How to stay ultra inspired – Robin Sharma

How to Stay Ultra Inspired by Robin Sharma

This Mastery Session is all about How to Stay Ultra Inspired. You can’t be legendary if you have no energy. If you look at any iconic producer, one of the common traits they have, is massive levels of energy born of inspiration..

I want to drop into, I want to jam in this Mastery Session and just brainstorm a little with you on some of the best ideas I know of to stay inspired because you’re a craftsperson, you want to produce exponential results, you want to wow all witnesses, you want to really be the leader in your field and it all starts with being inspired. I used to be a Litigation Lawyer, I used to think the idea of inspiration was very soft. It was all about hard tactics, strategy, execution.

Yet, if you look at Elon Musk and you look at Nelson Mandela, you look at Jeff Bezos, you look at Pablo Picasso. You look at any game changer, legendary performer. What they did was because they were inspired. I mean, if you look at Elon Musk right now with SpaceX, that’s coming from inspiration. If you look at the work of Davinci, he was inspired. You look at Thomas Edison, inspiration.

If you look at a lot of these startups, these are women and men doing what they want to do because they are fueled by this intense purpose, but at the foundation of the purpose is inspiration. Inspiration is not sort of important. Inspiration is fundamentally important. I encourage you to protect your inspiration. I’m going to walk you through some of the best ways I know of, how to do that.

1 – The Power Of Circulation – Robin Sharma

I call it the power of circulation. There is great value in just getting out there.

My friend, Tom Peters, talked about it years ago. He called it “Managing By Walking Around” and he spoke of it in the context of within an organization, leave your office and just walk around. I see it as even larger, with all due respect to Tom Peters, who is a wonderful, wonderful guru. I just want to sort of, maybe the best way to say this, just take it into a different context, which is circulate around the world. I don’t always love traveling. I travel a lot, sometimes before a speaking tour. I ask myself, “Do I really want to get on this speaking tour?” Then I remind myself, “The power of circulation.” By getting on an airplane, I meet new people. By getting into a new city, I get provoked by new insights. By hearing new conversations, I get new levels of energy and so there is great power in circulating. I guess to be really tactical, what I’m encouraging you, if you want to be inspired, get out there.

I had a conversation just the other day with an Uber driver. He was telling me how he lived in Kiev and he became – he studied engineering. We talked about the culture in the Ukraine, but he explained why he’s now in this country. He explained his adversity story, how difficult it is. He said, “You know what? I want to be an engineer, but I’ve got a family to feed so I’m doing this as an Uber Driver. I don’t really love it, but you know, it’s how I make my living.”

We had this conversation where I got all of these different ideas that really were valuable to me. Conversations are very educating, but the point really is, insight number one, there’s great power in circulating. That’s when you have new conversations, that’s when you detect new insights. I mean, I get some of my best ideas just reading magazines in hotel rooms. They have nothing to do with leadership. They have nothing to do with productivity. They have nothing to do with high performance, but I love reading fashion magazines. One of my favorite magazines is Porter, it’s a relatively new fashion magazine. I was in Los Angeles the other day. I was reading the Rob Report. I was reading – It was sort of like a style guide to Los Angeles. Just learning the languaging of those creative people, the chefs and the fashion, models and the fashion designers, and the people who are creating these cool scenes, creates great ideas for me to bring to you. There’s great power in circulation.

2 – Nature – Robin Sharma

One of my favorite protocols is the daily nature walk. I love walking in the woods. I often listen to audio books in the woods. I call it, “Reading while walking.” Reading while walking, so I go to this place, it’s sort of my creative forest. There’s not a lot of people in there and I walk for one hour. I breathe in the air, I look at the lush scenery, I listen to a different audio book.

It’s almost like walking meditation as well. Sometimes I don’t listen to an audio book and I just walk and I touch the earth. It’s almost like I’m thanking the earth, connecting with the soil. Yes, I’m wearing shoes. I don’t want to get too esoteric here, but there’s a lot of really good research saying, “If you want to boost your immune system, you want to boost your happiness, you want to release serotonin and dopamine, you want to release the fear hormone called cortisol, walk in nature.”

When I walk, I connect with nature. Like I say, I know I’m not being very elegant in this Mastery Session, I’m just being real, but I listen to audio books and then other times I do a walking meditation, where I feel my feet on the soil. You know what I do other times? If there’s something I’m confused about, I sort of just talk it out. It’s like I’m talking out loud trying to work it out. If I’m in pain, I get the negative energy out of my system by just releasing it, by talking about it.

I also, and I know this sounds a little unorthodox, but I do like a walking blessing meditation. While I’m walking, I sort of challenge myself to come up with 50 things I’m grateful for. Again, I verbalize those because it’s only me and the squirrels in the woods. I say, “I’m grateful for my family. I’m grateful for my health. I’m grateful for work that feeds my soul. I’m grateful for the sunset I watched last night. I’m grateful for my team. I’m grateful for my business.

I’m grateful for the travels that I get to take. I’m grateful for the people that I’ve served.” Literally, while I’m walking I say out loud, “I am grateful for.” I hope it doesn’t sound strange for you because it’s an incredible protocol to install.

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3 – Nightly Sunset Ritual – Robin Sharma

What else? I get inspired by my nightly sunset ritual. I do it most nights, especially when the weather is good. What I do is, I sit inside and I watch the sunset. It sounds so obvious. You know, if the sunset only happened once every thousand years, you and the rest of humanity would be watching the sunset, but because it happens every night, we take it for granted. Positive psychologists call this mental psychological phenomenon “Hedonic Adaptation”, because the sunset happens a lot, our brains get used to it so we take it for granted.

Here’s another game changing insight. Our brains are hardwired for ingratitude. It served us well thousands of years ago. because we really had to be on our game and so we had to notice what was not good about our environment. Otherwise, the tiger would eat us. Now here we are, living in the modern age and we still have an implicit bias within our brains for negativity. What I’m suggesting to you is watch the sunset, because if you don’t, you will miss it. Personally, I would rather have a gorgeous sunset than all these nice things. I would rather have a conversation with my children over a 3 hour meal than all the money in the world. I would rather sit with my team and build a product that serves millions of people than have all the fame and fortune. I would rather go for a walk in the woods – or I love mountain biking. I would rather mountain bike and connect with nature and have a ride that opens my heart than all the worldly wins in the world. I’ve had a lot of those things.

I’ve had a lot of external success. I’ve experienced a lot of those toys. I’ve stayed at beautiful places. I’ve met the rich and the famous. Here’s what I’d like to offer to you on this Mastery Session about staying inspired. What inspires me are the most simple pleasures. The sunset ritual is just one of them. A few final things. If you want to be inspired:

4 – Connect With Your Loved Ones – Robin Sharma

When Robin Sharma’s father turned 75, he had an amazing family dinner. This is a man of great wisdom, who I adore and respect tremendously, along with my mother. When my dad turned 75 I said, “Dad, what is the single most important thing in life?” He looked at me, smiled, replied in one word. “Family.” If family is the most important thing as you get older and wiser, why not have the wisdom to make it the most important thing now? Those conversations with your family will inspire you.