36 Random Insights On Exceptionalism -Robin Sharma

1. Average people are dedicated to leisure. The best people are devoted to learning.

2. The ordinary wait for the energy to do a task. The exceptional do the task because that’s how they get the energy.

3. A job is just a job if all you see it as is a job. (Work is a vehicle to promote Full Self Expression of Your Creativity+Ingenuity+Talent).

4. The most precious asset of a businessperson isn’t time. It’s energy. Manage yours well.

5. Love your family. What’s the point of getting to uber-Success yet arriving alone?

6. From a participant at my recent Lead Without a Title event in Doha, Qatar: “The true measure of the greatness of a person is the length their shadow casts on the future.” Love it! Genius.

7. Manners matter.

8. If you’re in business, you’re in show business. And every day’s a performance.

9. “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” Oscar Wilde.

10. To double your income, triple your rate of learning. The best invest in their professional and personal development.

11. The primary purpose of business is the delivery of as much unusual value to as many people as possible.

12. Use music to boost your motivation.

13. Be ethical like Buffett. Rock the house like Bono. Innovate like Edison. Serve like Mandela.

14. You dishonor yourself when you play small with your talent.

15. Ideation without execution leads to delusion. What makes Google Google is not the idea behind Google but the culture of execution that is Google.

16. Don’t work at world-class for the money or the ovations. Do it for the pride you feel on a job brilliantly done.

17. Keep a journal.

18. Spend time in solitude. The only person you’ll be with your whole life is you. Why not get to know-and like-yourself?

19. Watch “The Fighter”.

20. Work hard. Industry stands at the foundation of Mastery.

21. Remember that the quality of your practice determines the caliber of the performance.

22. Speak your truth-even when your voice shakes.

23. Leaders leave a trail of leaders behind them. If you’re not developing the best in others, you’re not leading.

24. You know you’re doing genius-level work when people start to dislike you.

25. Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to Mastery.

26. Develop your friendships. Respect your elders.

27. Make time to have fun. Life is short-enjoy the ride.

28. The bigger your dream, the more important your team.

29. If you have average people, you’ll have an average company. To have a great company, hire and coach great people.

30. Remember that your doubts are nothing more than the lies your fears have sold you.

31. Leadership is simple. It’s not easy. But it’s really really simple.

32. Leadership’s mostly about 3 things: Impact+Influence+Inspiration.

33. If you’re not inspiring those around you, you’re not Leading. You’re following.

34. Think for yourself.

35. “Potential unexpressed turns to pain.” From “The Leader Who Had No Title“.

36. Take brave risks. At your End, it’ll be the risks you didn’t take versus the ones you did that most fill you with regret.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

One of the most anti-evolutionary books ever written is not about intelligent design but a seagull named Jonathan Livingston.

It’s the story of a passionate young gull who rejects the notion that at the end of the day, flying is merely a means to get food. Instead, he believes the craft is an end in itself which should be perfected — and the hell with food.

Predictably, a time comes when his mother observes he’s become just a bag of “bones and feathers”. That doesn’t stop him, however, from making increasingly dangerous forays all day in the sky and over water attempting stunts that only other good flyers like eagles and albatrosses are meant to do and dare to pull off. But sure enough, soon he’s doing the same, too. For various reasons thereafter including, mainly, his failure to conform to the rules of the flock, he gets banished.

In exile, he continues honing his aerial skills until the day comes when he meets up with two highly evolved seagulls who explain to him that though he’s learned much, they are there now to teach him more and, ultimately, with them he transcends into a society where all the gulls enjoy flying.

Nevertheless, that’s not the end of the story because along the way, he also learns that it’s not about flying but forgiving and that he must now go back and become a teacher to the same flock that had cast him out. The idea that the strong can achieve more by leaving the weak behind is totally rejected. Because in real life, the survival of the fittest also depends on the weakest.

One of the most profound and beautiful books that I have read, so many times.