#96: Robin Sharma: The Secret Wealth Nobody Talks About

32:02It's called the five-question morning maximizer that I write about. Would you like me to get into it? Yeah, I've heard it. It's great. Okay. So it's five questions. The first question is, what am I grateful for? We know that gratitude is the antidote to fear. Second question is, where am I winning? That's powerful because the brain has a negativity bias. So it forces us to focus on where we're making micro-wins. It's the question of hope and momentum. The third question is a spiritual question and a healing question. What will I let go of today? So it could be bringing forgiveness to someone or letting go of some resentment or maybe jealousy.

32:40You write a paragraph, very healing. Fourth question is, what does my ideal day ahead look like? So this gives you, that's the intentionality question. It gives you a script for the day. And the fifth question is the KDC question, the keep death close question. What needs to be said at the end? And so each morning while the world is asleep, you're drinking your tea or your coffee, you've got some nice music playing, but you confront your death each morning. It's a great ritual and it gives you this intimacy with your mortality because you go, hmm, what needs to be said about me when I'm no longer here?

33:18And you write a paragraph or two about what your family will say and your colleagues will say. And then you go out in the world and at a conscious level or even a subconscious level, you've connected with your mountaintop and you can live in a much more deliberate way. Are you doing that every morning? Not every morning. Sometimes I just write about how I feel. Sometimes I write about what I'm learning. Sometimes I write about what I had for dinner the night before. I have different forms of journaling, different prompts. I'm sensing a key thing about all of this practice is being in tune with yourself and what you truly want deep down, what your soul is desiring.

34:07Because all of these things are great. Running a company is still not, it's not like, let's not make money if that's what you want to do. But being aware of what's serving you and what's not and being able to be self-reflective, to look within and assess all of the outside world of what's being presented to us, what is kind of rubbing off on us, what's affecting us positively, negatively, and then being able to use that information, which you gain through the solitude and through the silence. It's removing all of the noise is where you can gain that clarity on all these things. And then with that information that you've gained through the silence, then you can then choose what to do with it.

34:48It's like without having this ability to stop and be here and be present and just listen to what's coming in, you will never be able to know and have a bit of a filter of what's serving you and what's not. And then perhaps people just kind of get this overarching feeling of emptiness or overarching feeling of, I don't know what's wrong, but I just don't really feel my best. and the problem there is probably just an inability to kind of sit with their own thoughts and feel and just experience whatever they're feeling. Maybe they're suppressing that ability to do that. Yeah, I think that's part of it for sure.

35:33I think also making some time or being on a journey of self-development is also healing. It's letting go of all you've picked up that no longer serves you, whether it's your mindset, heart set, health set, and soul set. In the 5M Club, I have a model called the Four Interior Empires. So many people talk about mindset. I think you want to work on your mindset, your beliefs, very important, but also your heart set, which is your emotionality, your health set, which is your physicality, and your soul set, which is your spirituality. So you want to work on those four elements as well. Also, I wanted to say, I'm not saying money is not important.

36:17And I know a lot of people who follow you are entrepreneurs. And I'm an entrepreneur myself. In the wealth money camp, I, the eight forms of wealth, one of them is money. I mean, it provides freedom and allows you to do amazing things for your family and people who are in need. So I didn't mean to suggest in any way that money is not important. I just think there's an over-prioritization of it. And also, I think there's a lot of messaging, which is when you have a lot, you're going to feel better. But the old Zen proverb reminds us, wherever you go, there you are. And so, I've talked to so many people.

36:57They thought, if I got to this level, I would wake up one day and I'd feel like everything was great. and that day came because they had a liquidity event and they felt exactly the way they did and i think that's a useful concept yeah i agree i spoke with some of the episodes actually coming out tomorrow and he was explaining how money is the only uh objective measure of success the rest is subjective and he was explaining that you can base all your success off all these other metrics but they're all subjective he's like the only thing is the only objective measure of success is financial and more specifically he was explaining financial net worth being the one that's quantifiable and while maybe if we unpack it that makes sense the rest are subjective but my challenge is, is why does it need to be objective?

37:56Like, why does the, why does success need to be black and white objective, see it on a paper with some numbers? Like, surely it being subjective is the best part about success. It doesn't need to be this one thing. And we can have all different things that light us up and based on our experiences and how we've kind of formed our version of life can help dictate how success is for us. I think ultimately being able to look within and choose the things that serve us and not just climb a ladder for the sake of climbing a ladder and be aware of going, okay, yeah, money is important. We're all striving towards it.

38:38It is great having money. We can't disregard this. It's awesome. Especially if we're operating in this society where the main commodity that we're transacting is money to unlock all the things that we want. So it's not about disregarding it, but I do think there is a level where no more money that you make will impact your life anymore to much degree. I mean, maybe if you're in America, you can buy a jet or something, but realistically, you get past a certain point and the money doesn't really impact your life. So I think you need to seek for something outside of financial in order to have that fulfillment, have that joy in your life, or it's probably a slippery slope because you're chasing something that decreases in value the more you obtain it.

39:22Because the more you obtain it after a certain level, the less utility it has. Well, I'd say a few things. Very interesting what you say. When you said, Chris, we need money because it's what we're transacting in. I hear you. And yet I'd also very humbly offer, I think what we're really transacting in is humanity in business. Money is a reflection of the value rendered to the marketplace. And I think if an entrepreneur, if their main obsession is money, I don't know if they're ever going to win. but if their obsession is what is a huge problem that people are dealing with and how can i offer the most value to solve that problem and if deep in your soul that's where you're coming from that's how you win and then someone would say robin that sounds very kumbaya can we hold hands and you know i just finished reading rereading steve jobs's wonderful biography by walter Isaacson.

40:32And Steve Jobs did not care about money. He cared about beauty. And his magic was he married the humanities and great taste and a love of beauty and design with technology.

40:51I had someone who came to one of my leadership events and they said, you know, you mentioned Steve Jobs. I met Steve six weeks before he passed away. I walked into his house. I went into his family room. He didn't want to talk about his illness. He was asking about the technology. I think it was, I think it was the iPhone. This little piece, how's this working? How's that going? He was just obsessed with pushing beautiful things that would make people's lives richer out into the world. When he was a billionaire, he still lived in a pretty small house and didn't have much furniture. So what I'm trying to say is, I don't know if money is what we transact in business.

41:31Like I hear what you're saying technically, but I think what we transact in is relationships. And I believe the one who serves the most people wins. And it's not only with money, it's even in terms of how you feel. And then I wanted to ask you, can I ask you a question so what would be the one thing in your life right now you'd like to see more of in your life i would say more more calm so i want i would want my mind to be less of a professional plate spinner of just spinning a bunch of different plates thinking that I can handle it when in reality I think more calm in my mind of like aligned focus is probably something I want to see more of in my life.

42:32I think my life's changed a lot over the past couple of years. You know, I've financially done quite well comparatively to how much I've ever done before. You know, career-wise, it's progressed quite a lot. I'm in the best shape I've ever been in my life physically. I would say that I feel very good about the progression of where I'm heading. But what I would also say is I seem to go through this cycle of filling my plates too much. And then I go, I need to consolidate this. This is too much. Let's call this out. and I align and I lean down and get really clear on the focus and then I see results.

43:20But then when I start getting all these results, I get presented with so many more opportunities because I'm making noise. So then I say yes to too many and then I fill it up again and I keep wanting to fill my plate. So I'd say the big thing that I want in my life is probably a bit more calm and ability to give myself permission to just not be constantly go, go, go. Yeah, it's really interesting. I think we all face that challenge. You know, lots of opportunities, lots of shiny toys, lots of things to do. And whenever I get off track by taking on too much, what helps me and hope maybe it'll help you, but I always think of Michelangelo.

44:06He spent four years working on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. And it's sort of a lost art or a lost way of thinking. But I do try to be a minimalist versus a maximalist. And I have a lot of work to do on it. But just thinking about one masterwork every few years, rather than lots of things all the time. And again, Steve Jobs learned about that when he was at Pixar. He saw that they did Toy Story. They had a protocol where they would spend three years on one animated film, three years on Toy Story. So they went all in and then three years on the next thing. And then when he came back to Apple in the late 1990s, that's what he did.

44:53He had that famous meeting where he had all of the products that Apple put out there on one table. And he focused and he said, we're just going to focus on this. And it was the Macintosh, sorry, the iMac for three years. And then what was it? The iPod, I believe. And then it was maybe the iPad and then the iPhone. And I think that's maybe more minimalism, less maximalism for all of us. We're all in the same boat. Yeah, it's interesting because obviously when you're looking at teams like that, they've got a bunch of resources working on specific tasks. If you were to break it down, it's one massive objective.

45:39But then within that, they have different groups of people working on specific things and their focus is aligned. Perhaps a result of having probably lack of resources in terms of hands on deck, working on the things I'm trying to achieve, maybe just overextending myself a little bit. What about creativity and how important do you think using your imagination and being creative is when it comes to life and, I guess, fulfillment? Massively. It's massively creative. And you don't have to be an artist or a chef to be creative. You can be a coder and be creative. You can be a barista and be creative.

46:22You can be at home and be creative. But I think we do have an artist soul within us and we reconnect with the brightest and the most joyful part of us when we do our paint, whatever our paintings look like. So writing in a journal is very powerful for expressing creativity. Like I suggested, when I'm in a city, I love going to the art gallery. And when I come to London, I love going to the Tate Modern and sitting in the Rothko room. It's this room where I think there's seven or eight paintings. And there's a great story behind it. He was commissioned, I believe in the fifties to do some paintings for the Seagram building in New York.

47:10And the restaurant was the Four Seasons restaurant. And so he spent two years creating these massive scale paintings. And then pretty close to when he was ready to give away, give the paintings, he was paid a million dollars at that time. He said to his wife, let's go have dinner and see what this restaurant is like. And after the dinner, he said to his wife, he goes, I would never allow the people who eat this kind of food and pay this kind of money view my paintings. And so he called the commissioning company or whatever, and he said, here's your money back, and I'm taking my paintings back.

47:55And he gifted them to the Tate Modern. And so There's these seven or eight paintings sitting in a room, and they're absolutely mesmerizing. So all I'm saying is we need to be creative. I think we come alive when we're creative. I think a lot of us have forgotten to explore our creativity. You can do it in a journal. You can also go to an art gallery and just commune with the master, spend time with Picasso, and be open to their energy and let a little bit of their stardust and their dangerousness rub off on you. I mean, I remember being in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona and there was a sign on the wall and it said people were disturbed by the genius of Picasso.

48:39And I think we all need a little bit more quote unquote danger in our lives by being around some super creative people. Do you think creativity creates more joy in your life as well? Because there's a great story you're explaining about two people in a hospital, one looking out a window. Does that story ring a bell? Are you able to share that? And I feel like that ties really well into someone that's being so creative in as low as the time as it could possibly get. Sure. I think that was in the Everyday Hero Manifesto. I believe it was in, I was reading it in the Lessons from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.

49:21Lessons from the Monk of Souls, Fry. So the story is there were two people in a hospital room. One was next to the window. The one who was away from the window missed home. He missed the outside world. So his new friends each day would narrate what he saw looking outside the window. Oh, today there's all this traffic going by. Oh my goodness, there's a couple in love. They're holding hands under the sunshine. Oh, today there's all these doggies and butterflies. And for weeks, this man next to the window, the patient, you know, just shared all the beauty of the world outside and entertained his friend.

50:04The next morning, the friend woke up and looked over at his friend next to the window and saw that the bed was empty. And he heard that his friend had passed away the night before. So the hospital staff put him next to the window because he so missed seeing the outside world. And what he could see when he really looked out of the window was a brick wall. His friend had obviously not only been creative but had been loving to entertain his new friend, the fellow patient. So I think you're right. When we're creative, we can express ourselves and become more of ourselves. But I also think creativity is an act of love.

51:00Because when we have the bravery to do our most honest work, whether that creativity is a company, whether it's code, whether it's a painting, whether it's a screenplay. When we put out what brings us joy, it brings joy to people. When I write my books, I think people feel my readers pick up the energy. If I'm writing with an energy or an intention, I want to become famous. If I'm writing, oh, I want this to be a New York Times bestseller. In my words, there will be an energy of ego. But if I'm writing to serve or if I'm writing because I'm happy, because I'm writing because it's expressing my creativity, if I'm writing because I just, I really want to uplift people, they're going to feel that energy in the words at some level.

51:56What does kindness play a role in this? Do you think it's a, kindness is an interesting thing being kind to people and if you look at that guy in the hospital bed right he didn't explain because the ego would come in and be like no i'm just using my creativity to show you this but there was a level of kindness from him in that hospital bed going we're in a place that's pretty negative the energy in a hospital if you ever walk in a hospital it's not a very nice energy. There's all these people dying and it doesn't feel very nice being in that place. And for someone to have this optimistic, amazing creativity, there's a level of kindness that comes in that because, and selflessness where you're going, it's not nice in here, but I'm going to make it nice.

52:45And one of the quotes that you've said is, kindness quite simply is the rent we must pay for the space we occupy on this planet. What do you feel about kindness? Yeah, I think that those words came from someone, not me. But what do I think about that? I think it's absolutely true. I think we are most ourselves when we're giving. I'll go to entrepreneurship. we do the best when we are servant leaders i i've worked with a lot of the fortune 50 for for many years the best teams operate like a like a sports team they they care it's it's let's win the championship as a team versus one superstar i think that's what uh phil jackson part of his magic with the los angeles lakers was he got away from each one thinking they needed to be a superstar.

53:45And he said, we're going to win. And they built a dynasty, but it's like, it's us. We're going to win this together. It's the team. And I think the best business is the company, the team sees themselves as a unified team. They have a very clear mission and they're really about how can we push as much value and magic out into the marketplace? Because if you become a merchant of wow, and you give your customers more value that they have any right to expect through your products and services, you build a global base of fanatical followers. As a human being, I think the one who gives the most wins.

54:23And that doesn't mean you're a doormat. People always say, well, if I'm kind, people will walk on me. And what I reply to that is they will only walk on you if you don't set boundaries to prevent them from walking on you. But I believe kindness is incredibly important, and I think it's a gift you give yourself. When you do something kind, maybe you pick up an extra coffee and you give it to someone who was at the front of the hotel, the door person, or if you just say something nice to someone in an elevator because you're not scared of being rejected. You just do kindness. I think you do something amazing for another human being and you do something amazing for yourself.

55:08Yeah, I see. The thing that can't be in the same sentence of kindness is ego in a sense, because an act can look like you're being kind, but you're actually is fulfilling yourself potentially. Like in the example of a business being, I'm going to give, but the only reason I'm giving is because I know you're going to give back in a sense. It's like kindness is probably the act of giving without expecting anything in return. Perhaps. I'm not sure. I'm just thinking about it. But true kindness and true giving is not expecting anything back. It's giving because you genuinely want to give. You can see it bettering someone else's life and you want to do that because you want to make them and their life better.

56:03Perhaps there's this thing around the boundaries and getting walked over is an element that people that maybe are too altruistic at times can just be used and it's probably a thing that a lot of people can face. you give so much people go okay i can easily get from him so i'm just going to use him what do you think are some things that you can shed light on to help people have boundaries and not get walked over well first i just want to reply to what you said because i thought it was so interesting and i agree a gift given with the intention of getting something back is not a gift it's a trade the second thing i would say is the japanese have a great word called intoku which is the art of giving in secret.

56:47I think if you give to get your name on a wing of a hospital, it's not a real gift. It's ego stroking. And then what are some ways to not being walked on? I think just speak your truth even when your voice shakes. So if you feel someone's taking advantage, you find you're paying for lunch every single time you get together with a friend, have a conversation. And we don't, no one likes conflict. No one likes the difficult conversations, but it's a huge act of self-respect to politely say what's on your mind and what's on your heart. I believe you can, and this has been such a helpful idea for me, you can say whatever you want so long as you say it with respect.

57:32You can say whatever you want so long as you say it with respect. So let's say there's that friend, they never want to pay when you go to lunch. It's, you know, hey, I'm getting the sense I'm paying all the, you don't blame them. You speak in terms of I language. I'm feeling like I'm paying for all the lunches here and I'd love for you to buy me this, you know, make it a bit more fair. and if you find the pattern just keeps on repeating, then you have to ask yourself, do you deserve better in a friend? Giving in silence. You said it was a Japanese? Was it a Japanese quote? A Japanese word. As I understand it, it's intoku.

58:21Intoku. Giving in silence. There's something so amazing that you actually get from doing that as well. just knowing that you did that because you wanted to and you're not here to tell anyone about it or prove yourself that you're a giver. It's just the act of giving. Do you believe in like what are your thoughts around energy in the world and how what you put out you get back? Do you subscribe to messages kind of like that in a sense of this give, give, give, give, give and something will just eventually come into my life? I believe in karma. I've seen it over my life. I think good things happen to people who do good things.

59:10And I think when you wrong someone, it's cause and effect. I think that's one of the great laws of the universe. So I believe that if you do good things, if you keep your promises, by the way, I think that's one of the great ways to change a life If you're looking for a very simple tool, it's keep your promises. I think we live in a world where it's so easy to be loose with your promises to customers, let's say, or family members, and even more importantly to yourself. But keeping promises builds incredible willpower, incredible self-respect. Lots of good things happen, but I think, yeah, it is very important.

59:58It is very important. Yeah, I think it's this fulfillment piece of being able to know that you follow through on the commitments that you held, whether it's personally or externally to someone else. Just being able to show up and basically just follow through on what you are holding yourself to. I think it adds a level of respect. impact um i'm fascinated to know about how i guess how we can have mental frames in our life when we're in things maybe we're stuck in situations we don't want to be in or we're kind of we're kind of living life and making decisions based on what other people are going to think or doing things in our life that are not serving us i'm fascinated to know like mental frames of things that we can remind ourselves in those moments to be able to kind of realign?

1:00:59Do you speak, because you work with people all the time that are obviously potentially doing things not for them and they're not actually fueling their soul and they need to kind of get back aligned, get back on path. What are some of the things that you're telling these people to ponder on and think about to kind of help them get out of those places? Great question. Well, the first thing I'd say is we all get off track. And most of us get off track every day. I was once in a plane, it was a little plane in South Africa, and the pilot said, okay, we have to keep the needle at the center, I guess, of the altimeter or whatever it was.

1:01:41And the wind blows us off, and then we have to bring it back on. The wind blows us off. And that's what happens to each of us every day. And that's the power for great morning routine. It can be part of a protocol to help you reset. While the world is asleep, it'll help you ground. You could journal. You could read meditations of Marcus Aurelius. You could pray. You could simply be still. You could paint, but it grounds you in terms of what's most important. When I work with clients, questions are very powerful. Just asking the right question can be a great way to get back on track. Often I find connecting with mortality is powerful.

1:02:22So if you continue, just off the top of my head, if you keep living the way you're living and working the way you're working, fast forward 25 years from now, what would your life look like? Another thing I love to do is I get paint and easels, and I ask my clients to draw their ideal life 24 months from now. That gets them out of the left brain and into the right brain and all sorts of things come up. Sometimes what I'll do with clients is we'll do a deep visualization. And the visualization could be, you know, taking them into the Himalayas and there's a cave and they walk into the cave. And in the edge of the cave is this holy person and it's them at the age of 110.

1:03:09And they listen for a message and intuitively there's a message that they most need to hear to help them get back on track. And so there's lots of different ways, but I would say asking yourself good questions, free flow writing in a journal, prayer is very powerful. Working with a coach, you know, find a coach, find a spiritual counselor. Sometimes that's one of the best ways to get back on track. I love watching great movies. So sometimes you'll watch a movie and it just reminds you of what's most important. And last thing I'd say is I love having conversations with old people. So if I'm on a train, I'll try to go sit next to someone as old as possible.

1:03:52Or like that cab driver today, 80 years old. I mean, you don't want to miss asking someone who's 80 some really good questions on how they wish they would have lived. Yeah. Who will cry when you die? It's obviously another one of those questions, right, that you get people to ask is like, who will cry when you die? And I think that's such a profound frame just to go, hmm, who actually cares? And what impact am I making? Obviously, that's a question around impact. Like people that you've made an impact on will be upset about you leaving. And so it's a cool frame. I want to commend you. Thank you so much for spending the time here.

1:04:37I think it's so awesome. You're one of my favorite authors in the world. And I think I really resonate with your work. I resonate with Ryan Holiday as well with the stoicism approaches. And I think you're one of the greatest authors to be living right now. And it's been a pleasure to sit down with you today. So I really thank you for your time. it's a super kind of you to say that and chris thank you so much for having me on your show it's been great to meet you thank you so much robin i appreciate you thank you bye-bye hi ryan reynolds here for mint mobile are you looking for a beach read this summer may i suggest your big wireless bill it's got suspense mystery a slightly flat emotional arc and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time fortunately though mint story is better every plan 15 a month even unlimited that's it happy ending zero tears give Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

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