WHO WILL CRY WHEN YOU DIE - ROBIN SHARMA THE TRAGEDY OF LIFE IS NOT DEATH, BUT WHAT WE LET DIE INSIDE OF US WHILE WE LIVE. - NORMAN COUSINS Contents Preface 1. Discover Your Calling 2. Every Day, Be Kind to a Stranger 3. Maintain Your Perspective 4. Practice Tough Love 5. Keep a Journal 6. Develop an Honesty Philosophy 7. Honor Your Past 8. Start Your Day Well 9. Learn to Say No Gracefully 10. Take a Weekly Sabbatical 11. Talk to Yourself 12. Schedule Worry Breaks 13. Model a Child 14. Remember, Genius Is 99 Percent Inspiration 15. Care for the Temple 16. Learn to Be Silent 17. Think About Your Ideal Neighborhood 18. Get Up Early 19. See Your Troubles as Blessings 20. Laugh More 21. Spend a Day Without Your Watch 22. Take More Risks 23. Live a Life 24. Learn from a Good Movie 25. Bless Your Money 26. Focus on the Worthy 27. Write Thank – You Notes 28. Always Carry a Book with You 29. Create a Love Account 30. Get Behind People’s Eyeballs 31. List Your Problems 32. Practice the Action Habit 33. See Your Children as Gifts 34. Enjoy the Path, Not Just the Reward 35. Remember That Awareness Precedes Change 36. Read Tuesday’s With Morrie 37. Master Your Time 38. Keep Your Cool 39. Recruit a Board of Directors 40. Cure Your Monkey Mind 41. Get Good at Asking 42. Looking for the Higher Meaning of Your Work 43. Build a Library of Heroic Books 44. Develop Your Talents 45. Connect with Nature 46. Use Your Commute Time 47. Go on a News Fast 48. Get Serious About Setting Goals 49. Remember the Rule of 21 50. Practice Forgiveness 51. Drink Fresh Fruit Juice 52. Create a Pure Environment 53. Walk in the Woods 54. Get a Coach 55. Take a Mini – Vacation 56. Become a Volunteer 57. Find Your Six Degrees of Separation 58. Listen to Music Daily 59. Write a Legacy Statement 60. Find Three Great Friends 61. Read The Artist’s Way 62. Learn to Meditate 63. Have a Living Funeral 64. Stop Complaining and Start Living 65. Increase Your Value 66. Be a Better Parent 67. Be Unorthodox 68. Carry a Goal Card 69. Be More than Your Moods 70. Savor the Simple Stuff 71. Stop Condemning 72. See Your Day as Your Life 73. Create a Master Mind Alliance 74. Create a Daily Code of Conduct 75. Imagine a richer reality 76. Become he CEO of Your Life 77. Be Humble 78. Don’t Finish Every Book You Start 79. Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself 80. Make a Vow of Silence 81. Don’t Pick Up the Phone Every Time It Rings 82. Remember That Recreation Must Involve Re – creation 83. Choose Worthy Opponents 84. Sleep Less 85. Have a Family Mealtime 86. Become an Imposter 87. Take a Public Speaking Course 88. Stop Thinking Tiny Thoughts 89. Don’t Worry About Things You Can’t Change 90. Learn How to Walk 91. Rewrite Your Life Story 92. Plant a tree 93. Find Your Place of Peace 94. Take More Pictures 95. Be an Adventurer 96. Decompress Before You Go Home 97. Respect Your Instincts 98. Collect Quotes That Inspire You 99. Love Your Work 100. Selflessly Serve 101. Live Fully so You Can Die Happy Preface I honor you for picking up this book. In doing so, you have made the decision to love more deliberately, more joyfully and completely. You have decided to live your life by choice rather than by chance, by design rather than by default. And for this, I applaud you. Since Writing the two previous books in The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari series, I have received countless letters from readers who saw their lives change through the wisdom they discovered. The comments of these men and women inspired and moved me. Many of the notes I received also encouraged me to distill all that I have learned about the art of living into a series of life lessons. And so, I set about compiling the best I have to give into a book that I truly believe will help transform your life. The words on the following pages are heartfelt and written in the high hope that you will not only connect with the wisdom I respectfully offer but act on it to create lasting improvements in every life area. Through my own trials, I have found that it is not enough to know what to do – we must act on that knowledge in order to have the lives we want. And so as you turn the pages of this third book in The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari series, I hope you will discover a wealth of wisdom that will enrich the quality of your professional, personal and spiritual life. Please do write to me, send me an e-mail or visit with me at one of my seminars to share how you have integrated the lessons in this book into the way you live. I will do my very best to respond to your letters with a personal note I wish you deep peace, great prosperity and many happy days spent engaged in a worthy purpose. Robin S. Sharma Emil address: [email protected] Internet address: www.robinsharma.com 1. Discover Your Calling When I was growing up, my father said something to me I will never forget, “Son, when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die the world cries while you rejoice.” We live in an age when we have forgotten what life is all about. We can easily put a person on the Moon, but we have trouble walking across the street to meet a new neighbor. We can fire a missile across the world with pinpoint accuracy, but we have trouble keeping a date with our children to go to the library. We have e-mail, fax machines and digital phones so that we can stay connected and yet we live in a time where human beings have never been less connected. We have lost touch with our humanity. We have lost touch with our purpose. We have lost sight of the things that matter the most. And so, as you start this book, I respectfully ask you, Who will cry when you die? How many lives will you touch while you have the privilege to walk this planet? What impact will your life have on the generations that follow you? And what legacy will you leave behind after you have taken your last breath? One of the lessons I have learned in my own life is that if you don’t act on life, life has a habit of acting on you. The days slip into weeks, the weeks slip into months and the months slip into years. Pretty soon it’s all over and you are left with nothing more than a heart filled with regret over a life half lived. Bernard Shaw was asked on his deathbed, “What would you do if you could live your life over again?” He reflected, then replied with a deep sigh: “I’d like to be the person I could have been but never was.” I’ve written this book so that this will never happen to you. As a professional speaker, I spend much of my work life delivering keynote addresses at conferences across North America, flying from city to city, sharing my insights on leadership in business and in life with many different people. Though they all come from diverse walks of life, their questions invariably center on the same things these days: How can I find greater meaning in my life? How can I make a lasting contribution through my work? And How can I simplify so that I can enjoy the journey of life before it is too late? My answer always begins the same way: Find your calling. I believe we all have special talents that are just waiting to be engaged in a worthy pursuit. We are all here for some unique purpose, some noble objective that will allow us to manifest our higher human potential while we, at the same time, add value to the lives around us. Finding your calling doesn’t mean you must leave the job you now have. It simply means you need to bring more of yourself into your work and focus on the things you do best. It means you have to stop waiting for other people to make the changes you desire and, as Mahatma Gandhi noted: “Be the change that you wish to see most in your world.” And once you do, your life will change. 2. Every Day, be Kind to a Stranger On his deathbed, Aldous Huxley reflected on his entire life’s learning and then summed it up in seven simple words: “Let us be kinder to one another.” All too often, we believe that in order to live a truly fulfilling life we must achieve some great act or grand feat that will put us on the front covers of magazines and newspapers. Nothing could be further from the truth. A meaningful life is made up of a series of daily acts of decency and kindness, which, ironically, add up to something truly great over the course of a lifetime. Everyone who enters your life has a lesson to teach and a story to tell. Every person you pass during the moments that make up your days represents an opportunity to show a little more of the compassion and courtesy that define your humanity. Why not start being more of the person you truly are during your days and doing what you can to enrich the world around you? In my mind, if you make even one person smile during your day or brighten the mood of even one stranger, your day has been a worthwhile one. Kindness, quite simply, is the tent we must pay for the space we occupy on this planet. Become more creative in the ways you show compassion to strangers. Paying the toll for the person in the car behind you, offering your seat on the subway to someone in need and being the first to say hello are great places to start. Recently, I received a letter from a reader of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari who lives in Washington State. In it she wrote: “I have a practice of tithing to people who have helped me along my spiritual path. Please accept the enclosed check of $ 100 with my blessing and gratitude.” I quickly responded to her generous act by spending one of my audiotape programs in return so she received value for the gift she sent me. Her gesture was a great lesson in the importance of giving sincerely and from the heart. 3. Maintain Your Perspective One day, according to an old story, a man with a serious illness was wheeled into a hospital room where another patient was resting on a bed next to the window. As the two became friends, the one next to the window would look out of it and then spend the next few hours delighting his bedridden companion with vivid descriptions of the world outside. Some days he would describe the beauty of the trees in the park across from the hospital and how the leaves danced in the wind. On other days, he would entertain his friend with step - by – step replays of the things people were doing as they walked by the hospital. However, as time went on, the bedridden man grew frustrated at his inability to observe the wonders his friend described. Eventually he grew to dislike him and then to hate him intensely. One night, during a particularly bad coughing fit, the patient next to the window stopped breathing. Rather than pressing the button for help, the other man chose do nothing. The next morning the patient who had given his friend so much happiness by recounting the sights outside the window was pronounced dead and wheeled out of the hospital room. The other man quickly asked that his bed be placed next to the window, a request that was complied with the attending nurse. But as he looked out the window, he discovered something that made him shake: the window faced a stark brick wall. His former roommate had conjured up the incredible sights that he described in his imagination as a loving gesture to make the world of his friend a little bit better during a difficult time. He had acted out of selfless love.