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Hi, it's Robin Sharma. Thanks a lot for being here with me in this video. It's all about the habits of Mastery. So, part of the Habit Camp process is very much about 66 days of monomaniacal focus on a keystone habit and maybe some incidental or secondary habits. So, your keystone habit could be getting up at 5:00 a.m. It could be working out first thing in the morning. It could be focusing on your project X, that one project creatively, that when you release it into the world, you dominate your domain, you push magic into the marketplace, you wow all witnesses, and you honor your native talent.
I don't know what your keystone habit is for the 66 days of Habit Camp. Again, I call it Habit Camp because you're like a boxer going to a training camp, and you're separating yourself from the world and the noise so you can hear the signal and you can retreat and focus on building your finest you, and then reemerge into the world 66 days later. Because, as you know, University College London says it takes about 66 days to develop a new skill to the point of automaticity, where it becomes easier to do the new skill than not to do it, and you return into the world born anew.
Which makes me think of about a key idea, which is: all change is hard at first, and messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end. And another key idea, which is: for the greatest part of you to experience a resurrection, the yesterday part of you, or the weaker part of you, must experience a crucifixion. In other words, the path of Mastery is a series of little deaths, where who you were yesterday, or last month, or last quarter, or last year, must experience a little death so that the new you, the better you, the faster you, the stronger you, the braver you, the wiser you, the more loving you, can experience a rebirth. And that's why the path of Mastery is not for the faint of heart.
A lot of people want to live an easy life because they think it'll make them happy. Actually, living a hard life, in the sense of doing difficult things, even if they're little difficult things, that's how you find happiness. It's also how you remake yourself into the fullness of your potential and become the person I know you want to be. And few things will bring you as much happiness and spiritual fulfillment and self-esteem as becoming the person you're born to be.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I really wanted to offer to you in this time together are the six habits of Mastery. And let's jump right into the first one, which is the learning. You've probably heard me say this before, but good mentoring is good reinforcing, so that the learning is sticky and sustainable. So I'll say it again: education is inoculation against disruption, and the leader who learns the most wins.
We live in a world where we are born into genius, but too often we resign ourselves into mediocrity. When we're little kids, we love to learn. We learn very quickly. Our brains are so plastic. Through neuroplasticity, you can learn a new language or a new skill very quickly. And then what happens, though, is we start to get older, and we lose our natural curiosity. It's almost like it's encouraged to be removed from us.
There's an idea which is powerful, which is: adults are nothing more than deteriorated children. When we're little kids, we have shining eyes. When we're little kids, we have what Einstein called a holy curiosity. We love to ask questions. We love to learn. I remember once hearing a father and the little kid was asking him so many questions, and the father didn't want to hear it. I think he was frustrated, probably had too much on his plate, too much on his mind. He looked at his kid with a little bit of temper and he said, "You know, why do you ask so many questions?" I wouldn't be surprised if that little kid stopped asking questions.
And so, when we're little kids, we're full of wonder and full of awe. We love to learn. A lot of adults don't read. I suggest less time scrolling and more time reading. That alone will revolutionize your life. I call it the 60-minute student habit: one hour every single day, at least, spent reading. Reading will deepen your thinking process. Reading will build self-discipline. Reading will heighten your knowledge base. Reading will make you a richer thinker, which will give you a richer life. Reading will build self-discipline. Reading will build mental focus. Reading will allow you to travel, even if you don't leave your home. Reading will allow you to have a conversation with people whose lives you will be living. Reading is so powerful.
But I just want you to think about the first element, or the first habit of Mastery, which is deep learning, rigorous learning. If you look at a great athlete, I've mentored so many of the superstars in athletics, professional athletes. These people, they're not superficial learners. They study the game tapes. They keep their notebooks. They make 60-page notes after watching a competitor in action. They know their competitor's weaknesses. They know what they need to do to be on their best. They are rigorous and granular students of their craft, and they love to learn. They have mentors. They read every book they can get their hands on.
With the billionaires that I've advised, they read every book they can get their hands on. They read three, four, five, six hours a day sometimes. I remember one leader, and he said, "Robin, you eat three times a day to be fed well. If you read three times a day, you'll be wise." I asked this leader, "How often do you read on the weekends?" And he goes, "When don't I read on the weekends?"
Which brings me to the second habit of Mastery, and that's mundanity. Please write this down. It's so important. So simple. Success lies in a masterful consistency of the fundamentals. To win in business, to win in sports, to win in the arts, to win in your love life, to win with your family, to win in your relationships, to win in your nutrition, to win in your spiritual life, stick to your knitting, is how I'd say it. Don't complicate it. Keep it simple. Success lies in a masterful consistency around the fundamentals. Fundamentals. So, just do the fundamentals consistently well.
As you know, consistency is the mother of Mastery. Work on the fundamentals every day of your skill, let's say, or building great days, let's say, or personal development. Stick to the fundamentals. And day by day by day, the days slip into weeks, the weeks slip into months, the months slip into years. Before you know it, a quarter is over, or a year is over, or a decade is over. But the little gains from focusing and optimizing the fundamentals create a tsunami. World class. Remember that key brain tattoo I've been offering for so many years: small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements, when done consistently over time, lead to stunning results. It's not what you do once a year that's important. Let me hear you say it: it's what you do every day. Your days are your life in miniature.
So, mundanity is about keeping to the fundamentals. It's about being a minimalist. And if you look at the great martial artists, you look at the great entrepreneurs, you look at the great athletes, look at the great chess champions, look at the great musicians, the virtuosos, they do the same things every day. They often wear the same uniform so they don't have to expend cognitive bandwidth or their willpower on figuring out what they're going to wear. Everything in their life is about mundanity. They eat the same food, like I say. They wear the same clothes. They work in the same work labs, often. They run the same habits. But doing the same things every day and optimizing them, if they're good habits, over time, the habits compound into exponential gains.
Which elegantly leads me to the third habit of Mastery that I want you to think about in this Habit Camp backstage pass, which is minimalism. Do one or two things incredibly well. Be monomaniacally focused on just a few things. Be a minimalist, not a maximalist. I'm going to repeat that again because it's so important for you: be a minimalist, not a maximalist. Just have a few priorities in your life, professionally, personally, physically, spiritually, socially. Don't try to read a hundred books, master three books. Don't try to have a thousand digital friends, have three incredibly rich friends. Don't have 17 habits and checklists and habit trackers every day, have your keystone habit and then your secondary habits, maybe one or two, and work on those for the next 66 days so you start to build automaticity and become your second nature, and it becomes easier to do your new habits than not to do your new habits. And then, after you've mastered those and integrated them, pick another habit and start to add that and start to slowly restructure your inner life and your daily architecture.
So you let go of who you were. Remember what I said? For the best you to experience a resurrection, a rebirth, an emergence, who you were, the past you, must experience a crucifixion, a death of sorts. And that's why personal Mastery is not for the faint of heart. That's why personal development is a dangerous game because you've got to embrace discomfort. But I would suggest to you, with great love and respect, the illusion of insecurity and discomfort is always less dangerous than the hallucination of growth. And what I mean by that, I'll repeat it again, in maybe other words, but the illusion, or the safety of stagnation, the safety of staying in the comfort zone, is always much more dangerous than the illusion of transformation. So, what's dangerous is standing still. What's dangerous is not taking a risk. What's dangerous is accepting your current habits. What's dangerous is risking getting to the end of this quarter, year, lifetime, and you're on your deathbed, perhaps, and you say, "Well, I was afraid to take a risk. I stayed in the comfort zone. I didn't try anything new. I didn't embrace any new habits. I didn't live out on the skinny branch. I didn't read any new books. I didn't take any new courses. I didn't learn to change any new habits. I didn't have any different conversations." And it made me feel safe, but now I realize it was dangerous, and I've wasted the best years of my life.
One of the things George Bernard Shaw was asked on his deathbed, he said he was asked, "What, what would you do if you could live your life over again?" He said, "I'd like to breed the person I could have been, but never was." So today is the day to make the start. Often we put off change because, "Oh, there'll be some better time next year. The kids will be grown up, or there'll be less at work, or the world will be less volatile, or you'll have more energy." The Chinese say, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today." So be a minimalist. Strip out the complexity in your life. Strip out the noise. Strip out all the friction. Strip out all the social engagements. Strip out all the video playing, or TV watching, or saying yes to every invitation. Start to be a "no" person, but "yes" to important opportunity.
Which brings me to the fourth habit of Mastery, which is obsession. You're going to say, "Robin, isn't an obsession a bad thing?" Well, I would suggest to you that an obsession is only a bad thing or unhealthy if it's an unhealthy obsession. I want you to be obsessed with your personal Mount Everest. By the way, I didn't plan to go here, but I just watched a documentary on George Mallory. Many say he was the first person to climb Mount Everest, and he was totally obsessed with this dream of being the first human being to climb Mount Everest. Now, people aren't sure. The documentary suggests that he was the first. His body was found frozen. It looked like on the descent, so it looked like he made it. Because he carried a picture of the love of his life with him and he promised her that he would leave it on the summit. And when he was found not too far from the summit, he had a lot of the things that he needed to get up to the top, except for the photo. So, a number of mountaineers say that yes, he did make it to the summit. He miscalculated the situation, got trapped not far from the summit on his way down. It happens to a lot of climbers. And they found his body frozen many, many years later. But he was asked, "Why would you want to climb Mount Everest?" And no one had ever done it. And he said, "Because it's there."
And so, an obsession is only an unhealthy obsession if it's an unhealthy obsession. Maybe your obsession is to find the love of your life, because I think few things are as valuable as finding someone to spend the rest of your life with that you adore. Maybe your obsession is to build a business and exit for $3 billion. I've helped a lot of people do that. Maybe your obsession is to be the best leader in your organization, growing more leaders who lead without a title and shining a light on other people's gifts and talents, which is what great leaders do. Maybe your obsession is to write a book that changes the world. And if so, I'd encourage you to do it because everyone has a book within us, and if you don't bring that book to the world, the world is a less wise and beautiful and loving and inspired place. Maybe your obsession is to get into pro-athlete fitness. Maybe your obsession is your student, you want to get a PhD or a university degree. Maybe your obsession is to be a baker. Maybe your obsession is to be a poet. Maybe your obsession is to be the next Drake, or the next Beethoven, or the next Elon Musk. I don't know. Or the next Mandela, or the next Rosa Parks, or the next Edison, or the next Hedy Lamarr. I don't know what your obsession is.
But I do know that what's the wise proverb? It's "Without hope, people perish." I believe, and without some obsession, you will not have hope and you will not have energy. I wrote a book years ago called *Leadership Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari*, and in there, one of the rituals was "Link Paycheck to Purpose." Because I think the secret of passion is purpose. And if you don't have a compelling cause and a mighty mission that gets you out of bed, yes, at 5:00 a.m. in the morning with fire in your belly and enthusiasm in your heart, then you're going to be bored. And why do people play with their devices all day, or eat too much, or drink too much, or worry too much, or gossip too much, or they're busy being busy but they're not doing anything that matters? It's because they're bored. Human beings require a central purpose to give their lives to.
You probably know about Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If not, you can study it and find it. Do a search on it. And at the bottom are the basic human needs. We all need food in our belly. We all need shelter, a roof over our heads. These are our security needs. But what he theorizes is, once we get the basic needs fulfilled, then we can move up the hierarchy of human needs to belonging. And then, at the top, for many years, he had this pinnacle human need, which was called personal development. So he called it, his term was self-actualization. He said the highest need of the human being, when we've fulfilled the lower needs, is to self-actualize, to know our gifts and our talents, to honor our potential, to know who we are.
But I don't know if you know this, before he died, and I find this meaningful, he lived his full life, and he said, "No, there's something actually more important to the human heart than self-actualization." And he called it self-transcendence, which is living for a cause that's larger than your life. Allow me to get a little philosophical here. Even the longest life is very short, and before you know it, you will be at the end. I've learned that myself in my own life. I look at my kids, for example. They're adults, living lives of their own. We're incredibly close, but they're adults now, and it seems like so recently they were little kids. And I look at even, you know, things I did a few years ago, like the years are flying by so incredibly quickly. I was in London last week, and I had a conversation with a taxi driver. Some of my best conversations are with taxi drivers. And he said, "You know, I'm in a stage in life where time is even more valuable to me." And I'm in a stage like that as well. And even if you're 18 years old, I hope you're in a mindset and heart set where time is incredibly valuable for you.
And so, on this habit of obsession, you want to find that singular cause. And it might take a week, it might take a lifetime, but be on the path of looking for what is your mission. And often, your mission is right where you are. And a job is only a job if you choose to see it as a job. I don't want to digress too much, but I had a conversation in Barcelona with a doorman outside of the hotel I was staying at. I said to him, I said, "Alberto," I think it was, "if you," because he's always smiling, and he's always friendly, and he's gracious, and he's one of those good souls, and we were just having a great chat. I had some coffee in my hand, it was in the morning, I was walking back to the hotel. And I said, "You know, Roberto, if you, because of your smile and your graciousness and your positivity, if you influence even 100 people every day," I think that was the number I said, "100 people every day," after, let's say, five days, that's 500 people. After 12 months, work it out, or 10 months, or 11 months, including some vacation time. And then I said, "In 10 years, it would be..." I mean, it worked out to tens and tens and tens of thousands of people. And then, if you take that across an entire lifetime, imagine how many people, through his positivity and radiating kindness and humanity, in a world that needs it, how many people would Alberto have lifted up in a world that tears too many people down.
So I'm saying, sometimes your magnificent obsession is the term one author used. What I call it is your mighty mission, or your compelling cause, or your personal Mount Everest. It could be just doing your work with more mastery and more love. Maybe your mighty mission could be with your family, or your community. I don't know. You've got to find it. But an obsession is only unhealthy if it's an unhealthy obsession.
And on the point of Mastery, if you look at all of the Masters, they wanted to be *big* in the world. The great athletes, they didn't want to be a champion, they wanted to build a dynasty. The great entrepreneurs, they didn't want to be world-class for a window of opportunity, they wanted to be legendary. The great artists, they wanted, you know, the Basquiat, the Picasso, the Lionel Smith, the George Bizet, the Martha Graham – these artists, they want to be great. It's an obsession. It's their oxygen. I'm not saying I'm a master at all. I'm not saying I'm great in any way. But my craft is my oxygen. I work all the time. In many ways, of course, I rest. I've talked about that in *The 5 AM Club* and *The Everyday Hero Manifesto*. A key part of my methodology is all about recovery. I call it the Twin Cycles of Elite Performance. As my gift to you, because you invested in the Habit Camp program, I'm going to do something super special. I'm going to take you into one of my premium live events that was very, very expensive to get tuition into and to get a seat for, and I'm going to give you a master class where I'm teaching on stage in front of this very high-level audience, the Twin Cycles of Elite Performance. You can find the link below. It's my gift to you, just to teach you the importance of the high excellence cycle and then the deep recovery cycle. But the point is, I love what I do. And because of that, it's not work. Even when I journal about it, I call it work, I put it in air quotes, or I put it in quotes, because it's not work to me, it's joy.
Okay, that brings us to Habit number five for Mastery, which is optimization. The acronym for you to think about is NSI: Never Stop Improving. When I am working with the best of the best, these people are always trying to make everything they touch better. If they're basketball stars, how can they pass better? How can they put the ball in the hoop better? How can they rebound from a defeat better? How can they have more energy? How can they calibrate their gear or their food? So, success lies in a masterful consistency around the fundamentals, but also greatness belongs to those who are relentlessly optimizing. The acronym NSI: Never Stop Improving.
The thing about a master is they always think like a beginner. The moment you think you're an expert, being an expert is incredibly dangerous because the moment you think you're an expert, the trap you'll fall into is you think you know all the answers. And here's a big thing I'm going to highlight it for you: you fall in love with your entrenched beliefs, which means you're not mentally flexible. And if you fall in love with your entrenched beliefs and your winning formula, and you stop innovating and reinventing and optimizing and learning, you're not going to be an expert for very long. So, I'm 16 years old, I'm reading this book called *The Art of Learning*. He was like six years old and he was like a chess master. So, some six-year-old could knock you out of the game. So, success is dangerous because when you are successful, one of the great snares is you think you'll always be successful without doing any more work. And that's why you want to be humble. Masters are humble.
So, habit number five is optimization. You're always optimizing. You're always innovating. You're always improving. You're constantly asking, even when you stumble, you remember that every loss carries a golden lesson. I'll repeat that again because it's so important: every loss carries a golden lesson. And it's in defeat where you grow the most. I'll repeat that again for you with great respect: it's in defeat where we grow the most.
Which brings me to the sixth lesson of Mastery for you as a member of Habit Camp, which is emptiness. Emptiness, humility. You have a choice when you get to the top, or even as you're making the ascent to Mastery from being an apprentice or a beginner. And really, the choice is humility or arrogance. And I've seen so many companies, because a lot of my life is working for leadership teams within organizations, or mentoring startup founders, or working with celebrity CEOs. And what I often see, unfortunately, is when people get to the top, they start to speak in monologues. They stop listening. They stop getting up at 5:00 a.m. They stop building a great morning routine. They stop exercising. They stop building their library. They stop reading. And they slow down, and they stagnate, and they become arrogant. And they think that, "Oh, there's a lineup outside," metaphorically speaking. There's a lineup of customers, and we're being written about in all the magazines or online. Everyone's talking about us. And they think that the winning will continue to last. And often, great athletes, what happens? I wrote about this in *The Everyday Hero Manifesto* in the chapter on the Titans' Decline. Please study it. Read that chapter 10 times because it speaks truth. I've worked with so many athletes. They get to the top, they win, then they build an entourage, and then they suffer from what Pat Riley, the legendary coach of the LA Lakers, called peripheral opponents, not the opponents on the court, all the distractions and opponents and shiny toys off the court. And pretty soon, the once great champion experiences what I call the Titans' Decline. It's the beginning of the end, and they never get back. And it's happened to a lot of professional athletes, and it's happened to a lot of movie stars, it's happened to a lot of luminaries. They get to the top, and then they get distracted, and they don't stay empty. They lose their grounding. They don't stay humble. They become arrogant. And when you're not empty, and when you're not humble, and always of service, and always trying to learn, and always trying to get better, and always building fundamentally great habits, and sticking to great virtues like patience, and frugality, and honesty, and honor, and resilience. I mean, read Benjamin Franklin's amazing autobiography, and you'll learn about his 13 virtues. And then I suggest you go through his program.
As a matter of fact, what I want to do for you, to give you extreme value, because you invested in the Habit Camp program, and to reward you for your faith in my work, to reward you for the work you're doing to grow and get stronger, to reward you for your lust of learning, to reward you for being the kind of person who wants to become your best self, because when you become your best self, you bring your best to the world, which is good for all of us. I actually want to give you another gift, which is very special, and it's a robust gift. Which is, I've actually done, let's call it a mini master class on Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues. And so, if you look below, you're going to get a link to that as well. My gift to you, just to wow you with value, but also to show you his 13 virtues.
The point is, habit number six of Mastery is to stay empty. Keep your boots on the ground. Stay humble. What did Steve Jobs say, borrowing from the Whole Earth Catalog? "Stay hungry, stay foolish." Don't be so arrogant that you don't take risks and you're unwilling to fail. Read every book you can get your hands on. Have conversations with oddballs, misfits, and eccentrics. Go spend a year in Japan if you live in Latin America. Go spend a year in Latin America if you live in Scandinavia. You get my drift. Stay hungry. Stay empty. Stay humble. Love to learn. Never lose, as Einstein said, your holy curiosity.
Well, I'm full of enthusiasm for you installing that keystone habit over the 66 days of the Habit Camp program, building your own Habit Camp where you sort of isolate from the world, metaphorically speaking, to work not only on your keystone habit and your secondary habits, but also so you build your game charts and you set your goals for the next 30 days, 90 days, 24 months, 10 years, 50 years. And you sort of, in some ways, you go ghost from the world and you lock yourself away, and you build yourself into your greatest self, and then you go out into the world born anew to light up the world while you build a world-class life.
I appreciate you. Thank you for being here with me. I hope it's been a service, and I'll talk to you soon.