Why we felt he needed to be included in this list: Robin Sharma is one of the original life and business coaches and motivational speakers. His best-selling books on spirituality, achieving a healthy work-life balance and living to one’s best potential are world renowned.

At the age of 25, Robin Sharma appeared to have it all — a successful litigation lawyer, armed with two law degrees; a resume of impressive experience, including a stint at the business law firm Faskin Martineau DuMoulin and later at the Department of Justice in Ottawa; along with a growing family to boot.

Despite the perceived idyllic sheen of a “having it all life” from the outside, Sharma, who was born in Uganda and moved to Nova Scotia as a child, was struggling with a sense of there being something missing in his life. He would look in the mirror and recognize himself as successful, but on the inside, he felt unfulfilled, so he channeled his frustration into reading about those people whose lives he defined as being well lived.

I really believe we have incredible wisdom. The Indian mystics, saints and philosophers have all said it. We have wisdom inside of us. We have intuition. The more you mediate, the more you isolate yourself the more you are in touch with your super powers that we all have within us. Yet most of us are out in the world looking for happiness in things and busy-ness that we have forgotten that the doorway to success swings inwards not outwards.

ANOKHI Life

He had turned to writing as a way of capturing his views on the world from reading about the lives of seemingly ordinary people, who went on to accomplish extraordinary feats — Mandela, Edison and so on. Encouraged by his father, he self-published his first book (which was edited by his mother) and had about 2000 copies in his kitchen. His second self-published book made the mark. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, a fiction novel derived from the lessons of his own life, was picked up by HarperCollins Canada in 1997 and became a #1 bestseller, allowing Sharma to leave his job as a lawyer and start his new life.

Since then, Sharma has added a slew of books to the Monk franchise — Family Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Daily Inspiration from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Who Will Cry When You Die?, Life Lessons From the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. This franchise has been one of the most successful for HarperCollins. In 20 years, Sharma has penned 11 books on leadership, peak performance and personal mastery which have sold over 15,000,000 copies in over 96 countries. Speaker.com has listed Sharma as one of the top five leadership speakers in the world and Sharma also received The ANOKHI Award in 2017. Fans of his work include Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu and rock star Jon Bon Jovi.

His 12^th and latest book, The 5 AM Club, which was released this past April and is now listed as #1 bestseller, encapsulates a concept Sharma has preached throughout his career — balance and his 20/20/20 method. Achieving a sense of balance in one’s hectic day can be as simple as waking up at 5 a.m. and using the extra time to move, reflect and grow through three 20-minute segments. Exercise for the first segment, plan during the second and study during the third.

My driving cause is being in eternal service to as many people as possible. I’ve been at this field of leadership and personal mastery for 22 years, and I have more fire in my belly to serve humanity than ever before. I just really, really, really want to teach people the mechanics and tactics of elite performance and genius, so I deconstruct these things.

Mind Valley

Sharma’s social media reach is a whopping 600 million people a year including 567,000 on his Youtube channel. In 2017, he gave a TED Talk in Hague, speaking on what it takes to achieve happiness. He has also given extensive speaking tours, taking his messages to the Dallas employees of Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle, FedEx’s annual Canadian conference and Nike’s executives in Israel — sometimes ticking off a city on his tour every two days.

In the spirit of giving back, especially to the next generation of leaders, Sharma founded the The Robin Sharma Foundation for Children, which raises funds globally to help children in need. Sharma continues his path of spreading the word of personal mastery and elite performance while believing that at the end of the day, people want to see others doing good.

Thumbnail Image Photo Credit: www.robinsharma.com

Main Image Photo Credit: www.robinsharma.com