The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.

by Robin Sharma

“Theodore Roosevelt said something I think it’s important you hear,” expounded the billionaire. “What did he say?” inquired the entrepreneur, her arms clenched tightly. “‘Comparison is the thief of joy,’” responded the billionaire. “Someone will always have more fortune, fame and stuff than you do. Think about my earlier point about detachment and embracing the wisdom of knowing when enough is enough.”

Comparison is the thief of joy.

And the prefrontal cortex developed. This is the part of our brain responsible for higher thinking. Neuroscientists consider it the crown jewel of advanced reasoning. The Spellbinder calls it ‘The Mastery Brain.’ But here’s the thing: As we began to dream bigger, learn quicker and raise our levels of creativity, productivity and performance, the ancient brain and the mastery brain began a conflict. They went to war. The primitive brain senses our growth, knows we’re leaving our safe harbor of the known and gets fired up because we’re leaving our traditional ways of being. It senses the threat—even though the threat is essential to our personal ascension and professional advancement. We absolutely must venture into those unexplored places where possibility lives to become more intimate with our primal genius and to become all we are meant to be. Knowing we have higher reaches of talent and courage left to visit floods a human heart with immense excitement.

Ancient brain vs Mastery Brain

Many of the people who fueled the progress of our civilization shared the habit of rising before daybreak.” “Could you name a few of those people?” quizzed the entrepreneur. “John Grisham, the famous novelist, for one,” replied the billionaire. “Other celebrated early risers include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway, who said that early in the morning ‘there is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write.’”

Famous people who woke up early.

Sophie Leroy, a business professor at the University of Minnesota, calls the concentration we deposit on distraction and other stimuli ‘attention residue.’ She’s found that people are far less productive when they are constantly interrupting themselves by shifting from one task to another throughout the day because they leave valuable pieces of their attention on too many different pursuits.

Attention residue

hypofrontality.’”

Decreased cerebral blood flow

Ingenuity without integrity isn’t so impressive to me.

If you have integrity you need ingenuity

‘Sweat more in practice, bleed less in war.’

Sweat more in practice, bleed less in war.

“Because inner empires need to be unfolded up to world-class before you’ll ever see outer ones. And your fortune always follows your fearlessness. Powerful insight, cats: Your influence in the world mirrors the glory, nobility, vitality and luminosity you’ve accessed in yourself.

Fortune favors your fearlessness

Mahatma Gandhi: “The only devils in the world are those running in our own hearts. That is where the battle should be fought.”

The only devils our in our hearts

“As you consistently increase the inherent power inside you,” Mr. Riley continued, “you’ll actually begin to see an alternate reality flush with gorgeous opportunity and luxurious possibility. You’ll play in a universe of the marvelous that members of the majority can’t even perceive. Because their eyes are blinded by doubt, disbelief and fear. Greatness is an inside game,” the billionaire affirmed as he drew yet another learning model into the sand. It looked like this:

Greatness is a inside game

Yet also know that part-time commitment truly does deliver part-time results,” stated the billionaire

Part time commitment equals part time results

Sigmund Freud wrote that ‘unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and they will come forth later in uglier ways.’

Unexpressed emotions never die

Every day’s just dramatically better with some exercise in it. I need to say that again because it’s so essential to a life amazingly lived: every day is just dramatically better with some exercise in it.

Everyday is dramatically better with exercise in it.

The billionaire paused. He drew his hands together as is the custom in India, where people say “Namaste,” which is Sanskrit for “I bow to the divine in you.”

Namaste

There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportions,’” observed the billionaire as he waved to his gardeners and stuck his tongue out at a frog. “The English poet Christopher Marlowe said that. And, dude, he was speaking some truth there. Anyhoo, to help you understand the fourth interior empire, please allow me to bring this learning all together by simply saying that since Mindset is all about your psychology and Heartset is all about your emotionality, and Healthset relates to your physiology, Soulset refers to your spirituality. That’s it. Nothing mystical, really. Nothing religious. Nothing voodoo or freaky.”

Why is voudou demonized so much?

All I’m encouraging is that you soar with the angels of your highest nature and dance with the gods of your most precious talents for a little time before sunrise, as a tribute to what’s most wise and true within you.

Soar with angels and dance with gods before sun rise.

magnate’s

Great man, nobility, power, wealth.

“Here’s the real takeaway,” the billionaire carried on. “Elite producers and everyday heroes understand that what you do each day matters far more than what you do once in a while. Consistency really is a key ingredient of mastery. And regularity is a necessity if you’re amped to make history.”

Concistency is the key to mastery.

“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.” —Helen Keller

The most beautiful things are not seen or heard they are felt with the heart

“Albert Einstein wrote ‘Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.’”

Great spirits always encountered violent opposition from medicore minds

The hero does not become great during periods of comfort. The illustrious and noble souls of our world became strong, brave and moral whilst standing resolutely in the storms of adversity, difficulty and doubt. It is in the moment that you face your deepest weakness that you receive the chance to forge your greatest strengths. Real power, then, comes not from a life of ease but one of intense effort, devoted discipline and demanding action in the direction of what your supreme self knows to be right. To continue at a time when you ache to stop. To advance when you long to quit. To persist in the instant when you feel like giving up is to claim your membership among the great warriors and honorable characters who led humanity to a better place through their earned invincibility.

A hero becomes great while dealing with adversity.

The 5 Scientific Truths Behind Excellent Habits Truth #1: World-class willpower isn’t an inborn strength, but a skill developed through relentless practice. Getting up at dawn is perfect self-control training. Truth #2: Personal discipline is a muscle. The more you stretch it, the stronger it grows. Therefore, the samurais of self-regulation actively create conditions of hardship to build their natural power. Truth #3: Like other muscles, willpower weakens when tired. Recovery is, therefore, absolutely necessary for the expression of mastery. And to manage decision fatigue. Truth #4: Installing any great habit successfully follows a distinct four-part pattern for automation of the routine. Follow it explicitly for lasting results. Truth #5: Increasing self-control in one area of your life elevates self-control in all areas of your life. This is why joining The 5 AM Club is the game-changing habit that will lift everything else that you do.

The truth behind excellent habits

Value #3: The way you practice in private is precisely the way you’ll perform once you’re in public.

How you practice in private is how you will do in public.

“Like you two sweethearts, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who masterminded this marvel was very much in love. As a symbol of his devotion to and adoration of his wife, Mumtaz, after her death in 1631, he committed himself to the construction of a monument the likes of which the world had never seen. One so extravagantly sensational, staggeringly inspirational and structurally exceptional that all onlookers would understand the depth of this man’s affection as they experienced all its splendor.”

Taj Mahul was made to show the love he had for his wife after he died.

“This is yet another GCA—a Gargantuan Competitive Advantage,”

Gargantuan conpetitive advantage

“Gray explained that ‘the common denominator of success—the secret of success of every man and woman who has ever been successful—lies in the fact that they formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.’”

The secret of success is doing what failures dont want to.

mausoleum

A external free standing building.

Neurons that fire together, wire together, you know? As you repeat the routine you wish to add to your lifestyle, it becomes easier—and more familiar. That’s a really important point to contemplate. And then act on.”

Nuerons that fire together wire together

Spend your days diverted by your devices, tethered to television and majoring in mindless pursuits and your brain will be weak and flabby through your mistreatment of it. Just like other muscles, it will atrophy. And this will result in weaker cognition, slower learning and lower processing power. Your competition will destroy you and your targets will elude you. On the other hand, when you use your brain intelligently by expanding its limits and running it like a titan, it will expand and increase its connectivity causing important gains in your productivity, performance and influence.

Our brain is a muscle.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became “geniuses” (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.

It is not about in born talent, it is about discipline and focus.

William Ernest Henley. Imagine these words infusing the deepest and most unstained part of your soul: It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

Master of my fate, captain of my soul. Quote

The Latin root of the word ‘passion’ means to ‘suffer.’

The latin root word of.passion means to suffer.

The Spellbinder knew I needed to become a lot stronger so I could install the 5 AM routine—in a way that stayed with me my whole career. So, he had me actively put myself into situations of hardship. And it worked like magic.” “What kind of situations?” asked the artist. “Once a week, I slept on the floor.” “You’re serious?” quizzed the entrepreneur. “Really?” “Absolutely,” the billionaire confirmed. “And I began taking cold showers every morning. Twice a week I’d fast, like so many of the most accomplished women and men of the world have done to capitalize on and manifest their primal power. It’s remarkable how much time I’d save during the fasting windows when I wouldn’t eat. And striking how clear my thinking would be and how much energy I’d have. Oh, and when I’d be at my loft in Zurich, to promote my toughness and grit, I’d do some hard winter training by running in the snow with only a t-shirt and a pair of shorts on.”

Cold showers and sleeping on the floor.

You know, this makes me think of the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Boy did that dude have a cool beard,” the billionaire said awkwardly. “Ever seen it?” he kept on. “I have not,” the artist responded. “You should, it’s gnarly,” the mogul noted. He then snapped his fingers eight times. After this, an unknown voice bellowed from somewhere within the mausoleum, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

When we get to Rome, I’ll explain why you shouldn’t have any technology in your bedroom.”

Never have technology in your bed room.

“All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end,”

All change quote

You become undefeatable in the world by what you do when no one’s watching.”

You become undefeatable in the world by what you do in your inner world.

“Well, just remember that willpower weakens once it gets tired. Scientists call the condition ‘ego depletion.’

Ego Depletion

See, you wake up each morning with a full battery of self-control. That’s why I want you to do the activities that are most important to the rise of your inner empires at the time when your capacity is strongest—at 5 AM. Here’s the thing: as you go through your day, going to meetings, checking messages and performing tasks, your ability to self-regulate decreases—and so does your capability to handle temptations and manage weak impulses. The fact that human discipline muscles get tired from all the decision fatigue explains why so many massively successful people end up doing something foolish that destroys their careers. They gave in to the urge that causes their downfall because all day long they were making important decisions. By the time it was evening, they had no willpower left in their battery to manage the craving.”

Decision fatigue increases as the day goes on.

“Maybe that’s why so many so-called geniuses wear the same uniform every day,” the artist commented. “They want to keep order and structure in their lives. And they understand that each morning we wake up with a limited amount of willpower as well as mental focus. So, rather than wasting these valuable gifts by spreading them over many trivial choices like what to wear and what to eat, they automate as many basic things as possible, so they can concentrate their highest powers on just a few important activities.

Picking what to wear and what to eat leads to decision fatigue

“On the coding of any new habit, you’ll move through an initial period of destruction,” said Mr. Riley as he pointed to the first phase on the diagram. “Keep at it and you’ll definitely move ahead into the second stage of the process, where new neural pathways are formed and the real installation begins. This is the messy middle. Finally, as you stick with your practice of making any fresh routine your normal way of being, you’ll arrive at the final—and wonderful—stage: integration. The whole exercise takes approximately sixty-six days, according to the research data of University College London. The Spellbinder, in his teachings, calls this powerful fact The 66 Day Minimum. Sixty-six days of training to make a new habit yours. So, don’t quit after a few days, or a few weeks, or even after two months. As it relates to becoming a member of The 5 AM Club, stick with your self-promise for at least sixty-six days. No matter what. Do this one thing and the remainder of your life will be exponentially better. This I promise you from my heart,” said the billionaire.

The Habit Installation Protocol 22 days destruction 22 days installation 22 days integratiom 66' days total

Do you know why the Space Shuttle uses more fuel in the sixty seconds after liftoff than it uses over the entire orbit around the Earth?” “It needs to overcome the powerful forces of gravity after it takes off,” the artist answered confidently. “Exactly,” the billionaire affirmed. “It requires a large amount of fuel to overcome those initial forces and reach escape velocity. But once it does, momentum kicks in and the craft just goes. The first phase of creating any new habit—The Destruction Stage—is precisely like this. You need to overcome your deeply ingrained habits, dominant rituals and traditional states of performance. You need to rise above your own forces of gravity—until your escape velocity kicks in. It’s so challenging at the beginning.

The destruction phase is like a rocket using all its energy to reach escape velocity

The billionaire then asked for the security guard’s flashlight and focused it onto the part of the learning model related to the second stage of routinization. “Thanks, Krishna,” he added.

Hare Krishna

The ancient sages, seers and philosophers called such a profound personal transformation ‘The Dark Night of the Soul.’ What was once a caterpillar is messily—yet almost magically—becoming a butterfly. The mystics wrote of deep and real change as a journey involving a series of little deaths. The old you must die so a better you can be reborn. The Spellbinder says that ‘for you to upgrade to greatness you must undergo an annihilation of your weakness.’ Dramatic words, I’ll admit. But the guru speaks truthfully.

The dark night of the soul

Remember: all change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.”

All change is hard at first Messy in the middle Hard at the end

“For the A-Player, the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next. The installation of one great new habit brings on the outstanding opportunity to begin the next. I do one thousand push-ups a day, you know. Superb exercise. One of the best. So simple. Keeps me lean and chiseled. Good for my core. And the exercise also recruits my glutes,” the billionaire said with an awkward expression.

A thousand pushups a day.

“Right. And at around the sixty-six-day mark it locks in as an automatic routine. That’s The Automaticity Point, because habits take around nine weeks to implement.

Habits take 9 weeks to implement

The billionaire was right: every human being does the best they can do based on the level of consciousness they are currently at and on the grade of true power they can command. And if her investors had known better, they would have done better. These people generated pain and suffering for her because, at a deep and subconscious level, they are in pain. And because they are suffering. Those who hurt others silently loathe themselves.

Hurt people hurt people.

The instructions of Mother Teresa also entered the mind of the entrepreneur in that instant: “If everyone would only clean their own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.”

Mother Teresa If everyone would clean their own doorstep the world would be clean.

And so, on that very special early morning, inside one of the splendid monuments of the world, she not only forgave—she made a pact with herself. Understanding, as never before, that optimizing one’s self is the best way to improve the state of the world, and that developing the genius within was the fastest way to uplift her relationship with everything externally, the entrepreneur forged an agreement. She made herself a promise not only to never again consider taking her own life. She also pledged that every day, for the remainder of her days, she’d rise at 5 AM and give herself the gift of that Victory Hour free from all trivial diversions, unimportant stimulations and unnecessary complications. So that she could continue. Continue calibrating her Mindset, purifying her Heartset, fortifying her Healthset and escalating her Soulset.

Bettering yourself is the easiest way to betteer the world.