Shadowing Practice: 4 Excellent Habits To Beat Distraction | Robin Sharma - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hi, it's Robin Sharma.
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This Mastery Session is all about four excellent habits to beat digital distraction.
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An addiction to distraction is the death of your creative production.
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There is research coming out now saying that the average person checks their phone 200 to 500 times every single day.
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As I share in my book, The 5am Club, your phone is costing you your fortune.
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If you look at the great geniuses of the world, the Shakespeare's and the Basquiat's and the Beethoven's, the great chefs and the great titans of industry and the great humanitarians,
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all great thinkers have one thing in common.
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They spent long periods of time away from diversions, distractions, trivial interruptions.
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So you can be like the majority,
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being busy, being busy, or you can be a history maker and a legendary producer and not being on your phone,
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not playing with technology every second, not being addicted to that white screen, you don't get to do both.
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So if you really want to multiply your creativity and if you really want to accelerate your productivity,
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this episode of the mastery sessions will be incredibly valuable for you.
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And I'm going to get right into the first habit that will help you beat digital distraction.
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And that's build your tight bubble of total focus.
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So there's a relatively new term coming out right now called digital dementia.
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Digital dementia.
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We are spending so much time in front of our screens
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that we are waking up with this full well of cognitive bandwidth.
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In other words, our gifts and our glory in terms of our brain's capacity, we wake up and we're ready to go.
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And then what happens is in terms of digital dementia, we check our phone, we check our email, we check for likes, we watch a video, we play with an app.
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And every single piece of attention that we give to one of those distractions is stealing your cognitive bandwidth.
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This is really important and you wake up full of cognitive potential, full of the ability to be creative and productive.
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And every single time you check your screen, some of your cognitive bandwidth, that's the term that the researchers and neuroscientists use,
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is left on the screen.
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Another term is called attention residue.
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You leave a residue of your attention on the screen.
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And then you turn on the news, more of your attention is left on the news.
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And then you check for email more if that attention residue is left on the email.
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And then you'll find it's 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock in the morning and you can't focus and your creativity is depleted.
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Well, it's not because you can't bring on your fire to dominate your domain.
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It's because you haven't managed yourself like the pros do. And
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so the first excellent habit to beat digital distraction is installing this metaphorical tight bubble of total focus around yourself
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so that you don't let distractions in.
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Just imagine you have this bubble.
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It's like a five-foot bubble around you.
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It's a porous bubble.
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So creative things, inspirational things,
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high vibration, joyful, excellent, amazing people get in.
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The right spaces get in.
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And anything that is toxic, anything that is a trivial distraction, which is generally because you have an addiction to it,
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we'll talk about that later in this episode, doesn't get in.
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And so really, it's very valuable to get lost.
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Most people are available to everyone.
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The phone rings and they pick it up and they answer it.
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Well, if you do that, you're letting someone else's priorities run your day versus you running your day by your priorities.
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Tight bubble of total focus could also mean that you set up your ecosystem and your environments so that there's no distraction.
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Tight bubble of total focus could mean
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that you spend long periods of your day alone working on those one or two projects that are your Sistine Chapel ceilings.
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feelings.
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Okay, so set up a tight bubble of total focus
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so you literally stop letting so much distraction and so many things that fragment your attention into your workday,
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into your creative orbit, which will allow you to get into a state, and I walk you through it in my book, The 5 AM Club.
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There's a whole model.
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It explains how every human being can operate at a genius every day.
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But long story short, transient hypofrontality is the neurobiological phenomenon that allows you to,
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if you set yourself up to get away from distraction, you leave your phone and technology maybe in another room,
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and you simply sit or work on the project that will allow you to change the game in your marketplace,
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your prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of thinking and criticism and ruminating,
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and the monkey mind actually shuts off for a short period of time.
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That's the transient part of transient hypofrontality.
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And when that happens, you actually set up a pharmacy of mastery.
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Dopamine, the inspirational neurotransmitter, is released.
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Serotonin, the pleasure neurochemical, is released.
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Your brain waves actually shift from beta and they slow down, they go to alpha and maybe down even to theta, maybe even down to delta.
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And you actually get to a deeper place of thinking where genius lies.
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You have that within your brain.
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But if you live in a world of scattered attention, if you're busy being busy, you're never going to allow the phenomenon that your brain already has,
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transient hypofrontality, to kick in.
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Okay?
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So really take the time to think through how you can
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set up your tight bubble of total focus where you spend at least two or three hours a day away from distraction,
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diversion, that will set up that digital dementia that I talked about.
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The second excellent habit that will allow you to beat digital distraction, I call them no phone conversations.
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Well, as I travel across the planet, I go into restaurants, I see entire family sitting around a table.
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No one is talking.
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Everyone is on their phones or on their tablets.
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I was in a European country recently and I saw a husband
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and wife sitting at a table with a probably a five-year-old child.
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The five-year-old child had these noise-canceling huge massive earphones that were bigger than his own head and I'm joking,
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but huge earphones to block out the noise.
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And a tablet had been set up in front of him
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and he was playing with video games and he didn't say a word to his parents.
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And over the two hour meal while I was at the restaurant with my loved ones, having deep conversations of laughter and sharing and,
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you know, I'm not judging, I'm just reporting the parents didn't say a word to their child.
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I see so many times in business meetings, someone in the middle of a meeting,
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they will pull out their phone and start checking their social media feed or start checking emails.
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And what I suggest, this is just my opinion, but that's disrespectful.
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The greatest gift you can give your child or your spouse
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or your client or your coworker is the gift of the fullness of your attention.
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When you focus your presence and your energy and your attention on another human being,
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you make that person bigger.
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You validate that person.
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One of the greatest gifts you can give another human being is the gift of pristine listening.
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And if you're checking your phone, well, then again, you're taking your attention and you're leaving attention residue on your phone,
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which means you have less attention for the conversation and
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if you have less attention for the conversation then you're not really listening to
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that person and if you're not really listening to
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that person the deep place within them knows it
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and they're gonna trust you less and you're gonna miss data
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that would allow you to serve your client or build the teammate
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or dominate your domain so no phone conversations professionally and personally just turn Turn off your phone,
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turn off your device before the meeting, and go all old school and have a real conversation.
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The best leaders are curious.
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You don't get that if you're worried about your incoming digital messages.
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Which brings me to the third of the four excellent habits to beat digital distraction.
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Construct your own Menlo Park.
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So I'm a big fan of Thomas Edison.
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He's one of the greatest, if not arguably the greatest inventor in the history of humanity.
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I mean, over a thousand patents to his name came up with amazing, amazing things.
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How did he do it?
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Isolation.
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You can be out in the world.
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You can be a history maker and a productive legend.
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You don't get to do both.
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One thing all great geniuses do is they spend a lot of time in solitude.
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Solitude has a bad reputation in our society right now.
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We think if we're not with the cool crowd, if we're not checking our devices, if we're not posting selfies or other images, we are losing out.
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We have all these fears.
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And here's what really happens.
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As you start to play with your phone, as you start to get hooked on likes,
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as you start to spend most of your best hours of your greatest days,
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posting, checking, playing with apps, getting hooked, you actually become addicted.
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We all know about technological addiction.
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And it's literally a dopamine.
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Dopamine, as I mentioned earlier in this mastery session, is the inspirational neurotransmitter.
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And every single time you check for a like, there's a shot of dopamine.
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And it becomes this addiction.
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Every single time you check for a life, the hook grows stronger.
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Every single time you pick up your phone, you build the neural pathway to check it even more often.
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Every single time you see that if someone's liking you and is your following growing,
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you tap into that reward system that every human brain has.
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Because when we were tribal, thousands of years ago on the Savannah, we wanted to be liked by the people in our tribe.
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We wanted to follow the herd.
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And if we weren't being followed by the herd, we would stray from the herd and get eaten by saber-toothed tigers.
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We would starve, or we would be captured by warring tribes.
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And now here it is in modern society, but we still have that neurobiological instinct.
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It's a part of who we are to check for likes so we fit into the crowd.
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Well, the true nature of a leader is you're not a follower.
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And so you absolutely have to do the inner work required to break that hook of being liked.
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I mean, that's what leadership is all about.
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That's what being a great artist is all about.
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That's what dominating your domain is all about.
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That's what changing the world is all about.
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It's about saying, here's who I am.
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I have my own mission, my own vision, and I'm going to break free from the crowd.
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So back to this point about Edison.
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Edison had constructed his studio, like every artist has a studio, and he called it Menlo Park.
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And this was his laboratory, his lab, at the top of this hill where he and his small team would go to, and they would spend weeks there.
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They would actually spend week after week alone.
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There were no distractions.
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No one was allowed up there.
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They had no diversions.
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Sometimes they would work around the clock, and guess what?
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Because they had isolated themselves, because they had found this ecosystem, this environment that was inspirational and isolated,
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their brains could go into the state of transient hypofrontality, which you have, that you have that capability.
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It's part of every human brain.
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and they could access the deeper insight that do not get to you when you're thinking all day long.
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In the 5am club, there's a powerful brain tattoo that says your instinct is more valuable than even your intellect.
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The great apps, the great businesses, the great pieces of art,
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the great symphonies, the great movements that have transformed humanity did not come from the neocortex and thinking, thinking, being reasonable.
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The great pieces of progress that have shaped our civilization came from that deeper place beyond the neocortex, which is the seed of human genius,
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when people followed their instinct.
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George Bernard Shaw said, the reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
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The unreasonable one persists in adapting the world to himself.
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Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
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If you are stuck in your reason, your neocortex, then you're just repeating what the world says is possible.
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I want you to be a possibilitarian, and I want you to start playing around what the world says is impossible.
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And that comes by finding your Menlo Park.
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That could be a spare bedroom in your apartment.
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It could be working in a library for two hours a week.
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It could be renting another apartment in your city where you go just to get away from the world.
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And then you have these glass walls that you write on.
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It could be traveling more.
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There is emerging science coming out that says there is a huge link between traveling and amplified creativity.
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I've written my best books.
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I've done my best videos.
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I've got my best frameworks, my best insights when I'm out on the road.
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And I go into a hotel room and I order flowers.
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I go to a local flower shop and I bring in flowers because flowers are one of the secrets of advanced minds.
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Because as you put more beauty in your Menlo Park, you feel more inspired.
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When you get away from the intellect and you get more into your instinct.
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And in your hotel room, one thing I do is I bring dry erase markers
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and I start doing models and goals and insights all over the windows.
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And I literally make those hotel rooms in beautiful cities.
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It could be Prague.
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It could be Milan.
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It could be Tokyo.
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It could be Perth, Australia.
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It could be, you know, Agra, India.
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It could be New York City or Los Angeles and you're here in this hotel room, which is your Menlo Park, and you're spending a day there alone,
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and you get your phone on do not disturb, and you maybe don't eat for a few hours,
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and you allow your natural capability of your brain to offer you these insights
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that you then take and go out there and use to really lead your field and change the world.
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Well, that brings me to the fourth excellent habit to beat digital distraction, which is join the 5 a.m club.
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You know, as you begin your morning, you're going to set up your day for focus.
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Your morning routine is so fundamentally important to the quality of your attention
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and the character of your performance that you get to live through that day.
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You know, a lot of people, they wake up.
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I was in a hotel recently in Los Angeles, and I saw people on the treadmills, which is fantastic.
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Again, not judging, just reporting.
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And they were walking on the treadmills, but they were watching the news.
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I see a lot of people early in the morning, they're drinking their coffee, and they're scanning their email.
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A lot of people, the first thing they do in the morning, they check their social media feeds.
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Well, you can do what the majority does, or you can change the world and be legendary.
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You don't get to do both.
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You know, one of my favorite brain tattoos that I've been sharing for so many years is
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to have the results only 5% of the planet has, you've got to be willing to do what 95% of the population is unwilling to do.
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And the single best thing I encourage you to do is make a commitment right here and right now
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to spend the next 66 days.
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That's the research of University College of London.
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They say it takes 66 days to install a new habit.
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Spend the next 66 days installing the habit of joining the 5AM Club.
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As you know, I've been evangelizing and passionate about the 5AM Club for over two decades.
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And that concept has helped my billionaire clients and my sports superstar clients
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and members of royalty that I've mentored for so many years joining the 5AM club and then running the 20-20-20 formula
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that I'll walk you through in my book, The 5AM Club, that is the mother of all habits.
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Getting up early and running the 20-20-20 formula that I'll walk you through in my book, The 5 AM Club.
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That is the mother of all habits.
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Getting up early and running the 20-20-20 formula during your victory hour from five to six o'clock
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so that by six o'clock you have optimized your neurobiology,
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you've optimized your emotionality so you're full of gratitude and you've purified your heart set and you're feeling happy
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and you've processed through pain and then working through your health set so you have all of this vitality.
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And remember that fourth interior empire that I teach in the book, escalating your soul set so you have turned down the voice of your ego
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and connected with your higher nature and your true wisdom and that inner warrior inside every one of us.
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Well, that 5 a.m club process really is one are the single best ways to beat digital distraction.
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Why?
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Because you're anchored in your strength.
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Why?
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Because getting up before the sun rises is where the great saints and the true warriors play.
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The Spartans say, the Spartan warriors, sweat more in training, bleed less in war.
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I mean, victories are won before you even step on the battlefield of the day.
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And that's the power of rising before the sun and working on yourself.
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You know, meditating, exercising, reading, praying, thinking about your values in a journal,
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even scripting your blueprint for a beautiful day.
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The habit researchers call it a pre-commitment strategy.
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Pre-committing in your journal to living by these values,
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following these few priorities, getting away from checking your distractions and technology,
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well, doing that during your victory hour from five to six
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obviously is going to give you so much power to say no to the unimportant
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so that you can say yes to those few things that are most important during the day ahead.
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So I hope this mastery session has helped you a lot.
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I've given my heart and soul in this one, so I hope you feel how much I care and I really want to help you.
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Here's what I would encourage you to do.
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If you have found this mastery session valuable,
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please share it with three people as quickly as possible and then start the conversation with them about everything that you learned.
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Number two, if you would like me to mentor you and you want to go 100x deeper
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into this kind of material that I've shared on, whether it's neuroscience or the philosophy of greatness, if you really want to multiply and accelerate your productivity,
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if you really want to bring your fire and your primitive and primal heroism to the world, and you're tired of playing small,
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and you're tired of limiting yourself, well then I would love to work with you if you're that kind of person, and there is information below on my monthly mentoring program.
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It's absolutely world class.
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It's called Circle of Legends, And if you feel you want to work at Legendary
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and live that heroic life that I truly believe you're destined to live, check out the information below in Circle of Legends, and I'd love to be of service to you in the program.
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Finally, if you haven't read my book, The 5 a.m.
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Club, I spent four years of hard labor working on The 5 a.m.
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Club, and essentially it's 333 pages of me distilling the best ideas I've learned over two decades working with billionaires
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and companies like Starbucks, General Electric,
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Nike, Microsoft, IBM, and organizations like NASA and Young Presidents Association.
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And so read The 5AM Club.
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I promise you it will be a tool for transformation and a manifesto for absolute mastery.
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To find the book, you can find it online or just go over to the5amclub.com.
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And I'm really excited to share that after you finish the book, at the end of the book, there is a free, and I want to emphasize free,
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because I really want to help you lock in the 5 a.m club habit.
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It is the mother of all habits.
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You get your morning right, your days will be right, your days are world-class, you'll have world-class weeks, quarters, and years.
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The single best move you can make is to join the 5 a.m club, run the 20-20-20 formula that I walk you through in the book,
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because as you begin your day, so you handcraft your life.
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And I'm excited to share at the end of the book,
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you will find details for a free 66-day online program where after you finish the book for 66 days,
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which is the period of time required to install a new habit, I will literally mentor you through morning mastery meditations
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and videos at no charge for 66 days until you reach the point that researchers call automaticity,
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where it actually becomes easier to get up at 5 a.m than not to get up at 5 a.m.
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Final thing I want to share with you, a portion of my royalties on every copy of the 5 a.m.
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Club sold goes to fight leprosy on the planet.
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It's a violent affliction.
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I am all in to help fight leprosy as much as I humanly can.
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So when you invest in a copy of the 5 a.m.
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Club, you not only invest in your growth and transformation, you invest in helping a child with leprosy live a better life, okay?
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So thank you so much, and I'll see you in the next Mastery Session, and be great.
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Hi, this is Robin Sharma.
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I hope you received great value from this Mastery Session.
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If you'd like to receive potent training videos, blog posts, learning tools, and information on my two live events,
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Personal Mastery Academy, and my flagship four-day experience, the Titan Summit, go ahead and visit robinsharma.com.
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What You'll Learn
This video helps you build two key speaking skills: first, clear articulation of complex ideas (like "cognitive bandwidth" or "digital dementia") with confidence, and second, natural pacing when explaining concepts—Robin Sharma balances pauses and emphasis to keep listeners engaged. You’ll also practice using persuasive language, which is perfect for sharing ideas in conversations or presentations.
Listen For These Sounds
Notice how connected speech makes phrases flow. For example, "wake up with this full well" links "with this" into "widhthis," and "left on the screen" reduces "on the" to "onthe." Also, listen for the soft "t" in "attention" (pronounced "uh-TEN-shun") and the stress on the second syllable of "dementia" ("de-MEN-sha"). These small sounds make your English sound more natural.
Say It Like a Native
To mirror Robin Sharma’s rhythm, focus on stress and pauses. He stresses key words like "addiction," "geniuses," and "focus"—repeat these with extra emphasis. Use the shadowing technique (repeat his words right after him) to copy his pace: slow down for important points ("You don’t get to do both") and speed up slightly for lists ("Shakespeare's, Basquiat's, Beethoven's"). This practice, called shadow speech, will help you improve English pronunciation and sound more fluent. Try it with short clips first, then longer sections—you’ll notice a difference in your confidence and clarity!
Learning English with videos like this is a fun way to practice real-world language. Keep shadowing, and soon you’ll speak with the same poise and power as the speaker!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been sharing · I've been evangelizing |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't managed · have transformed · have shaped |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being addicted · is left · is called |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | distraction, which is · orbit, which will · cortex, which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.