Читать книгу The 5 AM Club - Робин Шарма - Страница 10

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“You’re a painter, right?” the homeless man asked as he toyed with a loose button on his shabby shirt.

“Yeah,” mumbled the artist. “Sort of a frustrated one. I’m good. But not great.”

“I have a lot of art at my flat in Zurich,” said the homeless man, smiling indulgently. “Bought a place right on the Bahnhofstrasse just before the prices skyrocketed. I’ve learned the importance of being around only the highest quality, wherever I go. That’s one of the best winning moves I’ve made to create the life I’ve crafted. In my businesses, I only allow in top players, because you can’t have an A-level company with C-level performers. We only release products that totally disrupt our market and then absolutely change the field by how valuable they are. My enterprises only offer services that ethically enrich our clients, deliver a breathtaking user experience and breed fanatical followers who couldn’t imagine doing business with anyone else. And in my personal life, it’s the same thing: I only eat the best food, though I don’t eat a lot of it. I only read the most original and thoughtful books, spend my time in the most light-filled and inspiring of spaces and visit the most enchanting of places. And when it comes to relationships, I only surround myself with human beings who fuel my joy, stoke my peace and excite me to become a better man. Life’s way too valuable to hang with people who don’t get you. Who you just don’t vibe with. Who have different values and lower standards than you do. Who have different Mindsets, Heartsets, Healthsets and Soulsets. It’s a little miracle how powerfully and profoundly our influences and environments shape our productivity as well as our impact.”

“Interesting,” noted the entrepreneur as she stared at her phone. “He does seem to know what he’s talking about,” she muttered softly to the artist, her eyes still down on the screen.

The spider’s web of wrinkles on her face relaxed further. On one wrist dangled two immaculate silver bracelets. One bore the phrase “Turn I cant’s into I cans,” while the other was engraved with “Done Is Better Than Perfect.” The entrepreneur had purchased these presents for herself when her company was in its startup phase and she’d been in a highly confident mood.

“I know about Mindsets,” said the artist. “Never heard of Heartsets, Healthsets and Soulsets, man.”

“You will,” suggested the homeless man. “And once you do, the way you create, produce and show up in your world will never be the same. Seriously revolutionary concepts for any empire-maker and world-builder. And so few businesspeople and other human beings on the planet currently know about them. If they did, every important element of their lives would increase rapidly. For now, I just wanted to keep jamming on my personal commitment to ultra-high quality, in everything around me. Your surroundings really do shape your perceptions, your inspirations and your implementations. Art feeds my soul. Great books battleproof my hope. Rich conversations magnify my creativity. Wonderful music uplifts my heart. Beautiful sights fortify my spirit. And all it takes is a single morning filled with positivity to deliver a monumental download of inventive ideas that elevate an entire generation, you know. And I need to say that uplifting humankind is the master sport of business that The Top 5% play. The real purpose of commerce is not only to make your personal fortune. The true reason to be in the game is to be helpful to society. My main focus in business is to serve. Money, power and prestige are just the inevitable by-products that have shown up for me along the way. An old and remarkable friend taught me this way of operating when I was a young man. It totally transformed the state of my prosperity and the magnitude of my private freedom. And this contrarian business philosophy has dominated my way of doing things ever since. Who knows, maybe I’ll introduce my mentor to you sometime.”

The vagrant paused. He studied his large watch. Next he closed his eyes and said these words: “Own your morning. Elevate your life.” As if by magic, a fairly small and quite thick piece of white paper appeared in the palm of his outstretched left hand. It was quite a trick. You would have been exceedingly impressed if you were standing there with these three souls.

Here’s what the image on the paper looked like:

Mae Besom

The entrepreneur and the artist both had their mouths open at this point, appearing to be both confused and mesmerized.

“You two each have a hero inside of you. You knew this as a child before adults told you to limit your powers, shackle your genius and betray the truths of your heart,” the homeless man told them, sounding a lot like The Spellbinder.

“Adults are deteriorated children,” he went on. “When you were much younger, you understood how to live. Staring at stars filled you with delight. Running in a park made you feel alive. And chasing butterflies flooded you with joy. Oh, how I adore butterflies. Then, as you grew up, you forgot how to be human. You forgot how to be bold and enthusiastic and loving and wildly alive. Your precious reservoirs of hope faded. Being ordinary became acceptable. The lamp of your creativity, your positivity and your intimacy with your greatness grew dim as you began to worry about fitting in, having more than others and being popular. Well, here’s what I say: participate not in the world of numbed-out grownups, with its scarcity, apathy and limitation. I’m inviting you to enter a secret reality known only to the true masters, great geniuses and genuine legends of history. And to discover primal powers within you that you never knew were there. You can create magic in your work and personal lives. I sure have. And I’m here to help you do so.”

Before the entrepreneur and the artist could utter even a word, the homeless man continued his discourse. “Oh, I was jamming on the importance of art. And the ecosystem that your life is built within. Makes me think of the awesome words of the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa: ‘Art frees us, through illusion, from the squalor of being. While feeling the wrongs and sufferings endured by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, we don’t feel our own, which are vile because they’re ours and vile because they’re vile.’ Also reminds me of what Vincent van Gogh said: ‘For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.’”

The homeless man swallowed hard. His eyes darted away. He cleared his throat nervously.

“Guys, I’ve been through a lot. Been knocked down and kicked around a ton by life. Been sick. Been attacked. Been abused. Been misused. Hey, I’m sounding like a country song. If my gal cheated on me and my dog died, I’d have a hit single.”

The homeless man laughed. An odd, guttural, circus clown on acid sort of laugh. He carried on. “Anyway, it’s all good. Pain is the doorway into deep. Know what I mean? And tragedy is nature’s great purifier. It burns away the fakeness, fear and arrogance that is of the ego. Returns us to our brilliance and genius, if you have the courage to go into that which wounds you. Suffering yields many rewards, including empathy, originality, relatability and authenticity. Jonas Salk said, ‘I have had dreams and I’ve had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams,’” the uninvited vagabond added wistfully.

“He’s super-weird. Incredibly eccentric. But there’s something special to him,” admitted the entrepreneur quietly to the artist, removing just a little more of the armor of cynicism that had protected her over her stellar career. “What he just said is exactly what I’ve needed to hear. I get that he looks like he lives in a cardboard box on the streets. But listen to his words. Sometimes he speaks like a poet. How could he be so articulate? Where did his depth come from? And who is this ‘old friend’ he says has taught him so much? He also has a warmth that reminds me of my dad. I still miss him. He was my confidant. My top supporter. And my best friend. I think of him every day.”

“Okay,” said the artist to the quirky stranger. “You asked me what I liked best from the talk. I def liked the part where The Spellbinder talked about the Spartan warrior credo that says, ‘one who sweats more in training bleeds less in war.’ And I liked his line ‘high victory is made in those early morning hours when no one’s watching and while everyone else is sleeping.’ His teachings on the value of a world-class morning routine were great.”

The entrepreneur glanced down at her device. “I’ve taken some good notes. But I didn’t pick up those gems,” she said as she captured what she had just heard.

“We only hear what we’re ready to hear,” observed the homeless man sagely. “All learning meets us exactly where we’re at. And as we grow greater, we understand better.”

The voice of The Spellbinder suddenly rang out. The homeless man’s eyes looked as huge as the Taj Mahal. One could see he was terrifically surprised to hear that famous tone. He spun around—seeking the source. Quickly, all became clear.

The artist was playing his illicit recording from the seminar.

“Here’s the part I liked most, to fully answer your question, brother,” he stated, staring directly into the eyes of the shabby tramp.

In a culture of cyber-zombies, addicted to distraction and afflicted with interruption, the wisest way to guarantee that you consistently produce mastery-level results in the most important areas of your professional and personal life is to install a world-class morning routine. Winning starts at your beginning. And your first hours are when heroes are made.

Wage a war against weakness and launch a campaign against fearfulness. You truly can get up early. And doing so is a necessity in your awesome pursuit toward legendary.

Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of your day will pretty much take care of itself. Own your morning. Elevate your life.

The Spellbinder could be heard wheezing like a novice swimmer who went too far, too fast. The artist continued presenting his recording, turning up the volume so the sound was blaring.

Here’s the precious little secret that the titans of industry, the standout performers of artistry and the ultra-achievers of humanity will never share with you: gargantuan results are much less about your inherited genetics and far more about your daily habits. And your morning ritual is by far the most essential one to calibrate. And then automate.

When we see the icons in action, the forceful seduction sold to us by our civilization is to believe they were always that great. That they were born into their exceptionalism. That they won the fortunate DNA lottery. That their genius was inherited. Yet the truth is that we are watching them in their full blazing glory after years of following a process, one that involved ceaseless hours of practice. When we observe magnificent players in business, sport, science and the arts we are observing the earned results of a monomaniacal concentration around a single pursuit, astronomical focus on one skill, intensity of sacrifice applied to one aim, unusual levels of deep preparation and extreme amounts of solid patience. Remember, every professional was once an amateur, and every master started as a beginner. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary feats, once they’ve routinized the right habits.

“This cat is so solid,” said the homeless man. He clapped his dirty hands like a kid at a carnival. He checked his watch yet again. Then he began to shuffle his feet while swaying his hips forward then backward. His hands were now waving in the air and he was snapping his fingers, with closed eyes again. Sounds like the early rappers used to make without their boom boxes emerged from his cracked lips. You would have been astonished to watch him in action.

“What the hell are you doing?” shouted the artist.

“Dancing,” replied the homeless man, moving gloriously. “Keep bringing me this beautiful knowledge. Socrates said, ‘Education is the kindling of a flame.’ And Isaac Asimov wrote ‘Self-education is, I believe, the only kind of education there is.’ So, keep playing the old guru’s words, dude. It’s all so gnarly.”

The artist resumed the recording:

Heavily resist all piracy of your mastery from this world tempting you into distractibility and causing digital dementia. Force your attention back to the Everests of potential aching for fuller expression and, today, release all reasons that feed any stagnation of your strengths. Start being an imaginationalist—one of those rare individuals who leads from the nobility of your future versus via the prison bars of your past. Each of us thirsts for days filled with tiny bursts of the miraculous. Every one of us wishes to own our pure heroism and step into unchained exceptionalism. All human beings alive at this moment have a primitive psychological need to produce masterworks that wow, live daily amidst uncommon awe and know that we are somehow spending our hours in a way that enriches the lives of others. The poet Thomas Campbell said it beautifully when he observed, “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

Each of us—truly—has been built to make history, in our own authentic way. For one, this might mean being an excellent coder or a fine teacher who lifts young minds. For another, this opportunity could mean becoming a tremendous mother or a magnificent manager. To yet another, this good fortune may mean growing a great business or being a fantastic salesperson who serves customers superbly. This chance to be remembered by future generations and lead a life that truly matters is not some platitude. This is, in fact, a truth. Yet, so few of us have discovered, and then installed, the very mentalities, morning practices and consistent conditions that will guarantee these results appear for us. We all want to reaccess our birthright of towering talent, limitless joy and freedom from fear, but few of us are willing to do the very things that would cause our hidden genius to present itself. Strange, right? And it’s very sad. The majority of us have been hypnotized out of the luminosity that is our essence. Most of us in this age spend our most valuable hours being busy being busy. Chasing trivial pursuits and artificial amusements while neglecting living a real life. This is a formula for heartbreak at the end. What’s the point of spending your best mornings and potentially productive days climbing mountains that you realize were the wrong ones when you are frail and wrinkled? Very sad.

“That part really resonated with me,” interjected the entrepreneur, slightly emotionally. “I’m definitely addicted to my technology. Can’t stop checking everything. First thing in the morning and last thing at night. It’s draining my concentration. I can hardly focus on the important deliverables my team and I have committed to. And all the noise in my life is taking my energy. It all feels so complicated. I just don’t feel I have any time for myself anymore. It’s fairly overwhelming, all the messages and notifications and ads and diversions. And what The Spellbinder said is also so helpful to me as I raise my standards as a leader. I’ve sort of hit a wall. My company has grown faster than I ever expected. I’ve become more successful than I ever imagined. But there are some things causing me a ton of stress.” She looked away and crossed her arms again.

“I can’t tell them what I’m really dealing with,” thought the entrepreneur.

Then she continued: “I’ve had to let go of people I really liked because I’ve learned people who fit at one stage of a business’s lifecycle may not work as the firm evolves. That’s been hard. They were the right employees for an earlier time but they don’t belong now. And some things are unfolding at my shop that have turned my life upside down. I don’t really want to get into it. It’s just a very shaky time for me.”

“Well, on your point about elevating your leadership game,” responded the homeless man, “please remember that the job of the leader is to help disbelievers embrace your vision, the powerless to overcome their weaknesses and the hopeless to develop faith. And what you said on letting go of employees you liked but who no longer fit where your business is now at—that’s a normal part of growing a business. And it happened because they failed to grow as your enterprise rose. They started coasting. They stopped learning, inventing and making everything they touched better than they found it. And as a result they stopped being awesome value incubators for your venture. They likely blamed you. But they did it to themselves,” the uninvited stranger indicated, surprising his listeners by the sophistication of his insights on team-building and winning in commerce.

“Uh. Exactly,” replied the entrepreneur. “So we had to leave them behind since they no longer delivered the results we were paying them for. A lot of nights I wake up at 2 AM soaked in steamy sweat. Maybe it’s like what F1 racer Mario Andretti said: ‘If everything seems under control you’re not going fast enough.’ That’s how I seem to feel most days. We’re blowing past our key performance indicators so quickly it makes my head spin. New teammates to mentor, new brands to manage, new markets to penetrate, new suppliers to watch, new products to refine, new investors and shareholders to impress and a thousand new responsibilities to handle. It really does feel like it’s a lot. I have a huge capacity to get big things done. But there’s a lot on my shoulders.”

The entrepreneur tightened her arms and scrunched her forehead together absentmindedly. Her thin lips pulled together like a sea anemone shutting on sensing a fatal predator. And her eyes suggested she was suffering. Intensely.

“And, about your point about being addicted to technology, just remember that intelligently used, it advances human progress. Through using technology wisely our lives become better, our knowledge becomes richer and our wonderful world becomes smaller. It’s the misuse of technology that’s ruining people’s minds, damaging their productivity and destroying the very fabric of our society. Your phone is costing you your fortune, you know? If you’re playing with it all day long. And what you just said about all the pressure on you, how fantastic. ‘Pressure is a privilege,’ said tennis legend Billie Jean King,” the homeless man shared. “You get to grow. And ascending as a person is one of the smartest ways to spend the rest of your life. With every challenge comes the gorgeous opportunity to rise into your next level as a leader, performer and human being. Obstacles are nothing more than tests designed to measure how seriously you want the rewards that your ambitions seek. They show up to determine how willing you are to improve into the kind of person who can hold that amount of success. Failure’s just growth in wolf’s clothing. And pretty much nothing else is as important in life as personal expansion, the unfoldment of your potential. Tolstoy wrote, ‘Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing himself.’ Become a bigger person and you’ll also automatically become a better leader—and a greater producer. And yes, I agree that growth can be scary. But my mentor once taught me that ‘the part of you that clings to fear must experience a sort of crucifixion so that the portion of you that deserves high honor undergoes a kind of reincarnation.’ Those are the exact words he shared with me. Freaky and deep, right?” said the hobo as he rubbed the holy-man beads he was wearing.

He kept going without waiting for an answer.

“My special teacher also told me that ‘to find your best self you must lose your weak self.’ And that only happens through relentless improvement, continuous reflection and ongoing self-excavation. If you don’t keep rising daily you’ll get stuck in your life, for the rest of your life. Makes me consider what the journalist Norman Cousins said: ‘The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.’”

The homeless man raised his raspy voice and observed, “My special teacher taught me that once we transform the primary relationship with ourselves, we’ll find that our relationships with other people, our work, our income and our impact transform. Most people can’t stand themselves. So, they can never be alone. And silent. They need to constantly be with other people to escape their feelings of self-hatred over all their wasted potential, missing the wonders and wisdom that solitude and quiet bring. Or they watch TV endlessly, not realizing it’s eroding their imagination as well as bankrupting their bank account.”

“My life feels so complicated. I feel so overwhelmed. I don’t have any time for myself,” the entrepreneur repeated. “Not sure what’s happened to my life. Things have just become hard.”

“I understand you,” the artist said as he placed an arm over his new friend’s shoulder. “My intuition tells me that you’re going through a lot more than you’re sharing. And that’s okay. You know, some days life seems so messy that I can’t get out of bed. I just lie there, man. I close my eyes and wish the fog in my head would just go away. Even for a day. I can’t think straight some of the time. And on those days, my heart has no hope in it at all. It sucks. And a lot of people suck, too, man. I’m not anti-social. I’m just anti-moron. Too many dumb people around these days. Taking stupid fashion pictures of themselves with pouty lips in clothes they can’t afford. Hanging with people they don’t even like. I’d rather live a thoughtful life. A risky life. A real life. An artist’s life. Drives me crazy how superficial people have become.”

The artist then punched one fist into his other hand. Unyielding creases appeared along his jawline and a blue vein twitched in his thick neck.

“Sure. I got you,” said the homeless man. “Life isn’t easy, people. Tough slog a lot of the time. But like John Lennon said: ‘Everything will be okay in the end. And if it’s not okay, it’s not the end,’” he offered kindly, spouting yet another quote from what seemed to be an unlimited supply in his brain.

The artist softened instantly, smiling in a way that looked almost sweet. He exhaled mightily. He liked what he’d just heard.

“And,” the vagrant continued, “this climb up into the rare-air of personal and professional mastery that the three of us have obviously signed up for is not for the weak. Upgrading your life so you know real joy and optimizing your skills so you own your field can be uncomfortable a lot of the time. I need to be honest. But here’s one key thing I’ve learned: the soreness of growth is so much less expensive than the devastating costs of regret.”

“Where’d you learn that?” questioned the artist, as he scrawled the words into his notebook.

“Can’t tell you. Yet,” the homeless man responded, heightening the mystery of where he’d discovered much of his insight.

The entrepreneur turned away from the artist and jotted down some of her thoughts into her device. The homeless man then reached into a pocket of his hole-ridden plaid shirt and produced a heavily used index card. He held it up like a kindergarten student at show-and-tell.

“A distinguished person gave this to me when I was a lot younger, as I was starting my first company. I was a lot like you cats: dripping with dreams and set to make my mark on the world. Hungry to prove myself. Amped to dominate the game. The first fifty years of our lives are a lot about seeking legitimacy, you know. We crave social approval. We want our peers to respect us. We hope our neighbors will like us. We buy all sorts of things we really don’t need and obsess about making money we really don’t enjoy.”

“Totally right,” muttered the artist, nodding his head aggressively and shifting his posture noticeably as his dreadlocks dangled over his shoulders.

The event venue was now empty.

“If we have the courage to look within, we discover that we do this because we have a series of holes within us. We falsely believe that material from the outside will fill what’s empty within ourselves. Yet it never will. Never will. Anyhoo, when many of us reach the half-time point of our lives, we make a right-angle turn. We begin to realize that we’re not going to live forever and that our days are numbered. And so, we connect with our mortality. Big point here. We realize we are going to die. What’s truly important comes into much sharper focus. We become more contemplative. We start to wonder if we’ve been true to our talents, loyal to our values and successful on the terms that feel right to us. And we think about what those we most love will say about us when we’re gone. That’s when many of us make a giant shift: from seeking legitimacy in society to constructing a meaningful legacy. The last fifty years then become less about me and more about we. Less about selfishness and more about service. We stop adding more things into our lives and begin to subtract—and simplify. We learn to savor simple beauty, experience gratitude for small miracles, appreciate the priceless value of peace of mind, spend more time cultivating human connections and come to understand that the one who gives the most is victorious. And what’s left of your life then becomes a phenomenal dedication to loving life itself as well as a ministry of kindness to the many. And this becomes, potentially, your gateway into immortality.”

“He’s really special,” whispered the entrepreneur. “I haven’t felt this hopeful, energized and grounded in months. My father used to help me navigate difficult times,” she told the artist. “Ever since he passed away I don’t have anyone to lean on.”

“What happened to him?” quizzed the artist.

“I’m a little fragile right now, even though I feel stronger now than I did when I walked in here this morning, that’s for sure. But I’ll simply say that he took his own life. Dad was a remarkable man—a tremendously successful business pioneer. He flew airplanes, raced fast cars and loved superb wine. He was so alive. Then his business partner took everything away from him, not so different from the horrible scenario I’m living right now. Anyway, the stress and shock of his world collapsing pushed him to do what we could never have imagined. He just couldn’t see any way out, I guess,” the entrepreneur revealed as her voice broke.

“You can lean on me,” the artist said tenderly. He placed a hand with a hippie ring on a pinky finger onto his heart as he spoke these words, looking both chivalrous and bohemian.

The homeless man interrupted the intimate moment the two were sharing.

“Here, read this,” he instructed as he handed over his index card. “It’ll be useful as you both rise to your next performance levels and experience everything that comes with this adventure into human leadership, personal mastery and creating a career of uncommon productivity.”

In red lettering over the paper that had yellowed by the advances of time, it read: “All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.”

“That’s very good,” noted the entrepreneur. “A valuable piece of information for me. Thank you.”

The artist then resumed playing his illegal copy of The Spellbinder’s presentation:

Each one of you carries a quiet genius and a triumphant hero within your hearts. Dismiss these as idealistic words of an elderly inspirationalist if you wish. But I’m proud to be an idealist. Our world needs more of us. And yet, I am also a realist. And here’s the truth: Most people on the planet today don’t think much of themselves, unfortunately. They secure their identity by who they are externally. They evaluate their achievement by what they’ve collected versus by the character they’ve cultivated. They compare themselves to the orchestrated—and fake—highlight reels presented by the people they follow. They measure their self-worth by their net worth. And they get kidnapped by the false thought that because something has never been done it can’t be done—depleting the grand and electrifying possibilities their lives are meant to become. This explains why the majority is sinking in the quicksand of uncertainty, boredom, distraction and complexity.

“Drama mamas,” the homeless man interrupted again. “That’s what I call men and women who’ve caught the virus of victimitis excusitis. All they do is complain about how bad things are for them instead of applying their primal power to make things better. They take instead of give, criticize instead of create and worry instead of work. Build antibodies to combat any form of average from getting anywhere near your professional days at the office and your private life at home. Never be a drama mama.”

The entrepreneur and the artist peeked at each other. Then they giggled, both at the terms the quirky stranger was using and at the way he’d raised an arm and made the fingers of one hand into a peace sign as he spoke the words he’d just shared. If you were standing there with them, you would think he was weird too.

The Spellbinder could then be heard speaking the following words on the recording with dramatic flair:

To be clear, every day—for the rest of your life—you’ll be faced with the chance of showing leadership, wherever you are and in all that you do. Leadership isn’t just for global icons and marketplace titans. It’s an arena everyone gets to play in. Because leadership is a lot less about having a formal title, a large office and money in the bank. And a lot more about committing to mastery over all you do—and in who you are. It’s about resisting the tyranny of the ordinary, refusing to allow negativity to hijack your sense of awe and preventing any form of slavery to mediocrity from infesting your life. Leadership is about making a difference, right where you’re planted. Real leadership is about sending out brave work that exemplifies genius, turns your whole field on its head by its scope, innovation and execution, and is so staggeringly sublime that it stands the test of time.

And never work only for the income. Labor for the impact. Make your dominant pursuit the heartfelt release of value that represents an uncommon magic that borders on the poetic. Demonstrate the full-on expression of what’s possible for a human being to create. Develop the patience to stick with your dedication to absolute world-class output, even if over a lifetime you only generate a single masterpiece. To achieve this feat alone will have made your life’s journey a worthy trek.

Be a virtuoso. A standout. An exceptionalist. The Top 5% are a lot less concerned with fame, cash and approval and a lot more invested in punching above their weight class within their craft, playing above their pay grade around their talents and creating the kind of productivity that inspires—and serves—millions. That’s often why they make millions. So never mail it in. Always bring it on.

The homeless man now had his eyes closed. And was down on the floor doing a series of one-armed push-ups. All the while he was chanting, “Own your morning. Elevate your life.”

The entrepreneur and the artist shook their heads.

“One of my favorite books is The Prophet,” mused the artist. “It’s one of the bestselling works of poetry ever written. I read that Khalil Gibran carried the manuscript around with him for four long years and refined it constantly before giving it to his publisher, just so it was pure art. I still remember the exact words he spoke when he was interviewed by a journalist about his creative process because they guide me a lot when I’m in the studio. His words keep me reaching for a greater power as an artist, even though I battle procrastination a lot. Like I said, I’m pretty good. But I know I can be great. If I could just beat my self-sabotage. And my demons.”

“What did he say?” asked the homeless man, now standing and twiddling with his big watch. Beads of perspiration meandered down his angular face.

“Here’s exactly what he said,” mentioned the artist: “‘I wanted to be sure, very sure, that every word of it was the very best I had to offer.’”

“Gnarly,” replied the homeless man. “That’s the standard that the best ones always hold themselves to.”

Abruptly, The Spellbinder could be heard coughing in the audio. His comments that followed seemed to struggle out of him, like an unborn child fiercely reluctant to leave the security of its loving mother’s warm and safe womb.

Anyone can become an everyday leader by showing up as I’m encouraging. When it’s easy and especially when it’s difficult. Starting today. And if you do so, a guaranteed victory is in your future. And I need to add that there’s not one person alive today who cannot lift their thinking, performance, vitality, prosperity and lifetime happiness magnificently by wiring in a series of profound daily rituals and then practicing them until they become your second nature. And this brings me to the single most important principle of my talk: The greatest starting point for winning in your work and making a splendid life is joining what I call The 5 AM Club. How can you ever be world-class if you don’t carve out some time each morning to make yourself world-class?

The entrepreneur was now taking notes with a ferocious intensity not previously seen. The artist’s face had a “this makes me feel strong” smile on it. The homeless man burped, then got down to the floor and held a plank, the kind fitness pros at the gym love to do to build a strong core.

You could hear The Spellbinder begin to cough even more fiercely. A brutal—and sustained—pause followed.

Next, he uttered these words, haltingly. He was wheezing audibly. His voice began to quiver like a novice telemarketer on her very first sales call.

Rising at 5 AM truly is The Mother of All Routines. Joining The 5 AM Club is the one behavior that raises every other human behavior. This regimen is the ultimate needle mover to turn you into an undefeatable model of possibility. The way you begin your day really does determine the extent of focus, energy, excitement and excellence you bring to it. Each early morning is a page in the story that becomes your legacy. Each new dawn is a fresh chance to unleash your brilliance, unprison your potency and play in the big leagues of iconic results. You have such power within you and it reveals itself most with the first rays of daybreak. Please do not allow past pains and present frustrations to diminish your glory, stifle your invincibility and choke the unlimited possibilitarian that lurks within the supreme part of you. In a world that seeks to keep you down, build yourself up. In an epoch that wishes you would stay in the dark, step into your light. At a time that mesmerizes you to forget your gifts, reclaim your genius. Our world requires this of each of us. To be champions of our crafts, warriors for our growth and guardians of unconditional love—for all of humankind.

Display respect and compassion for all other people who occupy this tiny planet, regardless of their creed, color or caste. Lift them up in a civilization where many get energy tearing others down. Help others sense the marvels that sleep within them. Show us the virtues we all wish more would practice. Everything I’m saying will speak to the unspoiled part of you, that side of yourself that was ferociously alive before you were taught to fear, hoard, contract and distrust. It’s your job as a hero of your life, as a creative achiever set to change the culture and as a citizen of Earth to find this dimension within you. And, once done, to spend the rest of your days reconnected with it.

Accept this opportunity to human mastery and I promise you that a synchronicity of success as well as an orchestrated magic well beyond the boundaries of logic will infuse the remainder of your days. And the larger angels of your grandest potential will begin to visit you regularly. Actually, an orderly series of seemingly impossible miracles will descend onto your most genuine of dreams, causing the best of them to come true. And you will evolve into one of those rare and great spirits who upgrade the whole world by the simple act of walking amongst us.

The conference hall was now dark. The entrepreneur let out a sigh the size of Mexico City. The artist was motionless. The homeless man began to cry.

He then stood on a chair, raised his arms like a preacher and boomed these words of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

The homeless man then fell to his knees. Kissed his holy beads. And continued to weep.