The 50 New Rules of Work

-Robin Sharma

1. You are not just paid to work. You are paid to be uncomfortable – and to pursue projects that scare you.
2. Take care of your relationships and the money will take care of itself.
3. Lead you first. You can’t help others reach for their highest potential until you’re in the process of reaching for yours.
4. To double your income, triple your rate of learning.
5. While victims condemn change, leaders grow inspired by change.
6. Small daily improvements over time create stunning results.
7. Surround yourself with people courageous enough to speak truthfully about what’s best for your organization and the customers you serve.
8. Don’t fall in love with your press releases.
9. Every moment in front of a customer is a moment of truth (to either show you live by the values you profess – or you don’t).
10. Copying what your competition is doing just leads to being second best.
11. Become obsessed with the user experience such that every touchpoint of doing business with you leaves people speechless. No, breathless.
12. If you’re in business, you’re in show business. The moment you get to work, you’re on stage. Give us the performance of your life.
13. Be a Master of Your Craft. And practice + practice + practice.
14. Get fit like Madonna.
15. Read magazines you don’t usually read. Talk to people who you don’t usually speak to. Go to places you don’t commonly visit. Disrupt your thinking so it stays fresh + hungry + brilliant.
16. Remember that what makes a great business – in part – are the seemingly insignificant details. Obsess over them.
17. Good enough just isn’t good enough.
18. Brilliant things happen when you go the extra mile for every single customer.
19. An addiction to distraction is the death of creative production. Enough said.
20. If you’re not failing regularly, you’re definitely not making much progress.
21. Lift your teammates up versus tear your teammates down. Anyone can be a critic. What takes guts is to see the best in people.
22. Remember that a critic is a dreamer gone scared.
23. Leadership’s no longer about position. Now, it’s about passion. And having an impact through the genius-level work that you do.
24. The bigger the dream, the more important the team.
25. If you’re not thinking for yourself, you’re following – not leading.
26. Work hard. But build an exceptional family life. What’s the point of reaching the mountaintop but getting there alone.
27. The job of the leader is to develop more leaders.
28. The antidote to deep change is daily learning. Investing in your professional and personal development is the smartest investment you can make. Period.
29. Smile. It makes a difference.
30. Say “please” and “thank you”. It makes a difference.
31. Shift from doing mindless toil to doing valuable work.
32. Remember that a job is only just a job if all you see it as is a job.
33. Don’t do your best work for the applause it generates but for the personal pride it delivers.
34. The only standard worth reaching for is BIW (Best in World).
35. In the new world of business, everyone works in Human Resources.
36. In the new world of business, everyone’s part of the leadership team.
37. Words can inspire. And words can destroy. Choose yours well.
38. You become your excuses.
39. You’ll get your game-changing ideas away from the office versus in the middle of work. Make time for solitude. Creativity needs the space to present itself.
40. The people who gossip about others when they are not around are the people who will gossip about you when you’re not around.
41. It could take you 30 years to build a great reputation and 30 seconds of bad judgment to lose it.
42. The client is always watching.
43. The way you do one thing defines the way you’ll do everything. Every act matters.
44. To be radically optimistic isn’t soft. It’s hard. Crankiness is easy.
45. People want to be inspired to pursue a vision. It’s your job to give it to them.
46. Every visionary was initially called crazy.
47. The purpose of work is to help people. The other rewards are inevitable by-products of this singular focus.
48. Remember that the things that get scheduled are the things that get done.
49. Keep promises and be impeccable with your word. People buy more than just your products and services. They invest in your credibility.
50. Lead Without a Title.

I encourage you to share + discuss + debate these with your team and throughout your organization. Within a quick period of time, you’ll see some fantastic results

The legend of the Phoenix

The legend of the Phoenix bird comes from ancient history.

It goes that this bird lives for a thousand years. At the end of this period, it starts to make a nest and then, when the thousand years are at its end, it sits down and goes up in flames. Out of the ashes a new phoenix appears to live for another thousand years.

Legend states that it can even change into a human being after 5 cycles.

For me it means that it is possible to renew one self in order to reinvent one self. We have to see the possibilities to rise from the ashes.

When the Phoenix rises from the ashes a new era starts.

My strong belief is that everybody can rise from their ashes and start all over again. We just have to see the possibilities. And the possibilities are there. They are already in all of us.

Each and everyone of us starts their life as a strong human being. We have an indefinite amount of inner strength. But in the course of our lives, life-events occur that break down, bit by bit, this inner strength.

We get uncertain, lose our selfconfidence. People try to thrust themselves upon us through intimidation and sometimes even through agression and violence.

Through the Phoenix example we can see, feel and know that we can be strong again, to see possibilities instead of boundaries.

The Phoenix teaches us to re invent ourselves, experiment and continue until we are supremely happy being what we are.

The Phoenix helps us learn that to fail is normal and expected and natural, but to let the failure stop us from heading towards our goals of being happy is an act of cowardice, inhuman and unacceptable for the supreme species that inhabits this earth.

The Law of Compensation

By: Brian Tracy

You Get What You Give
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay, "Compensation," wrote that each person is compensated in like manner for that which he or she has contributed. The Law of Compensation is another restatement of the Law of Sowing and Reaping. It says that you will always be compensated for your efforts and for your contribution, whatever it is, however much or however little.

Increase Your Value
This Law of Compensation also says that you can never be compensated in the long term for more than you put in. The income you earn today is your compensation for what you have done in the past. If you want to increase your compensation, you must increase the value of your contribution.

Fill Your Mind With Success
Your mental attitude, your feelings of happiness and satisfaction, are also the result of the things that you have put into your own mind. If you fill your own mind with thoughts, visions and ideas of success, happiness and optimism, you will be compensated by those positive experiences in your daily activities.

Do More Than You're Paid For
Another corollary of the Law of Sowing and Reaping is what is sometimes called the, "Law of Overcompensation." This law says that great success comes from those who always make it a habit to put in more than they take out. They do more than they are paid for. They are always looking for opportunities to exceed expectations. And because they are always overcompensating, they are always being over rewarded with the esteem of their employers and customers and with the financial rewards that go along with their personal success.

Provide the Causes, Enjoy The Effects
One of your main responsibilities in life is to align yourself and your activities with Law of Cause and Effect (and its corollaries), accepting that it is an inexorable law that always works, whether anyone is looking or not. Your job is to institute the causes that are consistent with the effects that you want to enjoy in your life. When you do, you will realize and enjoy the rewards you desire.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, remind yourself regularly that your rewards will always be in direct proportion to your service to others. How could you increase the value of your services to your customers today?

Second, look for ways to go the extra mile, to use the Law of Overcompensation in everything you do. This is the great secret of success

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.

How to Create a New You

The human body can be a source of the miraculous....

Yet you and I find ourselves with bodies that wear out, age, grow sick, and disappoint our highest aspirations for freedom and creativity. Clearly, the body needs to be reinvented...

I offer five breakthrough ideas that can completely alter how you see your body and what you do with it.

Breakthrough1 — Your Physical Body is an Illusion;

Breakthrough 2 — Your Real Body Is Energy;

Breakthrough 3 — Awareness Has magic;

Breakthrough 4 — You Can Improve Your Genes;

Breakthrough 5 — Time Isn't Your enemy.

Each of these breakthroughs overturns an outmoded belief that turns into a physical limitation. If you think of your body as a physical object, you will cooperate with aging, because what is aging but a physical object wearing out.

If you believe that time is your enemy, aging has gained another ally.

If you accept that your genes are fixed, they take away your freedom to change.

What these five breakthroughs have in common is this: you can change your body through consciousness, because despite its physical appearance, your body is the product of consciousness to begin with. There is no difference between a thought and a molecule in the brain. Each intention sends signals to every cell in the body, causing the cell to change. Therefore, the most natural way to achieve change is through the power of intention.

DEEPAK CHOPRA

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.

Very Inspiring!

STEPS TO ACHIEVING GOALS

Todd Schaefer

TAKING a step into the unknown always forces us to stretch ourselves a bit more, even if we are confident with our craft. When we decide to take something good and make it better, we sometimes hit that mental “ceiling,” or the point which we hadn’t gone past before. If we want growth, expansion, healing, or whatever — we need to just take the next small step. I’ve discovered the need for taking non-limiting steps with my writing in order to bring it to the next level for my development. In the passing of my limitations at this step, I’ve discovered that much discomfort has subsided and all that remains is a whole bunch of joyous steps that I can take in any direction with the publishing and writing process. My mind continually says, “Wow! I can do this and this or even this now!” Lots of possibilities unravel themselves when we choose to keep taking steps forward because we know we’ll feel better when we do...

So often, we wish for success or we see it in another, yet what we’re seeing is the desire for us to make it a reality for ourselves. We don’t do this because we haven’t yet taken the step for ourselves. Or we’ve taken some steps, but not all of the ones that we could. There is always some step that we can take in courage. This makes us feel good. Sometimes, we need a friend to help us see that we can take that step and that we are worthy of taking that step. This is different from convincing or fooling ourselves that we are taking a step. Do you see the difference? This could apply for anything: career, relationships, you name it. In the bottleneck, we make excuses.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

The Six Human Emotional Needs

Have you wondered why it seems so difficult to change our habitual behaviours? The reason is because our decisions and behaviours are driven by our emotions more than by our logic. Logically, we want to stop smoking or stop overeating, and yet, we still find ourselves repeating the pattern of behaviours. Why do we do this? It is because smoking and over eating meets our emotional needs.
At the same time, we all logically want to have a great relationship with our spouse or friends. And yet, we sometimes find ourselves getting into the same patterns of arguments and conflicts. Again, this is all caused by a mismatch of emotional needs between well-intentioned parties.
To change any kind of behaviour, you must first understand that as human beings, our decisions and actions are almost ALWAYS driven by the need to meet six human (emotional) needs. This is why we sometimes do things that don’t make any sense at all. We do it simply to meet these 6 human needs (by the way, this was developed by Anthony Robbins). So, what are these 6 human needs?
Human Need 1: CertaintyThe first human need is the need for CERTAINTY. We all need to feel a sense of security that things will be okay. Certainty gives us peace of mind and assurance.
Although we all have the need for CERTAINTY, we use different behavioural strategies to meet this need. For example, when you feel stressed, worried, unsure and uncertain, how do you meet your need for certainty?
Some people use destructive strategies like over-eating, smoking or drinking alcohol. Don’t some people do these things to relieve the stress of uncertainty and get into certainty? Others get certainty by controlling other people (becoming a control freak) or by losing their temper. In one episode of Oprah, she interviewed a woman who handled her stress of being sexually abused by creating a multiple personality disorder.
At the same time, there are useful strategies to get certainty. Some people pray/use religion to get that sense of certainty. Some people, adopt empowering beliefs like, ‘ I know I will get through this’ or ‘everything happens for a reason’ or they simply have faith in themselves. Others get certainty through exercise, meditation or confiding in a friend.
So, think about this? How DO you meet your need for certainty? Is it constructive or destructive to you?

Human Need 2: Uncertainty
Now, here is the big paradox! As human beings, we have a second emotional need that is in direct conflict with our first need. We all have a need for UNCERTAINTY!
Think about it. If you had absolute 100% certainty in your life where you knew exactly what was going to happen, when it was going to happen, how it happens, before it happens every single day, how will you feel? You will feel BORED TO DEATH. This is why there are multi millionaires who have all the money and all the possessions in the world, but are depressed! Their life is so certain that they have no more challenges or surprises. No more uncertainty!
This is also why a woman/man in a perfect marriage where everything is routine and predictable will eventually get so bored, that they will unconsciously start picking a fight, having an affair or leave the marriage. There is no more excitement and stimulation that we all need emotionally.
So, how do people meet the emotional need of uncertainty (i.e. challenge/surprise/variety) in their lives? Again, some people do destructive things like having an affair, starting arguments, picking up one-night stands, taking drugs, smoking when bored and drinking to get high (yup, smoking and drinking offer both certainty AND uncertainty).
Some of us do neutral stuff like watching a movie, playing sports, changing jobs, making new friends or partying. This gives us the stimulation and variety we all need.
Some constructive strategies would include taking on new challenges (e.g. going mountain climbing, traveling, starting a business, writing a book). So think about it, how do you meet your need for uncertainty?

Human Need 3: Significance
The third human emotional need is the need to feel significant/special/unique/important/needed. We all hunger for this need and again pursue it in different ways.
Some people feel significant by attaining qualifications (e.g. MBAs, PhDs etc..), achieving success, buying lots of toys (e.g. bigger house, bigger car, country club, Rolex watch etc…) or pursuing status symbols.
Others get significance by putting other people down, dressing in a unique way or tattooing every conceivable part of their body. Again, others feel significance by having children (and making sure they excel and do them proud) or flaunting their wealth. Some people get significance by being proud of certain identities they adopt like being a Christian, a Muslim, an Army Officer, a Vegetarian etc…
Many people have asked me why I continue to work so hard to write so many books, spend hours writing posts on my BLOG and speak at so many seminars when I clearly don’t really need the money anymore. The answer is that I am driven to all these things because it makes me feel significant (useful, special, needed) and provides me the uncertainty (challenge & variety) that I crave. It also, gives me the 4th human need, connection and love and the 6th human need, contribution.
Again, think about how YOU meet the need to feel significance?

Human Need 4: Love and Connection
The 4th human need is in direct conflict with the 3rd human need of SIGNIFICANCE. Think about this. If you felt TOTALLY significant where you were so unique, so special and so different from all the people around you. Would you be happy? No! You would feel disconnected from the people around you.
One of our strongest needs as humans in the need to be accepted, to be loved and connected to the people around us. Once we become so special and unique, we will start to find ourselves losing that connection to our peers. I can tell you that I feel that way sometimes myself. At times I find it difficult to really be myself, connect with people I meet because people keep expecting me to be this perfect guru, with all the answers.
Have you ever wondered why a superstar like Britney Spears with all the fame, money and talent in the world could end up screwing up her life by engaging in destructive behaviours like drink driving, drug taking that would lead to 2 divorces, losing custody of her children and ending up in a mental institution? My guess is that although she felt total significance, she felt unloved and disconnected from everyone around her.
She probably could not be herself, always having to put up a front and feeling that all the people around her were just using her. Her need for connection and love probably drove her to mix around with the wrong company (i.e. Paris Hilton) and engaging in destructive behaviours that would get her the love/connection and sympathy she was lacking.
We all need to feel love and connection and again get it through different means. Some people get connection by getting into a relationship, getting married, making love, joining clubs, playing with their children, having pets, prayer (connection to God) or hanging out with friends.
Sometimes, people even ‘try’ to get love and connection by self-abuse and falling sick (studies show 90% of all illnesses are psychosomatic). This gives them the sudden outpour of sympathy and love that they yearn for. How do you get love and connection in your life?

If Your Relationship is Not Happy, Here’s Why…
I have found after working with many couples that whenever a marriage breaks down, it is always because partners are not meeting each others emotional needs.
A man (or woman) often wants to leave the marriage either because he/she no longer feels significant, loved, certainty or uncertainty by his/her partner. What is a very very common scenario is that after a couple has a child, the man no longer feels the same level of significance anymore. It seems that his wife spends all the time with the kids, that he is no longer important. So what happens? He rather spend his time in the office where he feels more significant or find a girlfriend who makes him feel special again!
So, here is a point of reflection. How well are you meeting your partner’s emotional needs?

If Your Staff Are Leaving Your Company, Here’s Why…
As a boss of my own company and a person who trains other companies in bringing put the best in their employees, I have found that your staff will only be happy and motivated to give their best when they feel significant (they are praised often and recognized), certainty (sense of security of their future in the company), uncertainty (their jobs gives them variety and challenge) as well as connection (they love the people they work with and have a sense of belonging).
Similarly, people leave a company not only for monetary reasons. They leave when they feel a lack of security (certainty), lack of challenge (uncertainty), lack of connection (they hate the people) or a lack of significance (unappreciated).
Reflection: if you are a boss/team leader, are you meeting your staff’s/colleagues emotional needs to bring out the best in them?

If You Have An Addiction that You Cannot Change, Here’s Why…
Finally, I have found that if you have a negative behaviour that you find hard to change, it is only because it is being used to meet two or more of your emotional needs. For example, if you find yourself constantly losing your temper, it is because it gives you a sense of significance and certainty.
If you find it difficult to stop smoking, it is probably it meets your needs for certainty (relaxes and de-stresses you), uncertainty (smoke when you feel bored), connection (especially if you smoke with friends to ‘fit in’) and significance (makes you look ‘cool’). Often, when a behaviour meets more than 2 needs, it becomes an ADDICTION.
In my patterns of excellence programs, I show people how to break limiting patterns of behaviours by first finding an alternative way to meet their needs. If you do not find a new useful alternative behaviour to replace it, you will find yourself going back to the old habit/addiction.

The Last Two Human Needs: Growth and Contribution
You are probably wondering what the last two human emotional needs are. Understand that the first four needs MUST be met by us constantly. It is what drives our daily behaviours.
However, to be truly fulfilled and happy, we need to meet the last two needs of ‘growth’ and ‘contribution’. We need to constantly grow by learning more and challenging ourselves to become better. The moment we stop growing, we start dying emotionally.
Finally, we all need to contribute beyond ourselves, This is why people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett make all the money in the world only to give most of it away to charity. contribution is what gives us ultimate purpose and fulfillment in life.

The Lottery of Life- Would You Re-Draw?

- Adam Khoo
Lots of people I meet complain that they don’t have the luck to achieve the success and wealth that they want. “If only I was luckier, life would be alot easier and I would be alot happier”, they would say. Many people pray of the day they could draw that lucky ticket and win that million dollar lottery that would change their life.
What many people do not realize is that the fact that they are comfortably reading this BLOG means that they have been lucky enough to be one of the few winners of the biggest lottery of all….the lottery of life! They were lucky enough to draw the ‘right ticket’ and be born where they are.
Imagine that 24 hours before you were born, God gave you a bowl of 100 tickets. You had to draw one ticket that would determine your sex, country of birth, wealth, intelligence etc.. What would have been your chance to end up where you are now?
Let;s look at the odds. If you were to take the entire earth’s population and shrink it to 100 people (represented by 100 tickets), with all existing human ratios the same, it would be made up of the following:
49 would be female, 51 would be male80 would live in substandard housing. 20 in acceptable housing.67 would be unable to read. Only 33 would be literate1 would have a university education. 99 would not be able to attend university50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation33 would be without access to a safe water supply16 would have access to the Internet17 would live in a developed country. 83 live in underdeveloped/developing countries
If you were given the chance to turn back time and go back to 24 hours before you were born, would you choose to return your current ticket and re-draw a new ticket from the 100 again? If not, then consider how lucky you are!