared some of the key elements of the 5am club, which I'm a member of, the ridicule was real.

6:45Okay. The criticism was constant. The memes were exhausting. So why are we so skeptical about personal growth, real internal growth? I don't know if everyone is. I don't know if the majority is. Things are definitely changing. If you look at Instagram, for example, it is a personal growth platform. If you look at advertising these days, I would say even 10 years ago, the advertising wasn't aspirational. Now it's, you know, buy this or do this to live your dreams and have your family's best life. So I think the world is going through deep change. I think what we've experienced in the past few years, whether it was, well, we know all the poly crisis.

7:28And I think what that's done is it's caused people very much to rethink their values, very much to go within and to do some searching. And so, yes, I do think that people are much more open to morning routine, pre-sleep ritual, meditation, reading books, becoming their truest selves. Having said that, I acknowledge exactly what you're saying. There are people who roll their eyes, but I think the world is changing. And personal growth is a form of wealth because what would be richer than discovering your gifts and your talents and who you're meant to be and building intimacy with your potential for mastery?

8:12Well, let's go through some of these habits. And you talk in the book about don't be a resentment collector. Please explain that for us. we go through life we all get hurt we all get disappointed we want to start a business business might stumble we want to find true love we might get our hearts broken or we might get cut off in traffic or miss a train on the way to work and so what we often do is we we we swallow the resentment or someone betrays us and we swallow the resentment we don't acknowledge it We don't metabolize the feelings. We don't know how to process through these ideas. So as we go through life, Jake, we experience micro and macro trauma.

8:57And rather than journaling about it and meditating about it and releasing it from our system, we store it up. And Carl Jung, the eminent psychologist, called it the shadow side. And we build the shadow side. And I know you have a lot of entrepreneurs and elite performers, of course, high performers. They might say, well, why is this relevant to me? It's incredibly relevant to me. to all of us. Because when we have this shadow side and this resentment we haven't worked through, it creates a block to our creativity, our energy, our productivity, and our ability to connect with people. So in that chapter of the Wealth, Money, Can't Buy, don't be a resentment collector and build what I call a resentment stack.

9:40I share some tools we can get into them, how to move through that but you want to be as clear as possible each and every day so you're not toxic in the world it's it's that idea which is heal heal what hurts you so you don't bleed on people who didn't cut you wow what tip would you share with people who think that resonates where do i even begin getting rid of the resentment i've collected over many years writing is so powerful you know you've got your notebook i mean that that notebook is is a bomb for for someone who has any wounds or or wants to know themselves but for thousands of hundreds of years people have poured resentment or pain or confusion on a crisp white page that's powerful.

10:32Second tip would be MVP. MVP, as you know very well, is most valuable player. But for me, it's also meditation, visualization, and prayer, which I try to do at 4 a.m. each morning now. 5 a.m. is good, but 4 a.m. is beautiful. So 45 minutes of meditation, visualization, and prayer is really powerful. Part of my morning questions, I have five. We can get into those. but one is such a powerful morning question. I write about it. And it's, what will I release today? What will I release today? What will I let go of today? And we all carry resentment. Could be a business resentment. Could be a friend said something to us that was discouraging versus encouraging.

11:20And just writing a little bit about what will I let go of is how you clear it out of your system. Would you share the other four with us? I would love to. Number one, what am I grateful for? So simple, but we know that gratitude is the antidote to fear. Number two, where am I winning? The negativity bias of the human brain looks for studies and looks for threats in the environment. So we're always focusing on the threats and where we're not winning. So that question, where am I winning, allows you to spot micro wins. Oh, I got up at this time. Oh, I did pretty well on that difficult project. Oh, I had a family meal without devices last night.

12:01Oh, I put away the screen and I read last night. So where am I winning? That's the second question. Third question, Jake, is what will I let go of today? Yeah. Fourth question is what does my ideal day look like? One paragraph. That sets intention and that creates clarity and clarity breeds mastery. And then the fifth question, what does my last day look like? What does my last day look like? If we can, like human beings, we're such postponers. We're the great postponers. And if we can build intimacy with a mortality every single morning while the rest of the world is asleep, then we live to the point versus being busy, being busy.

12:43And you wrote later in the book about live your last day first. I love this part of growth because I think people are too hard on themselves. You say in the book, it's okay to be sloppy. Yes, I think our society seduces us into thinking if our abs are not perfect and our life is not pristine, we're broken. And I think life is a messy ride. Even as a creative, there are seasons where you're on your A game and then there are seasons meant for resting, meant for enjoying the fruits of your labor, meant for long walks in the wood, meant for doing nothing. John Lennon said it so well. He said, time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

13:25So I think, you know, the eight forms of wealth, it's a personal Mount Everest. And you want to be moving in the direction, I believe, of these eight forms of wealth. But it's okay not to be okay. It's okay to have a bad day. It's okay not to have a perfect week. We're human beings. We're not robots or automatons. And it plays nicely, actually, into the title of this podcast, because some people are confused by high performance. They think, well, you're just talking about winning a gold medal, winning a World Cup, floating your business, being a billionaire. This is your own version of high performance.

13:58And the truth is, you know, from personal experience, some days my version of high performance, I think it does look pretty good. Other days it looks woeful. And I will tell you, last Friday I had a busy week, and on Friday I took the kids to school, went home and got back in bed. And I just had a day of eating badly and watching films. and then I read the chapter about it's okay to be sloppy and I felt so much better about myself because it's a reminder that it's up and down, right? I agree and I actually believe that those times being sloppy are necessary for what the world calls high performance.

14:32I think rest is not a luxury, rest is a necessity. I think, well here's, in the recovery literature, they have such a powerful idea and they say relapse is a part of recovery. Relapse is a part of recovery. So if someone's dealing with addiction, they're going to relapse, but that's getting you to the mountaintop. And what I would say is, you know, getting off track is necessary to get on track. There's a chapter in the book, The Multi-Billionaire in the Very Empty Mansion. So for 15 plus years, I've worked with billionaires, sports superstars entertainment royalty. And my team received a request for me to advise this celebrity billionaire.

15:19So I thought about it and I said, yes, I'm going to go. And I went to his house in this area where there's embassies and massive houses. And I've never seen a house like this. I was met by his aid. I walked inside. I walked by the art collection. I walked by Oriental Rugs. I walked by his car collections, glass, a glass wall with all these cars. I was led down to a subterranean passage. I smelt cigar smoke. I continued to walk. There was another aide who said, he's in a good mood today, Mr. Sharma, and he's going to, you're going to have a great conversation. I walked into the room and there was the tycoon, the titan.

15:56We talked for about two hours and I said, wow. And he told me about his jets, he told me about his yachts, he told me about the applause he had, the fame, fortune. And I said, so who do you get to share it with? And he goes, a long pause. There's a long pause, and then he goes, I'm all alone. So, you know, the happiest person I've met, one of them, was a ski instructor, and he said, I'm not rich, but I have a rich life. And I think high performance doesn't necessarily mean gathering. And if it does for you, it's absolutely okay. And I think money and material things are absolutely fine. And there's one of the eight forms of wealth is that prosperity.

16:38But I just see so many people spending the finest years of their life chasing things, shiny toys that I don't think will give them the happiness, fulfillment, wellness, and serenity that they're looking for. Brilliant. There's one thing I want to talk about before we move on to wellness, which is the second habit. You write about your herters are your helpers. I just underlined a bit here that I'd love to read out loud and just get your thoughts on. by standing in the fires of hardship, discover the great virtues of the best human beings, virtues such as wisdom, tolerance, patience, resilience, persistence, forgiveness, and loving.

17:20So what we're saying there is the hard stuff can be the good stuff at times. What I'm saying is the hard stuff is the good stuff. Right, the old idea, a bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul. It's the hardest things when we suffer, Even if you're working on a screenplay, if you're working on a business, it's the difficult things that introduce you to your strengths. It's those difficult experiences that show you how creative you are. And as a human being, the things that break your heart are the things that open your heart. And when you suffer, I mean, I love art. I love going, we're here in London, I'm going to go to the Tate Modern and some of these incredible museums you have.

18:03But the great thing about art, the greatest artists, they have suffered the most. And I believe when you suffer, it makes you more sensitive. It makes you more sensitive to other people. It makes you more sensitive to yourself. But it also allows you to feel and see the truth. Because I think you've just been cracked open and you just feel so much more deeply when you've been broken. So I think also in society, tragedy or difficulty or pain has a bad rap. And we run out as soon as possible. We spend our lives trying to avoid it and trying to make sure our kids avoid it. Well, you get us into a very powerful point.

18:49If we're doing that for our kids and we're doing it out of love, we often do that as parents, we are denying our kids the chance to grow. and when we run out of pain like in a painful situation we miss the gifts that the pain has so i would actually say the discomfort of growth is always less dangerous than the illusion of safety and security and i would actually say if you're going through personally a painful time stay in the painful time learn from it i mean mandela became mandela because of 18 years on robin island so if you look at the great women men of the world they have suffered but they they made a choice not to exploit their suffering for their greatness which leads us on to the next habit very beautifully which is wellness and you spent your life talking to rich successful people they want you to go and share the wisdom you've learned with them.

19:51And from reading through the book, numerous times you talk about the fact that these people would give it all up if they could be younger and healthier. I was in Qatar and someone handed me a piece of paper and said, please read this in your hotel room tonight, which I did. And it said, health is the crown on the well person's head that only the ill person can see. In one wisdom tradition, they say, when we are young, we would sacrifice all of our health for wealth. When we are old and wise, we'd sacrifice all of our wealth for one day of good health. And that is so true. Health is something that we take for granted until we lose it.

20:33I've worked with a lot of super rich people and on their way to building their business and having a liquidity event, they've lost their health and nothing else matters. They spend their days trying to get it back. So the second form of wealth out of the eight forms of wealth is health. So as we've already discussed, your day now starts at 4, not 5 a.m. You'd have to write a whole new book about that, the 4 a.m. Club. And then you have the period spent in MVP. Yes. And then you ask yourself the five questions that you shared with us earlier. I'd love to know what other pillars make up your day that put wellness at the center of your life.

21:10Sure. Well, my morning routine now is 4 to 4.45. It's not rigid. It's probably four or five times a week. And people might say, why would you do that? Or roll their eyes. 4 a.m., why would you do it? Because it's so fun. It makes me feel so great. I live in an old farmhouse in the Tuscan Hills, and I open up the window, and I hear the roosters and the dogs barking, and I meditate and visualize and pray, and it's gorgeous. It's beautiful and it makes a huge difference in my day. Five o 'clock I work out. You know, I sweat. We can talk about some of the science. You know all about it. And then at six o 'clock I do the journaling.

21:45So I ask the questions and I walk my little dog for a little bit, go for a morning walk. Then I take an Epsom salt bath, which is very powerful while I listen to some more learning. And then I start my day. Other wellness ideas, I call it a second wind workout. When I finish my work day, I'll go for an hour walk or an hour bike ride. If you believe exercise is a game changer, then why would you only do it once a day? Last night, I flew in from Los Angeles. I had a massage. So massage is incredibly powerful for wellness. I do cryotherapy, which I love. biohacking which i find is very important meditation i mentioned incredibly important to reduce inflammation and extend telomeres and for wellness i would love to talk about things that people could adopt um let's talk about the positivity practice i'd love you to explain that you say in the book defend the health of your mind yes um something as powerful as mantra And again, people could roll their eyes, but there's good science on the power of mantra.

22:59For thousands of years, in ancient countries, they've understood that words have great power. So by using words, a mantra, man is Sanskrit for mind, tra is Sanskrit for freedom, mantra, free the mind. It sounds like Morpheus in the old movie Matrix, but very powerful. So repeating a phrase over and over that is positive is incredibly important for your positivity. Number two, you can change the world or you can be around toxic people. You can't do both. And I think it's mission critical if you want to be a high performer to strip out the energy vampires and the dream stealers from your life. How do you do that?

23:43You just do it. you know and you could say well it's my best friend that i've known for 20 years and i would say well reason season lifetime not everyone's meant to be with you on the ride and if you're growing every day and they're not growing with you you might have outgrown them uh how do you do it maybe you could cut them off and wish them well on their journey you could say okay look i can't i can't hang with you every day let's meet every two weeks sometimes people say you know it's my family member, my brother, my mother who's toxic. You know, again, it's selective association or just love them from afar.

24:22But it's really important to trust how you feel with people. And you know what I'm talking about? There are some people who are with them and you just feel bad. You got to clean out your social circle. You said in the book, see other people's wins as your wins. Yes. And if you can do that, and I find prayer, you know, it's wonderful because as before a lot of the scientific pundits used to laugh at the idea of prayer, now there's emerging science on the power of prayer. And I find when there's something, a new trait I want to build. You know, if I want to get to my next level as a human being, prayer is, meditation and visualization are great, but prayer is really powerful.

25:02So I would say to anyone who's watching, even if you're not religious, call it scientific prayer. and prayer for the ability to celebrate other people's winning. And rather than saying, oh, they have coming from a place of scarcity, they have something I don't say, that person is a beacon of possibility and they're showing me what can be done and I can do it too. Look what I can be. You talk also in wellness about the power of the 30-day challenge. You've worked with huge CEOs, leaders, entrepreneurs, founders, sports people. This idea of the 30-day challenge, I'd love you to share it with our audience.

25:37It's so simple. But you just create a log, a 30-day log, and it could be a 30-day sugar-free challenge. It could be a 30-day social media detox. It could be a 30-day no-complaint month. Could be 30 days of working what I call in the book your Project X, that one project, which is your Taj Mahal. You pushed it in the world and you wow all witnesses. but it's powerful to take one commitment at a time and work at it for 30 days and part of that came from benjamin franklin um he had 13 virtues which were incredibly important to him and every period he would set periods of time and work on one of the 13 virtues and actually do check marks check marks or x's when he spent a day getting it right or spent a day getting it wrong and it's powerful to remind people that they can do this and one of the things i think we're really struggling with is the use of our phones, social media.

26:35So in the wellness habit, you talk about a dopamine detox. You say earlier in the book, we're walking around in a digital coma. So how important is it for us to have a dopamine detox, to remove ourselves from these digital comas, and how dangerous is living a life addicted to that stuff? Well, you know the answer. I think you can live your finest life and change the world or play with your phone all day. You can't do both. And many people have said it, but you have, I believe, a majority of people who are spending their finest hours chasing trivial pursuits. And it breaks my heart because there are no extra people on the planet.

27:16Every single human being alive today is full of gifts and talents. We all are meant to produce great things. We're meant to shine a light on people. We're meant to experience great things in life. And we are hooked. We are a society of collective addicts when it comes to watching these videos and checking our phones. And you look how a lot of people are walking down the street and they just keep on checking the phone. So there is a dopamine connection. You probably know that a lot of these apps have been based on the slot machine in Vegas. that's why you know they you you scroll downward etc and so i think it's important to take a seven day or a 30 day dopamine detox where you get rid of the stimuli in your environment now it's your phone but it's also the entertainment and all those exciting things that release dopamine that cause us to to not be in the moment and forget what's most important and we'll talk later about your craft, working on your craft, but the science says that every time you get interrupted with one of these dopamine hits to get down to the deep work, it doesn't happen quickly.

28:30Well, really what you're talking about, as you know, Jake, we're talking about flow state. I mean, the thing about a genius is they have institutionalized flow. So they literally leave the world to hear the signal. They leave the noise to hear the muse. You know, there's one chapter, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but there's one chapter in the Wealth Money Can't Buy. Find your personal golden eye. Ian Fleming created James Bond. And how did he do it? He found a retreat from the world. He called it golden eye. It was a Jamaican cottage by the, more than a cottage, but it was a place by the sea.

29:07And if you look at the great scientists, you look at Winston Churchill. He had checkers. He had Chartwell. You look at Jean-Michel Basquiat. He said, all medicine men live in caves. We need to find a cave we can retreat to in this world to do our finest work. And also, we need to spend more time in solitude every day so we can refill the well of creativity and wonder and awe and then go back in the world and do great things. And why does that happen when we're alone?

29:41Transient hypofrontality. most of us are in the prefrontal cortex the crown jewel of human reasoning but that is also as you know that's the part of the brain responsible for the chatter but when we get away from the world we walk by the ocean we write in a journal alone we walk in the woods how many great creatives and high performers were walkers. They were walkers. When you do that, your brain, transient hypofrontality, the prefrontal cortex, that's the chatter, the thinking, hypo, it slows down. For a short period of time, your brain waves go down from alpha to beta to theta. And then you start getting in flow state.

30:31I think genius loves isolation. I think one of the reasons we're not doing our finest work is not that we're not cut from the cloth of genius. It's we don't set up an environment, an ecosystem, and create the habits of genius. Genius is less about genetics, more about habits. Brilliant. Let's talk family. Love to. Number three on the hidden habits, and I love this one. Lived the loved one's eyeball law. What is the loved one's eyeball law? And I once heard a political commentator said, he was talking about his personal relationship. It was James Carville. I don't know. Do you know James Carville?

31:13He was an advisor to Clinton. And his wife was on, let's say, the other side. And they said, well, you both come from such political extremes. How do you make it work? and he said, and I love this, he said, if something's important to her, I make it important to me. I better repeat that again. If something's important to her, I make it important to me. So live the loved one's eyeball. You look behind, you get behind the eyeballs of your lover, your intimate partner, your children, your best friend, and you go, how are they seeing this? and you just try to see it that way. It's empathy, it's listening.

32:00The Native Americans say, don't judge a person unless you have walked a mile in their moccasins. And people will listen to this and think that sounds great, but I'm currently bearing a grudge against my husband or my wife or my kids that wouldn't get out of bed or my parents that I feel judge me. And you talk in the book about don't carry grudges. It's great wisdom. The challenge for a lot of people is how do you not carry grudges when someone does something that disappoints you, offends you, frustrates you, or angers you? How do you learn to let that go? How can we do that? Well, one of the greatest of all human virtues is forgiveness.

32:38And forgiveness is not just a great way to roll through life as a human being. It's essential for entrepreneurs, top athletes, CEOs, astronauts. Because if you're caring for unforgiveness, you're actually carrying that person on your back as you journey through life metaphorically speaking and forgiving is not condoning forgiving is understanding the other person did the best they can do on the level of consciousness that they are at and as Maya Angelou said if they knew better they would have done better so how do we not carry a grudge we we say that person did their best. And then we go to the tools.

33:20We go to the writing. We write the grudge. We write the anger. We metabolize the emotions of the grudge until the grudge dislodges. All these emotions, human emotions, the high ones, wonder, delight, awe, gratitude, love, inspiration. That's great. But we also have lower-grade human emotions, grudges or anger, shame, disappointment, sadness. Well, how do you dislodge them? You do the work. You use the tools, the writing, the meditation, the visualization, the prayers, the solitude, the nature walks, where you metabolize and work through and process. You work with these emotions. You process them so they clear out of your system.

34:09And that's part of what creates high performance. You're not carrying what I call in my methodology this field of hurt that is invisible, but it's actually pulling the strings limiting you. Yeah, so good. And also is a reminder that that person that's annoyed you, if you'd have lived their life and seen the things they've seen and had the input they've had, you'd be acting like they are. Well said. Well said. I would also say we all have to be careful about toxic optimism. optimism because I think that's why in one of my previous books, I, I, there was a chapter, which is the big lie of positive thinking, because often there are a lot of pundits who go, mindset is everything.

34:55I'm not, I'm not in any way disrespecting that. I don't subscribe to that, but there's a lot of people who say, oh, you're going, someone hurts you. Don't bury a grudge, be positive. I, I think it's very dangerous and unhealthy to go straight to empathy, straight to the positivity. Oh, they've had a tough time. Let me be good to them. I think you have to work through your emotions that you're feeling about that's creating the grudge. And then once you naturally metabolize those emotions and release them, then you'll be in a position to healthfully look for the gift in the difficulty. Got you. You also say in the book that some hurts aren't meant to be healed.

35:39That is a chapter where I believe I talk about Pamela Anderson. Have you seen her documentary? It's a moving, amazing documentary. Amazing documentary. I think an amazing woman. So there was one scene in there that I write about where she's, I mean, this is, what, 30 years ago? She was with Tommy Lee from Motley Crue. But she's watching the video. The documentarians show it to her, and she sees them. And this looked like a time when they were deeply in love. And she watches it and her eyes well up with tears and she's just like deeply moved. And she goes, I've got to walk away. And she walked away from the camera.

36:20And it made me realize some love stories never end and some wounds aren't meant to be healed. And guess what? That's okay.

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38:21Let's move on to habit number four, which is craft. And it comes up time and time again. The power that you have realized lies in the reading and the learning. and this kind of idea that you are a lifelong learner. Is that fair? The importance of it? I believe education is inoculation against disruption. I believe that the leader who learns the most wins. I believe victims love entertainment, leaders love education. I call it a GCA, a gargantuan competitive advantage to read every night while the world is, while so many people are watching TV or playing with their screens is powerful. Because if we were to talk about business, the marketplace rewards magic.

39:13And magic is pushed into the marketplace by someone who is full of knowledge and sees their job as their craft. And it's very rare right now. And so I think by learning and studying and never losing a white belt mentality, you have an advantage that so few people have. And this plays into what you call APR, absolute personal responsibility. Please talk us through that. Victims are about CBE, complaint, blame, and excuse. Victims are stuck in the past. But I say in the book, the past is not a prison to be chained in, it's a school to be learned from. but often victims you can tell a victim a mile away because they give away their human power to external things oh it's because of my divorce it's because of this accident it's because i lost the job it's because we live in a world of poly crisis it's because of the economy well right now there are people thriving with businesses for example so that's not quite true victims are about CBE, complaint, blame, and excuse.

40:25They just get stuck there and they recite their excuses so many times. They actually believe their excuses are true. Leaders or high performers are very different. They're about APR, absolute personal responsibility. So it's, I just, I say this respectfully, but there are too many people who want the rewards of world class or they want a world class life, but they're not willing to do what world class requires. And leaders are all about APR, absolute personal responsibility. They are up at 5 a.m. They do study their craft. They do work hard to distribute awesome value into the marketplace. They are ethical.

41:02They always love to learn, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And what about people who would listen to this and go, well, I'm doing all those things. I don't feel the rewards are coming. Well, I would always say sometimes people fall into the trap of thinking they're doing the things, but they're not really doing the things. So I want to investigate what they're doing. And then the second thing I'd say is there's a great word that every great artist, entrepreneur, athlete, icon lives by, and it's patience. You know, Van Gogh. Did you know he only sold two pieces of art in his lifetime? But he continued producing art for his entire lifetime.

41:48Did you know it It took 21 years to build the Taj Mahal. It took, you know, how many years did it take to create the Great Pyramid of Giza? And all I'm saying is, you know, greatness takes time. And we're in a world where we, oh, I'm doing everything, but I'm not getting the results. Well, sometimes it takes 30 years of anonymity before lightning strikes. So don't do it. It comes from some of the wisdom traditions. Don't do your craft for the reward. Do it for what it makes a few and the honor it breeds in you. I suffered for the Wealth Money Camp. I spent the last 12 months of last year on this book.

42:32I rewrote it maybe 20 times, 10 ,000 changes each manuscript. I'd be up in the morning, late at night to meet my deadlines. I wanted every word to be the best I could give because I have a sacred trust bond with my readers. and I'm only as good as my last book, so I don't want to mail it in. That's what it takes. Can you really truly achieve anything great if you haven't worked hard? I've never met a billionaire, professional athlete, a genuine superstar who doesn't outwork everyone around them. I think about Kobe Bryant. He said, I got into the NBA and I thought everyone else would want to work day and night to be BIW best in the world.

43:16And he said, I realized some of the people in the NBA, once they got in, they felt they had made it. So they started to party. They do one, maybe two workouts a day. He said, I realized that if I could get up at 4 a.m. and do a morning workout, and then go home and have some breakfast, hang out with the family, go back to the gym, do another workout at 11, go back home, catch up on some other things, go back and do a four o 'clock workout go home have dinner do an evening workout to use his words he said within four or five years i would have an advantage no one in the league would ever catch up with i mean that's a perfect example of of hard work and the seduction is we see the entrepreneurs and the athletes and the artists and the people whose lives we want to be living in the full blazing glory of their mastery.

44:08And we go, oh, they're gifted. Like what nonsense. We see them gifted. We see, you know, Beckham bending the ball. We see a great musician and we go, oh, they're gifted. No, behind the giftedness is often decades of monomaniacal focus on their craft and incredible levels of practice and hard work. And let's just be really clear here. You're not saying doing all of these things will make you a happier person. In fact, from your personal experience, loads of people that do this hard work, that do the deep work, that get to the top of the mountain, are not the happiest people. And if they want to do it, that's absolutely fine because that's what they want to do.

44:47And if your listeners don't want to do that, that's also fine because you don't want to do it. But don't want the rewards without the sacrifice. That's exactly what I'm saying. And the great thing about a human life is we get to handcraft it the way we want to. And I don't think we should judge someone who wants to work nine to five as whatever versus someone who wants to work day and night pursuing a craft. And yes, I would say many of the billionaires that I've mentored and the superstars are unhappy. They don't have strong family lives. some of them medicate themselves on the way home or they'll say look I've got the yachts I've got the jets I'm super rich and my kids don't talk to me but you know I don't know if this is going to make sense Jake but a lot of these people just so but I've got to do it like this is who I am it's like an obsession and we could get into the psychology a lot of these people have had difficult childhoods they didn't have a didn't get a lot of praise or they lost a father or mother it's incredible how many so-called geniuses lost a parent and i think it sets up an internal hole yeah and i think then they go out in the world and they find this thing they love to do and they're trying to subconsciously fill the hole with applause without even knowing it but that's okay we wouldn't have a lot of the great works of art but for these people yeah you're often asked what makes a great leader and you say in the book, I write down an equation on a napkin.

46:26Now, we haven't got a napkin for you, but I took the liberty as I was in the kitchen making my notes of writing the equation on a napkin. So if someone's watching this on the app or if they're watching this on YouTube, this will make perfect sense to them. But for people who are listening to this on their podcast player, would you mind describing the equation that I have on this napkin? Sure. So it's the algorithm for virtuosity. So it's growth plus practice. So growth, which is simply mining your talents a little bit every day. For 20 plus years, I've been teaching small daily, seemingly insignificant improvements when done consistently over time lead to stunning results.

47:09For 20 plus years, I've been teaching about micro wins, the 1 % wins. So that's growth every day plus practice. And how many people practice anymore? You find an hour of quietude and you study. And you look at your game charts. You pull out your genius notebook and you deconstruct yesterday's winning formula. Growth plus practice plus teachers. There's a chapter in the book called Recruit a Dead Board of Mentors. If you can't find live teachers, find dead ones through their books. So mentors are powerful. Teachers plus associations. nations, we become our friends. Let's go to the science. Nicholas Christakis, Harvard University, he has found, this is amazing to me, he has found we are influenced not only by our friends, but by the friends of our friends, and the friends of our friends' friends.

48:06We could get into why it's mirror neurons. That's the type of brain cell that causes us to mimic subconsciously the people we're around. You're around victims, complainers, D players, you're going to start behaving like them. So your associations are, your social circle is massively powerful. And it's not only mirror neurons, it's the psychological phenomenon of emotional contagion, which speaks to the idea that we adopt the dominant emotions of the people were around. If you're around apathetic people, energy vampires, slowly and steadily, you're just, without even knowing it, you're going to start feeling like them.

48:52And then this virtuoso algorithm, the line across it, like a division line, underneath that is resilience and longevity equals mastery. So growth plus practice plus teachers plus associations over, like a mathematical equation, resilience and longevity. Why would I talk about that? Well, the key to longevity, to legendary is longevity. Just you want to outlive your peers. You want to stay in the game longer than anyone else does. It's incredible what happens if you stay in the ring longer than everyone around you and stay focused versus so many entrepreneurs, broken focus syndrome, from chasing every new opportunity.

49:36Stay focused for a long time and stay healthy equals mastery. So that's the napkin. There it is. There you go. That was creative. That was good. Let's move on then to number five. Actually, before we do, can you just quickly explain the 60-second anti-procrastination rule because I am a procrastinator. Never leave the sight of a good idea without taking some action to execute around it. So ideas are worth nothing. All too often, again, you hear this in a lot of business circles. Oh, I had that idea. It's not the idea that created the billion-dollar fortune. It was the constant and steady execution on the idea that created Apple.

50:27I mean, Steve Jobs,

50:33he six weeks before the iphone ship he said i want i want to have a certain type of glass on the screen and his his team said it's impossible this type of glass has never been made in the world and he goes no i need to get it done you need to do this he was like that right you just need to get the deliverable done and six weeks later when the iphone shipped corning had created a glass screen that was exactly what Steve Jobs wanted because he said, I want the icons on the iPhone to look so beautiful users would want to lick the screen. Is that what he said? That's what he said. And the point I'm trying to make is most businesses, they have a vision or a mountaintop.

51:14And then every time there's a constraint, they say, oh yeah, yeah, we can't get it done. And they dilute the vision and steadily, steadily, steadily, eventually their vision doesn't. But what Apple did under Steve Jobs is he said, no, he just, his standards were so impeccable. He said, here's the vision. Now we need to get the vision done. And he stayed true, as common as it sounds. Every time there was a constraint, he said, I don't really care. You've got to get the job done. And he protected the beauty of his vision. Brilliant. Right, let's move on to money. Yes. Habit number six. I want to start with this.

51:52Habits beat IQ. Yes, I believe habits beat IQ every single day of the week. Money is one of the eight forms of wealth. And here in this section, there's about 20 chapters where I deconstruct what I've learned from billionaires, having mentored them for years. And one of the things I've realized is they're not the smartest person in the room. I'm just saying most of these people, they're very disciplined. It sounds so obvious, but these people are incredibly disciplined. These people keep their promises. These people, as simple as it sounds, Jake, they respect every hour of their day. They're masterful time managers.

52:43These people like people often. So Steve, I was talking about Steve Jobs. Bud Tribble at Apple coined this term the reality distortion field. You hear this idea from Steve, you know, it comes through the grapevine. You go like, that's the craziest idea. He wants to do this. He wants to create that. But when you are talking to Steve Jobs, he seduces you and he hit, he was, Steve Jobs was almost like a mesmerist. it was the reality distortion field when you're in the room with him he distorts your reality and so a lot of these these billionaires you know talking about their habits when you're with them you start believing in their vision and i think it's because that they see the thing about a visionary is they believe in their vision when the world doesn't believe in their vision until they get their vision done.

53:35And then the entire world believes in their vision. And, and it just like, they get this idea and it gets stuck in their gut and they just go, no, I believe in it. And the world they're laughed at, but they take the stones that the world throws at them and build them into monuments. And so I think they believe so much in themselves that they hypnotize people into believing in themselves. So yeah, they have these habits that they install, and I believe these habits create the results versus brilliance and intellectual genius. And from what you said, these people that you've studied for so many years, they can cope with being ridiculed.

54:14They understand that the path they've chosen is a path where criticism, ridicule, and doubt comes their way, right? Absolutely. These people are careless about the bad opinions of others. Most of the people I mentor in this league financially, they couldn't care less about what people think about them. As a matter of fact, the stones people throw at them are fuel for them. Let me just go to page 236 of this book because you talk here the habit stack of super wealthy people. super wealthy people have the following nine habits in common in addition to the ones you've mentioned earlier so if would you just give us 20 seconds on each monomaniacal focus you can change the world or you can be distracted you can't do both pick one mount everest be a minimalist versus a maximalist say no to the great opportunities and get the job done undefeatable positivity You're laughed at.

55:22You lose your biggest customer. You feel like giving up. You just reach into yourself and say, the world needs this. I'm going to get it done. Unique unorthodoxy. You can copy your heroes or you can be an original and the marketplace rewards originality. Extreme resolve. believe in yourself until the world believes in you because visionaries are ridiculed before they're revered they can cite pain and yes and people then say oh i guess i wasn't born with that how can i get it you just you do the things that's uncomfortable you lean into your fears you get knocked down The Japanese say get knocked down seven times, get up eight.

56:13You use discomfort and pain as a practice to become undefeatable. Habit number five is intelligent risk-taking. No one is saying bet the farm and lose your house. So these people that I mentor, they take calculated risks, hedged risks. So they go, okay, I've studied this opportunity. Here is my worst case scenario. And as Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger would say, I'm going to leave a margin of safety and then I'm going to pull the trigger. Managed perfectionism. Almost every superstar is a perfectionist.

57:04They try to manage the perfectionism because it can be very unhealthy. Yeah. Leader building. The job of a leader is to grow more leaders, especially in business. You want to duplicate yourself. So if you have 500 people, let's say 50 people at your company or 500 people, build a culture of 500 leaders versus a cult of personality where everyone comes to you with their problems. Solution orientation. Sounds so simple. I had a conversation with a multi-billionaire um and i he just came off his best year and i go what did you do and he just goes i just made sure that every time someone brought me a problem or we faced a problem i turned it around and made and looked for the solution it sounds so simple but 90 95 of people not judging just reporting there's a problem and they give up or they can't see around it and the final habit that the super wealthy people that you've worked with have managed to stack together is sustained helpfulness.

58:09Why is that so important?

58:13Ted Turner, founder of CNN, an amazing entrepreneur, he quoted Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary, and he said, the one who serves the best profits the most. So ultimately in business, if you want to be a billionaire, help a billion people. You write in this part of the book about starting a mastermind alliance, being a major gift giver, increasing your charisma. So this is really interesting. Your idea of building community is not about taking from others, but about giving to others. One of my mentors was a judge. And the last time I saw him before he passed away, and he was a real titan in my life.

58:59And one of the last things I asked him, I said, what's most important in life? And he said, Robin, be kind. He goes, oh, Robin, be kind. And we live in a world where there's so much scarcity. You know, it's what's in it for me? What am I going to get? But one of the through lines in the Wealth Money Can't Buy is generosity beats scarcity every day of the week. Now, for the millions of entrepreneurs who watch your podcast, they say, well, how would this be relevant for me in business, for example? Well, if you can distribute, I mean, if you go to most restaurants, it's how can I get as much money as possible by giving as little?

59:45But the more magic you put in the marketplace, the more your ingredients are fresh, the more your chef works with love, the more you've built a culture where service is great, the more you are a merchant of wow for each customer. or if you're online, the more you treat every single follower with respect and you give gifts, even in your home life, the more you are of service and helpful, you know, those things come back to you with incredible rewards. So I think generosity is a very powerful way to go through life. And the interesting thing is if you give a gift, expecting a reward, it's not a gift, it's a trade.

1:00:26People sniff it a mile away. But if you give a gift generously, you give the gift to the person, she or he benefits, but you also give yourself a gift. You also talk in the community section about increase your charisma. So you would have worked with many people where that's a problem, people might be listening, feeling it might be a problem for them. What advice do you give people when they need to increase their charisma? One of the best ways is to be an amazing listener. So simple. I believe it was Churchill. He went to this cocktail party. And he made the rounds. And he had a great time. And he talked to lots of people.

1:01:06And then he left. Next day, one of his lieutenants said, What did you do at that party? Everyone is talking about you. They fell in love with you. He said, Well, I didn't say very much. I just did all the listening. And I think listening is, you want to make people feel bigger in your presence, be interested in them in this world of nonstop talking. This is where MVP, Meditation, Visualization, and Prayer comes in, for example. For so many of us, our ego is screaming so loudly, we need to be heard. We're talking so much because it's overcompensation. And so I think you want to be charismatic, be genuinely interested, and not only in the titan and the CEO and someone who can help you.

1:01:53I think everyone we meet has a story to tell, a lesson to teach, and a dream to share. Habit number seven is adventure. And I love this one. It reminds me of my son because he is a natural born adventurer. Since he was able to walk, he's wanted to climb a tree, explore around a wall, see what's behind a bush. He loves being outside and i really enjoyed when you wrote in this that too many people live the same year 80 times and think it's a life well you talk about your son sebastian yeah sebastian how old is sebastian he's eight see so when we're kids our eyes sparkle it's our native position it's our it's who we are when we are kids we're full of creativity and a wonder and i sadly life sucks the wonder out of us.

1:02:45And someone once said, adults are nothing more than deteriorated children. And so not many adults are curious. We were talking about a London taxi driver. On my last visit here, I went from central London to Heathrow. And the taxi driver spent the whole time interviewing me, like asking question after question. and I said, why are you doing this? It's amazing. You should have been a talk show host. And he said, well, I'm just curious. But it's very rare to see someone who's curious. And so adventure, the seventh form of wealth, if you have adventure in your days, like micro adventure, then, and you have the sparkle back and you see life as a chance to learn and to grow and meet interesting people, then I think you have a form of wealth.

1:03:34And I just think life is really short and a lot of people postpone finding the everyday magic in their days yeah you also talk in adventure about pretend you're a pirate and this really spoke to me because i've not been a pirate enough in my life and i've just kind of accepted what happens can you explain the concept to people yeah just inject a little like break more rules um what's that old idea sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than seek permission but i think we just live in a box we always follow these rules. We're just like so much about routine and sometimes be a bit of a pirate.

1:04:11If you're looking for love and you're in a grocery store in the avocado section, be a pirate and walk over to that person and say, by the way, I think you're super attractive. Do you like avocados too? Let's go out and have an avocado together. But also I think there's something in that about believing that you deserve the things that you want. You know, if you like the look of a certain sandwich, ask for it. Like you deserve to know how you want your tea or your coffee when you're in your forties. Like you shouldn't be apologetic about the things that you want in life. I don't think. I was in a stationary store here in London yesterday and there was, um, I walked past this woman who was waiting at the cashier and she said, sorry.

1:04:55And I said, excuse me. And she said, sorry. She had nothing to be sorry about. I really felt like saying, you know, with a smile, like, you don't need to say sorry. But how many of us go through life, sorry life, how many of us in business, we don't ask for what we think we're worth. We don't ask, we don't price our services correctly, even at home with our, let's say, our significant other. We don't ask for the things that we want. And you're right, I think it's a deservability issue which gets us back to the power of working on ourselves so we get the things we deserve. And the final habit is service.

1:05:42What did you want to write about service at the end of the book? Mahatma Gandhi said, to lose yourself in service of others is to find yourself. I think it's a form of wealth because the human being who has a heart of service, the human being who works for the helpfulness of others, the human being who walks down the street and sees someone in need and breaks free of the trance and helps that person in need finds a joy money can't buy. And I find there's a lot of rich people who are cash rich and they're life poor. And my dad is going to be 87 in two months. and his father was a priest. My dad is a great hero in my life, and so is my mom.

1:06:30And my dad said to me, often when I was growing up, he said, Robin, when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. He said, son, live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice. And I think service is so powerful. You wrote, to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. um you talk in the final part of the book about put your final day first you've you've mentioned that just give us a synopsis of of why that was in there well it speaks to the shortness of life even the longest life is an incredibly short ride yeah and connect you know when i've when i've been doing some of these interviews and i talk about mortality people go well yeah you know i agree but death is dark.

1:07:19And I actually think speaking of death and mortality is light because then we live to the point and we don't hold back. We ask for that seat that we want. We build that business we know would serve the world. We show love to our family. We speak our truth versus worrying about rejection. So I think if you can keep your mortality close to you every morning, then you're going to live a pretty great life. The just like me peacefulness prayer I thought was lovely. Comes from Pema Chodron, the amazing Buddhist monk. And she said, you know, sometimes I get angry or irritated when look at that person.

1:08:00They're cutting me off in traffic or they're doing this to me. And then in her meditation she said, you know, and then I start to realize and I say to myself, well, you know, they're just like me. They're just like me, and I slowly start to realize I do a lot of the very things they're doing, which gives her forgiveness and peace. Beautiful. And the final element that I wanted to end with, which I thought was really moving, live fully so you can die empty. Yeah, and I quote George Bernard Shaw, and basically he said, I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die.

1:08:44Wouldn't it be great to live life in such a way that when you get to the end, you say, you're on your deathbed and you're surveying your life and you say, I held nothing back. I think that would be an amazing way to live. I've really loved that conversation. Are you happy if we end with a few quickfire questions? Absolutely. And if I could quickly say, you're so well prepared. It's so rare. So I want to thank you for this time. It's been amazing. And your team, so gracious. Good. Thank you very much for saying that. What are the three non-negotiable behaviors that mean the most to you? I would say honesty.

1:09:25I would say morning routine, because the way I start my day dramatically defines my day. And the third non-negotiable behavior would be just being as helpful as possible. Very good. What's your biggest strength? What's your greatest weakness? Biggest strength? Just get the job done. Yep. Biggest weakness? Perfectionism. What advice would you give a teenage Robin? your instinct is wiser than your intellect. The best bit of advice you've ever been given? I've received a lot of great advice. One of them came from my mentor when I was in my 20s. He goes, Robin, run your own race. In this world of so much comparison, run your own race.

1:10:21And the final question for the people that have listened to this amazing conversation, what would you love to leave ringing in their ears? We frame it as your one golden rule for people to live their own version of high performance? There are eight forms of wealth. Money is only one of them. Don't build your life chasing nothing wrong with it, but don't build your days chasing a shiny toy that at the end won't give you what you're looking for. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jake. I love that, honestly. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

1:11:04well that brings us to the end of today's episode i can't thank you enough for continuing to support the show just a quick reminder that if you want even more from high performance then you can get early access to our latest episodes ad free content exclusive masterclasses and high performance originals on the high performance app and right now you can get a free trial of high performance plus i know that you're going to love it that's it for today though remember stay curious humble and empathetic and we'll see you next time

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