Transcription
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
Hi, it's Robin Sharma, author of The Leader Who Had No Title. Welcome to my hotel room here in Stockholm, Sweden, one of my favorite cities in the world. I just landed here yesterday. Uh, before that, I was in Kuwait and, uh, on this tour here. And I wanted to give you four ideas in particular that will help you make some quantum leaps in your productivity, in your achievement, and in your performance. Um, really powerful, and if you really act on them, they're going to be game-changing.
You know as well as I do that no idea is going to work unless you have the commitment and the discipline to do the work. But as University College of London taught us, if you do anything for 66 days in a row, you wire it in to the point of automaticity. So it becomes easier to do the new habit than not to do the new habit. I'm going to say that again because it's so important. You do anything for 66 days in a row and you'll get to a point of automaticity where it becomes easier to do the new skill or the new routine or the new ritual than not to do it. So another way to put it is simply this: just remember that everything you now find easy, you once found hard. But it's with the practice that you wire it in. So what was once difficult becomes automatic. Okay.
So with that, let's get into the four habits for extreme achievement. Number one, it all starts with your self-identity. Rewire your mindset, you'll retrain your performance. What do I mean by that? Well, social psychologists tell us that our behavior always follows our beliefs. It's a key principle. And so rather than always trying to focus on changing your behavior, and none of it's usually that's not sustainable, the starting point for real transformation, so you reach epic performance, is rewiring your mindset and your internal story. Because the way you see yourself, the way you see your story, and the way you see who you are in the world, really determines whether you're going to do what's required to live your potential.
I mean, if you think, if your personal story is, well, you're average, you don't have a lot of potential, geniuses are somehow cut from a different cloth, then you're not going to do the practice required to get to genius. You're not going to put in the 2.2 hours for 10 years to reach iconic. You're not going to work with coaches and surround yourself with other A-players who also want to get to world-class because your deeper story is, well, you know what, I'm just average. What's the point? What's the point of practicing? What's the point of learning? What's the point of wiring in the new routines and the new rituals? So the starting point really is your personal story and your self-identity. Your achievement always rises to the level of your self-identity. Your income always reflects the way you see yourself. So again, you want to start working within.
Now, people always ask me when I teach this first principle of rewiring your self-identity, how do I do it? Some practical tips. Number one, just remember, you become who you associate with. Okay? So if you're the smartest person on your street, maybe it's time to find a new street. If you are the fastest, strongest person you know, maybe it's time to know new people. If you're the most knowledgeable person in your industry, maybe it's time to start associating with a whole new level of, uh, genius and associations. So number one, your associations really start to influence your personal story.
Number two, your environment. Okay? So do you have the TV on with the news all day long? Do you read trashy newspapers? Are you addicted to entertainment versus focused on education? But your environment is shaping your story. You know, most of us, our whole days are spent watching TV, video games, surfing the internet, being on Facebook, and gossiping. A lot of people do live like that, and that kind of a lifestyle hypnotizes your brain to create a story of average. If you look at extreme achievers, the A-players, they operate in a fundamentally different way. They are reading books, they are taking courses, they are surrounded by other A-players, they are doing work that matters, they are confronting their fears, they are doing things that move the needle in their productivity as well as in their personal lives.
Okay. Number two, to get to extreme achievement, elite productivity, to be the legend of your industry, and to make history with your life, because really, that's what we're talking about here. You know, your life is just too important to play small with your talent. So principle number two is develop world-class willpower. Great ideas mean nothing without world-class willpower to get the big ideas done. So let's go to the science here. The science tells us a few things. Number one, the science tells us that willpower is like a muscle. And so the more you flex the muscle through doing things that you don't feel like doing, the more you're going to wire in the habit of doing what's uncomfortable. So just remember that willpower is like a muscle. When you do difficult things like get to that 5:00 AM workout for 20 minutes, or do start writing the book you've wanted to write, or have the difficult conversation you know you should have to improve the relationship, when you start practicing difficult things, you become masterful at doing difficult things. When you start practicing daily habits of mastery and excellence, you become world-class in daily habits of mastery and excellence. When you start practicing being spectacular in what you do, spectacularity becomes your way of being. When you start practicing being loving and forgiving, loving and forgiveness becomes natural to you.
So remember that willpower is like a muscle. Secondly, remember that like a muscle, the will depletes. And researchers like Roy Baumeister, one of the preeminent researchers in the science of willpower, has coined a term called ego depletion. Ego depletion. And the point is simply this: because the will is like a muscle, if all you do is use your willpower, I mean, you run a tough schedule, and you're doing all your protocols, and you're running all your habits, and you're getting big things done, if all you do is exercise your will and make great choices, you are going to eventually deplete that muscle. Just like a muscle that you work out too hard and you don't rest, and you're going to reach a point called ego depletion. And that's why a lot of people, like heavy hitters who do a lot of big things every day, they make tough decisions, their extraordinary discipline, get to a place where they make these stupid mistakes. And we see it on TV. You know, it might be athletes, it might be politicians, it might be great entrepreneurs. They build, build an epic career and then they do one stupid thing. Someone at one of my seminars once said, you're just one, we are just one choice away from stupid. And we wonder, like, why would someone sabotage an iconic career by doing something that foolish? And it's because of ego depletion. They have exercised their willpower for so long without renewing it and resting it that the well of willpower became totally empty. So they just made a really foolish choice. It's a really key idea.
So what you want to do is you want to work in 90/10 cycles. Work for 90 minutes of intense activity and then take 10 minutes off to rest and renew your energy and your willpower. You want to take one day off a week. I call them play days, where you're 24 hours, you're away from technology, and you're just renewing, and you're not exercising your willpower, you're resting. You're with your family, maybe you're in an art gallery, you're walking in nature, maybe you're getting a massage. But that will prevent you from, um, ego depletion.
And then finally, remember when it comes to wiring world-class willpower, change is hard at first, messy in the middle, it's gorgeous at the end. So the key point is really this: what makes master people who are masterful at willpower? It's not their willpower, it's their rituals and their routines. So for 66 days, yeah, you're going to have to use willpower to get up at 5:00, or to do that difficult project that you know will be your game-changer, or to, you know, do the things required to become more positive in terms of your mindset. The first 66 days are the hard 66 days. But here's the key: after you've used the willpower for 66 days, you've now created a ritual and you've reached that part I mentioned earlier of automaticity. And so now it becomes a habit, and it really does become easier to do this new ritual and routine than not to do it. It's just automatic. You get up, boom, you do your 5:00 AM workout, or it's 5:00, you do your second win workout, you go for a walk, and it's just easy to do it. You've wired it in as a new neural pathway and a new way of being. And I guess what I'm trying to suggest to you is once you've installed the ritual or the new habit, you don't have to use any willpower. And you've freed up willpower to use it on other things. And that is one of the great secrets of the great athletes. They don't have more willpower, they just use the willpower to install the routine. But once the routine is installed, it becomes automatic. They just run the protocol and they get the results.
Okay, final two habits. Don't wait to be inspired to do your best work. Do your best work, and you're going to find you get really inspired. Okay, that's a key idea. The card-carrying members of the cult of mediocrity say, "When I feel inspired, I'm going to launch my new business. When I feel inspired, I'm going to start my fitness program. When I feel inspired, I'm going to find the life of my dreams or take those trips or do the thing that I know I should do. But right now, I don't feel inspired." What I'm suggesting to you is there's great power in starting. Dream big, start small, begin now.
So if you look at the virtuosos versus the victims, they don't wait until they're inspired to do the work. They do the work every day, and then they start to get inspired. But if you look at the virtuosos, what they do is they understand the power of what I call the dopamine rush. Dopamine is the motivational neurotransmitter. When you do something that you've been putting off, like procrastinating something, and you get it done, even if it's a little micro win, you release dopamine in your brain, and that makes you feel good. If you do something else on your schedule that you've been putting off, you release some more dopamine. Eventually, by doing the things that you have written down on your schedule, you become addicted to dopamine. And an addiction is only a negative addiction if it's an unhealthy addiction. Being addicted to dopamine, which makes you feel on fire to do your best work, is a great addiction.
So point number three is simply this: don't wait until you're inspired to do great work. Do great work, or your best work, and then you're going to find on a daily basis, you're going to be feeling inspired. You're going to create momentum. You're going to have this upward spiral of success. Success! Wow, you know, I achieved that difficult goal. You're going to develop more confidence to get the next goal done, and you're going to grow and do, uh, and achieve more and more things that you once thought were beyond your imagination.
Final point. There are two types of income. A lot of people say, you know, why should I aim for world-class? Because I'm not paid enough. Or even entrepreneurs, why should I do something that will make history in my industry? Because I'm not being paid enough. There are two types of income. Number one, the first type of income is economic income. It's what you get paid. And first of all, if you birth beautiful work out into the world, trust me, the world will reward you economically. But secondly, there's another type of income. And what that is, it's called internal income. Okay, first type of income, economic income, it's the money you make. Second type of income, internal income, and those are the intangibles like who you become when you when you do beautiful work. I mean, look at Van Gogh. He only sold one painting in his lifetime. He often went starving, but he continued to pursue his art and his craft. He didn't do it for the money, didn't do it for the fame. He did it for who he became, stretching himself, dealing with the voices of ridicule, developing self-belief when his vision for his art was alone in the wilderness, who he became when he did a bad piece of art, he continued. So those are that's internal income. It's not about what you receive from the world, it's about what you receive inside for pursuing your vision of doing world-class work, your vision of making history, your vision of becoming an industry legend, your vision of becoming a world-class human being. And to me, that's really where the ultimate game of the extreme achiever is played on who you become. It's all an internal game. It's less about fame for fortune, social accolades, and a lot more about developing an internal character of excellence and grit and honesty and authenticity and mastery. And that's really where the virtuosos play.
So as always, I hope I've been of service to you and giving you great value, not only insights and hopefully inspiration but tactics on this video from my hotel room here in Stockholm, Sweden. Um, I bid you goodbye. Uh, after Sweden, I go to Lisbon in Portugal, then we go over to Moscow, Dubai, and then finally I'll head home.