Jairek Robbins: Achieve Success by Living with Purpose

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Jairek Robbins was born in Santa Monica, California. He is a decorated performance coach and lifestyle entrepreneur who has applied his innovative methods to living a life of adventure, philanthropy, and entrepreneurship.

At the age of twenty-three, Robbins was awarded the Congressional Award Gold Medal from the United States Congress. By twenty-five, he gained international renown as the creator of a revolutionary approach to maximizing personal performance that accelerated organizational success for a wide range of businesses.

Robbins’s personal journey has included circumnavigating the globe on a ship, helping build schools and houses in multiple countries, cage diving with great white sharks, encountering silverback gorillas in Rwanda, and working as a volunteer in underdeveloped regions.

He supports a number of charities and nonprofits, such as the Change Heroes and the Pencils of Promise Foundation. He is also the author of the book Live It!: Achieve Success by Living with Purpose.

Favorite Success Quote

“Life supports that which supports life” – Anonymous

Key Points

1. You Must Give Before You Can Receive

Today, many men focus only on getting. Getting the latest car, getting the biggest house, or getting the hottest girl friend. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a focus on giving.

Jairek believes that for anyone to be truly successful, they must approach all areas of their life with a giving mindset. When you focus, first and foremost, on adding value and improving the world around you, personal success is an inevitable byproduct.

When you make your business plan, ask how you can give value to the people you will be serving. When you start a new workout, ask who you can inspire to achieve optimal health. When you start a new relationship, ask how you can have a positive impact on your new friend or significant other.

No matter what you are doing, always ask how you can give value to others. Life is too damn short to be selfish.

2. Focus First on Intrinsic Goals

Jairek believes that one of the biggest mistake many people make when setting goals is that they focus first on extrinsic goals rather than intrinsic goals. Meaning that they focus on goals more about others than themselves.

For example, many of your reading this probably at one point in time, had the goal of graduating college. For many of you, this goal was set only to please your parents and not because it was something that you truly cared about.

Here are some examples of intrinsic versus extrinsic goals:

Intrinsic:

Going to college because you want to learn as much as you can and enjoy your field of study

Learning a new instrument because you enjoy practicing and making music

Getting fit because you care about your body and want to take care of yourself so that you can perform optimally

Starting a business because you are passionate about something and want to share your gifts with the world.

Extrinsic:

Going to college because you don’t want to disappoint your family.

Learning a new instrument because you think girls will like it

Getting fit to impress others

Starting a business because you want to make a ton of money

Always focus on goals that are about what you want from your life rather than what others want. Following a path because it is what friends, family or society tells you to do is a sure ticket to a death bed full of regrets.

3. Create Many “Whys” For Your Goals

Once you have found and set goals that are intrisitc and motivate you for the right reasons, you must create a compelling list of reasons to achieve those goals.

An old personal growth saying is that “Reasons come first, results come second.” You will not achieve anything of measurable significance unless you have reasons that anchor you to your purpose during hard times.

Jairek recommends taking your biggest goals and writing down five new reasons to achieve them or “whys” every day. If at the end of the year, you cannot find at least five solid, reasons that send chills up your spine just thinking about them, chances are, you are pursuing the wrong goals.

4. Focus on Fulfilling vs. Pleasurable

As old and cliche as it may sound, Jairek is a huge proponent of living your life in a way that is fulfilling in the long run versus pleasurable in the moment.

When Jairek was in school, he used to go to bed at 10 p.m. almost every night so that he could wake up and kick ass at school and business. Even though this wasn’t fun at the time, he is now one of the leading voices in personal growth, wildly successful in his business, and fulfilled in his family life.

Even though choosing growth in the moment is rarely fun, it will always, always pay off in the long run. So next time you are faced with a decision between short term pleasure and long term fulfillment, ask yourself what kind of life you want to be living 10 years from now and the answer should be clear.

5. Live It

All of the personal growth information, all of the seminars, podcasts and books in the world will not change your life unless you are actively living what they teach.

The reason that Jairek titled his book “Live It” is that the information he teaches is only useful if you are applying and living our what he teaches.

So go out there and take action, don’t let another day pass where you put off taking action on your dreams for any reason. Grab life by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. Achieve the life of your dreams and go Live It!