#12: Master Your Mornings, Improve Productivity & Commit to Greatness, with Robin Sharma
This episode, Kristina speaks with one of her all-time favourite people – and a true inspiration – Robin Sharma.
A best-selling author, globally respected humanitarian and one of the world’s top advisors on leadership and personal development, Robin's clients include many Fortune 100 companies, famed billionaires and professional sports superstars.
Author of his latest book, The 5am Club and the number one best-selling, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin has written 15 books in total and has sold more than 15 million copies over the past 20 years, including other best-selling titles, The Greatness Guide and The Leader Who Had No Title.
Robin began his career as a lawyer, but decided to change direction and follow his dream of helping others by self-publishing his own books on leadership. But, as you can imagine, it wasn’t long before HarperCollins discovered his work and he has now grown to become one of the most broadly read authors in the world today.
His latest book, The 5am Club is now helping people everywhere to lead greater lives, maximise their productivity and embrace simple, yet effective formulas practised by many of the world’s greatest leaders.
Robin’s wisdom and advice has helped Kristina personally – as well as millions of people around the globe – to grow and start living their dream lives, and we hope you'll feel just as inspired after hearing this episode.
Keep listening to discover….
- How to master the first hour of your day, and by doing so, how you can fundamentally change your life for the better
- How you can minimise the distractions of our modern world to increase productivity and focus on what really matters
- The importance of surrounding yourself with the right people to lift you up and enhance your life
- The benefits of embracing a daily journaling practise
- How it’s possible to find your greatest power through difficult times and adversity
- The power of scheduling time for self-care and practices that will set you up to live your dream life, every day
And so much more!
If you love this episode, don’t forget to subscribe for plenty more inspiration! And please tell us what you thought by leaving us a review!
Don't forget to help up spread this inspiring message to even more people by sharing our podcast on social media with the hashtag #101milliondreamers
Transcript:
Kristina: 00:04 What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? If you had all the money, all the time, all the knowledge, all the resources that you needed. What would you do with your life if you simply knew that anything was possible for you? My name is [Kristina Carlson 00:00:21], founder of Global Swedish Design and stationary brand Kikki.K and author of the book Your Dream Life Starts Here. And I love exploring these sorts of questions to inspire people to dream.
Kristina: 00:35 Before I started Kikki.K I had to dream that I could bring Swedish design to the world. To create beautiful products that bring sparks of joy into the everyday lives of millions. Now that I have achieved that dream, I want to help you dream big. I want to create a global movement to inspire one hundred and one million dreamers to transform their lives and transform the world in return.
Kristina: 01:03 Each episode, I'll be talking to some of the worlds most inspiring people, exploring the powerful impact that dreaming has had on their lives. We'll be diving deep into the power of dreaming with real insights and ideas that you can use immediately to build a dream life of your own, whatever that means for you.
Kristina: 01:33 I am so excited for you to hear this episode. As I'm speaking with one of my all time people in the world and someone who has inspired me greatly, [Robin Sharma 00:01:43]. Robin is a best selling author, globally respected humanitarian and one of the worlds top advisors on leadership and personal development. With clients including many Fortune 100 Companies, famed billionaires, and professional sports superstars. Author of the number one best selling book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin has written 15 books in total, and has sold more than 15 million copies-wow-over the past 20 years. Including best selling titles The Greatness Guide and The Leader Who Had No Title. Robin began his career as a lawyer but decided to change direction and follow his dream of helping others by self publishing his own books on leadership.
Kristina: 02:27 It wasn't long before Harper Collins discovered his work and he has since grown to become one of the most broadly read authors in the world today. His latest book, The 5 AM Club, is now helping people everywhere to lead greater lives, maximize the productivity, and embrace simple, yet effective formulas practiced by so many of the world's greatest leaders. Robin's wisdom and advice has helped me personally grow and start living my dream life, and I just know you are going to get so much out of this episode. Keep listening to discover how to master the first hour of your day, and by doing so, how you can fundamentally change your life for the better. How you can minimize distractions of our modern world to increase productivity and focus on what really matters, the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people to lift you up and enhance your life, the benefits of embracing a daily journaling practice, love this one, the power scheduling time for self-care and practices that will set you up to live your dream life every day, and so much more. There is truly so much wisdom in this episode, so let's get right into it.
Kristina: 03:40 Hello Robin, I am so so so thrilled to have you on the podcast, I cannot tell you how excited I was as I was driving to the office. I was kind of pinching myself that I have you as my guest because you have been such an influential person in my life for my personal development, so thank you and welcome!
Robin: 03:59 Kristina it's a pleasure, thanks for the invitation.
Kristina: 04:02 Thank you, so I cannot wait to get into so many different things but first I wanted to say a big congratulations on your latest book, we are obviously gonna talk about The 5 AM Club a lot because I think that is such a great book and also such a, so inspiring for people to hear how you did it but also all the tools in the book, but before we get into all that, I'll have to-for you to think back on your childhood for a moment and I'd love to know if there were any dreams for the future that you had when you were a child.
Robin: 04:33 Wow, what a great question. Ever since I've been young, Kristina, I've always been fascinated by the great women and men of the world and I don't really know where that comes from, you know, sometimes we have this hard wiring we're just born with and so I always felt a creative pull to, in some way, help a lot of people. I didn't always know what that was gonna look like, I was always creative when I was growing up, and yet the people around me always encouraged me, "Be a professional." I come from an immigrant family so it's get a great education and be a doctor or a lawyer, and so in many ways I betrayed my creative instincts and I got on the path through my education to become a lawyer and long story short, I ended up being a litigation lawyer before I started writing books.
Kristina: 05:29 How did you go, then, from being a lawyer into, I think you have sold-I might not be perfectly right with the number-but over 15 million copies of your book, so how did you go from being in law into what you are doing today?
Robin: 05:43 Well, you know, I think if you trust your instinct, you get led into the most interesting areas of life and so I was this litigation lawyer and I was very successful on the outside and I had a beautiful car and a nice place to live and the world said, "you're successful," but I'd wake up every morning and I'd look in the bathroom mirror and I felt like tall old man. And so, for whatever reason, I started studying great books and great biographies and experimenting with everything from meditation to early stages of biohacking, and I made a transformation in my life. I went from being relatively miserable to feeling much more happy, much more energy, much more aligned with who I truly am and that led me to write my first book, a book I don't talk about a lot because it's got an interesting cover and it was pretty rough work, it was called Mega Living and I self-published that book and I actually then decided to write another book called The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, it was self-published in a Kinko's coffee shop. My mother was my editor and I used to sell copies at rotary clubs and other service clubs.
Robin: 07:03 My first seminar, Kristina, was 23 people. 21 of those people were my family members and I was laughed at, like "What does a lawyer know about personal development and leadership?" and "What a foolish title, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari," but I've realized is, when you've put your heart and soul into something, you're gonna attract haters and critics. And we can get into this later, but if you don't have a strong resolve in your vision and you don't believe in your poetry and your art, then you're gonna get knocked down and you're gonna betray a calling that could be your life.
Kristina: 07:46 I'm so in line with you there to really do something you love. So I think we should start talking about your 5 AM Club book. I love the subtitle of the book Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life and I'm very proud, thanks to you, to be part of the 5 AM Club myself, not every day, I'm not perfect, and I wanna say that because it's not something that I can do all the time when I'm jet lagged or troubling but I absolutely love getting up early and I'm very grateful for the inspiration I got from that, but I'd love you to talk about how you actually started that and some tips for our listeners how they can start getting up early and join the 5 AM Club movement.
Robin: 08:26 The first thing I would suggest is rising at 5 AM then running the victory hour that I explain in the book, which is based on the 20-20-20 formula that I've been teaching for so many years, doing that one habit is the mother of all habits. And what I mean by that is if you can get the first hour of your day right, you will fundamentally change your mindset, heartset, healthset, and soulset by 6 AM. You will galvanize your eurobiology, you will reorder your energy, you will feel stronger, you will feel more confident, you will feel more alive. And if you can consistently build strong mornings, then obviously, you're gonna have consistently better days and consistently better days are gonna give consistently better weeks, months, quarters, years, et cetera. So if you can just do one thing this year, it's installing the 5 AM Club method that I teach in the book. In terms of a back story, to answer your question, I've been teaching the 5 AM Club method for over 20 years. I first wrote about the ritual of early rising and morning routine back before it became so famous in the world. Everyone's teaching morning routines now. I taught it in The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. You're right, it has grown into a movement, and it's literally revolutionized- like, just getting that first hour of the day to world class has revolutionized the lives of millions of people.
Robin: 09:57 So specific tips, I'd say the first thing is run the 20-20-20 formula that I go into very- a lot of detail in the book, but it's essentially there's three pockets from 5:00 to 5:20, the move pocket, that's about intense exercise. If you wanna get into the neurobiology, we can, you'll release BDNF which repairs your brain, you'll release dopamine which is the motivational neurotransmitter so you'll feel strong, you'll reduce cortisol which is the fear hormone which is highest in the morning, you'll increase your metabolism which will increase your energy, just by doing that first pocket.
Robin: 10:33 Second pocket, that's all about reflect. We live in the age of dramatic distraction, not a lot of us make the time to pause, think, reflect, and ground anymore. So from 5:20 to 5:40, you can pray, you can anchor into your values, you can meditate, you can write in a journal which has been a life changer for me, and really reaccess your higher nature before you go out into a complex and troubled world.
Robin: 11:09 Third pocket, 5:40 to 6:00. It's about grow. And we all know, I mean I've worked with a lot of billionaires, I think you were at my Titan Summit, when we had Richard Branson and I think you- I don't think you were at the one with Ros and Zurich but, I've coached billionaires and NBA superstars and some of the most successful people in the world for two decades and the best of the best in business, sports, and humanities all have one common denominator. And it's they are obsessed with growth. Because we all understand this, when you grow yourself and build your talents and grow your skills and become stronger and more confident and more vital, then obviously you go out in the world and can dominate your domain. So the final pocket is all about taking the time, for at least 20 minutes, to grow. That could be listening to an audiobook, it could be listening to a podcast, watching a TED Talk, or, you know, just studying a book.
Robin: 12:08 If you do the 20-20-20 formula, and again, the book goes into a hundred times more detail, and you practice the 20-20-20 formula for 66 days, which is, what according to the research of University College London says, is minimum viable amount of time to install a new habit, then you get to a place where it becomes easier to get up at 5 and not to get up at 5. And you run that every day and it completely revolutionizes the rest of your day.
Kristina: 12:39 Love it. I'm such a believer and that was explained so well so thank you so much for sharing and obviously we're gonna put the link to your book so people can really dig deep into learning that formula and everything else that you have in the book but I'd love to get a little bit more into the-you actually mentioned the four segment approach, the mindset, heartset, soulset, and healthsets, and for anyone who hasn't read your book yet, can you explain a little bit about what that is?
Robin: 13:06 Absolutely. What a great question, Kristina. So I'll start by saying The 5 AM Club is a very disruptive book. Not everyone's going to understand the book, just being as candid as I always wanna be. We live in a world, if you look at Instagram, if you look at a lot of the social media, everyone's talking about mindset these days. Like mindset coaches and you see a lot of Instagram posts, and I say this with a lot of respect, but it's everything is mindset. I don't know if you've seen posts like that have you?
Kristina: 13:36 Absolutely.
Robin: 13:38 Again, very respectfully, I think it's a lot more than just everything is mindset and your performance is mindset and a world class life is mindset because you can have a great mindset, which is strong core beliefs, but if you have a toxic heart, if you're in pain, if you haven't processed through anger, if you haven't worked on your emotional life, which is not your mindset, then your creativity will be locked, your productivity, your performance will be limited, you will radiate positive energy for your clients, family, and the world, so it's not just mindset. And in the 5 AM Club book, I explain with a model, it's mindset as well as this word I've been evangelizing, heartset. So work on your mindset, which is your psychology, but also work on your heartset, which is your emotionality.
Robin: 14:29 But it's not just those two. The third interior empire is your healthset. If you are diseased, you don't have energy. If you're not vital, if you don't wake up full of energy, you're not gonna be able to dominate your domain so the third interior empire in the model I show in the 5 AM Club is your healthset. But that's only 75%. That's only 3 of the 4 interior empires. The final one is your soulset. Now, a lot of people are frightened to get into spirituality. "Oh, that's- business people don't talk about spirituality," well, if you don't calibrate your soulset, which to me is that higher part of yourself that is wise that knows life is short, that understands ultimately life is about growth and service to people, then you're going to go out in the world and be driven by your ego and small self versus that higher self where all the real titans and great people of humanity play. So what I'm suggesting is, it's not just mindset, it's the four interior empires, that's the model that I've introduced in the 5 AM Club, and if you work on those four interior empires, you will build yourself into a true warrior of humanity that allows you to go up there and be an amazing business person, mother, father, human being.
Kristina: 15:59 I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. I think that's great. I know you name distraction as a key element that stops many from achieving greatness in our modern world and one of my favorite saying of yours is, "to distraction is the end of your creative production." Can you share a little bit about why you believe this and how listeners can reduce distractions in their lives? Because I think that's one of the most common things that I hear when I speak to people that the people are getting so distracted today with social media and everything else that is around in the modern world.
Robin: 16:35 Well there's a line in the book which is, "Your fullness is costing you your fortune." And there's another term I use a lot through the 5 AM Club, which is "cyberzombies" I mean, I think your listeners from across the planet just might agree with me. If you look into the eyes of most people, a lot of people are really checked out. We've lost a sense of aliveness and a lot of people aren't present anymore. One of the greatest gifts you can give your customers or your children, brother, human beings on the street, is be alive. Be present. It's a very rare gift on the planet these days, I suggest. And a lot of people are cyberzombies and a lot of the social platforms have done a beautiful job of creating addicts and we all know about the dopamine addiction of the reward loop that a lot of the social platforms consciously try to build. What's happened is there's a lot of people spending the best hours of their days watching a white screen or watching videos or checking likes on the various social platforms versus doing work that honors their gift versus being with people who are most important versus being a fully alive human being.
Robin: 17:56 With that, what are some tips? I'd say the first thing is, there's a chapter in the book called The 10 Tactics of Daily Genius, the book is a lot more than the 5 AM Club and in those 10 tactics of daily genius, and you know this rule because I'm sure it helps you, Kristina, but one way to divorce yourself from an addiction to technology is to run the 90-90-1 rule, which is simply the first 90 minutes, 90 of your work day, the first 90 minutes of your work day for the next 90 days focus it on your single best opportunity to dominate your domain. And that means for 90 minutes you go into what I call a tight bubble of total focus and there's no technology and you think and you work on that one project and when you release it in a world completely disrupts the marketplace so you own it. Another way to get away from addiction to technology is the second- another one of the rituals I share which is the second wind workout. Which, it could be a nature walk. If you look at many of the most creative people on the planet, they have one thing in common. They love to walk. And they love to walk in nature.
Robin: 19:12 So leave your technology for an hour a day and get out into the woods or get out into the desert or walk along the seashore and rejuvenate yourself so you reconnect what's most important. And I think the third quick tip is build human connections again. I see families in restaurants and everyone's on their phones. You never get those moments back with the people that you love and you're actually creating addiction in your own children if you're modeling that behavior so I would say, third quick tip, do a family meal each day and do it without technology and talk and listen to your loved ones and honor them and be present to them. That's a very powerful way to build not only the love your family feels for you but the love you feel for your family and yourself.
Kristina: 20:06 Love that. Absolutely, some great tips there. Thank you so much for sharing. I wanted to talk about another passion that I have and I know that we share together is the daily journaling. I really believe so strongly the power of putting pen to paper, writing down your feelings and dreams consistently and that is a big part of my new book Your Dream Life Starts Here. But in your opinion, how important is journaling, to you personally, and what impact- because you mentioned before that that was life changing for you when you started journaling. So I'd love to hear first, how that has been part of your life, and maybe some tips on how you do it because I always love when your- I think you had an Instagram Live the other day about journaling and I- when we did coaching together I always loved hearing how you did journaling because it's super inspiring so I'd love you to share that.
Robin: 20:56 Well, it's one of my favorite topics. I've been journaling for close to 30 year and there's actually deconstruction in the 5 AM Club on journaling. So that would be the starting point, if I was to do it for you right now I'd simply say here's why I journal. Number one, to record gratitude. We know from the positive psychologists that the happiest people on the planet, they don't practice gratitude once a year on January 1st, they engage in what they call delivery gratitude. So almost every day, I download my previous day and I write my wins. Because the brain has a negativity bias, it'll focus on what didn't work yesterday versus- you could have a hundred great wins yesterday, and your brain is designed to focus on the threats. So I write gratitude each day, I write about them. Last night I had a wonderful meal with a close friend. So I write about the food we ate, I write about what I learned from him. He's into biohacking and he's a true- he's an industrialist. What I learn about business, what I learn about his love for his family. So I record gratitude.
Robin: 22:07 Number two, writing in a journal allows you to relive your best experiences. You not only get to live them once, just imagine that. So that time in Paris or that time in Rome or that time with your best friend, you get to relive it as many times as you want. Number three, I write in a journal to process through pain. The way I look at pain, Kristina, is pain and adversity is not negative. Pain is a great purifier. I mean, we get intimate with our best selves and our greatest wisdom when we go into suffering. If you look at Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., the greatest humanitarians of the world became great because they suffered more than the average person. So writing in a journal allows me to build intimacy with my suffering, Rumi said it really well, he said "Keep breaking your heart over and over until it opens" and writing in a journal is a great way to do that and if you don't have an outlet for your pain or your anger when you're going through difficult times, then you're gonna swallow them and repress them and you're gonna go through the world and you could end up with disease but also you're gonna be very toxic and contract with the other people around you.
Robin: 23:24 What else? I mean the quick fourth thing I would say about journaling is, let's talk about epigenetics if you're interested. Epigenetics is simply, as you know, we have our genome and we express our genome through our behavior and who we are, but there's an emerging science of epigenetics, which simply means "above your geno", and research is showing that we're not actually prisoners to our genetic sequels, we can actually upregulate. Here's a powerful- human beings are what science is showing. We can actually upregulate or downgrade the expression of our genes, does that make sense?
Kristina: 24:07 Absolutely.
Robin: 24:07 And so, by something as simple as writing as who you wanna be in your journal, writing about tomorrow and what you want it to be, writing about this new year and what you wanna materialize and what you wanna produce and where you wanna travel and you literally start to influence the expression of your genes. You can affect your level of aging, you can affect your energy, you can affect your performance and a great tool is writing in your journal about who you want to be and the life you want to create.
Kristina: 24:39 Thank you so much for sharing so much greatness in there and, obviously, Kikki.K had a lot of journals and we had a lot of people who loved journaling so that was really great, thank you so much. I know you believe in surrounding yourself with people who lift you up, successful people, motivated people, positive people, and leaders. Can you talk a little bit about how important you think this is in creating a life that you love?
Robin: 25:02 There's a model that has been really transformational for my clients and it's called Joy is a GPS and it's a model which even my own life has been revolutionary. And I've shared it in The 5 AM Club. What I'd simply say is, the heart is wiser than the head and part of the Joy is a GPS model is, be around the people who bring you joy. One of the biggest reasons people in the world don't do their dreams, they don't build great businesses or great fortunes or have great health or find great love or live great lives is because they hear podcasts like this or they read a book that moves them and then they go home and share it with their best friend or their significant other and they get laughed at and a lot of people have toxic people in their life. In the book I call them "energy thieves" and "drain stealers" and so what I'm trying to suggest to you is one of the things that will completely change the lives of all of your listeners is this one move.
Robin: 26:15 Do a list. Who are the people in your life who are- futile your joy? And keep those people in your life and find more of them. And here's another dangerous move, do a list of the people who actually are bringing you down. This also is relevant to social media. Ask yourself, "Who are the people that I'm following that I'm allowing into my life that are actually bringing down my joy?" And start to remove those toxic people from your life. The people we're following on social media or the people we're hanging around with who are making us feel bad that we share something that we believe in and they laugh or they minimize us, those people are really blocking our greatness. They're reducing our joy and those are people who break our confidence and when you start to remove those toxic people from your life, you literally free up your primal geniuses. Really powerful. The model in the book is called Joy is a GPS.
Kristina: 27:16 Yep, love it. It's just fantastic, thank you so much. So you've been coaching CEO's, billionaires, global leaders, and change makers around the world, helping them reach their greater self, I would love to know who is someone who has really changed your life or really inspired you over the years?
Robin: 27:34 I would say my children, first come to mind. They just ground me. To them I'm just "dad". They are full of love and they're just so peaceful and they're kind and I just adore my children and I learn from them every day. I'd say secondly, my parents. I've got wonderful parents, very influential to me. Who else has been... I mean I think Steve Wozniak, who was at the Titan Summit in Zurak a few years ago and here is one of the most successful people on the planet, we all know the co-founder of Apple, and yet he was one of the most present, humble people I've ever met and, you know, big heart. Those are the- I appreciate all the titans that I get to work with but I also appreciate people with great hearts.
Robin: 28:26 So those would be a few of the people who have really inspired me, and then I would say all of my readers from around the world, I mean, these are everyday heroes. These are people who are saying, "I'm embracing the 5 AM Club and it's transforming me." I just want to say, like I said in the beginning, there's a lot of ideas in the book that are really destructive. And, Kristina, you have a choice when you read a book that pushes you. You can shoot the messenger or you can embrace the message. And so, it doesn't have to be The 5 AM Club or any of my books. You read any book, whether it's a book of philosophy, a great autobiography, a book on positive psychology, a book on how to become a more loving human being, you have a choice. You can embrace the new message and experience a death of your old self in favor of becoming your next level of self, or you can shoot the messenger and stay small. And so I would say, my readers inspire me because these are people, so-called ordinary people, who are embracing ideas and becoming better human beings and that's a very brave act a world a lot of people are just watching bikini pictures and speedo pictures on the social media all day.
Kristina: 29:45 Thank you so much, and I also think one of the people that I often think about when I think about who inspired you, I think Nelson Mandela comes in there as well, because obviously that's also part of the book.
Robin: 29:56 Well, as you know, the last chapter is set it South Africa, it's a surprise ending so I'll simply just say that. In a few years ago, my life changed when I stood in Nelson Mandela's prison cell on Robin Island. You know? I stood in his prison cell and there was simply a blanket that was there and a desk, there wasn't even a bed. And I learned about his story that he generally was like "I was a fellow ANC prisoner," and I asked him , I was like "What was Nelson Mandela like?" He was like, "I served in prison with him for 8 years," and he said "That man was humble, sir." And we live in world where there's a lack of pure leaders. The Nelson Mandelas and the Rosa Parks, the JFKs, the Martin Luther King Jr.s, and I could just go on and on so yeah, Nelson Mandela is one of the great- I'm glad you brought him up because he's one of the great heroes of my life because here's a man who was much more interested in the freedom of his people than in the eco pursuits that a lot of the people on the planet right now are pursuing and our world would be a dramatic, but better, place if we were all... do our inner work.
Robin: 31:17 There's a line I express a lot, and it's "Why wait for the heroes that you seek when you have it in you to become one of them." And we all can say, "Well I wish there were better leaders on the planet," well, Mother Theresa said, "If we would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean." And so if we would say, "Today I'm gonna start working on my mindset, my heartset, my healthset, and soulset and take that one hour," that's what The 5 AM Club is all about from 5:00 to 6:00. In the serenity and tranquility of the early morning, go within ourselves and start working on ourselves. And don't do it just for a week, do it for the rest of your life. We would make our world a better place. We not only do better in our business lives and financial lives and health lives, we do our part in the construction of the better world and that's what heroism's all about. And Nelson Mandela was one of the best out there.
Kristina: 32:17 Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. So, often I'm asked by people, "How can I live a balanced life?" And you are someone who seems to be doing so much all the time, you travel all the time, and you do so much great work, but yet appear very grounded and calm. What is your answer to people who ask you how to live a grounded and a balanced life?
Robin: 32:37 Well, you said something at the beginning of the podcast, Kristina, that was very honest, you said you get up at 5 AM most days or a lot of days but you're not perfect. And guess what? Say it with me. I am not perfect either. So I once took a flight from some place in South Africa and the pilot let me fly for a little bit of the flight. And what I noticed is the plane was consistently off course, but he taught me, bring the plane back on the course when the currents pushed it every few minutes. Does that make sense?
Kristina: 33:13 Absolutely.
Robin: 33:14 And I think that's the world we live in right now, I mean through everyone's days, we're being pulled off course and we just need to bring the plane back on course and I'm just saying there's- balance isn't, to me, the greatest or- it's what we're looking for to get some sense of harmony. So what do I do? Well the first one is what I suggested. I take an hour early in the morning and I work on myself. I exercise, I write in a journal, I pray, I meditate, I visualize, I do different things every day for at least an hour and that is my daily anchor. If you want me to get specific, I'd say meditation has really helped me stay calm and center, I pray, which to me, helps me stay very focused on what the mission is about. I'm very careful about who I allow into my life. Like I mentioned, I want people who are inspirational and curious and ethical and supportive and I don't want people who are toxic.
Robin: 34:14 To be very tactical, my weekly design system, I have a very calibrated process on Sunday mornings and I build up what I call my blueprint for a beautiful week. Simply, 7 days on a written schedule because I like the tactical feel of a big piece of paper. I write down everything from the massage protocol that I teach in the book to the 5 AMs to my family meals, to my business meetings, and that all goes onto a schedule and that is a game changer, to literally ensure your life is balanced because you've got your massages on a weekly schedule, you've got your workouts, you've got your business meetings, you've got your personal time on there because if you don't have a written schedule, then you go out in the world and you are like a leaf in the autumn wind letting yourself drift through the hours of your day and your life is too important to allow that to happen.
Kristina: 35:11 Love that. Thank you so much for sharing, that's so much value for our listeners. I hope everyone will take lots of notes in their journals. So, a big, crazy dream of mine is to inspire 101 million people around the world to write down three carefully considered dreams on paper and start chasing them, and it struck me a couple years ago that how many people that I meet that actually do not take their time to actually write down their dreams. What three dreams would you write down if you knew anything was possible and you couldn't possibly fail to achieve them?
Robin: 35:42 Wow, I have a lot of dreams. Number one I would say, I have a foundation and I am very interested in reducing childhood poverty in the world and I'm also very interested in doing my part to fight leprosy. This comes from my father and the conversation we had a while ago and when he was a young doctor in Africa, he encountered a leprosy. He encountered people who were suffering from leprosy. A little while ago he said, "Robin, you have a large platform so anything you can do to reduce this in the world would be really good because it's just a terrible affliction." I don't know if you've seen lepers and you've seen how they're put into these colonies but it's a very difficult disease, so my first dream would be doing my part to significantly fight leprosy as well as child poverty on the planet. Secondly, a dream... it's simple, I just want to make sure my family is encouraged and supported and have the best lives they could possibly lead and I'd say the third dream would be to have a significant impact on the planet for as many people as I possibly can and that's why I'm so incredibly passionate about The 5 AM Club, I spent four years of hard labor on this book.
Robin: 37:11 I worked on it with my heart and my soul to get every single line as best as it could possibly be and the reason why I mentioned the book is I really believe it is a tool for any human being who wants to go out there and do amazing work and reclaim their primal genius and to remember who they truly are and live a beautiful life, so I wanna get that book out and into the hands to as many people as possible so they remember the awe and wonder and gifts and talents in humanity that lurks within their hearts. We live in an interesting world right now, Kristina, a lot of people have been brainwashed into thinking they have to be ordinary, a lot of people are confused, a lot of people are addicted to technology, a lot of people are busy being busy, a lot of people are spending their best days in fear and struggling and this is not a platitude it doesn't have to be this way but we're taught history and geometry and geography, we're not taught the daily rituals of the happiest people. We're not taught the mindsets of the billionaires and the prosperous people. We're not taught how the greatest creative people with great women and men of the world did it. We're not taught those things. And that's what I tried to put into the book so that anyone, for whatever, you know?
Robin: 38:32 In India, it's 250 rupees. You can read the book and understand how to do it. And then, it's not a magic pill, you have to apply it and live it every day over and over, but you don't become a great mother or father or great chef or a great athlete getting into the gym once for a week and then hope you're gonna be world champion. World class is a process and it's not an event, so that would be my third dream.
Kristina: 38:59 Such inspiring dreams, thank you so much for sharing, and I think your last dream is already happening, you just need to reach more people. You're doing such an amazing job inspiring people around the world so thank you so much for sharing. If you could give one piece of advice to the next generation to help them live their dream life, what would you say?
Robin: 39:16 I would say, first of all, be yourself. We live in a world right now, especially with the influence of social media, where there are a lot of people who are thinking in a certain way and dressing in a certain way, living in a certain way, talking in a certain way because the influencers they follow are doing that. Oscar Wilde said a beautiful, Kristina, he said, "Be yourself, everyone else is taken." And there's no point in being successful according to the metrics of the world. Having a jet, having millions of followers online, having the right handbags or watches or shoes or ferraris, and then betraying yourself in the process. I saw a post on Instagram last night, you've probably seen that. It was Jim Carrey and he said something to the effect of, "I wish everyone could be rich and famous so they could realize that's not gonna bring you peace."
Robin: 40:10 There's a line in the book that I say, "Nothing is worth the loss of your inner peace." And here, it's like a pretty direct point, I say with a lot of love and respect to all your listeners, money and fame and fortune and all these things society says are the roots to happiness, I never found they brought me more happiness. They can bring a lot more complexity and they can bring some pleasure, but if you were to ask me... Tolstoy said it so beautifully, he said, "A small house", I'm gonna paraphrase it if I may, "A small house in the country looks neighbors who are good and who appreciate me doing good for them, and you, my love, that is the meaning of happiness.
Kristina: 41:06 Love that.
Robin: 41:08 And so I would say to your young listeners, do some serious thinking about how you wanna live out your life and what success means to you and then live under those metrics versus following the herd, which often leads- it's like the Lennon's right? You follow the crowd and they lead you off the edge of a cliff.
Kristina: 41:32 Love that. Thank you so much for sharing. Some really really great tips for our young listeners there, and the older ones as well. I'd love to finish up by asking you a few quick questions that I know our listeners would love to hear. Are there any other rituals that you haven't mentioned that our listeners can take on to live their dream life?
Robin: 41:52 Absolutely. Like I mentioned, there's a chapter with ten- I call it The 10 Rituals of Daily Genius, and I would just say work... to your listeners, work on those... work on The 5 AM Club method and then work on the other remaining ten. I'll pick two of them, one will be the 60 minute student, do not go to sleep unless you've studied for at least 60 minutes each day. And not to turn anyone off of the word studying but most happy people, most successful people, they see themselves as students, so 60 minutes, at least, everyday listening to a podcast or reading a book or writing in a journal or watching a TED Talk, or having a conversation with someone that you could learn from. That is just like, minimum viable entry point to getting your life to the next level.
Robin: 42:44 Second ritual I would say, the second written workout. If you believe exercise is important, we know all the science on it, then why would you only do it once a day? So the second wind workouts simply means, later in your day when most people feel quite tired and they might crave sugary foods or carbs and reach for the TV because maybe their blood sugar is lower, go for a workout. It could be a yoga class, it could be a swim, it could be a mountain bike ride, and I personally, as I've hinted at, I just adore walking. I just almost every day I get into the forest and I go for an hour walk. And I breathe and I reconnect and I think and I process and it's just... it makes me so much more present for my family in the evening, I sleep better, I have fresh air, and it just goes on and on.
Kristina: 43:39 Love it, thank you so much, there's so many amazing rituals to be inspired by, so thank you for sharing. Another question I have, and I don't know if you can answer this because you're obviously in another country where we don't have a store, but you have a Kikki.K favorite product?
Robin: 43:53 You gave me once, you were very generous and you gave me the bucket list and the bucket list journal, I think it is. I don't know if that's the correct term.
Kristina: 43:59 Yep, yep.
Robin: 44:03 I just love that concept because a lot of us don't really think about how we wanna live until it's too late to change how we're living and so I think that's a really smart journal to really say, "At the end of my life, what will I have wished I would have done for me to feel it was a great life?"
Kristina: 44:21 Great, thanks for sharing, I love that one too. I know you are a big reader, obviously you shared so many of your favorite books to me over the years but I'd love to know, is there one favorite book, and if yes, what is that one and why?
Robin: 44:36 Well that's like asking me do I have a favorite one of my children.
Kristina: 44:39 I can so relate to that.
Robin: 44:39 I mean, my home has piles of old school books everywhere. I just adore books and I've tried the devices and I adore audiobooks but I still, I always go back to hard cover or soft cover books I just- look, over the holidays, Kristina, I started reading some of the classics again, I read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and that is just an incredible book. I reread Animal Farm by George Orwell, what a book. I've ordered two more... oh, 1984, that's George Orwell's other book, and I've ordered Brave New World and Lord of the Flies. So I'm getting back into the classics, I'd also recommend Spark, which is the book I've recommended it to you, which is all about exercise, so those would be some of the books that I've loved. I can go on... Man Search For Meaning, As You Think by James Allen, it just goes on and on, it's just great books.
Kristina: 45:52 Yep, fantastic, thank you. There's some really great ones in there and a few that I haven't read, so thank you for that. So the one last question for you. If you could go back to your younger self, say when you were in your late teens, what advice would you give yourself knowing what you know now?
Robin: 46:07 I wouldn't give my younger self any advice because I believe everything that's happened to me... look, I've been at the top of the mountain and I've been at the valley of incredible terror and darkness and it's fun on the mountain top but what has made me the artist I am, the father I am, the human being I am, and I'm not saying I'm so great, but what has made me is everything I've experienced. Every person, every experience, every... it's all shaped me into who I am right now. I wouldn't change it and I think if you wanna get a little philosophical, we all do have a path and I believe things do happen for a reason and I believe everything that happens to us is designed to help us evolve into who we're meant to me, so I wouldn't change anything.
Kristina: 46:59 Fantastic, beautiful way of finishing our conversation, because I remember when we did coaching together that you said once, I don't know if you said it this way, but you said "Never waste a great crisis." I don't know if you said it that way but it kind of really stuck with me because we are obviously all evolving as part of everything that we are experiencing, the good and the bad so that is perfect way of ending. So thank you so so much, I am incredibly grateful, not only just for this podcast, but for all the amazing inspiration and wisdom that you have put out to me and to the world.
Kristina: 47:39 I have spent I don't know how many hours walking in the forest listening to you and it's been so so inspiration to me to where I am today and I am incredibly grateful for the quote that you gave in my first book, Your Dream Life Starts Here and also, I'm super grateful for the Titan Summit that you put up every year, I absolutely love it and I encourage everyone to go if they are able to and I'm also going to encourage everyone that I know, and I already gifted quite a lot of people your 5 AM Club book and I'm incredibly grateful that you wrote it and I'm hoping that so many people will be inspired by it so thank you so much, first for taking your time and also for everything that you're doing to the world, so thanks Robin.
Robin: 48:26 You're very generous, Kristina, I'd say it's been a pleasure, I think you're a very special person and I applaud you for all the people you're influencing and I hope this podcast episode helps a lot of people and I'd also say, for anyone who wants to get the book, it's available online or in most bookstores or they can go to the5amclub.com and it's important to know the book comes with a free 66 day online coaching program to help them install the habit, the details are at the end of the book, and also a portion of my proceeds go to my children's foundation to help children with leprosy. So when you invest in a book you're also gonna be doing good, not only for yourself, but for other people.
Kristina: 49:11 That's beautiful. Thank you so much and I wish you the best year ahead and I'm excited to see you at the Titan Summit at the end of the year.
Robin: 49:17 Thanks, Kristina.
Kristina: 49:18 Thank you so much
Kristina: 49:21 Wow, what an inspiring chat that was. I am so inspired. Such amazing advice on how we can all make positive changes to help us live our dream life. I could honestly speak to Robin for hours and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I took so many notes and I hope you did too. One of the most important lessons I took from our chat was how by implementing simple daily practices into our lives and scheduling our time, we can open up a world of growth, tap into our greatest strength, and reconnect with our true selves. I really encourage you to get a copy of The 5 AM Club. I think you're gonna love it as much as I do. I am such a huge believer in scheduling time for yourself and your dreams, which is why my book, Your Dream Life Starts Here, is full of essential and simple steps you can start today to help you on your journey of uncovering and chasing your dreams, whatever they may be. If you haven't got a copy yet, I encourage you to do so and also grab a copy of the Dream Life journal I have created to go with it.
Kristina: 50:28 Another great place to start is to check out my 101 Dreams Audio Guide at kikki-k.com/dreamlife. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe for plenty more inspiration and please tell us what you thought by leaving us a review. I'm really enjoying reading all your reviews and feedback. I am so grateful for all your comments, so please keep them coming. I would really appreciate your support with my big, crazy dream to inspire 101 million people to write down three dreams on paper and go and chase them. So please help us spread this inspiring message to even more people by sharing our podcast on social media with the hashtag 101milliondreamers. Until next time, don't forget to dream big and chase your dreams.
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