Archive for the ‘Personal Development’ Category

The 50 Business + Life Lessons 2012 Taught Me

Saturday, December 29th, 2012

2012′s coming to a close. It was a hard year for people behaving as victims. And a superb year for people like you showing up as leaders (and world-builders).

I’m in reflection mode as I review the past 12 months, record what I learned in my journal and set precise and clear goals+plans for 2013.

I wanted to share 50 of my best lessons learned (or reinforced) from 2012. So here you go:

  1. Hard work is a force multiplier.

  2. Don’t participate in recessions.

  3. Exercising for 20 minutes first thing in the morning is a game-changer.

  4. If you’re not innovating daily, you’re on the path to obsolescence.

  5. If you want an A-Level company, you can’t afford to hire B-Level players.

  6. Procrastination is an escape mechanism for people scared to do their best work.

  7. Give your customers 10X the value they expect and they’ll tell everyone they know about you.

  8. Don’t do it if you’re not having fun.

  9. If you’re not scared a lot you’re not growing very much.

  10. Invest the time to create great social media content and your base will go global + viral.

  11. There’s never been a better time to be a social entrepreneur.

  12. It’s never been easier to be of service to a large amount of people (and few things are as rewarding).

  13. When no one else believes in your vision, you absolutely must stay true to your vision. (Have the guts to stay in the game far longer than makes any sense).

  14. The quickest way to build a superb business is to quickly develop the leadership potential of every teammate.

  15. A job is only a job if you choose to see your work as a job. All work is a noble sport. (The reality is all work is a chance to express your genius–and to inspire the world).

  16. People are craving transparency+authenticity and community. Give it to them.

  17. Creativity comes in seasons. There’s a time to harvest your ideas. And there’s a time to let the field sit fallow. (I’ve been working on integrating this lesson for years).

  18. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax (When you relax, your brain shifts into alpha state–the time when million-dollar ideas present themselves).

  19. Change is hard at the beginning, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. (And without change, there is no progress).

  20. Someone’s going to win in your space. Why not you?

  21. 10X the size of your dreams because if you don’t, you’ll wish you did.

  22. Pursue excellence versus chasing perfection.

  23. Celebrate small wins and you’ll unleash a huge amount of momentum and positive energy.

  24. Learn for an hour a day, no matter what. That’s not a waste of work time. It’s a brilliant use of your work time because you’re paid to know more than anyone who has ever done your job.

  25. Why go for good at what you do when you can stand for iconic?

  26. Transform your fitness and you’ll transform your business.

  27. Delete victimspeak from your languaging. No more "I can’t" and "It’s not possible" and "It’s so hard." More "I will" and "This is awesome" and "What’s the opportunity here?"

  28. If you inspire one person each day, you’re day hasn’t been a waste. It’s been a blessing.

  29. Living in the past is disrespecting your future.

  30. Build an amazing career but enjoy your lifestyle along the way. What’s the point of becoming a business legend but a failed human being.

  31. Look people in the eyes when you talk to them. Smile at people when you see them. Say "please" to respect them. And "thank you" to appreciate them.

  32. Don’t be on time–Be early.

  33. The person who tries to do everything achieves nothing. Focus. Focus. Focus.

  34. Spend the first 90 minutes of your work day on real work versus fake work. (Another game-changing tactic that served me so very well in 2012).

  35. Spend time in silence each day. You’ll never do Jay-Z level work if you’re overstimulated by technology.

  36. Goal-setting is mission-critical. (Review your Big 5, quarterly goals and daily goals constantly).

  37. Your daily behavior broadcasts your truest beliefs.

  38. To have the results only 5% of businesspeople have, have the guts to do what only 5% of businesspeople are willing to do.

  39. World-class begins when you think you’ve done a great job but know you can do a better job.

  40. Remember that your greatest gift is so much stronger than your deepest fear.

  41. Everyone’s in Human Resources. And we are all paid to develop the talents of the people we work with.

  42. Mediocrity is a mindset. Avoid the mental viruses of negative people.

  43. Be the most honest person you know. It generally takes 30 years to build a fantastic reputation. And 30 seconds to lose it by a single silly move.

  44. Become a lion–not a sheep.

  45. People are always willing to pay for the best.

  46. The more devoted you become to serving others, the more your career begins to build itself.

  47. Problems come to test your commitment to your goals, hopes and dreams.

  48. As you become more successful, get more hungry.

  49. Join Traffic University. Use every possible moment in the car to upgrade your skills, polish your gifts and elevate your mindset.

  50. Use your life to make the world a better place.

I hope these 50 ideas have helped you. And I so hope I’ve been of service to you in your business and personal life this year. I enthusiastically wish you and those closest to you an even better year ahead. Let’s make it wow.

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21 Tips to Become the Most Productive Person You Know

Thursday, September 27th, 2012

21 Tips to Become the Most Producitive Person You KnowI wanted to help you create explosive productivity so you get big things done (and make your life matter).

Here are 21 tips to get you to your best productivity.

#1. Check email in the afternoon so you protect the peak energy hours of your mornings for your best work.

#2. Stop waiting for perfect conditions to launch a great project. Immediate action fuels a positive feedback loop that drives even more action.

#3. Remember that big, brave goals release energy. So set them clearly and then revisit them every morning for 5 minutes.

#4. Mess creates stress (I learned this from tennis icon Andre Agassi who said he wouldn’t let anyone touch his tennis bag because if it got disorganized, he’d get distracted). So clean out the clutter in your office to get more done.

#5. Sell your TV. You’re just watching other people get successful versus doing the things that will get you to your dreams.

#6. Say goodbye to the energy vampires in your life (the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm).

#7. Run routines. When I studied the creative lives of massively productive people like Stephen King, John Grisham and Thomas Edison, I discovered they follow strict daily routines. (i.e., when they would get up, when they would start work, when they would exercise and when they would relax). Peak productivity’s not about luck. It’s about devotion.

#8. Get up at 5 am. Win the battle of the bed. Put mind over mattress. This habit alone will strengthen your willpower so it serves you more dutifully in the key areas of your life.

#9. Don’t do so many meetings. (I’ve trained the employees of our FORTUNE 500 clients on exactly how to do this – including having the few meetings they now do standing up – and it’s created breakthrough results for them).

#10. Don’t say yes to every request. Most of us have a deep need to be liked. That translates into us saying yes to everything – which is the end of your elite productivity.

#11. Outsource everything you can’t be BIW (Best in the World) at. Focus only on activities within what I call “Your Picasso Zone”.

#12. Stop multi-tasking. New research confirms that all the distractions invading our lives are rewiring the way our brains work (and drop our IQ by 5 points!). Be one of the rare-air few who develops the mental and physical discipline to have a mono-maniacal focus on one thing for many hours. (It’s all about practice).

#13. Get fit like Madonna. Getting to your absolute best physical condition will create explosive energy, renew your focus and multiply your creativity.

#14. Workout 2X a day. This is just one of the little-known productivity tactics that I’ll walk you through in my new online training program YOUR PRODUCTIVITY UNLEASHED (details at the end of this post) but here’s the key: exercise is one of the greatest productivity tools in the world. So do 20 minutes first thing in the morning and then another workout around 6 or 7 pm to set you up for wow in the evening.

#15. Drink more water. When you’re dehydrated, you’ll have far less energy. And get less done.

#16. Work in 90 minute blocks with 10 minute intervals to recover and refuel (another game-changing move I personally use to do my best work).

#17. Write a Stop Doing List. Every productive person obsessively sets To Do Lists. But those who play at world-class also record what they commit to stop doing. Steve Jobs said that what made Apple Apple was not so much what they chose to build but all the projects they chose to ignore.

#18. Use your commute time. If you’re commuting 30 minutes each way every day – get this: at the end of a year, you’ve spent 6 weeks of 8 hour days in your car. I encourage you to use that time to listen to fantastic books on audio + excellent podcasts and valuable learning programs. Remember, the fastest way to double your income is to triple your rate of learning.

#19. Be a contrarian. Why buy your groceries at the time the store is busiest? Why go to movies on the most popular nights? Why hit the gym when the gym’s completely full? Do things at off-peak hours and you’ll save so many of them.

#20. Get things right the first time. Most people are wildly distracted these days. And so they make mistakes. To unleash your productivity, become one of the special performers who have the mindset of doing what it takes to get it flawless first. This saves you days of having to fix problems.

#21. Get lost. Don’t be so available to everyone. I often spend hours at a time in the cafeteria of a university close to our headquarters. I turn off my devices and think, create, plan and write. Zero interruptions. Pure focus. Massive results.

I truly hope these 21 productivity tips have been valuable to you. And that I’ve been of service. Your productivity is your life made visible. Please protect it.

Stay productive.

Robin Sharma

P.S. I’m so excited to share that – after YEARS of requests – I’ve finally created a premium productivity program with my advanced strategies to get your most important goals done fast. It’s on sale at a very special price right now, but only UNTIL THIS TUESDAY AT MIDNIGHT so I strongly encourage you to get yours right now: http://www.robinsharma.com/yourproductivityunleashed

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6 Tools for Success in September

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

Success in SeptemberMy goal is to help you make this month the most productive month of the year so far. To be of service to you, below please find 6 high-content resources:

1) The 3 Habits of Happiness
Excerpt From the Transcript of the Video: Well, I wanted to focus on the three habits of happiness or, maybe, not THE three but three habits that I know if you do them every day will make you a much happier person. Number one, gratitude. What I do, I have right  here, I’m just going to show you. I have my journal and almost everywhere I go I have my journal with me, and I write in my journal. A lot of what I write in my journal is daily gratitude. Here I am in South Africa. I’m at the Singita Game Reserve. …Continue reading

2) 35 Fast Tips to Make This Year Your Best Year Yet
Excerpt from the Article: I’m sitting on an airplane thinking about what the best performers and most successful people do to continually outperform everyone around them. I’ve come up with 35 Tips that I invite you to concentrate on. Share these tips, reflect on them, post them where you can see them – and allow them to infuse your mindset. …Continue reading

3) The Journey is the Game
Excerpt from the Article: One of the dominant values of our world is that we win once we reach our goals/objectives/mountaintops. We can only feel fulfilled when we get to the end of our quest and arrive at the place we’ve longed to reach. We can call ourselves successful only once we’ve done our dreams. Then we get to celebrate. Because we’ve arrived at our beautiful destination. But what if that value we hold so very closely to our hearts is wrong? …Continue reading

4) The Garbage Collector With the Brain Tattoo
Excerpt from the Article: One morning I was working at home rather than at our office as I needed to go into some deep creative work and that’s a place that allows me to get the job done. I heard a loud noise that caused me to stop and I ran to the window to see what happened. The man who
collects the garbage was picking up what seemed to be a thousand pieces that had fallen into the street. Something had happened to the truck’s hydraulic system and all the garbage had fallen out. It wasn’t a pretty scene. …Continue reading

5) One of the Greatest Keys to Success
Excerpt from the Article: A key piece to playing at your absolute best as a leader (and as a person) is to ensure that your daily schedule reflects your deepest values. Anything less is a flight from integrity. One of the exercises I’ve been taking our clients through at my “Leadership in Turbulent Times” workshop is called “The 5 Main Values.” I take participants through a powerful visualization where they visit themselves, not as they now are but as they want to be at the end of their career. Then they record the main 5 values they will have wished they’d worked under. …Continue reading

6) Your Perfect Day
Excerpt from the Article: While nothing’s perfect in business and in life, recording what your ideal day looks like is a smart move. Because with greater clarity comes better choices. What was the best day you’ve had in the past 12 months? What made it so special – and unforgettable? What things were you doing that time that gave you those superior results? Once you know what works, you can set about doing them with greater consistency. And consistency is the generator of Mastery. Here are 4 recommendations for a perfect day. …Continue reading

As always, I’m grateful for your support of my message and work. Let’s make September WOW.

Wishing you all green lights,

Robin Sharma

P.S. To really make sure I over-deliver for you this month, here’s a link to 91+ training videos:
http://www.youtube.com/sharmaleadership  

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The 3 Habits of Happiness

Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

 

 

The Transcript of The 3 Habits of Happiness

Hi. It’s Robin Sharma. Welcome to this issue of my video blog. Well, I wanted to focus on the three habits of happiness or, maybe, not THE three but three habits that I know if you do them every day will make you a much happier person.

1) Number one, gratitude. What I do, I have right here, I’m just going to show you. I have my journal and almost everywhere I go I have my journal with me, and I write in my journal. A lot of what I write in my journal is daily gratitude. Here I am in South Africa. I’m at the Singita Game Reserve. I’m at a beautiful lodge. There’s a fireplace behind me right now. This morning I woke up and I saw a number of the big five animals eating or grazing right outside of my room. And so, in my journal I am going to write about where I am and what the stars looked like last night and the meal that we enjoyed. I was in Botswana yesterday morning, getting to share the “Lead Without a Title” message with all those people. I just write all the big things and little things that I’m grateful for. Sometimes, it takes five minutes. Sometimes, I write for an hour.

The key idea to remember is our minds are hard wired for ingratitude. It was a survival mechanism that was valuable thousands of years ago when we lived out on the savanna, but it no longer serves us right now. Most of us have roofs over our heads. Most of us have enough food to eat. And yet, we still focus on what’s wrong in our lives. It’s a biological instinct we have to fight. And how do you do that? Focused gratitude. And a great way to do it is write in your journal. Do it everyday. You start to hard wire your brain, and actually you start to refocus the way you see the world. We know to be successful in business and successful in life – is about spotting possibilities where others are looking for problems.

2) Number two, and this is a very simple one. but remember to savor. A lot of the work the pioneers in the field of positive psychology talk  about is savoring life. So when you’re drinking a cup of coffee, don’t just drink a cup of coffee while you’re thinking about your emails. Drink a cup of coffee and actually savor, savor the flavor. Savor the coffee. Savor your environment. If you start to go through life and you savor the breeze and you savor, maybe, the car drive and you savor your conversation with your teammate at work or your children at home, life starts to take on a much richer context.

3) The final thing in terms of happiness habit is find work that matters or even more importantly, find meaning in your work. I have been here in Africa and I’ve interviewed, and you probably saw this on another one of my video blogs, but I interviewed a hotel housekeeper and I said, “Did you like your job?” and she almost was breathless. She said, “I can’t believe how much I love my job.” All I’m saying is a job is only just a job if you chose to see it as a job. All work is a chance to be of service. All work is a chance to express your gifts and talents. All work is a chance to be helpful to other human beings. All work is a chance to change the world. It’s up to you to find meaning in your work, whether you’re a street sweeper, whether you’re a police officer, whether you’re a teacher, whether you’re an astronaut, whether you’re an entrepreneur. To find the meaning in your work so that everyday you feel like you’re on a mission and that’s a great source of happiness.

So from the Singita Game Reserve here in gorgeous South Africa, I’m Robin Sharma. Three habits of happiness. Focus on them every day. Over time you get some extraordinary results.

Robin Sharma

P.S. Until Thursday August 23 at midnight you can get my legendary 21 Day Success System for 50% off. This is my way of saying thank you for being a part of my community. This is the easy to use online course that has helped thousands of people live their best lives. Details here: http://www.robinsharma.com/thanks/success-system/

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A Gift of Reading for You – The Secret Letters of the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

After an intense 6 months of crisscrossing the globe and sharing the Lead Without a Title message in nearly 30 countries, I’m dropping into deep renewal for a bit.

And as I reflect and renew, I think of you. And your support of my mission to help people work at wow and build lives that matter – so we all make the world better.

As my thanks, I wanted to give you the first chapters of my latest book “The Secret Letters of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” (readers from around the world love it even more than the original Monk book).

Here are the chapters:

Click here to read The Secret Letters of the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

(click the cover to start reading right now)

Wishing you all green lights. Speak soon.

Robin Sharma

P.S. I’d also like to give you my 125 Page eBook “The Little Black Book For Stunning Success” that will keep you at your absolute best over the remaining months of 2012. Get it right here: http://www.robinsharma.com/littleblackbook.htm

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