A few weeks back I had the opportunity to hear Robin Sharma speak at The Art of Leadership in Vancouver. Robin spoke about leading without a title, pushing possibilities, daily devotions and so much other goodness.
I have read a few of his books and my expectations were high. He completely blew them out of the water. We’re writing a blog post over at JCI Vancouver on the day; it’ll be posted later this week.
5 Daily Devotions by Robin Sharma:
1. Rise each and every morning at 5 A.M. Those who get up early are those who get the best from life.
2. Set aside the first sixty minutes of your day as you “holy hour.” This is your sacred time to do the inner work that will help you live your highest life.
3. Display a standard care, compassion, and character well beyond what anyone could ever imagine from you.
4. Display a standard of excellence at work far higher than anyone would ever expect from you.
5. Devote yourself to being the most loving person you know and thinking, feeling, and acting, as though you are one of the greatest people on the planet (because you are).
So what is the point of this post?
The 5am club. Yep, 5am.
Robin reinforced that those who get up at 5am rule the world. Immediately I thought that those who are up at 5am can’t sleep because they are stressed out, overworked and/or have bad habits. But nope! There’s a group of people on this planet who have a major success strategy. They get up early to get ahead of their peers, colleagues and friends. They get up early to take a moment to breathe. They get up early to get a good start to their day and be organized for the 8am rush.
The most successful people I know get up at 5am. I don’t define success as ballin’ rich. I more mean that they are highly organized, embrace ‘work/life’ balance, seem to be at peace and are totally superstar entrepreneurial minds.
A few big biz minds who are early to rise:
I’ve never been a morning person. I think that’s because I’ve next to never rested. I don’t allow myself to get a whole lot of sleep and I usually run myself into the wee hours. Take for example it’s currently 4:27am on an early Tuesday morning right now. I love being up at this time of night, because it is quiet… the world is sleeping. I get more done and I enjoy the peace.
A little about me? I’m always late. Generally disorganized. Often overwhelmed by communication channels. Experience death by Inbox a few times a week. I always feel like I don’t have enough time in the day and I’m constantly bogged down in interruptions and conflicting priorities.
By integrating the 5am club into my life, it’ll force me to go to sleep early. I know there is no way I’ll be able to achieve the goal if I don’t go to sleep early. The plan is to adopt the routine/ritual/whatever into my life and see what happens. My goal is 5am on weekdays and give myself flexibility on weekends for a 6am start. There are definitely people who think it should be 5am everyday, but that seems a little crazy card to me. This isn’t the military!
An early start to my day will allow me to stay on track with my run schedule, work out, go to yoga, enjoy a cup of tea, tackle the task list and increase my productivity. Sharma says that you should have ‘me time’ in the morning; nurture your body. I don’t really care what I do as long as I’m more organized and at peace.
Similar to being up at night… Being up before the masses will allow me to get shit done {in a way that’s probably better on the body — and mind}. When I do work on-site with clients, I usually aim for 9am or 9:30am… that means I’ll have 4 hours of time before I have to be there. FOUR. So much time to utilize in a productive and effective manner.
5am is scary early.
Robin offers these 5 tips for getting on track with 5am:
1. Don’t eat after 7pm.
2. Don’t lounge in bed after your alarm clock goes off. Jump out of bed and start your day.
3. Get into world-class physical condition.
4. Set goals; they breathe life and energy into your days. .
5. Set your alarm clock 30 minutes early.
He also expresses the importance of getting massages, managing your diet, dumping your worries (writing in a journal) and loving what you do. If you learn better visually or audible, check out his video here.
5am club begins on April 16.
The plan is 5 weeks; ending on May 20th.
From there, we’ll see how it goes. I’d love to be able to implement this tactic long-term, but I don’t want to make any promises to myself yet. I have not booked travel in the next 5 weeks and there is nothing that really conflicts or gets in the way of 5am. So, no excuses right?? I have no doubt there will be days I press snooze and totally fail, but that’s likely part of the lesson.
Wish me and my alarm clock luck. I’m already dreading the beep, beep, beep. :)
Happy Tuesday!
PS – Giving myself a week till I start so that I can get caught up on all my bad habits and maybe catch a few winks of sleep. Think that sounds crazy? It probably is. Cowabunga.
