Introduction to Morning Mastery

[Music] This module of the World Class Week system is all about Advanced Morning Mastery methods. So I'm going to sort of take you backstage, so to speak, and share some of the methods I teach to my highest-level clients. This is a whole new level from the 5 AM Club methodology that you might have learned in the digital course or even in the book. So we're going to go very deep here because I know you can go deep and I know you want advanced methods.

So the first thing I would say is the 20-20-20 formula that you're probably already applying. But I'm, you probably know about it from 5:00 to 6:00. That is what I call the minimum viable morning routine. The minimum viable morning routine, as you're starting to get good at getting up early, is the 20-20-20 formula. I created that for people who wanted to get up early and have a structured morning routine. It's just, it's very specific, it's very precise, but it's the minimum viable morning routine. And what I want you to do now is to start to deconstruct that 20-20-20 formula and expand it and calibrate it and optimize it so you make it your own.

So the first method is to leave the 5 AM club. And you're going to be saying, "What are you talking about, Robin?" I'm going to actually encourage you to get up at 4 AM. So for the past number of years, I get up around 4 AM and I go through, not every day, but almost most days, a three-hour morning routine. So you can see the 5 AM club is minimum viable. Method number one in this program is get up at 4 AM. And if you really want to do it, or at least experiment with it, give yourself three hours from 4:00 to 7:00 to work on yourself, to work on your mindset, so you have an amazing belief system. Because you know your daily behavior reflects your deepest beliefs. You want to change your performance, your behavior, you want to work on your belief system. And if you were to look at it from a neuroscientific point of view, every time you calibrate your beliefs and become more positive, more positively your neurons fire together, and they're wired together, and you'll set up a new neural pathway with that better belief. And as you keep on practicing that better belief through prayer and meditation, for example, or visualization, that gets stronger and stronger. And then that new neural pathway will create new practices or new behaviors in your day. So I'm encouraging you to try getting up. Actually, let's not even use the word "try." Get up at 4 AM. Do it for 66 days and watch the results.

Now, what do you do during this three-hour morning routine? Well, and by the way, it's about increasing your mindset, increasing your heart set, your health set, and your soul set. Those four interior empires. Because your mindset is your psychology. And then your heart set is your emotionality. So over these three hours, you're going to purify your heart set, remove maybe toxic emotions you've been carrying, like sorrow or anger, shame, disappointment, unforgiveness to false friends who have betrayed you. So you've got three hours to do this. And then also to work on your health set, which is your physicality, which might mean exercising. It might mean simply relaxing. That's very powerful. It's not only about exercising, it's about relaxing. And then working on that fourth interior empire, which is your soul set, which is your connecting to that primal hero within and turning down that voice of egoism, so you hear your heroism and live by virtue during the day ahead and the week ahead, and nobly and with kindness and with honor and with wisdom and grace, versus living like so many people are living, betraying their own values and living in a way that might be a little selfish or a little rude, just because they've lost that anchor with who they truly are.

So you get up at 4 AM. One hour, I suggest it in meditation. So what I'll do is I will get up, and while I'm laying in bed at 4 AM, I get on my back because I find I don't go back to sleep if I'm laying on my back. And if it's the springtime, I'll open up the window. I can hear the birds, the fresh air is coming in. I might play some music. And for one hour, I will meditate. Now, this is a very advanced course. So I'm not just going to say meditate for an hour. I will actually share with you what I do in terms of meditation. Sometimes I simply lay there and I do breathwork. Work that's breathing in through the nostrils, exhaling through my mouth, breathing in peace, exhaling stress. Intentionally, I'll say, "I'm breathing in peace. I'll exhale tension." "Breathing in strength, releasing insecurity." "Breathing in wisdom, breathing out superficiality." So you can do breathwork for an hour.

Another thing you can do in terms of your meditation, you can, with your eyes closed, see yourself as the human being you wish to be in the day and week ahead. It's very powerful in your mind's eye, with lots of color and as much emotion as you can activate, inhabit you as your most heroic self at 4 AM in the morning, while the rest of the world is asleep. 4 AM in the morning, there's so much magic in the air. There's stillness. The ancient Indian sages used to say there was energy and special vibration in the air. And they said it had something to do with the rotation of the sun and the tides. And it created the space that was ideal from, they said, from 3:00 to 6:00 in the morning. They said this time, Brahma Murta. Brahma Murta in Sanskrit, the translation would be the Creator's hour. And the monks and the sages said that this was the best time for meditation, the best time to create yourself.

So I'm suggesting from 4:00 to 5:00, one hour of meditation. And part of what you could do is close your eyes and just see yourself as the hero and leader and human being you wish to be. You could also do a guided meditation. If you have a partner in the bed with you, you can put on your earphones and you can go do a guided meditation. And if you look at the resource link below this video, you are going to be able to access a number of guided meditations I've created for you to give you even more value in this premium advanced course. You can use those from 4:00 to 5:00, where I guide you through specific meditations. Or you can just lay there for an hour and immerse yourself in gratitude, reflecting on thankfulness. Maybe it's thinking of mentors who have helped you. Maybe it's because you have a roof over your head. Maybe it's because there's food on your table. Maybe because you have work that is meaningful for you. Maybe it's because you have loved ones. Maybe you simply simmer in the gratitude that you have good health. Wouldn't that be powerful to do for one hour every morning?

Then the second hour of this advanced morning routine. What's the second hour about? It's about exercise. I love doing exercise after the meditation. So you can get on a spin bike, you can do jumping jacks, you can go for a run, you can go for a swim, you can head over to your gym, you can go for a nature walk, you can go for a mountain bike ride, you can do yoga. I don't know what you can do. HIIT training. You can do plyometrics where you're actually just using your body weight and you're doing planks and mountain climbers and burpees. I don't know what you want to do. But the key is to sweat. So you release BDNF. BDNF, Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, has been called the master molecule of learning. BDNF will jumpstart your brain. John Ratey, Harvard, he's a physician. He said BDNF is Miracle-Gro for the brain. It promotes neurogenesis, which actually creates more brain cells. It's a myth that brain cells die and new ones do not form over your lifetime. That has been debunked by neuroscientists. Now we know that brain cells can grow over the course of your lifetime. And through morning exercise and the release of BDNF, you will promote neurogenesis, which is going to give you more brain cells. BDNF will actually increase the density and the connectivity of your neurons, which are your brain cells, which will give you better processing time, better learning ability. BDNF will just make your brain, it'll bring it to life. Because there is a huge link between movement and brain optimization. I'll repeat that again because it's so important. There's a huge link between you moving and your brain working at its best. And this is a remnant from when we were hunters and gatherers thousands of years ago, when we would be hunting for food or looking for food. Because of the movement, our brains went into high gear to help us find that food, to help us ward off predators, to help us survive. And so here we are in modern civilization, and if you're not moving, you're doing yourself a huge disservice because your brain is not optimizing at maximum ability. And if you have a strong brain, you're going to have strong performance.

So, and then the final element of this three-hour morning routine. And please don't think this is going to be hard. You do this for about 66 days until you get to the point of automaticity. This is going to be fun. Everyone else is sleeping. If you're an entrepreneur, your competition is counting sheep, and you are working on yourself, and you're meditating, and now you've exercised for an hour. So what's the final thing you do from 6:00 to 7:00? Well, of course, you learn. You listen to a podcast. Then you pull out your journal and you deconstruct the podcast. Or you pull out your journal and you do a, what habit researchers call a pre-commitment strategy. A lot of people say, "Robin, how do I build self-discipline? How do I actually become a heroic leader or an empire maker or a movement creator or a world changer?" Here's a tactic. You pull out your journal and just in a paragraph or two, you do your blueprint for a beautiful day. Your blueprint for a beautiful day, your BBD, your blueprint for a beautiful day. And you write two paragraphs on how you want to live, how you will react to adversity, how you will show positivity to your team, even more importantly, to your family. How you will conduct yourself in the day ahead. And the habit researchers confirm that that pre-commitment strategy increases your willpower to live in the way that you've planned to live.

So you could do that for one hour from 6:00 to 7:00. Or you could read a book. My home is full of books. I buy books constantly. I build my library. And yes, I love ebooks, but I really even more love the old-school books. I mark them up, I highlight in them. Sometimes I'll put it down, I'll sit with my coffee, and I'll just look out the window and I will reflect. It's called metacognition, thinking about your thinking, and reflecting on your reflecting, and strategizing about your strategizing. Metacognition. This is how you become a battle-proof thinker. And then clear plans and clear thinking promote clear performance. Another one of my brain tattoos that I teach to my top clients: vague plans lead to vague results, and clear thinking leads to clear performance. Clarity is the DNA of mastery.

Now, you've got what else can you do during that final hour of your three-hour morning routine? You can listen to an audiobook. I love listening to an audiobook. I just love them. It's just so, maybe you're going to use that time to drive to the office or commute. You can still listen to an audiobook. And so you do this. You're going to have what I call a primary morning victory. You do this, get up at 4 AM and do this protocol for three hours, you are going to have a gargantuan competitive advantage against mostly anyone else on the planet. Because people might copy your products, they might copy your branding, they might copy your craft, but most people will never be able to get up at 4 AM and spend three hours working on their psychology, their mindsets. Three hours including working on their emotionality, their heart sets. Three hours including working on their health sets, their physicality. Three hours including working on their spirituality, their soul sets. Then you walk out into the world. Because you've worked on those four interior empires, you automatically upgrade your exterior empires of creativity, productivity, performance, prosperity, ingenuity, and service to humanity.

So that's the first method of the Advanced Morning Mastery methods. Advanced Morning Mastery Method number two is the 5x5 Morning Question Reflection. The 5x5 Morning Question Reflection. Why is it 5x5? All it takes is five minutes, and you ask yourself five powerful, maybe even transformational, morning questions. And you can answer these in your journal, or you can actually just sit and you can answer them in the beauty of solitude. What are the five morning questions that I invite you to reflect on?

Number one, Morning Question Number One: What values will I represent today? That question is your lighthouse. In this quietude of the early morning, you go deep and you ask yourself, "What values will I represent today?" What values? This is the 5x5 Morning Reflection. What values will I represent today? Could be honor, could be honesty, could be kindness, could be industry, which is hard work. Could be frugality, which is no waste, including no waste of your time. Could be love. The world needs more love. What did Jimi Hendrix say? "When the power of love overcomes the power of hate, the world will know peace." So, what values will I represent today? Maybe it's patience. You might say, "Patience, how does that relate to me, Robin? I'm an empire maker and a business builder." Well, without patience, you won't take the time to get every detail right of your masterwork. Without patience, you won't take a month or a year or even three years to get that masterwork right before you release that magic into the world. Patience is the secret sauce of mastery in many ways, in a world where so many people just rush to mediocrity.

Second question of the 5x5 Morning Reflection is: What will be my monomaniacal focus today? What will be my monomaniacal focus today? What will be my monomaniacal focus today? One of the greatest ways to win and to significantly upgrade your productivity is to become a minimalist, to become a purist, to essentially construct your life, especially your days and your weeks, around just two or three things. So many people, what they're doing is they're diluting their human and primal genius by trying to do too many things. They want to, in work, try to have 20 world-class projects. And at home, they're trying to do too many things. And they try to read too many books. And they have too many friends. And they chase too many pursuits. Confucius said, "Man who chases two rabbits catches neither." And Peter Drucker, the great management guru, said, "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." So one of the great secrets of world-class weeks is just do a few things. Shift from being someone who chases too many things to being a specialist. And so this is about developing a monomaniacal focus each day.

Third morning question is: What am I thankful for? We know from a lot of the positive psychologists that the happiest people in the world and the most productive people in the world practice this term, deliberate gratitude. Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the preeminent positive psychologists, has done a lot of research on gratitude. And she's found the happiest people, they're all about deliberate gratitude, not New Year's Day gratitude, not once a month gratitude. They practice gratitude on a consistent basis. Interestingly, she actually found that you can overdo gratitude. So there's a specific dosage of gratitude that gives the best results. Personally, I can't get enough gratitude. I journal about gratitude. When I'm walking on the street, I silently am thinking about gratitude. When I'm at the grocery store, I silently am grateful to the cashier behind the counter. When I'm putting my food on the conveyor belt, silently I often thank the farmer and then the truck drivers who brought it there. I call it value chain gratitude. From the first moment to when the food gets to my table, our family's table, I express gratitude. And to me, what that does is it makes so much of my life just one constant, lifelong exercise in gratitude. So, question number three: What am I grateful for today? What am I grateful for today? Isn't this a fantastic five minutes? You just answer these pretty quickly in your journal or in your solitude.

Fourth question: What will I improve today? If you followed my work over the past 25 years in the fields of leadership and elite performance and exponential productivity, you know my brain tattoo: small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements, when done consistently over time, lead to stunning results. Small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements, when done consistently over time, lead to stunning results. The way to revolution is evolution. It's the little tiny triumphs, the little micro wins. What I've called in my book, The Greatness Guide, which I wrote about 15 years ago, I called it the 1% wins. And you do these every day. These stack into massive victories over time. So the fourth thing you want to do is ask yourself, "What am I going to improve today?" Maybe it's you're going to fast, maybe, which puts you into a state of autophagy. I'll get into that. Maybe you're going to have more water. Maybe your micro win will be you'll write a love letter to your significant other. Maybe your micro win will be on that big work project, giving yourself a time block of five great hours away from technology to do real work versus fake work. Maybe what you will improve is your pre-sleep routine. You'll do that lavender spray on your pillow before you go to sleep. Or maybe you'll install a routine of a nighttime prayer. I don't know what you can improve. But one thing I know is every day you can improve. So, what, let's call it one thing, will I improve today? And then you write it down because the things that are scheduled are the things that get done.

And then the fifth question of the 5x5 Morning Reflection is this is a big one and I think it's the most important one: Who will I serve today? Still remember standing in Nelson Mandela's prison cell a number of years ago. This was a day that changed my life. I took the ferry from Cape Town over to Robben Island and I was met by an elderly gentleman who was wheezing. And he explained he was wheezing because he had been an ANC member, the African National Congress, and he had been tortured by, I guess, the police of the apartheid era, and they had damaged his lungs. And he said, "I'm going to be your tour guide of Robben Island today." And he walked me through the limestone quarry where Nelson Mandela would work for hour after hour. He walked me through the shower area where Nelson Mandela would shower as a relatively elderly man, and the prison guards would laugh at him while he was naked to humiliate and demean him. I walked down the fluorescent-lit hallway where there was the propaganda office, where they, the people at the prison, would block out letters or, you know, prevent letters from the family of the prisoners to get to the prisoners. And then eventually, I ended up in the courtyard where Nelson Mandela was allowed to, I believe it was, grow a tomato plant. And where he would also bury his manuscript for "A Long Walk to Freedom." And then finally, the guard led me up the steps from the courtyard, and it was the first window at the left, and it was Nelson Mandela's prison cell. It was extraordinarily small. There wasn't even a bed in there. There was just a table where he, he was a tall man, but he would crouch over and he'd write into his journal and he'd sleep on the floor, even though for the first few years he was only allowed to wear shorts and a very thin shirt. And if you've ever been to South Africa in the winter, it's really cold. And then I asked the guard, I said, "Did you know Nelson Mandela?" He said, "Yes, I served with him for, I think it was, seven years." And then you'd probably ask the same thing I asked him: "What was he like?" And the prisoner looked at me and he said, "Oh, that man was a humble servant." And I've never forgotten those words. And I've never forgotten the feeling of being in Nelson Mandela's prison cell. And the fifth question, ask yourself every morning, is: Who will I serve today? How, how can I be a humble servant to as many people as possible? How can I be a servant hero? How can I, no matter what I do, how can I be more helpful to people? It's a great source of happiness. Even if you're going through a very difficult time in your weeks or right now in your life, asking yourself, "How can you make the life, the life of someone else even better?" is a great way to get out of your misery, even for half an hour. It's a great way to conduct a life. I believe, I think the essence of leadership is to be, the essence of being a fully functioning human being is to spend your life in service of other people, of course, while you do good things for your family and yourself. So that fifth question, "Who will I serve today?" It could be, "I'll serve my team." It could be, "I'll serve my family." Could be, this might seem strange to you, "I'll serve my children by enriching them and reading to them or having a family dinner where I mentor them." Could be, "I'll serve someone on the street." Could be, "I'll serve my country." Could be, "I'll serve my clients by going the extra mile."

So that's the 5x5 Morning Reflection. It's a very powerful process. It only takes you five minutes every morning.