Million Dollar Entrepreneur Morning Rituals

Young and Wildly Successful. I’m in the beautiful Bali right now, and I just want to record a video for you today about morning rituals because I see so many people out there in the world today, myself included up until recently, that are just struggling to be able to get ahead of the curve. I think a lot of times, for a lot of us, we feel like we’re behind the eight-ball in life and there’s so many things to do in our day and there’s always more things left over at the end of our day than day left over at the end of our things.

And what I want to talk to you today about for business owners, for entrepreneurs, for peak performers, is how to set your day up for success, so that you start the day, you make so much momentum at the beginning of your day that the rest of the day is easy and effortless, and that you actually get your critical genius priorities done at the beginning of your day, that sets you up for great momentum, great success, boosting endorphins in your bloodstream as well, get you feeling great, and then the rest of the day you can go and do all of the things that everybody else has to worry about, but you’ve already got the critical things, the most important things done in your day.

So in this video, what I want to share with you is not only how I set up my day now in the morning, to succeed, to achieve, to drive, to produce great results, to boost creativity, endorphins to get the blood going, how I incorporate movement. I’m going to not only talk about those rituals, I’m also going to talk about some diet aspects as well. How you can structure your diet around your morning rituals to succeed, and then on top of that we’re going to look at putting in place a couple of key pillars around sleeping patterns and time and energy, and how to exert yourself in certain key areas so that you succeed as well. So I’ve got a lot to share.

By the way, a lot of this video will be an excerpt of all the different things that we’ve talked about and the transcription of it as well, so that you can download it and take away with you as well, and then of course don’t ever take just my word for it. I want you to take this idea and I want you to implement it into your own life, and I want you to play around with it, and I want you to find your own groove and your own morning ritual because I didn’t just come up with this one morning. I’ve gone and looked at some of the top achievers in business, the top achievers in sport, the top achievers in politics, the top achievers in their particular areas of expertise, and we found that there are some common threads here that I go, “Well, if it’s good enough for Arnold Schwarzenegger or the Dalai Lama or Tim Ferriss, it’s good enough for me.” And then you try it on for size and if it works for you, you keep rock and rolling with it. If it doesn’t, then you throw it out. So let’s jump into it.

First and foremost, what I want to talk to you today about is how we get my day set up. And so one of the key things that I think is really powerful if you think about the warrior mindset is I love this idea of rising with the sun. I think there’s something spiritual about that. I think there’s something that’s profound about that. I think that it’s something that it’s universal. There’s always a sunrise at some time, and so if you can rise with the sun, I think there’s something beautiful about starting the day the way that the world starts the day.

There’s a lot of talk about the 5:00 a.m. club, and I’ve done that before. For me at the moment just doesn’t fit with the lifestyle I want to have. But at the moment in Bali right now it’s 6:30 a.m. sunrise. And so I think that in winter it makes sense to sleep in a little bit longer because it’s colder outside. But getting your day started for success when that happens is really powerful of me.

In the summer time though when it’s warmer and you want to get started earlier, there’s more energy in your body, then that sunrise might be 5:00 a.m. But having a pattern that allows you to be able to go with the seasons, the ebbs and the flows really works.

So I’ll start my day by getting up at sunrise and first thing that I do, you’ll see behind here me here if I just tilt the video down, there’s a beautiful pool here where we are in Bali. But the first thing that I’ll do is I’ll actually just get up, I’ll have a beautiful big glass of water, and then I’ll jump into the pool. And if you can, jump into an ice-cold bath or if you can, jump into the shower, start with hot and then what I’ll do is if I’m not home and I don’t have the pool available to me, if I’m on the road in a seminar, I literally turn the handle full cold, and I’ll just literally stand down. I’ll just count from 10 seconds while my hands on the shoulders because I’m just trying

I’m so cold, I’ll just count down 10 seconds. And I’ll try and go 10 seconds or more underneath the ice cold water of the shower.

Now what does that is when you manipulate the hot and the cold, it’s equivalent of jumping into an ice bath. It just activates your body so quickly. The neurons in your brain fire because now it’s being shocked and it’s the fastest way to wake up. Much better than a coffee. I’ll talk to you about coffee in just a second, but it’s the fastest way to wake up and get your day started. So that’s how I’ll get my day started. And so I’ll start by jumping into a cool pool or having a cold shower, drinking a beautiful big glass of water, and then what I’ll do is I’ll jump straight into a yoga meditative practice.

Now I used to do this a long time ago. I’ve just started to implement it again, beautiful practice. It doesn’t have to be anything dramatic. There are so many different YouTube videos you can see on yoga and on medication, so there’s nothing serious about this. But what I’ll do is I’ll spend a couple of minutes, maybe half-an-hour, maybe 45 minutes doing a yoga practice, a couple of salutes to the sun, I’ll balance myself out and then I’ll finish in what’s called the Shavasana, which is like dead man’s pose. And while I’m in dead man’s pose, I’ll practice four by four breathing. And what does that mean? And do this with me if you’re watching the video. What I want you to do is put your hands on your belly. I’ll just lower this down for you guys, filming this on the fly.

So you put your hand on your belly, and what you’ll do is you’ll breathe in for a count of four. So breathe in and then hold for a count of four. And then breathe out for a count of four. Hold for a count of four and breathe in for a count of four. And then hold. Breathe out. And what I’ll do is I’ll repeat that for probably around about 40 repetitions. So 10 breaths, 10 full breaths. And what that does is that opens the diaphragm. A lot of people they breathe up and down their shoulders. And it’s called breath of fire if you do it in yoga. It’s a phenomenal practice, but most people breathe so shallow, they don’t have a lot of oxygen. Most people’s oxygen capacity is probably around 30-40%. The challenge with that is, guys, that you’re not actually activating your full neurology, you’re not activating your full body.

Breath is life. The more we breathe, the more we feel, the more we live, the better our bodies are. And so if you activate your diaphragm, what that does is that circulates your lymphatic system better than anything else in the planet. It super alkalines you, so you’re super alkaline which is great because cancer can’t live in an alkaline environment. We know that from Nobel Prize literature.

So we’re feeling healthy, we’re feeling great, but on top of that as well we’re aerating and we’re circulating the body, we’re releasing or flushing toxins. You might need to yawn during this process, that’s great. You may feel a little bit dizzy when you start to take these deeper breaths. It’s not that you’re losing consciousness, what happens is your body is literally getting rid of toxins. And so the dizziness is the toxins coming out of your system as well. So it’s very, very powerful.

So that’s how I get my day started. So that’s normally like for example, at the moment in Bali, it’s 6:30. I get up, I’m going through that ritual, I’m taking a shower, I’m having a swim, I’m having a glass of water, I’m doing my yoga practice and normally that takes me through till right about 7:30 or so. Then at that time I’ve now set myself up for my day, and I can’t tell you the sense of peacefulness that I have.

But whilst I’m there lying, reflecting, meditating, I’m taking a couple of deep breaths, I’ll then move into a bit of a meditation process, and I’ll focus on three things that I’m grateful for. So I’ll focus on three things. And I’ll try to think of one thing in this present moment. So for example, one of the things that I was really grateful for this morning when I was doing this practice and it’s about eight o’clock now, so I’m doing this off the fly of this, and you can see my energy is very different now than what you see on normal videos, is one of the things I was really grateful for was the fact I was listening to some mediation-based music on Spotify, and I was like, “Wow, we live in a world where I can access things,” and I was just grateful for the music. But then I’m also focused on things that I was grateful for as well that’s more nostalgic, and there’s things I’m grateful for into the future as well. And I remember back to this old lady by the name of Mrs. Ford.

Now none of you will know who she is, but Mrs. Ford used to be one of my teachers back in primary school. And I remember before I got into John Curtin, which was a theater school I went to, I studied theater for five years, best school in my mind in Australia for theater. Hands down. And Cherish, my partner, went there. That’s how we met. And I was really grateful for the fact that when I was in primary school, Mrs. Ford sat down with me and she spent a couple of weeks teaching me drama and ideas and theater to then set me up for success when I went to John Curtin because I didn’t know anything about acting at the time. So I was grateful for Mrs. Ford. I don’t know where that came from, I was just grateful for her.

And then I’m also grateful as well to be in Bali and to be able to record this piece of content and to be able to get things out there for you as well. That was my gratitude practice. And so I’m starting the day physically engaging myself by logically engaging myself as well, setting my mindset right as well making sure I’m balanced and I’ve got things happening. And then on top of that as well, I’m then making sure that I’m ready to rock and roll by setting myself up for some success.

And then after I’ve done that, I’ll then focus on three things I’m excited about or my three critical goals for the day. These are not just thing I need to get done, these are not pressing, really urgent things, these are things that are important, that I as a business owner, as a leader of a team, as a company but if you were in an employing position, then three things you need to get done for the day is well. I think if we spend too many things or do too many things, we get bogged down in decision-making and there’s a whole other video on decision-making. But in the video, it’s important to understand there’s only three things that we really need to do for the day. And I actually only have two things, but I stretch myself and I think about three things I could get done. But every day I have two critical things I need to get done, which means I do 14 tasks a week, which means it’s about 700 tasks a year. If you do 700 critical important genius-level things in your business or in your life, then you’ll have a phenomenal life no doubt in 12 months’ time. So that’s what I’ll do to get started.

Then after that, what I’ll do from a dietary perspective is what I’ll do is I actually I’m just implementing a process. Thank you to Travis Jones for being able to help with this. Live [SP and Teach and we love him to bits. They’re mentors of ours.

Trav talked about the idea of what’s called intermittent fasting. And he’s not the first person in the world to talk about it. Of course, he didn’t invent the concept, but he’s certainly a big practicer of it. And so I actually do intermittent fasting. And so I won’t eat from dinner time the night before, all the way through till about 1 o’clock or 12 o’clock, lunch time in the day. Now I don’t do this every day, but most days I do it. And what that allows me to do is I get up in the morning, I have another big glass of water after I’ve done the meditation, the yoga and the gratitude practice, and then I’ll get my day started. And what I’ll do as I’ll get my day started is I’ll have a drink which is called kombucha. It’s basically fermented tea. If you’ve ever had a Yakult drink before, you’ll know it’s great on probiotics and it’s really good for your digestive system.

So I’ll have the equivalent but it’s a natural brewed form. My aunt brews that for me and she brings it over to my house sometimes. So I’ll have that. That cleanses my digestive system. It’s super powerful for probiotics. I’m feeling great, a great digestion. There’s a lot of energy spent in digestion, so the more you have that as clean and the more that’s on fire [SP], the better. So I’ll drink that and then I’ll have a double espresso or I’ll have a bulletproof coffee. And if you haven’t read the bulletproof coffee stuff, check out Bulletproof Executive, check out Bulletproof Coffee online. It’s basically double espresso with organic grass-fed butter. Just a small amount, not enough to break the fast, but just a small amount and then on top of that as well, some MCT oil, as well some coconut oil depending on where you’re going, and that just fires your brain as well and get you on fire.

So if you don’t have bulletproof coffee like for example in Bali right now, no bulletproof coffee, I’m just doing a double espresso to get my day started. But if I have bulletproof coffee, I’ll have that because that just fires my brain. So I’ll have kombucha first. About an hour later, I’ll have bulletproof coffee. And that will see me through till about lunch time.

Now some of you will go, “Cal, how do you not have breakfast?” Trust me, I’ve been in the position where I’ve done five meals, six meals, seven meals a day. When I was trying to get into physical shape, this principle behind that, it really works. For me, I found, though when I was trying to run a business and make seven meals a day, I just simply didn’t have the time. You just can’t balance both of those things. I really struggled to balance those things. If I had a chef to do it for me, maybe. But I found I spent more of my time working, sorry, I spent more of my time cooking and eating than I did actually working, and it wasn’t efficient or effective for me.

So now I’ve changed the approach, trying a new school of thought. It may not be what I use forever, but it’s what I’m using right now, and that is not to eat until about one o’clock. And what I do is I just got such mental clarity. I think as soon as you put food in your belly, the two things that take the most energy in our life is sex and digestion. And so if we get rid of the digestion part, and forget about the sex stuff for now, but get rid of the digestion part, it allows us to spend all that time creatively focusing on key things.

And so one of the things now moving into business aspect of how I run the business, I’ll then spend the first part of the morning, literally from when I finish my meditative practice, like say 7 o’clock, 7:30, 8 o’clock, all the way through to 1 o’clock, there’s no emails, there’s no Facebook, there’s no really even Internet. All I’m doing is I’m focusing on genius things, things that I was put on the planet to do, which might be recording videos for you guys. It might be doing sales for my team, it might be leadership, it might be meeting with my team. Although I really try not to even speak to anybody, if I can, for that period of time because I just want to be in isolation.

There’s a great, not YouTube, it’s an essay. I can’t remember what it is, but I’ll post below on this which is called The Artist Mindset and the Manager Mindset. And Tim Ferriss referenced this in the Four-hour Work Week blog and also as well in the podcast which you should definitely check out. I’ll talk to you about the podcast in just a second. So much to share in this video.

But in the process, I’ll look at the artist process being the sort of creative process that we want to make sure we manage really clearly our energies. And so I won’t set any meetings, I won’t set any calls, I’ll really just focus on delivering and developing content, value, creative ideas, strategy, that sort of stuff because it’s a different energy [inaudible 00:13:45]. That’s a different mindset, it’s a different skillset, it’s a different challenge, then the managing and leading of a team and getting stuff done and managing decisions and lots of the stuff, right? So that’s a different energy, that’s my after lunch energy. Because after lunch is when you have food, your energy softens, you do different things, it’s less creative. Big picture it’s more down detail, so I want to make sure I manage those states because what I found is really important is batching tasks. If you try to go create a big picture, small picture detail, create a big picture, small picture detail, you lose so much energy in the transition. So I’ll do creative big picture first and then I’ll do detail second. Hopefully, that makes sense.

So I would encourage you to think about what are the things that you really need to get done that only you can do, do them in the morning first. Robin Sharma says go after the thing that scares you the most in the morning because it will build you the momentum first. If you’re in sales, for example, it might be getting your cold calls done first and then doing all of your paperwork in the afternoon, structuring your day. Now this is not going to work for everybody, but it works for me and hopefully you can take something from it.

And then on top of all of that, on top of all of that, what I’ll do is as well I’ll make sure at the beginning and the end the day, I’ll do a review and I check-in with myself. And just to make sure that I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve. I won’t start the day before looking at my journal. So I’ll do a journaling process as well that I find very effective, and at the beginning and the end of the day, I’ll do a journaling process and I’ll review what have I achieved for the day, but then also as well I’ll write down what are the three things that I need to achieve for the next day?

And I’ll write that down before I got to bed, and then I’ll come back to my office desk. And by the way, you should get a stand-up desk. I don’t have one here in Bali with me, but when I’m back at home in the office, I have a stand-up desk, phenomenal for productivity. And I’ll have my three things there and I’ll review them when I get up in the morning. It helps my own conscious mind switch off, it also allows me to go, “I know what I need to do.” There’s nothing worse than going, “I don’t know what I need to get done,” but then you’re stressing about it when you’re not in the office. So having ability to switch on and off is very powerful. But then when I come into the office, I go, “What do I need to do for the day? Oh, I already wrote it down last night.” And I just go one, two, three and I just get on with it.

Like for example today, I had film content, so this morning I woke up, I got my practice done, I checked, oh film content, great, no problems, and then I’ve got to do some speakers calls in just a little bit. I’ll do that after lunch. And then I’ve also got to speak to some of our business master clients for some coaching. So really easy set up for me, but allows me to structure my time really effectively.

So we’ve covered quite a lot and I appreciate your time, your energy and your efforts being with me this morning as well. Let me review just real quick all the things I’ve just shared with you, and I’ll just do it in like 30 seconds if I can do that.

Starting the morning with sunrise, jumping in the pool, getting that beautiful glass of water, then doing a meditative yoga practice to get your day started, to get your mindset in the right place. This is something that Arnold Schwarzenegger does, the Dalai Lama does, Tim Ferriss does. Some great stuff out there.

Then what I’ll do is I’ll do intermittent fasting through till about lunch time. Allows me to have more energy for the creative things that I do in life. I’ll do a bulletproof coffee in the morning to get me started as well as some kombucha, and then after that I’ll just drink water, sparkling water all day, and just keep myself super hydrated. Super hydrated in the morning guys flushes the toxins in your body, keeps you mentally alert and focused as well. If you’re feeling tired and lethargic, it’s just because you’re dehydrated.

Then I’ll move into management tasks in the afternoon as well. Make sure if you don’t put your priorities in your schedule, somebody else will put their priorities in your schedule as well. So set yourself up for success. And remember, this may not work for you completely, but you might go, “Cal, I’m going to incorporate yoga into my schedule. I wasn’t doing bulletproof coffee. I’m going to incorporate that. Right now I’m going to do the ice cold bath and the shower.” It’s something a lot my clients do to set themselves up for success. Successful people are willing to do the things that unsuccessful people don’t even know about, never mind do. And on top of that, successful people know that if they want to set their life up to success, they’ve got to set up their day up for success because, please write this down, success is not a destination, it is a habit. And what you do any day and every day determines the life you have tomorrow. So I hope you got some great value from that as well.

What I encourage you to do guys is to share this with your team, to share it with friends and family that are setting themselves up for success. And remember, this is something that the winds of change are going to test this. They’re going to pressure it. Don’t beat yourself up. If you don’t get through your whole morning ritual every day, that’s life. But get back on the track as fast as possible.

There’s time when I travel at 4:00 a.m. in the morning. So I don’t have the ability to do my yoga meditation practice. That’s fine, I’ll do it sometime else. So you have to be flexible with it, but you want to make sure that when you have the opportunity, you commit to it as well long after the idea or the incentive is done.

And if you’re looking at getting up earlier in the morning, here’s a little hack, a little tip for you. It’s not about getting up at what time. The time is not important, why you’re getting up is important. While I implemented a process of getting up with the sunrise, I wasn’t, I was getting up at nine o’clock before. I said, “Why am I getting up? I’m getting up because I’m setting myself up for success for the day.” That reason for getting up was worth me getting out of bed earlier when you want to stay in bed. If you’re going to get up at 5:00 a.m., do the Robin Sharma 5:00 a.m. Club, awesome. You’ve got to have a reason for doing that. And I found that if my reason for doing it was learning and development, that filled me, that fulfilled my needs, I would make it happen.

So until I see you on the next blog guys, from the whole team her at Young and Wildly Successful, I want to wish you all the health, wealth, happiness, success in your business, in your life, your career, your relationships, whatever it might be for you, and encourage you to live life on your terms. I’ll see you on the next video, guys. Good luck and God bless.