"Kindness is like a seed; the more you scatter, the more it grows."
~ Unknown
24 Top Lessons of 2024
The 24 TOP Lessons 2024 Taught Me - Robin Sharma |
1. Every human being has a deep human hunger to be seen, heard and celebrated, no matter how cool and hard they pretend to be. 2. We were all artists before the world trained us to be adults.
3. Having too many amazing opportunities can be just as dangerous as having zero opportunities. Both can lead to mediocrity, if one's not careful. 4. 4am is the new 5am. Period. Try it. (Oh, and the key to 4am is to sleep at 9pm; try it for a few weeks. It's beautiful). 5. To become the MVP (Most Valuable Player) of your game, market and life practice MVP (Meditation, Visualization and Prayer) every morning. The titans and moguls I mentored over 2024 found this tool ever so powerful. 6. The more people you help the happier you'll feel. Service to others is a gift you give yourself.
7. Being around world-class art in museums and galleries causes a little of the magic of the masters to rub off on you (and all you do). 8. Sleep is not a luxury. It's a necessity (and a secret weapon for elite productivity). 9. Having even one new friend playing above your pay grade and performance level can transform your life. So always be seeking to surround yourself with outright legends. 10. Getting up super early makes me super happy. It's not a chore. It's a blessing that I grant to my days. 11. Country music makes my life richer and painting in the evening helps me breathe. 12. As your parents get older it's important to call them even more often and hug them even harder.
13. The bigger the dream the more essential the team.
14. Money is the marketplace's reward for magic rendered. 15. As you become more successful become even more careful about losing your success. Protect your good name by doing good things, only push mastery into your field and leave everyone you meet better than you found them.
16. The discomfort of growth is always less difficult than the heartbreak of regret.
17. A joyful heart, fit body and a happy home is true winning. 18. Getting the best business partners possible is mission-essential to making your mighty mission real. Find ones that keep their promises, contribute deep value and execute like a SWAT team. 19. Whether you're up or down, KMF: Keep Moving Forward. One foot after another foot after another foot. A few years ago Taylor Swift was the most hated person on the internet. This year, she became one of the most popular and enjoyed a tour that grossed over one billion dollars.
20. If there's a book you love (I loved The Stranger in the Woods this year, for example) buy 10 copies. Bring one to a friend at lunch and a new associate at dinner. Be a gift-giver. It'll wow the receiver and increase your own self-respect. 21. Prayer really really really works. Pray for your family, for your team, for your customers and suppliers, for your neighbors, for your heart's desires to manifest and for the unfolding of a brighter world.
22. A book is more valuable than a phone. 23. Writing about your death each morning helps a human live to the point. And not postpone the things that must be done. 24. That being of use to as many people as possible is the main purpose of life. I wish you and your family a truly brilliant 2025. Thank you for your faith in my work. I am grateful. Love + respect, |
Robin Sharma Humanitarian + Leadership Missionary |
Historical accident
What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.
-George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)
Duty and Crime
Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.
-John Morley, statesman and writer (1838-1923)
Change POV
Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view.
-Paul Klee, painter (1879-1940)
different ways
Men are divided in opinion as to the facts. And even granting the facts, they explain them in different ways.
-Edwin Abbott Abbott, schoolmaster and theologian (1838-1926)
...questionable acts
Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power.
-Chelsea Manning, activist and whistleblower (b. 17 Dec 1987)
...excited by their questions
I read once, which I loved so much, that this great physicist who won a Nobel Prize said that every day when he got home, his dad asked him not what he learned in school but his dad said, "Did you ask any great questions today?" And I always thought, what a beautiful way to educate kids that we're excited by their questions, not by our answers and whether they can repeat our answers.
-Diane Sawyer, journalist (b. Dec 22, 1945)
...other way
If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.
-Juan Ramon Jimenez, poet, Nobel Prize in literature (1881-1958)
...not of atoms
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
-Muriel Rukeyser, poet and activist (1913-1980)
Clever & Wise
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
-Naguib Mahfouz, writer, Nobel laureate (1911-2006)
...emergency
"Faith" is a fine invention /
For gentlemen who see -- /
But microscopes are prudent /
In an emergency.
-Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)
World and mankind
Our country is the world -- our countrymen are all mankind.
-William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, journalist, and suffragist (1805-1879)
Unfinished..
Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.
-Christina Rossetti, poet (1830-1894)
-Christina Rossetti, poet (1830-1894)
...one of them
The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them.
-Turkish proverb
unexercised & unbreathed
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue,
unexercised and unbreathed,
that never sallies out and sees her adversary,
but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for,
not without dust and heat.
unexercised and unbreathed,
that never sallies out and sees her adversary,
but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for,
not without dust and heat.
-John Milton, poet (1608-1674)
...appealing to logic
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
-Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)
you deserve peace
"Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace."
~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie
good excuse...
If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.
-Woody Allen, author, actor, and filmmaker (b. 1 Dec 1935)
Time is Life
|
Man = wickedness
A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
-Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857-1924)
suspended moment
There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you'd been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you're suspended knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.
-Ann Patchett, writer (b. 2 Dec 1963)
...when the victory is won
If I can do no more, let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won.
-Louisa May Alcott, writer and reformist (1832-1888)
imaginary with real...
Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.
-Marianne Moore, poet (1887-1972)
can you hire ?
One cannot hire a hand; the whole man always comes with it.
-Peter Drucker, management consultant, professor, and writer (1909-2005)
outstanding people
If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don't particularly like.
-Soichiro Honda, industrialist (1906-1991)
stay human when...
We haven't yet learned how to stay human when assembled in masses.
-Lewis Thomas, physician and author (1913-1993)
individual...
My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
-George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)
..enemy of the rest
It is lamentable that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
rising every time....
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
~ Nelson Mandela
Brothers are...
Brothers don't necessarily have to say anything to each other -- they can sit in a room and be together and just be completely comfortable with each other.
-Leonardo DiCaprio, actor and director (b. 11 Nov 1974)
Mark of greatness
It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.
-Johan Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, poet and dramatist (1759-1805)
seeds of kindness
Do you wish the world were happy?
Then remember day by day,
Just to scatter seeds of kindness
As you pass along the way.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (1850-1919)
Then remember day by day,
Just to scatter seeds of kindness
As you pass along the way.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (1850-1919)
...if people start
A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking.
-Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)
...all hang
"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
~ Benjamin Franklin
Foreign affairs
This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim.
- James Reston, journalist (1909-1995)
..about taking care
Leadership is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in your charge. |
| -Simon Sinek |
Most of the questions...
Think about it—aren't you asking and answering questions pretty much all day long?
- Do I like my job?
- When is this due?
- Who should I vote for?
- What should I do today?
- Should I ask for a raise?
- Does this make me look fat?
- What should I have for lunch?
- Should I start my presentation this way, or that way?
...who does not fancy
The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.
-Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, poet and critic (1636-1711)
Lazy man's way...
Fatalism is the lazy man's way of accepting the inevitable.
-Natalie Clifford Barney, poet, playwright, and novelist (1876-1972)
lash of wit
He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
-James Boswell, biographer and lawyer (1740-1795)
Meaning and Purpose
"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."
~ Pablo Picasso
...exists only in imagination
Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.
-Thomas Babington Macaulay, author and statesman (1800-1859)
Are you proud of...?
Would the boy you were be proud of the man you are?
-Laurence J. Peter, educator and author (1919-1990)
power of forgiveness
What power has love but forgiveness?
-William Carlos Williams, poet (1883-1963)
...polite and listen to
You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end -- much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you.
-Brenda Ueland, writer (1891-1985)
..God's Gift
"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."
~ Desmond Tutu
...which way
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
-O. Henry, short-story writer (1862-1910)
...true test of
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
-Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
Pinnacle of success
You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.
-Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)
Mask - and truth
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
...rarely err if
One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.
-Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
...right regrets
Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.
-Arthur Miller, playwright and essayist (1915-2005)
...anonymous
All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to be noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It's a positive thing. You can move about unnoticed and invisible.
-Doris Lessing, novelist, poet, playwright, Nobel laureate (1919-2013)
get and then enjoy
There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
-Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (1865-1946)
Roots in all directions...
A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. |
| - Amelia Earhart |
...any human being can
To be nobody but myself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
-E.E. Cummings, poet (1894-1962)
who see greatness in you
"Surround yourself with those who see greatness in you, even when you don't see it in yourself."
~ Casey Neistat
refuse to follow bad...
Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?
-Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat, author, and lecturer (1884-1962)
...need to wait?
They'll tell you you're too loud, that you need to wait your turn and ask the right people for permission. Do it anyway.
-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US Congress member (b. Oct 13, 1989)
Stand out of light
When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: "Only stand out of my light." Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.
-John W. Gardner, author and educator (1912-2002)
...NO COUNTRIES
Imagine there's no Countries,
It isn't hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion, too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.
It isn't hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion, too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.
-John Lennon, musician (1940-1980)
small cast BiG
When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.
-Lin Yutang, writer and translator (1895-1976)
...the tyrant
It's said that "power corrupts", but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.
-David Brin, scientist and science fiction author (b. 6 Oct 1950)
7 Blunders...
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence:
- wealth without work
- pleasure without conscience
- knowledge without character
- commerce without morality
- science without humanity
- worship without sacrifice
- politics without principle.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Serves the best
He serves his party best who serves the country best.
-Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th US president (1822-1893)
Memories Vs. Dreams
We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.
-Jeremy Irons, actor (b. 19 Sep 1948)
..fugitives
In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away.
-T.S. Eliot, poet (1888-1965)
make life easier
Customers don't care about features. They care about how your product will make their life easier or solve their pain points.
- Rajiv Talreja
- Rajiv Talreja
...of the mind
No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.
-Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)
do something....
"It is impossible to produce superior performance unless you do something very different"
- John Templeton
3 things... lack of others
A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
-William Faulkner, novelist (1897-1962)
..learn to tap
There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age.
-Sophia Loren, actor and singer (b. 20 Sep 1934)
..corrupted and weakened by
Very few established institutions, governments, and constitutions ... are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.
-Walter Lippmann, journalist (1889-1974)
something never done...
"Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before."
- Shigeo Shingo
...used to do
"A spaghetti chart is a map that shows the tangled and inefficient paths that are used to do a job."
- Mike Rother
...not to give
To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.
-Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, writer (1830-1916)
No greatness...
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
-Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
The Toyota Style...
The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says, "there is no limit to people's creativity." People don't go to Toyota to 'work' they go there to 'think'.
- Taiichi Ohno
..next generation
If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of the next election, it might be better for the United States and the world.
-Claude Pepper, senator and representative (1900-1989)
...burn none at all
The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none at all.
-Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, dramatist, and Nobel laureate (1862-1949)
No yesterdays...
When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
-William Least Heat-Moon, travel writer (b. 27 Aug 1939)
Poem was a whisper...
For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
-Rita Dove, poet (b. 28 Aug 1952)
Foundation and markers
"Trust is the foundation of everything, milestones are just markers along the way"
...about answering
"Anyone can be a leader; in their home, business, community. It's about answering the call."
- Tony Robbins
Rightness of a thing
The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.
-Mary Renault, novelist (1905-1983)
Something to take & give
A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something to give in return.
-Sarah Orne Jewett, poet and novelist (1849-1909)
...cause for prejudice
If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed, and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon.
-George D. Aiken, US senator (1892-1984)
Greatest Asset & Resource
"Your greatest asset is your earning ability. Your greatest resource is your time."
- Brian Tracy, Canadian American Author & Speaker
...best in others
The Supreme Ethical Rule: Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.
-Felix Adler, professor, lecturer, and reformer (1851-1933)
untidy undertakings..
The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.
-John Galsworthy, author, Nobel laureate (1867-1933)
...never buy anything from
Read to children. Vote. And never buy anything from a man who's selling fear.
-Mary Doria Russell, science-fiction writer (b. 19 Aug 1950)
out of the disorder
"This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art."
- James Baldwin
- James Baldwin
...do something to help
"When you are out observing on the gemba, do something to help them. If you do, people will come to expect that you can help them and will look forward to seeing you again on the gemba."
- Taiichi Ohno
- Taiichi Ohno
self-made man??
There is no such thing as a "self-made" man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts.
-George Matthew Adams, newspaper columnist (23 Aug 1878-1962)
mood of a society
One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underprivileged.
-Richard Hofstadter, historian (1916-1970)
...light their candles
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.
-Margaret Fuller, author (1810-1850)
Standards..
"Where there is no standard, there can be no improvement. For these reasons, standards are the basis for both maintenance and improvement"
- Masaaki Imai
often wounded...
The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.
-Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)
mean something...
Every student needs someone who says, simply, "You mean something. You count."
-Tony Kushner, playwright (b. 16 Jul 1956)
I love this perpetually
I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
-James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)
Old and Young
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
-George McGovern, senator, author, professor, and WWII pilot (1922-2012)
Progress Vs. Satisfaction
"Progress cannot be generated when we are satisfied with existing situations."
-Taiichi Ohno
Without reason...
Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.
-James Randi, magician and scientific skeptic (1928-2020)
becomes partner...
If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
-Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel laureate (1918-2013)
Control & improvement
"Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can't measure something, you can't understand it. If you can't understand it, you can't control it. If you can't control it, you can't improve it."
- H. James Harrington
...determination of a kid
Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor.
-Cory Doctorow, author and journalist (b. 17 Jul 1971)
Human Rights Problem
When I am asked, "What, in your view, is the worst human rights problem in the world today?" I reply: "Absolute poverty." This is not the answer most journalists expect. It is neither sexy nor legalistic. But it is true.
-Mary Robinson, 7th President of Ireland (b. 21 May 1944)
make miserable....
So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable.
-Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
avoid conforming
I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.
-Marcel Duchamp, artist (1887-1968)
unseen battles
Kind words, kind looks, kind acts, and warm hand-shakes, -- these are means of grace when men in trouble are fighting their unseen battles.
-John Hall, pastor (1829-1898)
Up and Down...
Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.
-Wendell Berry, farmer and author (b. 5 Aug 1934)
...worth what I paid??
It's like, at the end, there's this surprise quiz:
Am I proud of me?
I gave my life to become the person I am right now.
Was it worth what I paid?
-Richard Bach, writer (b. 23 Jun 1936)
Qualities of true friendship
"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood."
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca
...pure in heart!
The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
-Iris Murdoch, writer (1919-1999)
grow in the open air...
Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
-Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)
wrong & right
Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.
-Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)
-Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)
started a science
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science.
-Hal Clement, science fiction author (1922-2003)
...right to
The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there?
-Roger Ebert, film critic (1942-2013)
underlying the...
The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.
-Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet (1840-1928)
an equal eye...
The well taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.
-Anna Laetitia Barbauld, poet, essayist, and editor (1743-1825)
most dangerous waste
"The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize."
- Shigeo Shingo
- Shigeo Shingo
...early warning
History is a vast early warning system.
-Norman Cousins, editor and author (1915-1990)
The test of democracy..
The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.
-Helen Adams Keller, lecturer and author (1880-1968)
greater than kindness?
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
-Jean Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (1712-1778)
know unmistakably...
I wanted to live my life so that people would know unmistakably that I am alive, so that when I finally die people will know the difference for sure between my living and my death.
-June Jordan, writer, teacher, and activist (1936-2002)
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