The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma ( Second)

The Greatness Guide - Window of Opportunity:

I don’t always get it right (I told you I’m no guru). But please 

know that I try so hard to walk my talk and to ensure my video is 

in alignment with my audio. Still, I am a human being, and that 

means sometimes I slip (I’ve yet to meet a perfect one). Here’s 

what I mean.

I spend a lot of time encouraging the readers of my books 

and the participants at my workshops on personal and organi-

zational leadership to “run toward your fears” and to seize 

those “cubic centimeters of chance” (opportunities) when they 

present themselves. I challenge my clients to dream, to shine 

and to dare, because to me a life well lived is all about reaching 

for your highest and your best. And, in my mind, the person 

who experiences the most wins. Most of the time, I am a poster 

boy for visiting the places that scare me and doing the things 

that make me feel uncomfortable. But recently, I didn’t. Sorry.

I was downtown at the Four Seasons in Toronto, in the 

lobby getting ready for a speech I was about to give to a com-

pany called Advanced Medical Optics, which is a long-standinPM ROBIN SHARMA

leadership coaching client of ours and an impressive organi-

zation. I look up and guess who I see? Harvey Keitel. Yes, the 

Harvey “Reservoir Dogs Big Movie Star” Keitel. And what does 

the man who wrote The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari do? I shrink 

from greatness.

Each day, life will send you little windows of

opportunity. Your destiny will ultimately be

defi ned by how you respond to these

windows of opportunity.

I don’t know why I didn’t stand up and walk over and 

make a new friend. I’ve done it with baseball legend Pete Rose 

at the Chicago airport (we ended up sitting next to each other 

all the way to Phoenix). I did it last summer with Henry Kravis, 

one of the planet’s top fi nanciers in the lobby of a hotel in Rome 

(I was with my kids, and Colby, my 11-year-old son, thought he 

was pretty cool). I did it with Senator Edward Kennedy when I 

saw him in Boston. I even did it with guitar virtuoso Eddie Van 

Halen when I was a kid growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. But 

I missed the chance to connect with Harvey Keitel.

Each day, life will send you little windows of opportunity. 

Your destiny will ultimately be defi ned by how you respond to 

these windows of opportunity. Shrink from them and your life 

will be small. Feel the fear and run to them anyway, and your life 

will be big. Life’s just too short to play little. Even with your kids, 

you only have a tiny window to develop them and champion 

their highest potential. And to show them what unconditional 

love looks like. When that window closes, it’s hard to reopen it.

If I see Harvey Keitel again, I promise you that I’ll sprint 

toward him. He may think I’m a celebrity stalker until we start 

to chat. And then he’ll discover the truth: I’m simply a man who 

seizes the gifts that life presents to him.