Is there really something magical about having a solid morning routine?

While there are plenty of influencers that will criticize those that have detailed morning routines, the fact is that we all actually have a morning routine - it’s just that some are intentional and others aren’t.

What intention are you starting the day with?

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Transcript

What's going on smooth operators, welcome to today's episode, I hope this finds you in a good place. Hope you're getting a lot of momentum. And you're feeling good about this year and you're feeling like everything's gonna work out in your favor, because it will, you know, keep your mindset on that keep striving for your goals, keep chugging away, keep grinding, but also take some time for yourself. And that's really what today's episode is about. Because the start of our day is so important. And I was reminded this by my coach, a man I've learned a tremendous amount from and where I really, when I was working with him, I've really finally got a morning routine in place that serves me, well, that gives me a ton of energy, puts me on a good path for the rest of the day and allows me to approach things with a full heart and my full brain.

Now, you know, I've seen the ads, right? You've seen, you don't need a morning routine. All that you know what I'm talking about? You've seen that Dad, there's certain influencer out there who poopoo his morning routines. There are several people out there to talk about. It's not a magic trick for success. And to their credit. It's partially true. It's not a magic trick, like suddenly you install a morning routine and your income goes up 5x That's not the case. But the thing is, even the people that will say you don't need a morning routine, why are you worrying about this, why you've been planning this? The fact is, everyone has a morning routine. Everyone. Everyone has the things that they do when they first roll out of bed. Some are just intentional. Some are done with some thought. Others are more happenstance. But everyone has a morning routine. You know, I was just reading a some article about remote workers who were talking about rolling out of bed at 758 and time to be at their computer for eight o'clock start time. And I'm like guys, you're kind of ruining our argument for remote work. You know that right? You're ruining your your own argument, because I'm sorry. You are not the most effective two minutes after after rolling out of bed, you're just not your brain hasn't even begun to process the day yet.

And that's exactly what a morning routine can do for you. It's an area you can get a ton of momentum energy in your day, you can take care of things that you need to have done in your life, you can work on your own self. You can get those juices flowing. You know, there's an old saying, you know that which you gaze upon, you'll become you know, if you surround yourself with negativity, if you surround yourself with stuff that doesn't serve you well, it'll eventually bleed into all areas of your life. And that's part of what I try to do in my morning routine is really get my day started on the right foot, put myself in the position, to make decisions, to be the leader that I need to be to be able to communicate in my best way. But bigger picture, it's about installing the person that I strive to become because we're never done growing. But it's also you know, towards the immortal towards my faith towards what's after this earth. So just want to preface to say that I'll go through some things that I do in the morning. But it's not really up to me to curate what you do in your morning routine. That's not my business to do and I have no interest in telling you you must do this. You must do that. Rather, I'm just going to share some things that I do. And my morning routine is but far from perfect. And maybe they'll just trigger some thoughts in your mind trigger some things that you may want to do Up to you like, you really just need to experiment, make conscious decisions on what you want to include in your morning routine, how you want to start the day with predictability. And so let me just go through this, then we'll we'll circle back around to some of that, and how that can serve you best.

So I'm an early riser. I've been that way for years. I'm also an Army vet, right? You know, we get really used to waking up super early. And I've noticed when I don't wake up super early, I don't quite feel like myself anymore. So naturally, I make early rises. Part of what I do. You know, I did it all the time after the army. But those were the days I honestly wasn't the happiest with myself. And so when I realized that when I put those pieces together, I and I started waking up early again, I felt different. So my alarm goes off at 4am. And 90 times out of 100, I get up on that first alarm, but I have that backup set up for for 15. Just in case. So get up and then I'm just kind of getting into the day i i start off by drinking a ton of water. This is a trick I learned from a mentor of mine, just about what mass hydration can do for us that water can give us so much more energy than caffeine. In fact, when you mass hydrate. And truth be told, I don't have my first cup of coffee till I've been up for almost four hours.

So I hydrate, I take some time just to be in thought, I do get out my phone. And I will check the news. I will check my work email just yet. I'll check some personal email, see if I have anything from friends. I stay out of work mode just yet. Then I go to the gym. I love the gym. I love lifting. I love running. I love being in motion. And I really it's if I don't do it in the morning, I noticed the effects. And my workout routine is between an hour an hour and a half long, that is a long workout. I'm currently in a get in shape mode where I really want to put on some muscle mass and get my runtime down. So you know a lot of this is very intentional, I'm following a plan. So I'm never just going to the gym in the morning and figure you know, wait to see what I want to do. I have a plan that I'm following. And during this whole time is when I started listening to podcasts. And these are the meat podcasts and stuff I just enjoy for my own good. You know, it can be podcasts that are more in the entertainment side. I am a political junkie, I love politics. So I listen to some political talk shows. And that's my time in the gym is it's all for me. So I don't get into business podcasts in the gym. I'm doing all this yet without touching anything in my business. And I get up in time to get my kids up for school. So they wake up at six o'clock in the morning bus arrives at 730. So this gives them time to eat and then have some time to themselves before they go to school. But I get them up and help them get ready for the day. Make them breakfast, things like this. You know, it's having spent so long in the RV where you leave in the morning and you're not home. You can't get your kids on the bus. When I got out. I said I want to do this.

I want family time as part of my morning. And so I made it part of my morning. Once the kids are off doing their own thing, I sit down at my desk and I start to read and I read a particular cadence of different materials. The first thing I read is from the daily stoic. So that's Ryan holidays, 365 entry book. It's really good. Just a little bit of philosophy little bit at a time and moved from the daily stoic to some passages from Scripture. So I read the Bible in the morning. And, you know, I just kind of pick and choose where I want to be reading at this time. I'm recording. I'm in that vessel. So I'm in the writings of St. Paul. And then I'll pick up some other books that I happen to be reading I'm largely in self development mode. So we'll read like some Napoleon Hill I'm, I just reread Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. You know, those are books that we can keep on revisiting. You always get a little bit something more out of it, but I'm in self development mode, not in professional development, just yet.

After getting kids, the kids on the bus, I go to into my office, I'll make my cup of coffee. And I sit down to plan my day. So I've done all of this time. And by now I've been up for about three and a half, four hours, and I haven't touched business. I sit down plan my day and about 15 minutes, and we're off to the races. So that's my morning routine. It's, it's, you know, packed in there. I guess I did skip shower, I shower after I read, and then get to the office after I get the kids on the bus. The one thing I don't do in the morning is I don't eat, I actually I practice intermittent fasting. So I don't eat even after a strenuous workout, I won't eat for the first time until later in the day.

Again, none of these things are for me to say you must do this, you must do that. It's really just for me to say, here's what I do. But what I would say for you, like all of this stuff now just happens. But it happened with an intent with purpose, I wrote a checklist of all the things I wanted to do in the morning. Like literally all of it, shave brush teeth, like everything. And I started just following it going in the exact order every single day and developing a habit. So whatever you decide to put into your morning routine, write it down, follow it. And in no time at all, I'm talking 234 weeks, Max, you're going to be doing that checklist in order without thinking. So you're just following a routine following a pattern. We are ill driven human beings, we are good with patterns, we're good with routines. Routines actually help us because they take away the guessing game. You know, what was the you know, Steve Jobs wore the same clothes every day, he had multiple items of you know, the same shirt. I mean, he had a whole closet full that sweatshirt sweater I think I read in the Walter Isaacson book, because he wanted one less decision to make every day. That's what we're really trying to get out of trying to get out of decision making mode just yet. And instead put ourselves in automatic habit mode. And eventually it will become automatic. And this is a good thing. This means you're reserving all the decision making capacity of your brain for later. Now, it's important to notice your morning routine will change over time. Everything that I'm doing now isn't everything that I was doing a year and a half ago. It's modified, it's moved. I've added things taking things away. But I always did so with intent with purpose. And I didn't do it by accident, it was always a conscious decision that I was going to swap one activity for another or add another activity or takeaway another activity, I always was conscious of my decisions, and being conscious of my decisions gives me agency over them. And that I think, when I reflect upon all of it, is the real power of this routine. It's having agency over your life, your life, having control over it.

So that you can be your best self. When you go into the office, when it's time to deliver to others you can show up as the best person that you need to be. I hope this helped. These are all part of becoming a leader. You know, all these skills, if there's a reason that this is a discipline, there's a reason some of the most highly qualified and capable people in the world follow systems like this. Not all it's not universal. But it's definitely a propensity. And I'm willing to bet on the law of averages, then follow the outliers, you know? Because maybe they knew something we didn't. And if you're trying to become that leader in your organization, it's about finding what everyone else is doing and just trying little things. No, we all do Funnel Hacking. Don't we all model what else we're seeing in our marketing in our team leading and how we're building our business, why would we do anything different with how we are managing our own lives. As someone once told me, actually not too long ago, success leaves clues. Pick up on those clues and you will be successful as well. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Jump into whatever you're doing now. And I look forward to seeing you next time. Let's continue really to hone in on leadership here and the different ways that we can become that best leader that we can be for our people.