My thoughts on The Everyday Hero Manifesto by Robin Sharma

Around 7 years ago I started to experience audiobooks, a concept that some more years ago I would have thought as ridiculous (listening someone reading a book out loud? How can that be good at all?).

59 Audiobooks later, I have realized I love them, and that I have been recommending them to my friends ever since I started. Now I come to realize that 59 books in 7 years is not many, but alright, these books are the kind I digest slowly and like to think about a lot before listening to them again.

Most of the times I have shared the link to the audiobook in social media once finished and reviewed, but during the last couple of books I felt I could give some additional value by writing some of my thoughts about the books, and perhaps mix them with one or two of my own personal stories. That way I can strengthen my learning process while sharing it with the world. Welcome to my first try ??

"The Everyday Hero Manifesto: Activate Your Positivity, Maximize Your Productivity, Serve The World" by Robin Sharma and read by Adam Sims is a book that has been a bit heavy to listen for me, but not due to its contents, but due to my personal history and some "quick to judge" tendencies I sometimes have when I read.

Let me explain that a bit further. If you are a dreamer that is going through a rough patch and are in dire need for empowerment and inspiration, this book is perfect for you. It can even make you go down in tears of courage and will power to get back at your dream, and keep working damn hard to make it see the light of this world!

I do love some good empowerment, but for me this book was difficult to listen at several points, because Robin Sharma has a very well earned very high Self-Esteem, which can be easily confused with Ego by people in the wrong mental framework. I was in that wrong mental framework while listening to it.

I kept going out of curiosity thinking about returning the book later on, as they awesomely let you in Audible, until it kicked me straight to the gut. I was doing to Robin Sharma the same that someone did to me several years back, and I was being the one with the gigantic ego that would not let me learn anything out of this wonderful book.

Some years ago, time before my crazy traveller life started, I has hanging out with some friends in Bogota, my hometown. I was already on the right track to make my dreams come true, studying exactly what I wanted, and was constantly surrounded by the wonderful people of AIESEC empowering and cheering me up all the way in. When you are in an organization like AIESEC it is difficult to share that experience with your friends and do not sound like a crazy person. It is such a powerful and life changing experience that the only thing I can say is, if you are studying and can find it, join AIESEC. You will understand later.

Back on track, I was all joyful telling my friends about all the crazy stories that AIESEC brings to someone's life, all the dreams and the steps I was starting to take to make those dreams become real, until one of them, a friend that at the time was studying Psychology to make it sink a bit more, said out loud to my face, dead serious and in front of all my childhood friends that I was a megalomaniac. That confused me, a lot, so at the moment I did what I thought was the best I could do, just shut up and get drunk as you do when you are with your pals in your early 20s.

Here is the trick. When you have wild dreams and you make a plan to make them come true, they usually follow your wishes and become part of your world. Nevertheless, it is not easy to stay on track and to do not let that kind of comments on your mental health disturb you and take you out of focus. It is difficult to take that kind of, perhaps educated feedback, and use it to fuel your fire to make your dreams come true. Interestingly, the author goes very deep into this kind of episodes of life in this book.

Back to today, when I was listening to this book I was doing exactly the same to Robin Sharma, just not to his face. Hurting myself every single time I thought "what an arrogant thing to write Robin!", "What an ego!" or the especially painful "What a megalomaniac!" (and couple of seconds later Google the concept to make sure I was spot on in my very educated opinion ??).

It took me a while to look myself in the mirror and snap out it.

To finalize, even though I did not fully enjoy my first run into this book due to the fights with myself, I definitively learned a ton out of it. It is nice to read/listen, it is positive and is full of wisdom. I recommend it to anyone interested in learning about leadership via great stories and very well crafted life advise, and getting empowered to a supercharged level from a best selling author and top leadership expert.

Cheers!

Link to the audiobook: The Everyday Hero Manifesto