Robin Sharma: ON How To Release Your Toxic Beliefs & Getting Back To Your Higher Nature (Part 2)

Reference Podcast: ON PURPOSE with Jay Shetty; Episode 97, 13-January-2020

I am happy to present the Part 2 of my blog, wherein I reflect on the balance part of the conversation between Jay and Robin, in which Robin takes the listeners to further depths, as if he is speaking to the soul and invocating the natural human nature!

It’s very interesting to observe that as Robin is moving to further depths of discussion, Jay is a bit hesitant because he’s unsure if with this discussion he can maintain the balance between the interest of his two types of audience, those who are looking for a short-term gain from the podcast and those who are looking at some long-term learning. At this juncture, Robin says something very powerful which touched my heart and I ended up making it my WhatsApp profile statement “Trust your Instinct because it’s always wiser than your Intellect.” He further suggests to Jay that ‘let’s go deep and let’s challenge & push your followers to the jagged edges because they are smart people.’ I felt happy when Jay completely agreed to Robin’s suggestion and recommended that they dive into the minds of a few people Robin had named in the beginning, which could act as a nice bridge over to the other side, the deeper side.

Robin starts with sharing how his own father has been an icon of possibility in his life. He mentioned that his father retired recently in his 80s after 54 years of working as a family physician and when Robin asked him “Dad why did you stay in the game so long,” he said because his patients needed him. Robin further adds that his dad is a man of service and he used to share a quote with Robin from Rabindranath Tagore ‘Robin when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced, son live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice.’ Robin further ruminates that ‘we are in a lost world in many ways, how he thinks it’s not about how many likes you get for your post / video, it’s not about yachts, it’s not about jets, and are those things wrong, absolutely not, we are central human beings having a journey. But Robin thinks it’s a different game that the true legends and titans play and it’s about enjoying the journey and more importantly, it’s about making an impact on humanity. There is not even one of us who cannot do that, irrespective of our age, gender, status, etc. We all have a calling on our lives to elevate the lives of those who around us.’

Robin shares that service has been very big to him. His life changed on two occasions. One, when he sat in Mother Teresa’s bedroom in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and found it very amusing that she had nothing but a bed and a table. She had reached that level of maturity in her life where her bliss and joy didn’t come from material possessions, but it came from love and service. Another time, when two years ago Robin stood in Nelson Mandela’s prison cell because Mandela was in the same cell for 18 years. Then he narrates a few touching incidents from Mandela’s life ‘about the limestone quarry where he chipped the limestone they didn’t even use just to degrade him, because he had no purpose, about the showers where he showered naked as an elderly statesman while the young guards laughed at him to torture him, and about where on Robben island once he was asked to dig a grave and get into it where he thought of course he was going to die and they urinated on him. And yet when he was freed from Robben island and went to another prison and then released, he actually found the prosecutor who fought for his death penalty and took him to dinner and he actually went to the jailer who had kept him in prison for 18 years on Robben island over a total of 27 years of confinement, and he seated him near the front at his inauguration as the President of South Africa and when he was asked why did he do that, he said because if he didn’t, he would still be in prison.’ Robin explains that why he mentions Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr, it’s because ‘while creative and material things are important, it’s our responsibility to materialise who we are on the inside.’ At this stage, Robin quotes Martin Luther King Jr “If you have not found something you die for, you are not fit to live.” Robin adds that “I would take a bullet for the fact that every single person on the planet, if they run the rituals he has described in his book ‘The 5 AM Club’, and they do the work, and they stay in the game just not when it’s easy but also when it’s hard, they are going to live gorgeous lives in their original way.” At this juncture, Robin adds something really powerful, “Why wait for these heroes, when we have one within us!”

Jay resonates with Robin and shares an incident from his life that when he was sharing his story about how when he decided to become a monk, it was because he wanted to be someone of service to humanity. One of the most beautiful pieces of wisdom Jay got at the time of being a monk was ‘Learn to plant trees under whose shade you don’t plan to sit.’ Jay explains that when he heard that for the first time, it was as if his whole being came alive. He realised that’s what life is all about, it’s about giving without wanting to get back, without receiving. After narrating this incident, Jay was asked by someone how old he was when he heard that and decided to start living it. Jay replied that he heard it when he was 18 and started living it at 18^1/4. The person who had asked Jay the question said that the first time he started thinking about someone else apart from himself was when he had a child at 32. What he meant by sharing this incident is that this whole concept of being an ambassador of serving humanity, giving, being someone of impact to the society, that’s so alien to most of the people. It’s not something that people come to even later in life because it generally stops at your own kids and family. Jay ruminates that how we can urge people in every stage of life to kind of go there, because it’s a huge paradigm shift for a lot of people.

Robin quotes Jim Cary, “I wish everyone could be rich and famous to realize there is no joy in that.” Robin further mentions that he has seen many rich and famous people and a lot of them are just really unhappy. They show their smiley face but deep inside they are thinking about how they can increase their billions, their jets and their residences. Robin quotes that “as an entrepreneur, there is no better way than standing for generosity if you want to own your domain.” Robin then reveals something phenomenal about Steve Jobs and Apple. He says that Steve Jobs wasn’t worried about the cash, he was worried about the craft. Someone who saw Steve Jobs 6 weeks before he died, who went into Steve Jobs’ den as he was dying, which was just before the release of the iPhone, and Steve said, “you know that little thing we are working on.” Robin says, ‘Steve had a monomaniacal obsession bordering on a possession to birth beauty into the world which will elevate the lives of his customers. That’s generosity, not scarcity.’ Robin says if you want real joy, it’s doesn’t come from getting. Then Robin shares personal experience of getting bliss during some parts of life, and bliss comes and goes, but bliss has never come to him from getting, it has always come from giving. Robin says that if you want real happiness, real joy, real bliss, you want to elevate your immune system (there is a lot of science behind this), just go out in the world and give as much value as you possibly can and radiate possibility and amazing things will unfold in your life.

Jay shares something very interesting at this stage. He says that for him that intention opens him up to exploring channeling like the ability to ‘feel like things are happening through him and not by him.’ That’s when he really feels the bliss. That time he recognizes that this is way beyond him. Robin jokes that when he said let’s go deep, Jay is not shy to do so! Robin then quotes scientific philosophy that ‘Planet earth is a tiny planet in the galaxy of trillion planets.’ At this stage, Robin mentions about his good friend Dr. Deepak Chopra, who had taken a session on Cosmology in one of Robin’s workshops. Robin said Dr. Chopra had mentioned that we are all part of an energy source which you can call as God, Nature or Life. Robin agrees with Jay that one’s intentions are creative, if we look at it from a cosmological point-of-view. It can also be looked at from an epigenetics point-of-view, epigenetics being the emerging field of science which says we are not only our genome by birth, our environment and also our daily rituals like getting-up early, our thoughts, what we eat, our peer group, etc., literally affects the up-regulation or down-regulation of our genome. That means by following these good practices we can literally re-calibrate who we will become out in the world. Robin then says that ‘we are awesomely powerful beings, but most of us have blocked our intimacy with our true power.’

Robin then emphasizes on building intimacy with mortality, which makes us truly realize what life is really about. It’s a great thing to do during your reflection time, in the second pocket of the 20:20:20 formula (please refer to Part 1 of my blog). Write in your journal, ‘in the last hour of your last day, what do you want to be said about yourself and have the discipline to architect your life so each day is a mountain-climb towards that Mount Everest.’

Jay and Robin then discuss deeper about pleasing vs service. Robin says that pleasing comes from fear and lack of standing in your true power. Robin then quotes Mahatma Gandhi that ‘he died with under ten possessions, that’s true power. He didn’t get his true power in the world by pleasing people, he got his power by intimacy with his highest nature, that’s true power.’ Pleasing comes from scarcity, fear, self-loathing and insecurity. ‘If they don’t like me then I’m not enough.’ All great men or women of the world stood alone, even if they were in ridiculed, before they were revered. You can change the world, or you can be liked by everyone, but you can’t get to do both. Service comes from the feeling that my vision is so strong to serve that even if they shoot me, I’m willing to take a bullet and continue at all costs. That’s a legend! The doorway to success is not outward, it’s inward. You can only take the world as far as you visited internally. Your self-identity determines your impact and your income. That’s where the real work is.

Robin shares a very different philosophy from what is generally suggested by majority. He says, if you have gone through a heartbreak, and if you are on your knees because you are falling apart, stay in it as long as possible rather than rushing out, because ‘difficulty is growth in wolf’s clothing. Great men and women became what they were because of their most difficult experiences. The greatest people on the planet have suffered the most. Suffering is awesome!’ (this remark reminded me of the famous Indian advertisement ‘Dard mein bhi kuch baat hai’). The ego runs from suffering because it’s the death of the ego. Pain, difficult times, failure, loss, etc., is purification and preparation for personal heroism. Use them to your advantage. Robin and Jay agree on spending way more time developing the self than they do on their craft, that’s what makes the craft better. If you want to go three steps forward, you need to go three steps deep. It cannot come the other way. ‘Anyone who is not living at absolute world-class is his / her own worst enemy.’ But because it’s so subconscious that if we haven’t done the deep inner work, we end-up blaming it almost always on others!

My personal take: It’s one of the best conversations I’ve listened to so far, as it covers various life’s philosophy on how to achieve true greatness by following certain best practices, it also challenges popular beliefs and finally it also shares some life-changing habits like getting-up early, which can become the keystone habit to enable all other ones, which have been talked-about in this podcast. I’m really glad that I’m getting a chance to share this analysis with you. Happy reading!