June 5th 2025 Quarterly Group Coaching Call With Robin Sharma Q2 Live Workshop

Welcome to the uh uh Q2 full team session. Fasten your seat belts, take lots of notes. I have so much to cover in a short period of time.

Um, first thing I'd like you to do is to close your eyes. I want everyone in this session, just close your eyes. Go ahead, James. Close your eyes. That's great. And I want you to give yourself a few words of appreciation. How rarely do we appreciate ourselves for your contribution to Zap? Think about a few words of appreciation for your contribution to Z and a few words of appreciation for the energy that you bring to work each day on your work days. Few words of appreciation for the problems you've solved. Few words of self-congratulation or applause for the friendships you've made with other zappers. Words of appreciation for the productivity you've delivered, for the customers you've served. And lastly, with your eyes closed, a few words of self-appreciation for the difference, for the difference you've made. Okay, go ahead and open your eyes.

So, we've got three hours together. Here's the structure. We're going to take a 20-minute break at 10:20. You can ask me questions throughout this session. So, I can see all of you and I'm very happy to answer your questions as we go through this. I'd like everyone to keep your audio muted and then when you want to answer a question, just put your hand up or unmute and I'm very happy to interact with you.

Next point on structure, you don't have to agree with me. This is not the church of Robin or the temple of Robin or the mosque of Robin. I'm just sharing what's worked for my clients over these past 33 years. If this is your first time with me, just a very brief introduction, and I do mean very brief. This is 33 years of working with many of the best companies in the world, professional athletes, movie stars, movement makers, and I'm really, really, really happy to be here with each of you today for this Zap session.

So, you don't have to agree with me. The only thing I ask is that you're open to what I say. And the moment you refuse to be open is the beginning of irrelevance and obsolescence. Obsolescence. So with your body language, be open. With your listening, be open. Take lots of notes. And then accept. And I want to really emphasize this. Accept from what I say what feels right to you. Accept from what I say what feels right to you. Take lots of notes, like I say, because it'll increase your engagement. Turn off notifications and be present. The greatest gift you can give yourself is to be present. How many of us are disconnected with our presence? We're disconnected with our instinct. Let me directly challenge you with great love and respect. How many of you are disconnected with your values? How many of you are disconnected with your authenticity in this world of social media where the world wants to teach us a way to think? So the greatest gift you can give yourself is the gift of your presence. The greatest gift you can give your loved ones is your presence. Being fully there in this world of cyber zombies where so few of us are fully there. The greatest gift you can give your work, being fully present, present in this age of dramatic distraction where a lot of us are half there to our work. When you look at a genius, part of it is their ability to harness their attention to solve a difficult problem for long periods of time. Greatest gift you can give a customer is your presence. So be present over these three hours that we have together.

Next thing about structure or opening ideas is act on the ideas that resonate with you. I get how obvious that is, but ideation without execution is delusion. I wrote a book 25 years ago, "Who Will Cry When You Die?" There was a line in there: "The smallest of actions is always better than the noblest of intentions." The smallest of actions is always better than the noblest of intentions. So I want you to become brilliant at micro actions, micro bravery.

Let's jump right in and I want to offer you an obvious insight, which is: Do you agree? Show of hands. Let me just look around the virtual room. Show of hands. Do we live in a strange world right now? What do you think, Dave? Yeah, I'd agree. Yeah, I'd agree. Yeah, it's just a, it's a, it's a strange. Sophie, would you think it's a, it's a strange world we live in right now? Yeah, I do. I agree. Yeah, some people are saying it's the most dangerous, volatile, turbulent world in a hundred years.

Zora, I hope you don't mind me pulling you in here, but I just want to have engagement. What do you think of the world right now, geopolitically, socially? What do you think of the world? I find it really interesting when you said be present because every time my wife meets friends and she's like, "Oh, I'll get back at this time. I'll get back home at this time." And I'm always saying, "Be present. Don't message me." Because we, we're in this cycle of like being in one place, but also multitasking and trying to like connect with other people at the same time, but we're actually not connecting when we're there. Isn't it true? And, and Zora, isn't it true that we've never been so connected and yet we've never been so lonely as a species? And we're going to talk right, and we're going to talk about gargantuan competitive advantages for each of you. It's, and one of them is just being really great at human connections, as simple as it sounds.

So we live in a strange world. I think it's the most volatile in a hundred years. I don't like this word "unprecedented" because I don't think it's unprecedented. And Ray Dalio has written a new book that's come out, and if you look at some of his previous work, "The Changing World Order," if you're interested in geopolitics, you'll see that we have faced disasters. We've faced pestilence. We've faced social upheaval in cycles for many, many years.

So what's the solution? I think there are a lot of solutions, my friends, but I think one of the solutions is leadership versus victimhood, which is why Zap has invited me here to do these sessions with you. I'll repeat that again because it's so important. The solutions to many of the challenges of the world right now is leadership versus victimhood.

How about we deconstruct victimhood? Just so you know exactly what I'm referring to when I speak about victimhood. Victimhood can be summarized in CBE: complaint, blame, and excuse. So, every time you complain, and here's a pro tip: avoid people who complain, who love drama, and who love crisis. Avoid people who complain, who love drama, and who love crisis and conflict. That's a good decision matrix for your community circle. So victims complain. That's, that's a form of giving away your power. Victims blame. It's not because of me. It's because of my parents. It's not because of me. It's because of where I live. I couldn't get this done because of XYZ. They're always making excuses when the job of a leader is to get difficult things done. So leaders complain, leaders blame, and leaders make excuses. And underneath every excuse is a fear. Underneath every excuse is a fear. Fear of not being good enough, fear of not deserving success, fear of failure. Fear of change. I think that's an important point to play with. Underneath every excuse that you make or I make is a fear. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of being laughed at, fear of being judged, fear of change. Related to that, fear of the unknown. And the more times you recite your excuses, the more you'll hypnotize yourself into actually thinking they're true. People say, "I don't, I can't get up. I can't join this 5:00 AM club that you talk about, Robin, and that millions of people around the world are members of. I can't get fit. I can't show leadership. I can't influence my teammates. I can't be positive. I can't repair that difficult relationship." And the more time you make those excuses, you're actually going to hypnotize yourself. So that a default in your brain, in your psychology, in your emotionality is excuses.

I would also, in this deconstruction of a victim, say that a victim is someone who gives their power away. So much so that they don't think they have any. And you've seen people operating as victims in business and in life, but they just can't. They're not possibilitarians. Everything is "I can't do it." They don't think they're, they don't have a sense of agency. One of my favorite words. I want you right now to think about your agency, your ability to drive change, your ability to influence, your ability in your personal life to handcraft the life that you want. I would also, in this deconstruction, say that victims are entitled. We see a lot of entitlement in the world right now. "World, give me a living. World, give me this. World, do this for me." And I would also suggest that victims are takers versus givers.

On the other side of the ledger is leadership because I started off by saying I propose to each and every one of you that leadership is simply the opposite of victimhood. Leadership is about APR. If victimhood is about CBE, APR is absolute personal responsibility. Absolute personal responsibility. If we went down the rabbit hole a bit more, I would say leadership is about a bias for action. Less meetings, less talk, more micro delivery. Leaders are really good at getting difficult things done. I would also deconstruct leadership. They respect tradition, but they invent for the future. You're a new company. Respect tradition. Respect your values. And yet, the moment you start resting on your laurels and your winning formula is the moment you're on the path to obsolescence. And there are so many companies that have fallen into that. They were once dominant. They were Polaroid. They were Blockbuster. They were Kodak. They were Ericsson. They were Blackberry. And they thought they could never lose because they were winning so much. And so respect your tradition and respect your winning formula and keep on driving innovation and invention. And then leaders have a mission.

Let me, any questions on that? Any questions? Any observations here? Sophie, Brett, nice to see you. Charlie, how are you doing? Good, thanks. Robin, how you doing? Good. Does that, did that make any sense? Yeah, I know. Makes sense. Makes sense to me. Um, yeah, I know. Would, uh, would share those sentiments, but no questions at the moment. Thank you for participating. Thank you for me. Thank you for allowing me to bring you into this.

Let's keep going here. So, I want to, I want to share a model with you. The four relationships of leadership. The four relationships of leadership. Please write this out with me so you'll engage. It'll deepen your learning. The four relationships of leadership. You're going, "Robin, what are you talking about here?" Well, at the center is self. This is the first relationship. The first relationship. Here's the powerful idea: Your relationship with yourself drives every other relationship. Your relationship with yourself drives every other relationship. Your relationship with yourself is the relationship that drives, that sets the tone for the relationship with your significant other or your children or your neighbors. Your relationship with yourself sets the relationship with your money. Your relationship with yourself sets the relationship with your work. It's all about you. Relationship with yourself sets your relationship with the world. So we think, and here was a powerful idea that changed my life when I was about 25 years old: We see the world not as it is. We see the world as we are. We see the world through a, what Joseph Campbell calls, a stained glass window, through our beliefs, through our programs that the world has taught us. So the first relationship is the relationship with yourself.

The second relationship is your relationship with your network. This is the second relationship. These are the four relationships of leadership. If I was to deconstruct what I mean by network, I mean your family, I mean your friends, I mean your neighbors, your team, and the world.

What's the third relationship of leadership is craft. It's your relationship with your craft. I would deconstruct craft into mastery, execution, innovation, optimization of your work. And then disruption. I'm a huge fan of art. If you look at most of the great artists, they had periods where they disrupted their winning formula. Picasso, probably the world's most famous artist, had so many different stages. We see a Picasso painting right now and it's cubist and it looks weird and the eyes are in different places. But there was a time, as you know, in Picasso's journey where technically he was perfect. And often what happens is when we master a certain field, then we have the confidence to disrupt the field for the sake of something even better that we think is, is, is more true to ourselves. Miles Davis, same thing. Copied his heroes until he had the confidence to disrupt the tradition in the field and follow his own voice. And so the, the third relationship of mastery, the third relationship is your relationship with your craft. And I want you to remember this brain tattoo: A job is only a job if you choose to see it as a job. I want you to see your work as your craft. I live here in Italy and people make burrata, this cheese. They've done it for generations and they do it in the same way, less and less. But there are families, they make shoes and it's their craft and they don't do it for the applause. They don't do it for the money. They don't do it for the social status. They do it for the honor of doing their craft. And I know how strange that sounds, but even if no one else gets this, do it for yourself because I can promise you this is a huge source of self-esteem. It's a huge source of joy.

And that brings me to the fourth relationship, which is your relationship with memory. And you're going, "What do you mean by memory?" The fourth relationship. Memory is about your obituary. We don't think about it often, but KDC: Keep Death Close. One of the most powerful ways to be a better leader and to live a richer life is to on a regular basis develop intimacy with your mortality. One of the books I keep close to me is, it's around here somewhere, but it's "The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius." And he writes, as you know, he was one of the great Roman emperors, and he writes a lot about the fact that soon or late, we will all be dust. And Steve Jobs has a very famous video where he's at Stanford talking about the shortness of life and how death is an incredible tool for aliveness. And what am I suggesting with this idea of memory? It's about living in the minds and hearts of those you leave behind. And I don't think that's something just worth doing when you're old. If you can KDC, Keep Death Close. And I'm going to give you a tool to do that called the five-question morning maximizer. But if you can do it every day, then you're going to live to the point in a world where a lot of people are busy being busy, doing chasing trivial pursuits that at the end amount to nothing. And so this fourth relationship is with your memory. It's your, the memory you will leave behind. And it's a fourth relationship of leadership because it's worth paying attention to. And so deconstructing memory, it's your obituary. What if your obituary was three or four paragraphs? What do you want it to say? It's a pretty great exercise. Write out your obituary. Tinker with it on a regular basis as you go through life. Maybe each morning, as part of your morning routine, you just revisit your three-paragraph obituary. That would set the tone for the day. That would give, that would allow you to be strategic every day versus reactive. I'm not judging, I'm just reporting. I would say 99% of people don't spend any time in reflection. They're not strategic. They're just reactive. They just show up to their days and hope everything's going to be great. But your days are your life in miniature. And as you craft every day, so you're building your life. How do you predict your future? You look at your daily habits. Your memory is also your influence, your influence on others, your impact.

So I wanted to share the four relationships of leadership. The first is with yourself. Primary idea of this entire model: your relationship with yourself drives every other relationship. So build your relationship with yourself, and I'm going to share some tactics on how to do that. But I really want you to think about this: In a world where we have forgotten that the doorway to success and satisfaction, we think it swings outward. More social media likes, more shiny toys, a better car, nicer clothes, more social applause. Some of us believe that if we get those things, we will be successful. What I'm suggesting is that the most important thing you can do is work on your relationship with yourself for success. And I'm going to deconstruct what I mean by that and be more clear. But I want you, as of today, if you're not doing it, to spend more time in personal development. Call it self-mastery. Call it personal growth. Because that relationship, the first relationship, drives your relationship with your network. The second relationship, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers, the world. And that first relationship drives your relationship with your third relationship, your craft. I hope you can all see this model I'm drawing here. And I deconstructed your craft to be your pursuit of mastery, your ability to execute on things that are difficult and easy. Your craft has to do with your innovation and your creativity. Please write this down: We were all artists before the world taught us to be adults. You want to be happier? Be more artistic. You want to be more joyful? Find ways to express your creativity in your work each day. It's out. Craft also has to do with optimization. What do I mean by optimization? Leave everything you touch a little better than you found it. Leave everything you touch a little better than you found it. I love my acronyms. Be all about NSI: Never Stop Improving. Be obsessed with making things a little bit better each and every day. And then I said or suggested craft is all about disruption. Disrupting your habits. Disrupting your winning formula. Making things better. And then the fourth relationship is memory, your obituary, your influence on others when you're no longer here, your impact on the world after you've lived a long, rich life. It's a relationship of leadership I want you to spend time with. And I offered you an acronym to think about, which is KDC.

Any questions on the four relationships of leadership before we keep on going? Any questions? All right, let's keep on going then. I have another model that's related. We're going to move quickly through this model. I, I hope you'll find this a very valuable model, and it's called, and it's related to the four relationships of leadership. And it's called the integrity gap model. So I propose to you that the most important relationship is your first relationship, the relationship with yourself. Well, that brings us to the integrity gap model. And it's pretty simple. You have your true you. I call this your heroic self. I'm just back from a trip to Thailand where I was speaking to a large organization in the food and beverage and lifestyle industry. And in Thailand, many years ago, there used to be this golden idol. And the people of the community absolutely loved this golden idol. It was priceless. And they would worship it. And they would behold it each and every day. And then it became clear that invaders were going to come from a foreign country and possibly take this huge, gold, towering golden idol. And so one of the citizens of this, of this area decided, you know what? We better protect our golden idol so it doesn't get taken. And so they said, "Why don't we cover it with mud?" As simple as it sounds. Why don't we cover it with layers of mud so that the foreign warriors will not take it? And that's what they did. They worked together as a community and they got layer and layer of mud, soil, and they covered this towering golden idol until it just looked like a mountain of mud. And sure enough, many year, a number of months later, the foreign invaders came in and they pillaged part of the town and they ransacked it and they took some of the jewels, but they left this mountain of mud. They didn't know what it was. Few decades later, there was this little kid and he was out playing and he was playing with this mountain of mud and he was chipping away at the mountain of mud and for some reason he saw something sparkle and he realized it was interesting. So he called his friends over and together they started chipping away at the layers of mud. And each time they would chip away at some of the soil, my friends, they would see more of the gold. And soon they called their parents and other townspeople over and everyone made this community effort to start moving through the layers of mud, which they did for days and then weeks and then months, and eventually there was this towering golden idol that was priceless. And here's the metaphor, and I, I hope you don't think, let's take a pause from the session and hold hands and sing Kumbaya. But I think it might be a useful metaphor for you because each and every one of you on this session today is like that golden idol. And if you don't believe me, it's okay. And if you don't believe in any of this, it's okay. But I just want you to be open to the idea that when you were born, you were born into possibility. When you were born, you had sparkling eyes. When you were born, you were curious. When you were born, you had an open heart. When you were born, you had tons of energy. When you were born, you believed in possibility. You wanted to be an astronaut and an artist and a firefighter and a chess master and a professional athlete. But the world has taught us to disbelieve. The world has trained us to fit in. The world has taught us to be limited. And we could get into some of the science about how much potential a human being has every day that we are not using.

Now, let's go back with that context, the golden idol metaphor, and look at the integrity gap model, please. This is your true self. But as you go through life, a gap begins to form each day between who you truly are and what I call your egoic self. This is your public self. And here's the key for people, for most people who haven't done any work on themselves: they don't even know they have become someone that they are not. It's subconscious. And could you imagine the psychic angst, the loss of energy, the loss of joy, the loss of creativity, the loss of productivity, the loss of richness of life, knowing deep inside at a subconscious level that you've betrayed who you truly are and that you're pretending to be someone that you're not? If I didn't make sense there, what I'm trying to say is from the moment you're born, you start receiving messages from your parents, well-intentioned, but often limited messages on how the world works. It comes from your parents. It comes from the media. It comes from teachers. We don't have time to spend three hours on this. I wish we did. We have time to spend maybe 10 minutes on it. But from the moment we are born, we start to forget who we are. So it's a process of self-forgetting and self-betrayal. And just to be more clear, it comes from the people around us teaching us how to fit in and how we should behave and who we must be to survive. "Be like everyone else. Don't color outside of the lines. Don't trust your instinct. Don't believe in..." etc., etc. And then we become, we lose our authentic selves, our heroic selves. And over time, we become our egoic selves or our public selves. And it comes from our parents, our teachers. Look at all the messaging from the media that is so subconscious and subtle. And then we become these false selves. And the journey is simply to close the gap and return home. The journey is to be more of who you truly are. Let, let me say this in a way as carefully as possible so you hear it: The journey is to become who you truly are. The journey is to build intimacy with your gifts and your talents. And all the great leaders, philosophers have said it. Shakespeare said it: "To thine own self be true." At the great temple in Greece, what did it say over the entrance? "Be true to yourself." The, the old movie "The Matrix." On the weekend, I was watching "Wick is Pain." It was, it's about the making of John Wick and what Keanu Reeves went through and what the producers went through to make the first John Wick, which has now grown into this multi-billion dollar franchise. And so Keanu Reeves was talking a lot about "The Matrix." And "The Matrix" movie was based on this philosophical idea that a lot of philosophical texts have. And I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole, but "The Matrix" is this idea where Neo, the central character in "The Matrix," was out in the world, but he knew something was wrong. He didn't have any joy. He didn't have any energy. And so he took the red pill. He went down the rabbit hole and he realized who he truly was. And all philosophical, great philosophical books talk about this, and they call it the hero's journey. And so you are the hero in this story. You've forgotten, perhaps, yourself, your values, intimacy with your gifts and your talents, your authenticity. And the journey on, in terms of personal development, self-leadership, is to make the journey home. I know that's a lot to offer to you. I just want to go to, does anyone have any comments on this, observations, questions? Don't be shy. Okay, I'm going to use an art auction term: Fair warning. All right, no problem. I've either completely lost all of you or you're taking good notes, but let's keep going here.

Well, you know, let, let's do some, um, let's do an exercise right here. I want you to answer this question. And the question is this: I want you to write one paragraph. And the paragraph that I want you to write is, "What would I look like if I was being my truest self?" What would I look like if I was being my truest self? One paragraph. All right. Does anyone feel like sharing? Anyone? Just some elements about you being true to yourself, you being your... I'll go first just to maybe, um, I think for me, I'm truest to myself when I'm politely speaking my truth versus worrying about being liked or perceived in a certain way. I think leadership isn't a popularity contest. I think we teach people how to treat us. I think you can say what you want, when you, so long as you say it with respect. And so I think I'm being my truest self when I'm speaking what needs to be spoken in a way that is respectful to the other person, but yet honors the truth that I need to speak. Does that make sense? How about, how about anyone here? I think we have a, a lot of people. Anyone else? I, I kind of went first. So any, I don't mind. So it's Haroon here. I'll put my camera on. Yeah, I can't see you, but just go ahead. I'm so happy you're participating. Yeah, no problem. Um, so I'd say for me it's, um, I'd like to think I'm honest at times, but probably there are times where like frustrations of life get the better of me. So I think to be honest at all times, act with integrity and respect. Uh, like I said, you would like to think you are, but there are obviously always frustrations in life which might make you not act always how you would like to. Um, I'll continue to improve and develop because naturally, I think I'm quite a curious individual who wants to learn as much as possible. And I think the thing for me would be to challenge a lot more, um, and not be content with the sort of like status quo or BAU mindset, um, to to challenge sort of leadership and just general challenge people a lot more. Outstanding. Um, Haroon, you know, first of all, the, the very fact you, you said the first point shows how honest you are. So I find that kind, you know, I find that interesting. Secondly, your third point about wanting to challenge the status quo more. I would really encourage you to do that. There's one company, they actually hired someone full-time to challenge the status quo. Isn't that a good idea? Yep. And part of your homework for all of you, if you like watching films, watch the "Blackberry" movie. Watch the "Blackberry" movie. It's incredible. Dave, Dave is smiling. You know, we're both Canadians. Blackberry used to be a client of ours and there, it's just a great movie to watch on the rise of an industry titan. And then what happened to them is a cautionary tale. And I love reading about Rome. I mean, Rome was a global empire and look what happened to Rome. I mean, that's another thing. Deconstruct Rome. Anyone else? Thank you, Haroon, for, for sharing that. Anyone else? Otherwise, we'll keep going. Great. Let's, let's keep going.

So this flows from the integrity gap, but the four interior empires. So if you want to be more true, you want to live your gifts and talents, you want to be happier, you want to have more energy, you want to be more creative, productive, all those great things. You remember at the center of the four relationships of leadership with your was yourself. This model will help you materialize your promise. So it's a very important model, and like I said, your relationship with yourself drives those other relationships. So here's how you improve your relationship with yourself. The first thing is, I believe there are four interior empires. You've probably heard of this term "mindset." I'm sure you have. Everyone says mindset is everything. Get your mindset right, you'll be great at work. Get your mindset right, you'll be great in your relationships. Get your mindset right, you'll be good with your money, with your health, with your family. What I propose to you is mindset is only 25% of the personal mastery equation because your mindset is your psychology. Your mindset is your psychology. And of course, as human beings, we are much more than our psychology. We have a, the second interior empire, and in my work, I call it heartset, and this is your emotionality. Your emotionality. Your mindset is your psychology. It's your thinking. It's your belief system. But you, you have a beating heart. You have emotions. The best leaders have high emotional intelligence. The best leaders have worked on their emotional life. So they have empathy. They're great listeners. They can influence other people. They can express gratitude. They can express fear or pain. So the four interior empires that make up yourself, you've got your mindset, you've got your heartset, which is your emotional life. You want to work on that. And then the third interior empire is what I call your health set, which is your physicality. You have a body. You have a physical life. If you are dead, you won't get anything done. So we're going to talk about health set as well. How can you have more energy? How can you increase your lifespan? How can you have better rest? And then the final part, the final 25%, the fourth interior empire is this word I call soul set. If mindset is your psychology, if heartset is your emotionality, if health set is your physicality, then your soul set is your spirituality. And I'm not just talking about religion here. I'm talking about your relationship with your wisest self. I'll say that again because it's so important. Building a connection and awareness of your soul set. This is the wisest part of you, the unkillable part of you, the loving part of you, the part of you that knows your truth. Some people call it a conscience. To me, this is your heroic self. So, when you work on all four of these interior empires, you build your relationship with your greatest self, your heroic self. Remember the integrity gap. And that relationship with your greatest self drives your relationship with the other three relationships of leadership, the first model I shared with you.

Let me be tactical here and give you some tools to practice each day. Could be in the morning, you know, I love my morning routine. It could be at night. These are powerful tactics that will help you in each of these four interior empires, which will help you with your work, your relationship with your team, your relationship with your family, etc. Let's jump into, by the way, would this be helpful? Show of hands if I gave you tactics for each of these four interior empires. Show of hands. Stuart, what do you think? Nvid, I can't, I can't see everyone. I wish I could see everyone on video, but I get it. I really would love for you to, to all go to video. Many of you have, you know, I just want to challenge you, but this is for you. I could be out mountain biking right now in the hills in the hills of Tuscany on a glorious spring day, and yet I'm here with the great zappers, building a world-class company, pouring out my heart, looking into this little phone, feeling kind of isolated because I don't see everyone, but that's okay. I'm a big boy. I'll keep, I'll keep going. Um, let's get this done, everyone. So I just know this is helpful. So, I'll just keep on going and share it.

Uh, mindset tactics for you. MVP. You don't have to do any of it, but it's your life. It's your leadership. But if you want to really have more energy and happier and more creative, etc. Do these things or pick these things, please. So, to improve your mindset, run my MVP tool. I've been doing it for about two years personally. I do it at 4:00 AM. You don't have to do it at 4:00 AM, but for 45 minutes on most days, I meditate, I visualize, and I pray. It took me about three months to get up at 4:00 AM. I get to bed at 9:30 or 10 now, which was a big change for me. I used to sleep at 11 for 25 years plus. But it works really well because early to bed, early to rise, it just works so well for me. Maybe it'll work well for you. Test it out for three or four weeks. It'll get easier to get up at 4:00 AM. And then just think about your confidence getting up at 4:00 AM. Think about having a runway of two or three hours for yourself to work out and do these things. Your days will change. If your days change, your weeks change, your life changes, your years change, your decades change. Anyway, what's MVP? For, for you, you can do it for five minutes when you first get out. Meditate. My meditation is basically I'll close my eyes. I could focus on a word, joy, service. I could focus on my breath. We know a lot about breathwork and the power of it for great health and happiness. It could be breathing in through my nose, exhaling through my body. That's, I'm just doing it so you see what it's like. And read the science of breathwork. The mystics have done it for thousands of years. It'll calm you down. It'll keep you centered. My, my meditation sometimes is go doing a body scan. I'll look at my body. I'll go, "Oh, I'm tight in my chest." And because I've done this work for a long time, I'll go, "Oh, that tightness in my chest is some fear." And I just go into it because what you resist persists. But if you go into it, it starts to loosen up.

The second part of MVP is I visualize. So each quarter I have a number of projects I work on. I visualize as if the, the project was finished at its ideal. And any great athlete will tell you they spend a lot of time visualizing the perfect pitch, the perfect kick, the perfect goal. They literally at a cellular level inhabit their ideal performance. Kobe did it. Jordan did it. Beckham did it. Serena Williams did it. Hedy Lamarr, who we should credit for the Wi-Fi signal and GPS through signal hopping, she did it. Tesla did it. I bet you Steve Jobs did it. You should do it. I mean, here's the, the brain tattoo: We want the results. We want world-class results, but not all of us are doing what world-class requires. MVP: Meditation, Visualization, Prayer. I pray, and it's less about religion and it's more about results. Prayer works. Prayer focuses. I pray for my elderly parents. My dad's 88. My mother's 85. Fantastic health. I pray for my partner, L. I pray for my kids, Colby and Bianca. I pray for my larger family. I pray for my little five-pound chalky Holly. I pray for my CRFs, my clients, my readers, my followers. I then pray for my neighbors in this village I live in. Then I pray for the citizens of the country I live in. I pray for the larger world. I pray for all living beings in the universe. That's my prayer. Works for me. Keeps me connected to people.

Any questions on that? So one tool for your mindset is MVP. Another tool is morning reading. Morning reading or, of course, evening reading. So simple. I call it the 30-minute student. 30 minutes a day. Do not go to sleep unless you've read. And I love reading. I, I adore audiobooks. I adore podcasts. But there is something magnificent that happens to the human mind and the human spirit when you pick up a book and you read. It'll slow down your brain. It'll cause you to be a deeper thinker. You'll have more presence. It's an exercise in building focus. And when you read, you'll be more thoughtful in an age where most people snack bite content, to read, to take the patience to think through an idea. I mean, here's a bonus point: I want you to be the deepest thinker you know, in this world of superficiality, in a world where a lot of people, especially with AI, will know a lot about a lot of things versus mastery at a few things. I think it's a, it's a big advantage. Let's keep moving.

Journaling. Journaling. Almost every morning I write in my journal. I have a cup of coffee and I write in my journal. I write about where I am, what I'm grateful for, what I'm struggling with. If there's a problem, I write it out. I don't carry it through the day. I write about the music that's playing. I write about the travels I've been taking. It's a, it's a chronology. It's a, it's a record of my days and what I'm thinking and what I'm learning. If there's only one thing you take from today, keep a morning journal. Keep a morning journal. It'll make you more intentional. It'll make you more clear as a leader. And clarity breeds mastery. Related to that, I'm big on audiobooks. If you're not into audiobooks, they're so pervasive. They're great. And podcasts, definitely do that. And the last thing I'd say about rewiring your mindset, and this might sound corny, but words have power. Mantras. Mantras. In some cultures, mantra, by the way, you know this, mantra is Sanskrit. Man means mind. Tra means freedom. So a mantra is not only something that the monks do. A mantra is a phrase you repeat to yourself over and over so you free the limitations of your thinking. Each of you are running mantras through your mind all day long. I've been at this long enough to know I bet you for most of you, your mantras, your recitations that you're repeating or the thoughts that you're selling to yourself are negative. "I can't do this." "What would they think?" "What if they don't like me?" "I am weird." Well, the things that make you strange are the things that make you special. I don't see everyone writing that one down. I would. The things that make you strange are the things that make you special. And everyone, by the way, another pro tip, everyone seems normal until you get to know them. So having a mantra so that you are training your brain and programming your mind to see possibility amidst problems, to notice the blessings in your life versus the negativity. You know that the human brain has a feature called the negativity bias. Read about it. But we are neurobiologically hardwired to survey our environment and spot threats versus blessings and opportunities and blessings. And that's allowed us survive in a very difficult world thousands of years ago. Now we live in a modern world where most people have the advantages that royalty only had 300 years ago, but we're still spotting threats. Need to keep moving on. Those are some tactics, some mantras for improving your mindset. And on the, on the reading point, just remember reading is a conversation with the author. So install a dead board of directors. Read about Onassis, read about Hedy Lamarr, read about the great saints, read about the great entrepreneurs, read about the great creative people, read about the great chess players. Read, read, read. I mentor so many of the world's most successful people. They don't show me their TVs. They show me their libraries. They love to read. They literally read everything they can get their hands on.

The second interior empire to build yourself. There's four elements of your inner life. Everyone talks about mindset. I'm suggesting to you mindset is only 25% of it because that's only your psychology. You also have an emotional life. You want to do the inner work required to get rid of your fear, to get rid of your shame, to get rid of disappointment. You may have been heartbroken and you've never worked through it. So, as Carl Jung would say, you're carrying that shadow side with you. That's affecting your creativity. It's a block. It's affecting your energy. It's affecting your performance. So I'm encouraging you to do your heartset work. The second interior empire. How do you do that? What are some of the things? A daily gratitude practice. You can do it in your journal. It's, and let's go to the psychology. The father of positive psychology is Martin Seligman. In the past, they used to study dysfunctional people. Martin Seligman came up with the idea, "Let's study the happiest people." And what he has found is the happiest people in the world practice something called deliberate gratitude, not once a year, but every day. He actually found, and this was reported in the Harvard Business Review in a piece on the power of small wins, he studied managers and he had one cohort every night for a number of months before they went to sleep, write three good things that happened to them in the day. Three good things or three pieces of progress. And the people who did that simple act of recording three pieces of progress each day or three good things that happened to them in the day were much more effective, much more productive, much happier. So heartset, to improve it, each morning have a cup of coffee. Write down three, three things you're grateful for. I was with someone recently and he has set on his timer five times a day. "What are three things you're grateful for?" And if he's in a business meeting, he will say to the person, his business partner, his investor, "By the way, I have this ritual, and three things I'm grateful for are this. What are three things you're grateful for?" So you will increase your emotional life with deliberate gratitude. So develop a gratitude practice. Journal work for some people. Talk therapy is incredibly helpful. Talk, talk therapy. There's no one on this call who has not experienced micro trauma or macro trauma. All of us experience trauma. Our society teaches us, "Don't acknowledge the trauma. Swallow the trauma. Pretend it's not there." And so so many of us carry it. I call it a field of hurt. It's an energy field. It's a block. All of that trauma that so many of us carry around. And then we wonder why we sabotage ourselves. And we wonder why we do the things that we, that we do that don't make sense. And we wonder why we have all of this irrational fear. And we wonder why sometimes we can't connect with people. And we wonder why sometimes we're always exhausted. And we wonder why we have lost that intimacy with our creativity that we had when we were younger. And we wonder why we don't have a sense of joy. It could be because you have built this as you've journeyed through life. Remember the integrity gap. You've picked up micro trauma, little trauma, not getting invited to a birthday party that you wanted to get invited to at age five, or macro trauma. Maybe you've lost a parent here. Maybe you've grown up in a war zone. Maybe you've had your heart broken. We all.

Have. Maybe you've gone through a divorce. Maybe you've had an illness. Maybe you had a financial issue. These are the things of life. But if you don't work through those things, you carry them with you through life, and it affects your creativity, your joyfulness, your productivity, your energy. I would actually say your longevity and your vitality through inflammation. It causes it. Those emotions cause inflammation, which can lead to disease. I'm not giving my medical advice here, but your emotional life, I believe, dramatically affects your physical life.

Bodywork could be massage, reiki, music. The third interior empire to work on is your health set. Your health set. Your mindset is your psychology. Your heart set is your emotionality. Your health set is your physicality. Exercise. Exercise is the game changer. A 30-minute walk every day. Try to get here's a challenge: 10,000 steps five days a week. Set that as a challenge for yourself. Watch what happens. I really encourage you to do it in the morning. Maybe on the way to work. If you can do it in nature, even better. 10,000 steps every day. 30-minute nature walk. But exercise, so simple. I know you've heard it a million times. I want to remind you, if you if you are not moving, start moving today. It could be swimming, it could be yoga, it could be skipping, it could be a spin class, it could be walking. Changes you, changes your life, extends your life, increases your energy, increases your clarity of thinking. I'm a huge fan of sauna. I like ice baths. We're hearing so much about ice baths. You don't have to do those things, but exercise is so important.

Nutrition. Nutrition. I would really encourage you very strongly to start to clean up your nutrition. If you're not eating well, stop eating processed foods. You know this, but what you eat affects your moods. What you eat affects your positivity. What you eat affects your energy. What you eat affects your sleep. What you eat affects your longevity. And so, as clean as possible, explore fasting if you like.

Supplementation. Supplementation. Just to share what I do. I'm no one special, but for me, I get a lot of benefit from a lot of vitamin C each day. I take lion's mane for cognition. There, I take ashwagandha. There are certain supplements I take to reduce inflammation, to improve mitochondrial function, and to give me the things that I need that as I age, the body doesn't produce as much of, for example, NAD. But that's not medical advice. I'm just saying I love biohacking. I love supplementation, and I'm looking for any advantage I could get to extend my life. Ray Kurzweil, formerly of Google, said, "Live long enough so you can live forever." Someone recently told me, "Live five more years so you can live 200 more years." It's extraordinary what's happening in medicine and the field of longevity science.

And then the final soul set is the final interior empire. If you want to work on that, I encourage you to work on your spirituality. Prayer, whether it's religious or not, pray. It builds faith. It builds strength. Spend more time in solitude. All geniuses are good at finding lonely places. Spend more time in solitude. I really encourage you to take up meditation if you haven't. It'll calm your brain down. It'll build. There's so many private equity and hedge fund titans. Their secret is meditation. Steve Jobs loved meditation to improve your spirituality. Service. Mother Teresa said it well. "Lose yourself in the service of others." And spending more time in nature connects you to something larger than yourself.

I think this is a really good time for a break. I know I said I'd take it at 10:20, but I've covered three models already and a lot of content. We're going to get into the workbook now. So, we're going to take a 20-minute break, but I just wanted to make sure I give everyone a chance to ask a question. If you're inclined, no forcing or anything, but if you're inclined, any comments, observations, even if you don't like what I've shared. Anyone? Ashley, nice to see you. Stewart, Dan, Abhishek, Natal. Who has a question? So, just for someone who's trying to work on all four of these, is there one that's maybe easier to start with or makes the other ones easier to work on? Um, like where would you recommend people who want to work on all four kind of get started, or does it not matter?

Yeah. So, here, that's a brilliant question. Um, habit researchers call have a term called the keystone habit. The keystone habit. The keystone your keystone habit is the one habit that when you install it, lifts up every other habit. I'm going to do a little model here because it's a really important point for each of you. So, you've got your keystone habit that Sahir just asked about. And when you install the habit, now it usually takes 66 days. This comes from University College London. It doesn't take a week. It doesn't take two weeks. It doesn't take 21 days. It takes 66 days of daily practice and struggle and messiness to install a habit to the point of automaticity. 4:00 a.m. I was miserable until it became easy. I can't tell you what it does to be able to get up at 4:00 a.m. or even 5:00 a.m. So, what happens though, and just trust me on this, please. Once you install that one habit that Sahir is asking about, and I call this model the upward spiral of success. Once you install that one habit, you can easily start installing other habits. Your willpower is like a muscle. It starts to grow. And six months from now, you are a fundamentally stronger, healthier, happier, more excellent leader than you could have imagined.

So, if I was to deconstruct a keystone habit, I'd have to say the 5 a.m. club. Just getting up at 5:00 a.m. and then doing the 20-20-20 formula. 20 minutes of movement, exercise. 20 minutes of reflection, which is writing in a journal, journaling, reading, prayer, could be meditation. And then 20 minutes of growth. 20 minutes of growth, which is you look at a journal, you listen to a podcast, you watch a YouTube video. That would be one. So, so here, I would also just say, you know, a morning workout. A morning workout will change your life. I'm going to, um, if you've had good sleep, but a morning workout, another keystone habit would be being the most positive person, not being fake, but being the most radiantly positive, optimistic person in every room you're in. So, in other words, leaving people better than you found them. I'd also say MVP: meditation, visualization, and prayer. And I'd also say, lastly, we could keep going, but the the five-question morning maximizer tool. And I've got that in the workbook. But just to plant the seed now to be of service to each and every one of you in your journal. It'll take you 15 minutes maximum. The tool is the five-question morning maximizer. Morning maximizer. The first question that you answer in one paragraph: What am I grateful for? Easy. I work at this amazing company. I work with these incredible people. I have food on my family table. I don't live in a war zone. If you don't live in a war zone, then the second question you ask every morning: Where am I winning? Where am I winning? You're all A-players, so you celebrate the big wins. I want you to start celebrating every day the tiny wins. Oh, I moved forward on this project. Oh, I fixed this little issue with a customer. Oh, I went for a 30-minute walk. Oh, I finally had a conversation with my difficult whoever.

Question three, it's a big one. It's for your heart set. It's heart set healing. Every day to do this: What will I let go of today? Imagine every day you do some micro-forgiveness or you let go. I will let go of what the teacher said to me when I was in grade five. I will let go of this piece of resentment. I will let go of my need to be applauded every time I do something well. I will let go of my need of this. Q4 in the five-question morning maximizer: Q4. What does my ideal day ahead look like? One paragraph, my friends. One paragraph on your ideal day. This gives you a template for your ideal day versus being reactive. This question is the strategic question. What does my ideal day ahead look like? Because your days are your life in miniature. If you can write out a script for your day, it'll be embedded in your mind. It'll give you clarity. This is like a mini personal Mount Everest. It's a mountaintop. It's a lighthouse. And if you can stack great days, those consistently great or good days become great weeks, quarters, months, years, decades, lifetimes. And then the final question is the KDC question. And you do it every morning. This whole thing will take you 15 minutes. It's fun. It's fun. You'll start looking forward to it as you ritualize it. The KDC question: Keep Death Close. And the question is, what needs to be said at the end? What needs to be said at the end? Every morning you write a paragraph or two: What needs to be said about me by the people who count when I'm no longer here? So, every day you're writing to your mortality, the values you want to live by, the achievements you want to have, how you want to be remembered. It'll give you such an intentional life.

Sahir, that was a lot, but you got us into a great question. You got us into the upward spiral of success, the keystone habit, a whole bunch of suggestions, and you got me into the five-question morning maximizer. It's a tool to build consistently creative, productive, happy, satisfying days. I think that's been a lot, wouldn't you agree in the first, however long? That was pretty intense. So, it's quarter after 10 your time. Let's regroup at 10 minutes to 11. Okay, that's your 20 minutes, I believe. Am I correct on that, Miho? It's 11:35, the 20-minute break. Yeah, we're and I want to, I think we should do it now. It's been a lot. So, it's 10:15. So, what I'm saying is we'll regroup at 10 minutes to 11. Does that make sense, everyone? Great. I think 10:35. I have 10:15 right now. Oh, you're right. You're totally right. So, 10:15 to 10:35. You got it. Whoever said that is clearly smarter than I am. Thank you. OD O. Good. Have a great break, everyone. Thank you. Thanks, Miho. Sorry, that was blowing my mind. How did he calculate that?

All right, everyone. Welcome back after the break. Any questions? Just want to make sure I'm offering time for questions. Any observations? Okay. Well, let's keep going. So, I want to get into the major brain tattoos of elite leadership. And the first one is: Victims make excuses. Leaders deliver results. I call that the law of delivery. The law of delivery. Leaders have a bias towards action. Leaders have a focus on getting difficult things done. The law of delivery. Victims are all about CBE: complaint, blame, and excuse. Leaders are about APR: absolute personal responsibility. No one wants to hear the excuses. They just want to hear the results and the performance of getting it done.

Second law is the law of usefulness. The law of usefulness. You all know this so well, but the person who helps the most wins. It makes me think of Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary International. He said, "The one who serves the best profits the most." The one who serves the best profits the most. It's so counterintuitive in this world right now where you go into a restaurant and it's all about a cash grab. How can I give as little value as possible for as much money as possible? Most people in business are stuck in scarcity. The ones who win are in generosity. So, the second law is the law of usefulness. You want more success, help more people. When I was 26 years old, I was a litigation lawyer. I asked the senior partner of the law firm, how could I have a long career with that law firm? And he said, "Be indispensable." So, this is also you could call it the law of indispensability. Steve Martin was asked by a young Hollywood comedian, "How can I be the next Steve Martin?" He said, "Be so good they can't ignore you. Be so good that when you do what you do, we can't take our eyes off of you." The law of usefulness. The one who delivers the most value wins. Become indispensable to Zap. Adding so much value and so great at what you do and having so much domain knowledge that the organization can't function without you. A lot of people are worried about the global economy. What I'm suggesting to you is you create through your mastery, through the way you inspire people, through your positivity, creativity, speed of execution, that you create your own economy born of indispensability. Create your own economy.

The third law or the third brain tattoo is to have the results very few have: do what few do. This is the law of contrarianism. The law of contrarianism. To have the results very few people have, do what very few people do. I'd love for you, as part of your homework, to deconstruct: What do very few people do? They get up at 5:00 a.m. Very few people have a morning routine. Very few people spend 30 minutes a day studying. Very few people keep their promises. Very few people are very cautious so that they underpromise and overdeliver. Very few people radiate positivity. Very few people relatively work on themselves. So they become wiser, stronger, faster, kinder, more creative, especially in this world where so many of us are replicas of who the world wants us to be. The law of contrarianism.

Number four, the law of incremental momentum. Big one. The law of incremental momentum. How do you create a great life? I once read an obituary of a son giving testimony to his father and he said at the end, the last line, "My father lived a gorgeous life." And I've never forgotten that. That's one of my benchmarks. Live a gorgeous life. How do you live a gorgeous life? It's not by revolution, one act. It's by evolution. Small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements done consistently over time. So that's the brain tattoo for you to really think about. Small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements, when done consistently over time, lead to stunning results. It applies in your personal life. It applies in your business. How do you get Zap to the next level? It's not revolution. It's tiny iterations, acts of progress done consistently over time that compound. You know this so well, but acts compound. Warren Buffett became one of the world's richest people because he understood compounding. And so little acts that you do in your personal life compound. And little improvements, little acts of execution, little acts of innovation done consistently over time at work will compound into a tsunami of results. Related to that, please write this down: Consistency is the DNA of mastery. Consistency is the DNA of mastery. The great athletes have one thing in common. I've never shared this word with you, but it's mundanity. Mundanity. Mundanity. The great athletes ate the same thing every day. They worked out and did their practices at the same time every day. Many of them had the same rituals every day. They repeated the same affirmations every day. They wore the same training gear every day. It was mundanity to the world. They looked boring. So, consistency is the DNA of mastery. You want to repeat the same things over time, professionally, personally, spiritually, until they compound into exponential results. I better repeat that again because it's so important. How does an investor get super rich? Not that I'm giving any financial advice, but you know this. It's consistency. They invest with consistency. And over time, through the magic of compounding, the incremental investments become exponential investments. And that's the same in your personal life, and it's the same in your business life. And so you want to be a master of mundanity, practicing the same intelligent habits day in day out until they stack into, over time, a tsunami. They will, but until they stack into a tsunami of victory.

Related to that on consistency, it's not what you do once a year that'll make a difference. It's what you do every day. That makes me automatically think of Kobe. And he realized, you know, he thought Kobe Bryant thought once I got into the NBA, there'd be a lot of competition. Everyone would be working hard. Everyone would be trying to up their game. And he realized a lot of people got into the NBA and they realized it was a home run. They were already in the NBA. And so they got sloppy and they started coasting and they'd just show up at practice and they became more interested in getting nice cars, big houses, and being at the right parties. And Kobe, because he loved the game and wanted to be the best in the world, he wanted to be the best there ever was. He learned that from his mentor, Michael Jordan. He realized that if he did a workout at 4:00 a.m., went home, had breakfast with the family, did a few things, went back to the team practice at 11:00 a.m., worked out, ran with the team, went home, had some lunch, did a few other things, went back and did another practice, went home, spent time with the family, did a few other projects, and went back and did an 8:00 p.m. practice. If he did that on most days over the years, he would develop a skill set and a mindset where no one else in the league could touch him. And so I offer you the Kobe Bryant example for you being consistent and on this idea of the law of incremental momentum.

The fifth brain tattoo for elite leadership is: Remember that a problem is only a problem when viewed as a problem. I know that sounds like a platitude. I don't mean it to be a platitude. I think it's really important just to remember that the best builders, business builders, have a default mindset, a default belief. Every time, every time they experience any kind of a problem, a tech problem, a client problem, a personal problem, they have practiced what I call the W question: "What's the opportunity here?" to the point where they're always looking for the possibility amongst the difficulty. So, you are showing victimhood. You are demonstrating victimhood when there's a problem. You complain and you say, "It's not my fault," or "It's not my job," or "I don't know how to fix it," or "It's just the way it is." And I would suggest to you, very humbly but directly, you get to show leadership when there's a problem. You ask yourself, "What's the opportunity? How can we fix this? Let's get the job done. How can we make our system, our processes, our company even better by finding a solution to this problem?" And I remember one of my clients saying he had his single best year in business. I said, "What did you do?" He said, "Every time there was a problem, we just looked at the, what was the opportunity?" So, ask yourself the WTO question. And this number five, a problem is only a problem when viewed as a problem, is the law of alchemy. An alchemist turns lead into gold. Your job is to turn lead into gold. Even in your personal life, we all have times at the top of the mountain. We all have times in the valley of darkness. I sure have had a lot of painful times in my life. And if there's one protocol or idea that served me well, when I'm in the difficult times of my life, suffering from pain and defeat and difficulty, I exploit it, as strange as that sounds. And I'm no one special, but I've learned to exploit difficult times for my personal growth. I've learned to leverage painful experiences or seasons to give me more wisdom, to give me more empathy, to give me more intimacy with my strength and my gifts and my talents, whatever those might be. What does the world say? You're going through a divorce. You're going through an illness. You're going through a bankruptcy. You're going through a socially difficult time. Wish yourself out of it as quickly as possible. What I'm suggesting to you is something so counterintuitive, but in a difficult time, stay in it because your pain can purify you. In your difficult times, those are the times in life, and you know this really well, but that's when we get to learn the great virtues: patience, forgiveness, wisdom, insight, resilience, etc., etc.

Number six, elite performance without deep recovery is an empty victory. This is the law, the law of strategic recovery. I'd like to spend, if I may, I'd like to spend a little bit of time on this six main major brain tattoo. The way most of us work comes from the factory era. And we think if we work harder and longer, we're going to get better results. The Energy Project, for example, has done some excellent research on this. And what they found is the most productive people are less like marathoners and more like sprinters. And so what I'm suggesting is when you work, work intensely, work fast, work creatively, work all-in, and then pull back each day and take time to recover. And I have a model on this because I think I have a model on everything. I'm just joking. And it's called the twin cycles of elite performance. And it's helped my other clients, including celebrated athletes and titans of business who you'd read about every day. And it's helped them slow down and actually do less to achieve more. And I can summarize the model simply. This is called the twin cycles of elite performance. You've got the high excellence cycle, that could be a few hours through your day, five, six hours where you're focused. You're doing real work versus fake work. We live in an age right now where a lot of us are doing fake work for most of the day. I'm encouraging you when you work, go all-in. Do real work. Not checking your phone, not half-present, not your mind somewhere else. Get really good at doing intense bursts of work. And then take time for the after the high excellence cycle, the deep recovery cycle. That could be an hour, going for a nice walk in the evening. Your whole evening is recovering. And then run these cycles not only daily but weekly. Take one day off. This is a radical idea. One day off. I call it your zero device day. 24 hours, if you can. 24 hours without your device because you need to renew. You need to renew your energy, your cognitive bandwidth, your inspiration, your physicality. And then do it monthly. Take days off monthly and yearly. So, just start thinking a little bit. We'll revisit it in future sessions, but think about the twin cycles of elite performance, the high excellence cycle, the deep recovery cycle, doing it daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. The powerful idea is you don't do your best work when you're exhausted. You do your best work when your well of energy and inspiration and creativity is full. And if you're exhausted, you're not going to inspire people either. So, elite performance without deep recovery is an empty victory.

The seventh brain tattoo of elite leadership is the law of humility. Let me just go to take a break here. Anyone want to make a comment? Richie, how are you? I'm good, thanks. Robin, how are you? Good. Didn't we chat last time or am I mistaken? Yeah. Yeah, we did. Um, how are you doing today? I'm good, I think. Um, trying to take in the different frameworks and levels of thinking and seeing which one, which one I think could apply best to me. I think so. Just taking it all in. I think that's a great way to do it. Are you f It's a lot, right? It's intense. Yeah, I think, um, I think you said it in a jokey way earlier that you have a framework for everything, but in, I guess in a good way, one doesn't work for everyone, right? So, I think it's looking at it, taking the principles of starting with the principles of which one you think you can apply and you'll get the most value out of tomorrow, basically. I think that's right. I think that's right. And let me ask you honestly, so far what you've heard today, and please feel free to be honest. Um, what, if I was to ask you, what hasn't resonated, maybe one idea? And yeah, I think, and then maybe what has resonated with you? I think the thing for me is probably when you talk about what your perfect day looks like. Yeah. Um, I think I end up trying to achieve what I want in a perfect day, always feels like a bit of a struggle. I feel like on the back foot, and it's probably front-loaded to the end of the day for a lot of different reasons. And then as a result, you know, yeah, it just feels like a bit more of a struggle than I wanted it to be. Um, so I think that is something I need to work on and how I can be a bit more proactive and dedicated into committing to what I want to achieve over that day and what that perfect day looks like for, you know, 80, 90% of those days so I can build that sort of consistency. So, I think that's, I mean, for me, yeah, I think that's, I think it's very fair. And no one, no one achieves their perfect day. We all, I sure don't. You know, things show up, messes occur, unexpected little forest fires show up. And what I found that's helpful to me is still having clarity on what that ideal day is. Yeah. Gives me much more consistently excellent days. And the morning routine, I don't know if you have a morning routine. Well, we all have a morning routine, but I don't know if you have, if you have a thought-out morning routine. Has been very helpful in allowing me to be less reactive as I go into my days and more strategic. And Richie, I just say this in case it helps. And you look very fit, but if I get that morning, if I get that morning workout in, even things that would get me off my game bother me far less. Yeah. And if I, you know, if I do that five-question morning maximizer or I do the MVP, all the tools I've offered, just the presence and the groundedness and my ability to gracefully react versus kind of get off my game is very helpful. So, I just offer that to you to play with. Anyone else? Helen, how are you? I've never, I don't think I've chatted with you before. Are you okay with a quick conversation? Yes. Yeah. How are you today? I'm good. Yeah. I, um, I think it's been very interesting just to hear the different frameworks and, yeah, like Richie said, just kind of seeing what applies best to my life. Okay. And is that code for I've bored you out of your mind, or is that, is that, is that a very elegant code for none of this makes sense? No, it's all very interesting. Um, I definitely feel like the thing that I kind of took away, especially from like the last session, I think was also just like thinking, trying to make sure like your first thought is positive and your, you know, how you start your morning kind of sets the day, sets the tone for the day. So, I think that that's been quite a good lesson for me. Thank you for a great point. Thank you for participating.

Ashley, how are you today? I'm good. How are you? Good. Any of this making sense or what's what's resonating with you? Anything that you've loved? Anything that maybe you're a little skeptical about? Um, if I'm honest, everything. Not skeptical. Um, everything I've loved. Uh, mostly because I do it pretty much every day anyway. Um, the one part I am struggling with, which you did actually answer, was there some days where you go through the same practice, and even when it's journaling, you can still have a day which feels like you're looking through fog or you're wading through mud. To put it into perspective. So, but I think when you mentioned that there's the spiral, you're actually looking back at how much you do have achieved in the framework that you do build. Um, so not every day is going to be great. Not every day is going to be perfect. I hear you. It's a thing called life. Not every day is going to be perfect. Not every year is going to I've had amazing years. I've had difficult years. And I think I think our ego and society sells us on this idea that we're doing well when everything is perfect. And yet, I don't think any life has all rainbows, puppies, and TikTok likes. No, it doesn't. I think the one which sort of stands out is when you talk about the athletes and, you know, looking at the goal that they want and they visualize the goals. That one stands out because that's a daily thing. Um, and that one hasn't, that's never shifted negatively. That's always been quite a positive one. Yeah. And related to that, even writing out your ideal in your journaling, ideal health, ideal family life, ideal this, ideal that makes you ever so intentional. So, you strip away all the confusion and you just get really clear on what the picture is. Um, but I applaud you, Ashley, because I can tell you do a lot of the work. And let me ask you, in your life, what would be a habit or maybe it's just a belief that has been really helpful to you as a leader and as a human being? I think it's consistency. Um, because I've seen what consistency can do, um, both mentally and physically. Um, so it comes down to the small incremental consistent habits. Um, and as you mentioned journaling, I've got my journal in front of me, so it goes with me everywhere. That's great. Great. And would you mind sharing your most personal page with everyone on the call just for a minute? No, I'm just joking. I'm just, I just, I just, everyone's heart, everyone's heart starting to flutter. Um, now that's great and I absolutely love my journals. So, congratulations, Ashley.

Dan, how are you today? Good. Thanks. Yeah. And you just seem like you're very chilled and taking it in. Uh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that you mentioned earlier, actually, interesting what you mentioned that making big changes this week in being more present and kind of switching off from my phone to be more present. I've got a young family, um, and kind of really noticing the effects of not being present. Kind of very small changes that we've implemented at home. I just bought myself a watch, but I'm not relying on my phone for times and kind of put a ban at certain times. So, I think I'm already starting to see the effects of that being more relaxed and present and able to be more effective. I think having that time away from constant distractions actually makes me much more, um, very practical in many ways. Yeah. Isn't it? So, I appreciate you for participating with me. And hang on. I just want to do something in real time and show you just to your point, Dan. I'll be right back, everyone. So, Dan, you might find this interesting, but I just bought this and it's a vault. And you, it's a vault for your devices and you can actually time it so that let's say you're having a family meal, everyone puts their devices in and you time it and no one can get their devices for a period of time. Let's say Saturday, you want to go, you practice my zero device day. You can actually from Friday night at, let's say, 10 o'clock to whatever Saturday at 6 PM, you can put your device in and you can't get it. You could do it with cookies, you could do whatever with whatever you want. But Dan, you really do bring up an extraordinarily important point that we, I think we're all in this world focusing on, which is a lack of focus. And I'm just encouraging you to all do what Dan's speaking of, which is have very clear digital boundaries, very good digital hygiene. We all know that if you're checking your phone before you go to sleep, you're going to affect melatonin production. You're not going to sleep well. If you don't sleep well, you're not going to feel good. You're not going to perform well, etc., etc. Especially with family. Dan, you mentioned family. You know, I would encourage everyone at least three or four times a week if you have a family, have family meals and make sure they're digital-free because that time where you're somewhat, you're a parent and you're on your phone and your kids are just sitting there on their phones or on their devices, to state the obvious, you don't get that time back. You don't get that time back. And even time for yourself in the evening or whenever it is, taking the time to have great digital boundaries is a really smart thing. So, thank you all for, Rob, do you have anything to say? Wanted to actually say something. Naveiv, how are you? Good to see you. I'm great. I'm great. Thank you so much. This is incredible. We're so grateful for you doing this for us. One one thing that I really loved, he spoke about was that we all have mantras actually. We all have it and we all have routines, right? I think it's something great to just remember yourself too because essentially, yeah, it's we're all doing these things and we're sort of programming our minds and our bodies in a certain way and really a lot of these things that you're suggesting are about improving that programming in a way, right? And I was just wondering, could you potentially talk a little bit more about the science behind getting up early? Because for me, that was by far the single most impactful change that I made a few, you know, three, four, five years ago, right? Like very much inspired by you. I thought I used to think I'd get up early. I used to get up at like 7:00, 7:30, right? And now, as you know, I get up at 4:00, 4:30 and it makes like a huge difference. I can't even, I can't even put it into words, really. Right. And I know there's a lot of science behind it which goes back to the history of us developing as a species. And I don't think I think I sort of like have been educating myself about it. But I think most people don't really know. I think most people live this life saying, "Hey, I get up at 7, 8 a.m. and I start my day and I'm going to go to bed at, you know, 11:00 p.m., midnight." But to me, that's been the single most transformative habit change. So, yeah, I don't know if you can share a bit about that.

Absolutely. So, I'd say first of all, the key to a great morning routine is an excellent pre-sleep ritual. So, you're never going to feel good getting up at 4:00 a.m. or 5:00 a.m. if you've had a messy night, if you've eaten in the wrong way, if you've gone to sleep too late. So, I would say five days a week, I mean, people, everyone goes out or whatever, absolutely fine. I would say four or five times a week, ritualize that you're going to have a great pre-sleep ritual. And then in terms of the science, well, if you exercise first thing in the morning, you're going to reduce the fear hormone cortisol. You're going to, and this is important, you're going to release dopamine first thing in the morning. You'll release dopamine, which is the inspirational neurotransmitter. So, it'll increase your inspiration and it'll increase your drive. That would be great to have first thing in the morning. When you get up early, you will also, if you exercise and move as quickly as possible, you'll release norepinephrine, which will increase your focus. And that's why after a workout, your mind calms down. Most of us, our mind is all over the place. But after you've worked out, your mind slows down. That's because of epinephrine. You'll release serotonin, which is the feel-good neurotransmitter. So, you'll feel much happier. And then the last thing I'll say is you release BDNF, which is brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which John Ratey at Harvard University calls miracle growth for the brain. BDNF. Just have a look at it. You know, do some research on it or read about it. It'll do a few things, but it'll promote neurogenesis, which is the formation of new brain cells. It's all, it's a myth that you can't develop new brain cells. BDNF will increase the formation of new brain cells and BDNF will also repair brain cells damaged by stress. And it has relatively recently been found that when you sleep, the brain has a mechanism which washes itself. And so part of getting up early is making sure you sleep really well.

So, thank you for all your comments and participating there. Let's go to brain tattoo number seven, the law of humility. This is a big one for Zap. This is nothing fails like success. The idea on this law of humility, number seven, is when you are most successful, you're most vulnerable. When you are most successful, you're most vulnerable. When you are most successful, it's easy to stop doing the things that made you successful. I always think about Mike Tyson. Great documentary to watch is called Tyson. Mike Tyson at the peak of his powers was unkillable, unbeatable. He would walk into the ring and he'd knock out people in seconds. But once he got at the top, and he actually says in the documentary, he only did three things when he was at the top, heavyweight boxing champion of the world: he would train, he would eat, and he would sleep. And that was my point about mundanity. Once he got to the top, made a lot of money, got a lot of distractions. Nothing fails like success. I believe he got in some relationships that didn't serve him. His mentor, Cus D'Amato, who was like a father, passed away. Partnered with the wrong business partners, lost his fortune, lost his focus. Cautionary tale. And we could look at so many other businesses. Again, I think about Blackberry. I think about Polaroid. I think about Kodak. I think, I think about, you know, I was in Toronto recently. I mentioned this when I was chatting with the leadership team, and there was a restaurant. So, let's call it the Toronto restaurant metaphor. Hopefully, this will be something that you'll remember. But there was this restaurant and it opened up and it was kind of a French restaurant in a flashy area of Toronto. And it was the restaurant everyone, when it started off, it was anonymous. No one knew about it. The owner-chef was at the door. Everyone cared. The food, you could tell they went to the market at 5:00 in the morning or 6:00 in the morning. The food was fresh, fresh. It was skillfully prepared. It was just the room was great. It was an amazing new restaurant. I used to love to go there. Then, as happens with restaurants, it started getting written up and everyone wanted to get a reservation and it just got harder and harder to get a seat at the table in this restaurant. One day, I went there and I sat at the chef's counter. And the chef said, "You know what? Good to see you. You're really lucky you got a reservation. We're, you know, we're lucky you're lucky you got in." And that statement telegraphed or suggested to me that the chef-owner, and probably everyone else that he worked with, started to suffer from one of the fatal flaws of the human imagination, and it's hubris. And this is one of the most dangerous things, and this is why nothing fails like success. Because whether you are an elite athlete, whether you are building a world-class company, whether you are whatever it is, getting to the top, it's so dangerous to start to become arrogant. And I don't mean arrogant like arrogance in the way most people think about it. It's hubris. You start to fall in love with the beliefs that have served you well. This is why it's very dangerous to be known as an expert. We're going down the rabbit hole here on this seventh idea. Nothing fails like success. When you become an expert at something, you start to build your identity on your expertise. You start to build your identity on the beliefs that you're known for. And once you do that, you start to cling to your beliefs. And someone else can knock you out of the game with different beliefs or different ways of doing things. So, my point is, as you become more successful as a company, as you become more successful as a human being, become, we could deconstruct humility, but become more humble. And what I mean was, if I was to deconstruct it, grow more, learn more as you become more successful. Cling to your white belt mentality even more. Be more of service to people, whether it's protecting your family, your community, your company, your country. It is such a rare thing. And I think it was Richy who reminded me of my love of models, but sometime I'll share with you, and maybe I did in the past, but the mastery, humility, proportionality. But this is for Zap, for each of you, it's so important as the company becomes more successful, become more humble. Listen better. Get even closer to customers. Be willing to question your closely cherished truths even more. That part, that part on the app or that piece of technology that has served you so well, be willing to challenge what you believe to be sacred. Otherwise, someone else will. And as a human being, it is so rare that you become more successful in your work, more successful in your financial life, more successful with your family, more successful with your spirituality. And rather than becoming arrogant and clinging to it and showing off and defining your identity by those things, becoming even more humble. How can I learn more? How can I help more? I'm just a beginner. I just want to learn. I mean, that's what the best of the best, the best of the best. I mean, Einstein said it well, "Never lose your holy curiosity." That sort of summarizes humility. I get onto an airplane, like a five-hour flight, you know, five or six hours from Rome to Dubai, and if I'm sitting next to someone, I'll say, you know, "What do you do?" Five hours later, they're still talking. They've lost their curiosity. Most adults aren't curious anymore about that book, about why is it like this? Why is... Most adults have had the curiosity stuffed out of them. Little kids, our native state. Why? Why? How come? Because what?

Let's move on. The eighth brain tattoo is your is the law of daily legacy. I've hinted at this through the whole session, and we only have 45 minutes left, so I'm going to move quickly here. But this is the law of daily legacy. I've given you a tool for that: the five-question morning maximizer. The fifth question, the KDC question, the Keep Death Close question, that final question of that morning tool: "What needs to be said at the end?" And the brain tattoo is just remember, you can repeat it. Your days are your life in miniature. As you live each day, so you predict your life. What is a great life? It's nothing more than a series of well-lived days strung together like a necklace of pearls. Please, please, please don't waste even one day. I know it sounds kumbaya. I know it sounds maybe corny. Maybe you want to roll your eyes. But is it not true? This day is all we have, and so let's not waste it or take it for granted. There's a book somewhere close to me in my library, and it's called Chasing Daylight, and it is that story of Eugene O'Kelly. Eugene O'Kelly was the global CEO of KPMG. Eugene O'Kelly one day went to his doctor's office to get the results of a routine medical. Could happen to any one of you. Could happen to me. And his doctor came back with a look that you never want to see on your doctor's face when you go in for a routine medical. And the doctor said, "You have inoperable brain cancer." Or he said, "Things don't look good. Come in for some testing. It's got to be done immediately." And the results were inoperable brain cancer. You have 90 days left to live. And roughly 90 days later, Eugene O'Kelly passed.

away. And this book, Chasing Daylight, I go back to it every couple of years and reread it because it just reminds me that as human beings, our default—and it's a cognitive bias, and it's called normalcy bias—and we just think that because we've lived in the past, we're going to live in the future. And human beings are really good, and it's a protective, a psychological protective mechanism, but none of us really thinks we're going to die.

And Eugene Kelly, what he did in his last 90 days, he reversed his last 90 days so that he could become what he called a perfect moment creator. A perfect moment creator because he realized in all his years at the top of the business heap, he'd only taken his wife to lunch once. He'd missed his daughter's Christmas concerts year after year. He didn't spend time with his friends. And he said, "You know, in my last 90 days, I want to create perfect moments."

And why do I bring this up for you? It's because I'm all about elite performance. I mean, so much of what I've shared is about building, being a great leader, building a great company, elite performance. But you'll actually do better in your work if you love your life. And so many of us, we neglect creating perfect moments. This point about your days are your life in miniature, you know, just finding some graces, simple graces in your days, like I believe it was Dan who said, you know, the importance of spending time with your family or your loved ones. And so remember, your days are your life in miniature, and don't run through your life. Be, be great in business. Be a great leader. It'll give you so much joy building something that matters. And at the same time, remember, in each day, find some simple beauty. As simple as that sounds. Spend some time with your family. Spend some time in nature if you can. Have a conversation with a stranger. As strange as that might sound. And definitely make more time for yourself. I better say that twice. Make more time for yourself. Get to know yourself. A lot of us can't stand our own company. And if you can't stand your own company, every time you're alone, you have to pull up your phone, look at social media, turn on some music. If you can't stand your own company, it'll be difficult for people to be in your company, I would suggest.

All right, let's keep going here. Nine leaps. We're going to move quickly through this one. Nine leaps from victim to leader. The victim makes excuses. Leaders deliver results. You know that one. Well, now the victim feels powerless. "I can't do this." Victims are all about "can't." "I can't do this." Victims are all about "I." They're kind of immature in some ways. Monitor how many times you say "I." If you look at someone who's immature, they're all about "I." It's all about me. Me, me, me. Look at their language. And we all do this. I get it. But just watch through your day how many times you talk about yourself. "I, I did this. Oh, I, me." And you want to work. And we're all doing this work together, but you want to—a leader is much more about a giver. You know, if you look, when I think about the great leaders for me, I think about a Mandela, you know, who said, "Each one, teach one." I think about Nelson Mandela, you know, he was all about his country. He was all about his people. And so the victim feels powerless. The leader owns their power. And just to give you one more model: the more you own your power, the more your power will grow. The more you exercise your power, the more your power will expand. That's pretty exciting, isn't it? Power is like a muscle. The more you say, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to vote for the difficult project versus the easy project. I'm going to turn the unhappy client into a fanatical follower." The more you exercise your power, your agency, the stronger your power grows. Very important idea. Victim is the victim is. And what I meant by, I said that this idea, I believe, is very important about agency and exercising your agency.

Number three, the leap. The victim is busy, busy being busy. So many people are busy being busy. "I don't have time to talk to you right now. I'm so busy. I've got meeting after meeting. I'm so busy checking my notifications, checking my apps, breaking my focus. I'm so busy running around all day long. Busy, busy, busy." I want you to shift from any form of busyness to a monomaniacal focus on productivity. And you might want to write this down, my friends, and I say this with deep respect, but please don't confuse busy with productivity. And please don't confuse movement with progress. And I would actually say on this third leap, the job of a leader is to turn complexity into simplicity. Could we hold hands now, virtually speaking, and sing this together from the mountaintop? Because it's so important. It'll make me so happy. And I'm just joking, but remember that a leader is monomaniacally focused on getting things done. And so I want you to be focused on productivity, not being busy. I want you to be a minimalist versus a maximalist. I want you to be a minimalist. And the job of a leader is to turn complexity into simplicity. And do it in your personal life. Have three amazing friends rather than 50 acquaintances. This year, if you love to read, master three books. Maybe it's The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. Maybe it's The Catcher in the Rye. And maybe it's The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. But master three books rather than skimming 50 books. Be a minimalist in your personal life. Build the rest of this year. We have how many months left? Six months, seven months. Build the rest of this year around four or five priorities versus 20 priorities. And that will require you to start saying no. I want all of you to get good at saying the polite no. No to every—yes to every social engagement, yes to every opportunity. What makes a great company is your ability to say no to all the interesting things so you stay focused on the things that are most important. And I would suggest to you, what makes a great human life is you don't need to be liked. You say, "Here are my five mountaintops, and I'm going to build my life around these things." And this year, we have seven months left. Pick a few priorities and get really good at executing around those four or five personal priorities. Could be your fitness, could be your spirituality, could be your friendships, could be your family, could be enjoying life more.

Leap number four. Victims are stuck in the past. This is why I talked about heartset. It's really relevant. But part of working on your heartset every day, the second interior empire, is forgiveness work. Letting go of the people who hurt you through prayer, through journaling about them and writing letters of anger that you don't send. Maybe you work with a therapist. Maybe it's meditation. But in business circles, we often don't talk about heart—heartset, this word I've created. And we don't, we certainly don't talk about forgiveness and letting go of resentment. But if you are holding on to resentment from the past, can you seriously—that'll affect your positivity. It'll affect your creativity. It'll affect your ability to trust and open to your friendships and your teammates. It'll affect your performance because deep inside, as Carl Jung said, you've got this shadow side that's pulling the strings. It's our subconscious mind that is the puppet master. And so, don't be stuck in the past. Do the work to use the past for your better present. And on forgiveness, I should also say, just to be helpful, anyone who hurt you or betrayed you in the past, anyone who disappointed you, please remember they did the best that they knew how to do based on the level of consciousness they were at. And I say that with—you're super smart people, so we can go here. Anyone who betrayed you in business, betrayed you personally, betrayed you romantically, betrayed your trust, hurt you or disappointed you, they were doing the best that they knew how to do based on their level of understanding, wisdom, and consciousness. As Maya Angelou said, "If they knew better, they could have done better." And I mentioned Marcus Aurelius in Meditations. He said, "Other people's bad behavior is none of your business. You just wake up every day, do your best. That's your business." And if someone wrongs you, disrespects you, that's their business. They have to deal with that. Hopefully, that's helpful. And related to this fourth leap, you want to change, make this year the greatest year you've ever had. Do, do this homework. Write down, do two columns in a ledger or on a piece of paper or on a digital page. And write down on the left-hand side the three people who most increase your joy and deepen your relationship with those three people who bring you joy. When you're with them, they make you happy. They get you. They support you. They encourage you. They make you want to be better. And then, my friends, the dangerous act on the right-hand side of the page. Write down the three people who are the energy vampires in your life. You know who they are right now. These are the three people who steal your joy. These are the three people. Every time you say, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to upgrade my performance at work. I'm going to have a better impact. I'm going to stop complaining. I'm going to start innovating. I'm going to be off my phone as I'm not going to be on social media as much. I'm going to have a great morning routine. I'm going to be a better leader without title each day." And they say, "Why would you do that? That wouldn't work. People will take advantage of you." You say, "I'm going to start working out at four o'clock every day or five o'clock or six o'clock or whatever it is." "Why would you do that?" You know, there's there's at least one person in your life, and you know I'm speaking truth. Every time you share a great idea that lights you up, they always find a way to make you feel bad about it. Can I just show hands? Anyone agree with me by show of hands? I would bet every hand would go up. There we go. Vatel, Rowan, Dan, I mean, every hand. Sophie, nice to see you as always. Pao. So, we all know those people. And the more you can strip those people out of your life as quickly as possible, the better it would be. And then people always ask me, Robin, you know, it's my mom, it's my brother, whatever. Then selective association.

Fifth leap, from victor to leader. The victim tears people down. The leader lifts people up. No matter what you do with Zap, I humbly encourage you, as much as possible, take the time to build more leaders around you. You do not have to be the founder. You do not have to be the CEO. You don't have to be the COO. You don't need a title to shine a light on the gifts and talents of the people around you. And before you'll be able to lift people up and be an encourager versus a discourager, you've got to go back to those four relationships of leadership. What was at the center of the circle? It was self. The more you can give yourself what you need to hear from other people, the less needy you'll be for other people to give you that applause. So many people I work with, they don't give away applause, appreciation. They don't care. They don't share their wisdom. They don't share their encouragement because deep inside, they don't—they feel very insecure. And so the more secure you can be, the more you can respect yourself, the more you can know your strength, know your worth, know your wisdom, know your genius, the more you'll give it away.

The sixth leap, the victim complains and gossips. The leader encourages and celebrates. Last three. It's a big one. The victim is frightened of change. Right now in the world, it's they're playing ostrich. They've ducked their head in the sand. They just wish things were easier. And the leader is inspired by change. I predict the next five years are going to be incredibly messy in business. And for people operating as leaders, cultures of leaders without title, these are going to be probably the greatest five years to be in business. I am so happy for each and every one of you. And personally, if you learn how to battleproof yourself from all the messiness out there, it's going to be an incredibly great time to grow, to build a great family life or a great friendship life, to learn, to experience awe and wonder.

Number eight, victims love leisure all day long. They say they don't have any time to do anything, but they will tell you every influencer. They will tell you every viral video. They love social media to the point of addiction. They know all the latest incredible TV shows. But the leader is devoted to learning. What I would suggest to you when it comes to learning is education is inoculation against disruption. And the leader who learns the most wins. And so, of course, inject recreation and fun and amusement into your life. John Lennon said it so well, "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." But really dig in your heels and devote yourself to learning, reading, podcasts, YouTube videos. Increase your domain knowledge. Increase your skills on the things, on the areas that are important.

And then the victim takes from the world. The leader gives to the world. I think at the highest level, you know, I don't know if I've shared this with you ever before, not that we've had a lot of group sessions together, but we all know Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. You probably know it. Abraham Maslow was a very celebrated and respected psychologist. And she came up with this hierarchy of human needs. And at the bottom were basically the most important needs of a human being, like roof over a roof over your head, food on the table. And as we satisfied those lower-level needs, we had—we could move to the higher needs. And at the top of Maslow, it's—Maslow, at the top of his hierarchy of human needs, he actually, for most of his life, had self-actualization, which is what I started off our session talking about. If you have a roof over your head, food, and this, and then community needs, as those needs are satisfied, you get the luxury of working on yourself, of actualizing your mindset, heartset, health set, and soul set, of materializing your gifts and your talents. Not many people know this, though. Before Abraham Maslow died, he decided to put one more tier above self-actualization. And he said the highest of all human needs is actually self-transcendence. Self-transcendence. You might say, Robin, you know, this doesn't seem very relevant to us as people in business, building a world-class company, helping so many customers increase their lifestyle, increase their joy, increase the way that they live. I think this is incredibly practical to simply know that the deepest need of a human being, at either a conscious level or a subconscious level, is to live for something bigger than ourselves. And you can find it in your work right now, exactly where you are. But often, we don't connect to the impact we're having in our work. So I just want you to think about how in your work, it's—you can meet that or satisfy that need of self-transcendence. And it is practical because it's a great route, and here it is, to joy. When you live for yourself, we all live for ourselves. It's a survival mechanism. But when you live for yourself, you don't really get joy. But when you start to build more intimacy with helpfulness to others, you get joy. So this model, the three levels of greatness, speaks to that. Our society measures success with fame, fortune, and applause. FFA: fame, fortune, and applause. That's how we're taught, generally speaking, that's how we're taught to view success. Personally, I just offer this for something to play with, as an intellectual exercise. I measure success by JPF: joy, peace, and freedom. And so the three levels of greatness: the first form of greatness is greatness in society. That's about chasing applause, material things. Nothing wrong with chasing those things, and status. It's greatness in society. The second level of greatness is greatness with self. Greatness with self. That's about intimacy. Intimacy with your gifts. Getting to know your gifts and expressing the gifts you've been born with. Greatness with self is living your values. How powerful a person that actually walks out in the world each day as an army of one, and they live their values even if they're laughed at. So you'll be great with yourself when you know your values and then you start living your values, even if they're completely contrary to society's values. And that's how—that's part of how you close the integrity gap. Then finally, greatness with self is self-respect. And beneath self-respect is self-love. And let me just ask you, how many can you really love another human being? Can you love your work? Can you love society? Can you love the world if you don't love yourself? Is that relevant to business? A business conversation? Absolutely. And then I propose that the highest level of greatness is what I call greatness. Greatness in usefulness. When I was growing up, my dad used to say over and over, "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 know that's very philosophical, but where would the world be right now if we had leaders who—who got this model? And I would encourage you to, of course, take care of yourself and take care of your family, of course, but more and more and more, as much as possible, keep on asking yourself, how can you be more useful to as many people as possible? Be more, as much as possible, a servant leader without a title. A servant leader without a title. Doesn't mean you'll let people walk on you, but make it an obsession at work: "How can I create more value for more people?"

All right, any questions right now? I know this is a lot. Any questions? Any comments?

Hey, Robin. How you doing?

Great. Who's this?

It's Brett.

Hey, Brett. Hey, Brett. Nice to see you. How are you?

Yeah, I'm very, really good. How you doing?

What are you? I'm good. What do—thank you first of all for unmuting and showing up. It really, it's exciting for me to talk to you. What, what do you think, Avery? So, I mean, the, the nine leaps that you were touching on, um, there's some really valuable leadership principles there. Um, so I just wanted to share a bit of a personal story and then also get your, your insights and opinion. Um, but a few years back, I did a lot of kind of work and self-development around servant leadership. And I think one thing that I learned from servant leadership and the thing that kind of triggered the thought process was the, the step number five about lifts people up. Um, and one thing that I learned kind of developing servant leadership was focusing on a building culture versus a breaking culture. Um, and one of the, the areas that I really focused on is creating a building culture. You still need to focus on accountability. You still need to focus on consequence. Um, and you still need to focus on driving consistent improvement. Um, but for me, it's been a big part of my career and my career development. Um, and I just wanted to hear your thoughts on, on servant leadership.

Well, I think you're from South Africa, and, and you're the, you're, you're the perfect example because, you know, my, my life really did change when I stood in Nelson Mandela's prison cell. And the, um, the guard or the guide who showed me around Robben Island that day, uh, knew Nelson Mandela. He served with him for seven years. And I, when I asked him, I said, "What was Nelson Mandela like?" He said something to me, Brett, I've never forgotten. And he said, "Oh, that man was a humble servant." And so, yeah. And so, what are my thoughts on servant leadership? I think the greatest leaders are servant leaders. And for everyone on this, in this session, it is so counterintuitive. But the more you can thoughtfully give by adding value, by being useful, by enriching, by enriching the people around you, by enriching your customers, by being a servant leader who respects themselves because people sometimes say, well, then you're walking over, you're getting walked on. And I always say, people will walk on you only if you let them walk on you. But, you know, this is year, I'm, I'm not holding myself out to be some kind of shining example, but this is year 33. I've been doing this, getting on airplanes and writing books and creating content and working with amazing clients like Zach. And my greatest joy is service. Like, that's why I keep on doing it. It's just like it is. Is it easy? Not Ashley, if you're, if you're still here, I think you are. You know, is every day easy? Of course not. But what gives me the greatest joy and the greatest love is just knowing that I'm somehow being helpful. And it's one of those things where you have to, you know, Naveen was talking about the morning routine. It's one of those things where you just have to experience it to know it. And you don't have to have a big title in order to experience the power of servant leadership. And I would actually say, Brett, even at home, serve your family. It's like a, to me, it's a great mindset. Like serve your family, be a servant of your family, like develop your kids, bring beauty into the home, protect them, enrich them. Do the same for your community, do the same for your country. And the, the irony or the paradox is the more you think like this, and it's not just a mental thought, but it becomes a felt feeling of service, usefulness, servant leadership, the more money you make, the more applause you get, the more influence you have, the more, the more you become one of those people like Mr. Mandela. You walk into a room and your energy and charisma influences people without one word. So servant leadership, to me, it's, you know, it's incredibly powerful. Very good you brought that up.

All right. Thanks, Robin.

A pleasure. Nice to see you again. Anyone else?

Hey, Robin. I, uh, just had a question. So within this model, I, I think I'm still trying to grasp a little bit around when you said, you know, society, self, and service. Um, typically I've seen other models which goes start with small and then move outwards, and this is kind of a flip where you're seeing society and then self and then service. Can you just tell me a little bit more about how you set that up?

Yes. You know, maybe I wasn't clear, Abby Shek. When I say society, I mean so many of us, we measure success and who we are by society's definition of success. Warren Buffett was interviewed. I heard a great interview. He was interviewed, he was speaking, he was interviewed by, uh, university students and they said, "How do you define success?" And Warren Buffett said, "I define success by my own scoreboard." And so few people define success by their own scoreboard. They look at number one in that model right in front of you and they look at how society has taught us to measure success. And so what I'm saying is that's at the base. But the second level up is you measure success by greatness with yourself, not by greatness in society. In other words, status and applause and fame and fortune. And then as you start to measure success by greatness with yourself, in other words, expression of your gifts, living your values, self-respect, closing the integrity gap, you move higher into the top, which is greatness via service. And that's usefulness. And it doesn't mean you have to change anything. It's just you see your, you see your leadership differently. You literally do your work from a place of service. You become monomaniacally focused on creating value, lifting people up, wowing your customers, protecting your family, making the world a better place. Is that helpful?

Yeah, that, that helps. I think to kind of like reorient your starting point, you know, the kind of scoreboard that you're talking about makes sense, right? You just have to kind of reconfigure where it's coming from and how you're defining.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I just wrote a book, uh, it's my latest book, The Eight Forms of Wealth. And it's, Abby Shek, it's, it's a model I've been teaching for 20 years, and it's called the. And the model that the book is based on is the eight forms of wealth. Would it be helpful to anyone to know the eight forms of wealth to to end on? Show of hands, just so I know. Otherwise, I'll stick to the workbook. Okay, it looks like a lot of hands are going up. So, Abishek, Abishek, you're leading us into something because doesn't society say that in some, in many ways, you're successful if you have a lot of money? Isn't that one of the metrics of success?

Abishek. Yeah, I think it's, um, money or the access, um, or a certain lifestyle. It's kind of defined by certain these markers that are very external focused.

For sure. Very, very external. And, and, you know, the, I, I created this model for, for the clients I mentor because personally, no matter how much money I made, it didn't make any difference. I want to repeat that again. No matter how much money I've made in my life, it didn't make a difference in terms of the way I felt. I've had, I've had clients who've had huge liquidity events. They literally said they were sitting with their family waiting until the massive amount of money entered their account. They saw the numbers completely change in their bank account. And they said to me, Robin, I couldn't believe it. It didn't make a difference in terms of the way I felt. And it goes back to that old Zen proverb. Please write this down, my friends. Wherever you go, there you are. And so I created this model called the eight forms of wealth. The eight forms of wealth. And I'll just go through them in the spirit of helpfulness because we kind of have been led here at the end of our session together. And this is how I measure. This is how I measure wealth. And this is how I measure success. And the first is the first form of wealth is growth. If you are growing and building intimacy with your gifts, your talents, if you are removing fear, if you are becoming more brave, more loving, if you are starting to understand how to live a rich life, you're wealthy. So if you are materializing your promise as a human being, you're wealthy. It's a form of wealth worth celebrating. Society doesn't encourage us to do that. F2, second form of wealth, wellness. It's the old idea, "Health is the crown on the well person's head that only the old person can see." If you are healthy right now, protect it and see it as a form of wealth worth optimizing and protecting and battleproofing. Because people who lose their health, nothing else matters. All they want to do is get their health back. And so that's what I was suggesting earlier, like daily movement, eating clean, getting into the gym, time in nature, optimizing your sleep, good digital hygiene, hydrating, supplementation. Take those things seriously when you're young. Take them seriously so that you live to 200. F3, third form of wealth. I've seen so many people in business neglect this one, and it's family. Isn't it interesting that we take the people we love the most for granted until we lose them? So use this as an opportunity to forgive the people who need to be forgiven, to let go of the people who are the energy vampires in your life, and to deepen your relationship with your family. If your parents are still alive, hold them close because when they're gone, you will miss them every day. Fourth form of wealth, F4. This is your craft. And I spoke about the importance of seeing your work as a craft. And I really want to emphasize it with so much encouragement. But a job is only a job if you see it as a job. No matter what you do, see your work as a craft. Like I love going to the Uffizi Gallery and Academia in Florence because I see Michelangelo's David, for example, his sculpture. And the Renaissance artists, they just loved their work for the craft, not for the applause. And see your work as a craft that you can polish and optimize and study and make a commitment to be so good at what you do that we can't ignore you, to echo the words I mentioned of Steve Martin. It's a form of wealth to be on the path of mastery. The fifth form of wealth is money. Prosperity is important. We need to put food on the family table. Having a reasonable amount of money allows you the freedom to do interesting things for your family, to travel, to have nice things. F6, community. I would really encourage you to take a good hard look at your network. Take a good hard look at your friends. Do you have a mentor? Find a mentor. Could be a live mentor. Could be a mentor through their books. They could be dead. But my life, and I'm not holding myself up as an ideal life, but my life has been times 10 influenced because I was around some amazing mentors. And I encourage every one of you to go do some things like stand in Nelson Mandela's prison cell on Robben Island, you know, and go do some of those experiences that will shape you and be influenced by your heroes, by your mentors. So F6, you're wealthy if you have a community of people around you whose lives you want to be living. I'll repeat that again. And you want to surround yourself with people whose lives you want to be living. People and friends who get you, friends who encourage you, friends who champion you, friends who would come and get you out of a prison cell, wherever, at 3 in the morning. And there are some friends, and I'm going to just tell it like it is because I want the best for each and every one of you. You have friends in your life right now who are takers. You have friends in your life right now who you've outgrown. You have friends in your life right now who are, and you can study the phenomenon. It's called emotional contagion. But you will pick up the dominant emotions of the people you spend most of your time with. And you have friends that are polluting your positivity, your mastery, and your finest life. And I, I suggest it's time to let them go. Raisin, season, lifetime. Raisin, season, lifetime. People come into our life for a reason, maybe a season, and a few a lifetime. Abishek. F7, the seventh form of wealth. F7 is adventure. If you are injecting adventure into your days and weeks, it's a form of wealth worth celebrating. The human brain craves novelty. So many clients I work with, I go, they come to me, they say, "Oh, one of the things I'm stuck on is I don't have any fun anymore." I said, "Well, what things did you used to do that made you that gave you fun?" They would say this, and I love mountain biking and this, but ever since I scaled my business to world-class, I stopped doing those things. Isn't it interesting? We stopped doing the things that are fun for us. So, inject more adventure into your days, into your weeks, and use your joy as a GPS. Think about the things that bring you joy and do more of those in your free time. And you can find more adventure in your work. Just put on a set of goggles. How can I make this difficult project more interesting, more adventure? How can I find more adventure in my work? And then the eighth form of wealth, and we'll end on this. It is service. And so if you are creating value and helping people, you've got a form of wealth worth celebrating. And people often ask me, Robin, which of these eight are most important? They're all important, but certainly service is an incredibly important one. And it gets us to the point about leading without a title. It gets us to the point about starting to install more and more that mindset set of usefulness and and helpfulness. The Japanese have a term, Ikigai, the art of giving in secret. And again, the most interesting thing I can tell you, in about a week and a half, I'll be 61. So with a lot of years under my belt, I can tell you the greatest way to find out worldly success is to be helpful to as many people as possible. The greatest way to have more influence is to be sincerely committed to the uplifting of other people through your products and service. Keep on asking yourself, how can I help my teammates? How can I help the culture? How can I help the organization? How can I help my family? How can I help my friends? And it gives you a return that you just can't imagine. But it's such a leap in this world of takers and scarcity versus generosity. So there we go. We have, uh, two minutes left, and I think I've given you a few hundred ideas, probably six or seven models and frameworks and a lot of different tools. I know it's been intense and a lot. I'd simply say, just pick a few of the ideas and start acting on them. Please don't leave your notes tucked away in a drawer. And maybe the most important thing is teach. Teach what you've learned because teacher learns most. And so take your favorite framework from today, and take your favorite insight, and your favorite tool. Those three things: your favorite framework, your favorite insight, and then your favorite tool, and teach them to a teammate who might not have been on this session, or teach them to your boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other, or friend. If you don't have any friends, find someone in a coffee shop, walk up to them and teach it. I'm joking. But teacher learns the most. And when we teach something, you not only give the student a gift or the listener a gift, but by teaching, you're forced to learn and develop more fluency with the material. So within the next 24 hours, teach what you've learned today. And I really just want to say congratulations to each and every one of you being a Zapper, being a part of this extraordinary organization. Thank you so much for your time today. I know it's been 3 hours almost, and, um, I really appreciate your time, and I can't wait to see you, uh, in a few months. So see you later.

Thank you. Thank you, Robin. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

Bye.