I'm No Longer Ordinary

December 11, 2008

Robin Sharma's Blog

Posted: 10 Dec 2008 09:04 AM PST

I started off the first chapter of " The Greatness Guide " with " I'm No Guru " . Nearly every leadership presentation begins with me sharing my VHB (Very Humble Beginnings) and the fact that I am right out of the audience. In nearly every one of the thousands of media interviews I've done, I fight for the fact that I'm just an ordinary guy. Why do I do this? Because I never want you to think that I'm somehow different from you. I never want you to think that the practices I live by and encourage you to embrace so you get to your best in terms of leadership and success and personal development are not possible for you to do because I'm somehow cut from a different cloth. But today I make the change. I have to admit it. I'm special.

Now before your eyes glaze over and you begin to question why you read my blog each day, kindly stay with me. I'm trying to make a point here. And it's a big one.I am special. And here's the beautiful thing: SO ARE YOU. Saying that I'm ordinary is to deny the gifts that have been given to me. And you classifying yourself as ordinary is to make the very same mistake. Let's choose not to do it anymore, ok?

No one walking the planet today is ordinary. Yes, too many have forgotten that they have remarkable gifts living within them and extraordinary potential to craft strikingly great lives and the power to be the change that they most wish they could see in the world (to paraphrase The Mahatma). Yes, too many people have resigned themselves to mediocrity and coasting through their days because they actually have been seduced into believing the liars in their minds that are nothing more than the voices of their fear (aka doubt). Yes, too many people actually believe in the false reality that The Great Ones (in business, arts, sciences, society) are different (and smarter/faster/stronger/luckier...include your own Excuse of Choice here). But none of that's Truth. Is it? (And Leadership is a Hunt for The Truth).

The glaring truth of the matter is so staggeringly clear to anyone who wants to open their eyes (and heart) wide enough to see it: you, me, the grocery clerk at your local grocery story, the cabbie in Colombia, the poet in Pukhet, the banker in Buenos Aires, the nurse in Nepal, the teenager in Texas, the farmer in Fredericton... Every single one of us who inhabits the planet this very moment is special. We have great gifts that long to be sculpted into our own unique form of genius. We have authentic power that aches to be awakened and then used for a worthwhile purpose. We have potential that - if realized - could profoundly elevate organizations and communities and nations...and so The World. There's not a single person alive today that doesn't have the potential to positively influence a cast of thousands if they get out of their own way (by breaking through their doubts, fears and excuses) and act as the person that they truly are. Please think about that idea. No extra people on this planet. We all have Calls on Our Lives.

So no, I'm not ordinary (and I will no longer disrespect myself by saying that; the words we use have staggering power to create our reality). And the thing that makes me just as happy. Neither are you. Remember that.

P.S. Please share this blog with all those you know who will benefit by it. It's a pretty powerful idea I think - that none of us is ordinary. And an idea that has the potential to help someone see themself -and their ability to make a difference in a whole new way. I fiercely want to get this message out to as many people in as many countries as possible over the next 12 hours. Please help me to do so. Let's work together here.

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