Are you someone who prefers mornings or evenings? Personally, I lean towards evenings. The reason for this is that I find evenings to be more peaceful compared to mornings. In fact, for a significant period of time, my mornings consisted of a quick routine: waking up, having breakfast, taking a shower, and then heading off to work or school. My mornings were always rushed and filled with pressure until I discovered a book by Robin S. Sharma called «The 5 AM Club» which inspired me to incorporate new habits into my mornings. Today, I wanted to share with you what I have learned and explain why taking control of our mornings is crucial in improving our lives. Thank you for joining me, I appreciate your presence.
Summary: The 5 AM Club is a work of fiction in the self-help genre, authored by renowned writer Robin S. Sharma. It narrates the journey of an entrepreneur and an artist who feel lost in both their personal lives and careers. Their lives take a significant turn when they team up with an unknown homeless man they meet at a conference, who turns out to be the billionaire Mr. Riley. With the guidance of the famous Spellbinder, Mr. Riley's mentor, the trio embarks on a global adventure to understand the principles of the 5 AM Club and gain inspiration from influential figures around the world. Although the story is fictional, the book provides genuine concepts and advice. Let's delve into it.
“All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.” — Robin S. Sharma.
The Victory Hour and The 20/20/20 Formula.
“It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth and wisdom.” — Aristotle.
The Victory Hour is the first hour of the day, from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m.
As Dr. Anisha Patel-Dunn, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of LifeStance Health, says, “waking up at 5 a.m. can be very beneficial. Depending on your unique situation, it can allow you to incorporate a self-care practice without disruption, like a workout or meditation, or accomplish a few things off your to-do list before your kids or partner wake up.” Here, the author urges us not only to wake up earlier but also to target the hour before sunrise, as this is a very essential time. But waking up at 5 AM is just the beginning. Next, you have to know what you're supposed to do after you wake up. Because when this time is not used correctly it will just be a wasted time. There comes the 20/20/20 Formula. Each of the 20 minutes is dedicated to one of the 4 most important areas of our life: our Soulset, Healthset, Mindset and Heartset.
From 5:00 to 5:20 AM, MOVE. Which means exercising intensely. Why? Because it will significantly lower your cortisol and, therefore, dial you into your top performance. The sweating from a powerful workout also releases BDNF (Brain-derived neurotrophic factor) which supercharges that organ from a winning day. By exercising intensely during this time of the day, you will also release dopamine, which is known as the neurotransmitter of drive, along with elevating your amounts of serotonin, the wonderful chemical that regulates happiness.
From 5:20 to 5:40 AM, REFLECT. Whether is it by journaling, meditating, planning, praying, or just contemplating. Why? Because it will boost our gratitude muscle, raise our awareness, lift our happiness, develop our wisdom, and expand our serenity. As the author says: “In so many ways, reflection is a main source of transformation because once you know better, you definitely can do better.” So dedicate these next 20 minutes to focus on yourself, focus on your thoughts and your feelings. Don't think too much. Write your commitments for the day ahead, record your ambitions, and activate your gratitude by listing what's good in your life right now. I've tried it many times, and I can say that starting your day by remembering at least one thing you're grateful for in your life really helps to start the day on the right foot. Take this time to feel the emotions you need to feel, the positive ones and the negatives. Go into this twenty minutes of silence and stillness to remember who you truly are. Truth speaks in the solitude of the day's earliest light. And then carry this knowledge with you, through the remaining hours of the gift we call a day.
From 5:40 to 6:00 AM, GROW. By reviewing your goals, reading a book, consuming audiobooks, listening to podcasts, or studying online. Apply the 2x3 Mindset: to double your income and impact, triple your investment in two primary areas: your personal mastery and your professional capability.
“Each day, acquire something that will fortify you against death, indeed against other misfortune as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.”
However, we won't be able to orchestrate the 20/20/20 Formula if we do not sleep properly. We often hear the joke: We'll get enough sleep when we are dead. But as science confirms, the primary way we bring on early death is by not sleeping enough. “When we don't sleep enough, not only it is fiercely difficult to get up early, but a number of other highly damaging things impair our productivity and minimize our performance along with reducing our happiness and eroding our health.” To allow our brains to be washed properly and our human growth hormone to be produced excellently, we (as adults) need five complete ninety-minute sleep cycles. That's 7½ hours of sleep per night. Research has proven that it's not only sleep deprivation that kills. Over-sleeping, nine or more hours, also has been shown to shorten life.
The Habit Installation Protocol.
It takes 66 days to get to the automation point of a new habit. The time can be divided into 3 parts (22 days each):
Destruction Phase: Here your old habit gets destroyed. It is the hardest part. You need most of your willpower in this phase.
Installation Phase: In this phase installation of a new habit takes place. Here you should remember why you are going to build this habit.
Integration Phase: Here the habit gets integrated with your daily life
After 66 days, the habit will be automated.
The Four Focuses of History Makers.
Sharma researched where the most influential people place their focus. The result of this research is his four focuses on history-makers:
Capitalization IQ: As James Flynn says: “What makes a legendary performer so good isn't the amount of natural talent they are born into but the extent of that potential they actualize—and capitalize.”
Freedom from distraction: “An addiction to distraction is the death of your creative production.” In a world full of distraction, become a purist. An intense concentration only on what matters most is how the pros realize victory. As they say, less is more and that can only be truer in our time.
Personal mastery: It is only when we improve that our lives improve. And our influence in the world mirrors the glory, nobility, vitality, and luminosity we have accessed in ourselves.
Day stacking: “As you live each day, so you craft your life. We are all so focused on pursuing our futures that we generally ignore the exceedingly important value of a single day. And yet what we are doing today is creating our future.” Consistency really is the key ingredient of mastery. And regularity is a necessity if you're amped to make history.
“And amazing days create an upward spiral into amazing weeks and amazing weeks morph into amazing months. And amazing months become amazing quarters and amazing quarters yield amazing years and decades and ultimately... an amazing life.”
The 10 Tactics of Lifelong Genius.
“If you knew how much work went into it, you would not call it genius” — Michelangelo.
The Tight Bubble of Total Focus (TBTF): An addiction to distraction is the death of our creative production. Your attraction to digital interruption is costing you your fortune—financially, cognitively, energetically, physically, and spiritually. The real key here is solitude for a scheduled period each day, in a positive environment that floods you with creativity, energy, happiness, and the feeling the work you're doing is for the upliftment of humanity.
The 90/90/1 Rule: Doing real work instead of artificial work, daily with absolute consistency, will give you a Gargantuan Competitive Advantage born of Mastery. For the next ninety days, schedule yourself to invest the first ninety minutes of your workday on the one activity that when completed at world class, will cause you to own your field.
The 60/10 Method: Research supports that the greatest performers don't work in a linear way—working harder and longer with the hope of arriving at stronger and better results. Instead, the way elite creatives do what they do is by understanding the power of oscillation. So, after each 60 minutes of productivity sprint, refuel for 10 minutes. Then go back and perform your next sixty-minute work segment.
The Daily 5 Concept: Studies show that the most effective business leaders are at their productive peak on the days when, even if they've faced some serious setbacks, they've actively engaged their mindset on the progress they've made. During the second pocket our your Victory Hour, list the five tiny targets you wish to accomplish over the day ahead for you to feel it was one well-spent, and guess what? After a year, you'll have accomplished 1,825 valuable victories.
The Second Wind Workout (2WW): Moving the body regularly lifts your concentration, speeds up the processing potency of your brain as well as accelerates its learning capacity, raises your energy, elevates your optimism, etc. To execute the 2WW practice, schedule a second workout at the end of your workday to give you a second wind for a great evening. You'll beat the exhaustion most people feel after work, and re-energize your willpower batteries.
The Two Massage Protocol (2MP): Studies have demonstrated that massage therapy is a modality that generates significant improvements in brain performance, mood, your ability to fight stress, and in terms of your general wellness. To apply The 2 MP, lock two ninety-minute massages onto your weekly schedule.
Traffic University: Participating in Traffic University is all about leveraging your traveling time, to learn, and expand your professional prowess and personal knowledge. People who commute a total of 60 minutes to and from work spend approximately 12,000 days of their lives doing so—if they live an average human lifetime. That’s over 3 years spent in traffic or on a bus or on a train. People on commuter trains or buses often sleep, daydream, or play with their technology, in a chronic state of apathy. Be different.
The Dream Team Technique: Delegate tasks that are not an optimal use of your time and better suit the skills of someone else. Also, find a support team that will help you navigate through life. Because even if it's true that we were born and will die alone, in this life, as Maya Angelou said: “Alone, all alone. Nobody, but nobody can make it out here alone.”
The Weekly Design System (WDS): Things that get scheduled are the things that get done. Carve out and then ritualize 30 minutes each Sunday morning to create your “Blueprint for a Beautiful Week”. Reflect on the week that just passed and think about what you want to achieve during the coming one.
The 60 Minute Student: “The more you know, the better you will do.” Legendary leaders all have boundless curiosity and a limitless appetite to grow into their greatest selves. And always remember that education truly is inoculation against disruption. Peak producers are lifetime learners. Study for at least 60 minutes every day.
The 11 Billionaire's Maxim:
#1: To create magic in the world, own the magic within yourself.
#2: Collect miraculous experiences over material things.
#3: Failure inflates fearlessness.
#4: Proper use of your primal power creates your personal utopia.
#5: Avoid bad people.
#6: Money is the fruit of generosity, not scarcity.
#7: Optimal health maximizes your power to produce magic.
#8: Continue raising your life standards towards absolute world-class.
#9: Deep love yields unconquerable joy.
#10: Heaven on Earth is a state, not a place.
#11: Tomorrow is a bonus, not a right.
JOY as a GPS.
You enter the magic by using your joy as a GPS. Follow your joy. Only be around those people who fuel your joy. Only perform those pursuits that feed your bliss. Only be in those places that make you feel most alive. Remember: “Your heart is always wiser than your head. It knows where you must be. Follow it. Trust it. You'll find the magic.”
Dear reader I hope all these tips will be as useful for you as they are for me. Before ending this, I wanted to discuss something one of my friends told me while I was reading the book. That friend said: “Self-help books are for those whose lives lack directions. ”It can be true but I think that self-help books can be helpful for both therapy and providing useful tips. However, I will say that self-help books should not be followed blindly and that the advice should be applied regarding personal experiences and individual lifestyles. For instance, I strongly believe that waking up earlier is necessary. However, I don't think it has to specifically be at 5 AM. The reason being, each individual has their own unique lifestyle. Some people work during the night, while others work in the morning. Some individuals have large families to take care of, while others only have themselves to worry about, and so on. Therefore, I believe it is important to be adaptable when reading self-help books, particularly when trying to establish new habits. However, if you find it manageable to wake up at 5 AM, then go ahead and do so. If not, I suggest trying to wake up an hour earlier than your usual waking time, allowing yourself some personal time before getting caught up in other responsibilities. Thank you for taking the time to read. May you be blessed.
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