My father is in his 80s. He’s been an icon of possibility in my life. And he retired recently, after 54 years as a family physician. I said, “Dad, why did you stay in the game so long?” And he said, “Because my patients needed me.” He’s a man of service. And he used to share a quote with me. And it was, “Robin, when you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced.” He said, “Son, live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice.”
And I think we’re in a lost world in many ways. And I don’t think it’s about likes and I don’t think it’s about yachts, and I don’t think it’s about jets. And are those things wrong? Absol
utely not. We’re sensual human beings having a journey, but I think there’s a different game that the true legends and Titans play. And it’s about enjoying the journey, but it’s really about making an impact on humanity.
Whether it’s, if you work in a coffee shop, or you’re a teacher, or you’re a street sweeper, we all have a calling on our lives to elevate those around us.
And so service has been very big to me. My life changed on two occasions. Number one, I sat in Mother Teresa’s bedroom in Calcutta, now called Kolkata. And it was interesting to me, she had nothing but a bed and a table, because she reached a level of maturity where her bliss and joy didn’t come from material things, it came from love and service.
Two years ago, I stood in Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, and my life changed standing there,
because he was in there for 18 years. I stood in the limestone quarry where he chipped away at limestone that they didn’t even use, to degrade him because he had no purpose. I stood in the showers where he would shower naked as an elderly statesman, while the young guards laughed at him, again to torture him.
In The 5AM Club, I write a true story where he was asked on Robben Island to dig a grave. “And Jay,” they said, “Get in the grave.” And he thought, of course, he was going to die. And they urinated on him. And yet, when he was freed from Robben Island, and then he went to Drakenstein Prison in Paarl, South Africa. When he was released, he actually found the prosecutor who fought for the death penalty and took him to dinner. And he actually went to the jailer who kept him in prison for 18 years on Robben Island, over a total of 27 years of confinement. And he seated him near the front at his inauguration as President of South Africa. And he was asked, “Why did you do that?” And he said,
“Because if I didn’t, I would still be in prison.”
And so, why do I mention Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr? It’s
because The 5AM Club and all these rituals, Yes, be creative. It’ll help your productivity. It’ll make you money in that, but really in many ways, this book is a manifesto about our responsibility to materialize who we are on the inside. Martin Luther King Jr said, “If you have not found something you’d die for, you’re not fit to live.” I would take a bullet for the fact that every single person on the planet, if they run these rituals, and they do the work and they stay in the game, not only when it’s easy, but when it’s hard, they’re going to live gorgeous lives in their own original way.
So why wait for these heroes to show up? I wish there were more leaders and heroes, when we all have it in us to be one of those heroes, but most of us aren’t doing the right things to manifest our glory.