This MORNING ROUTINE Will Make You SUCCESSFUL... | Lewis Howes

sometimes we think about we've got to have some complicated morning routine you know biohacking everything we can in order to optimize our day and really i think you got to have a dream the school of greatness please welcome hey everyone my name is lewis howes and today i want to talk about how to create the perfect morning routine for a successful life now there's a lot of information out there about morning routines and a lot of different content talking about it from different people but i wanted to share what works for me and what i've seen works for so many people that i've interviewed from the school of greatness i've had the great fortune of interviewing some of the greatest athletes scientists doctors researchers celebrities artists activists in the world and i've picked up some tips here and there about their morning routines and i've tried it for myself and i've kind of distilled it down to what really works for me at this stage and season of my life now to set the stage here it all kind of depends on where you're at in your life it depends if you're in school if you're a busy mom if you're in your 20s in your career professional the season of your life how your morning routine is going to set you up for success or not and i want to talk about what the morning routines and habits that are necessary for success for me from all of the research and testing that i've done waking up after you've had a full nights of sleep getting eight hours seven to eight hours is crucial for my success and just a few nights ago i was up until three am for a specific reason i was working late and i got maybe four or five hours of sleep and i could feel it throughout the next day whether i'm just getting older and you know i'm not 21 anymore and i can't pull all-nighters like i used to in college or whether i'm just doing so much more during my days i'm physically exerting myself i'm mentally and emotionally asserting myself my body and my mind means time to recover from dr daniel amen who talks about the brain and the science of the brain your body and your brain needs to recover you need sleep and you need restful sleep shawn stevenson talks about this as well in interviews i've done with him about sleeping and how it's so crucial and you can't really make up the debt of missing out on sleep say you get three hours a night for weeks and months it's going to be hard on your mind and body it's hard to make up that debt that you've accumulated from not putting in the time and the hours from the longevity experts that i've had on and those talking about anti-aging they all say sleep is one of the key ingredients to success in living longer in living healthier happier so focus on sleep now when i was younger in my 20s i used to think that sleep is for those who are broke sleep is you can sleep when you're dead but i'm telling you you're going to be be dying a lot sooner if you don't sleep well consistently and the brain the heart the body everything needs time to recover and this is when you're sleeping your body is regenerating so if you are putting in uh you know hours of training or emotional and stressful uh and mental exertion throughout the day i'm telling you your body and your mind needs time to cleanse itself this is when you burn fat this is when you recover this is when ideas start to connect but if you're not sleeping and resting well it's going to be extremely hard to perform better the next day so this isn't this isn't just for someone that wants to live longer and happier this is for if you want to be a high performer as well and have clarity and focus and energy and not have mental stress the brain and the body needs to sleep so that's one of the first things i want to talk about this is crucial some people say well i don't want to sleep six seven eight hours a day but i'm telling you if you can get seven in hopefully eight of quality sleep and there are a lot of things you can do to track this you can get the oral ring you can get whoop bands you can get other things to track the quality of your sleep as well so i recommend figuring out a structure for you we've got episodes on this talking about how to create a sleep sanctuary so that your environment your bedroom your sheets the plants that are in your room are all designed for you to get great sleep so make sure you're going through some of this and setting yourself up to to win with sleep now the next thing that i like to do and i think this is hugely important this is something that my mom used to tell all tell me and your mom probably told you growing up as well as to make your bed and there is a great book by william h mcraven that says it's about making your bed and he is a navy admiral that talks about if you want to live a great life make your bed and this is a massive number one your time best-selling book this speech went viral online and it's something that is so simple but sometimes we think about we've got to have some complicated morning routine that you know biohacking everything we can in order to optimize our day and really when we go back to the basics that's when you start to transform your life everything goes back to basics so make your bed first thing there is there's something that happens and i started doing this years ago there's something that happens when you decide to take pride in your personal space when you decide to say okay i slept here i slept here for uh you know six seven eight hours and i want to make sure i have a clean space when i come home at night by doing that you set yourself up for success you accomplish something first thing in the morning you build momentum and you create pride and confidence in yourself because you did something for you you did it for yourself so when you come home at night you can say wow the time and energy i spent early in the day paid off for me tonight now i can go to sleep in a restful space so something to consider try this for a week make your bed every morning it's the last thing you want to do because you want to get up you want to go to the bathroom you want to brush your teeth and you want to get on with it but i'm telling you if you take those 2-3 minutes you come back at night you'll be proud of yourself for what your past self did to help you in the future the next thing is really moving your body and this doesn't need to be some extreme workout i like to work out early in the morning i like to push my body hard in the morning because again the second thing is okay i've made my bed i move my body in a physically demanding way i like to create structured pain every single day for myself because when i put my self through safe structured pain a workout sweating movement of some type that's uncomfortable i don't want to hurt myself but i want to put myself through pain it makes me live a happier healthier life you build confidence you build momentum it cleanses the mind your mindset gets stronger as well so exercise in the morning move your body take a 10 minute walk if you've got a dog or an animal you can take your pet for a walk for a few minutes and at least do something it'll help you cleanse your mind and get ready for the rest of the day next thing you can do is take a cold shower this can be for one minute we have an entire series of interviews with wim hof and i do an entire breathing exercise i went to poland and trained in frozen rivers and climbing mountains in the snow without clothes on i mean i did the extreme things to test some of this but it takes one minute a day to get a cold shower and it activates your mindset it activates your body and opens your pores it makes you feel awake and alive as opposed to groggy and you know just kind of getting through the morning it wakes you up it gets you clear it gets you focused there's so many benefits for your immune system as well by taking a one to two minute cold shower again you don't need to be extreme and immerse yourself in a cold tub for 10 minutes you don't have to do that you can try these things you can push your body and your mind to the boundaries to the limits but you don't have to you can do a cold shower you can do a hot shower and then the last minute it can be cold to finish it off try it for seven days just like making your bed try it for seven days and see what you can create again we'll have more resources below in the description with wim hof and how you can watch more about that and and learn more how you can take this on in your own life the next thing you should is you should definitely try some meditation 10 to 15 minutes for me of breathing meditation clearing my mind really setting an intention for the day expressing gratitude thinking about the things i really care about puts me in a state of awareness because there is so much stress overwhelmed distractions media news frustrations happening in the world that can come into your mindset that can come into your thoughts and that can really take over your emotions and your feelings if you allow those things to come into your mind and so you want to figure out a way to start the day with breathing and setting an intention for what you want to create no matter what happens around you how are you going to show up and respond what is your vision what are your goals what are your intentions what's the type of energy you want to show up with do you want to be a reactive negative person today or do you want to be a joyful loving caring human being that shows up as a leader and again this is a habit that is important to form because if you're not forming the positive habit then you're going to be you're going to be extremely reactive to what is happening throughout the day you're going to be frustrated you're going to be pissed off at this person someone's going to cut you off in traffic and you're going to be mad and angry and that is going to lead into the rest of the day it's going to be hard to get out of that so you want to set yourself up the next thing is really the intention beyond the breathing so breathing allows you to again continue to cleanse the body cleanse the mind and create awareness for your life setting an intention during this breathing or right after this session is important so what is your vision what is your goal do you have a one sentence vision for your life right now if you don't know what that is write it down start exploring it create an exercise for yourself and say okay this is who i want to be this is my goal this is my vision my vision is to inspire 100 million people every single week to help them improve the quality of their life that is my mission that is my vision and i want to do it through being joyful through being loving through being curious creative and having fun so for me i'm very clear and i create the intention in the morning well what am i going to do today to support that mission and more importantly what am i going to say no to today that doesn't support that mission what am i going to say yes to and what am i going to say no to and when you get control around your vision your mission your goals and your intention then you can start living an intentional life throughout that day and this vision and mission and goals can change it doesn't have to be set in stone for the rest of your life it all depends on the season of your life that you're in right now so this is just the season of life i'm in right now when i was in college playing football my goal was to be a professional athlete and that was my mission how can i be in the best shape of my life how can i uh you know be successful with my college team how can we go to the championship how can i get in front of uh professional scouts and how can i make it to the next level it just depends on what season of life you're in after that transition when i left football and was trying to figure out how to get a job my my mission was how do i get off my sister's couch and get a job okay what are the goals that i have on a daily weekly monthly basis what are the things i need to learn and then i took action based on that intention so you got to think think about what is your intention right now and every morning just think about that this doesn't have to be long uh it doesn't have to be 30 minutes of intention setting it's just getting back to what is my intention today how do i want to show up and what i want to create now what do i want to react to when you come from a place of creation and that reaction you're going to be making your life as opposed to really responding to your life in a negative way so what does a morning routine practice actually do how does it actually support you well it sets the tone again a lot of people say the first hour is one of the most important hours it sets the tone so if you're distracted if you're groggy if you're not moving if you're eating bad foods if you're on your phone laying in bed if you're being negative if you're sloppy then more than likely you're gonna create that day it's gonna be hard to get out of that so it sets the tone for the day the more positive the first hour the more powerful the rest of the day to make you more productive it allows for you to really control your schedule and set your schedule as opposed to your schedule controlling you or you reacting to whatever's coming your way and i love to have a clear schedule of the week exactly what i'm going to do what is everything going to do to support me emotionally physically spiritually financially relationally what am i going to schedule in and i also schedule in leisure time okay i'm going to schedule these four hours i'm going to do nothing or i'll do whatever i want or i'll just hang out with friends i schedule it in that way i'm just not distracted by my phone or whatever is happening in the world i really try to eliminate the negative distractions from my life the best that i can and in no way am i perfect but it's something i try to focus on by having a clear schedule so when i know where i need to be and i know what i need to show up and how i'm supposed to show up it it allows me to stay focused and it's going to be clearer and clearer towards my mission and my vision for life that's why it's important to go back and write down what is it one sentence your mission or your vision for this season of your life who are you who do you want to be what do you want to create what do you want to accomplish and why if you can get clarity on that in one sentence then you'll create a schedule that supports that mission and vision for you and your life so have a schedule if you don't know what you're creating on a daily basis you're going to be responding and reacting to what life gives you as opposed to you creating what you want in life it also sets you up for lower stress levels and it can really lower your stress levels because you're accomplishing so many positive moments or tasks for for yourself the first thing in the morning and you don't have to worry or think about doing them later so if you're like okay i know i want to get in shape i know i want to eat well i know i want to drink lots of water today i know i want to meditate i know i want to breathe at some time and you wait until after you're exhausted and you try to wait till six o'clock seven o'clock at night when you come home from whatever you're doing at work or whatever you're doing school you're gonna be tired it's gonna be really challenging to have focus and energy this is why for me it's really important to learn the skill of spanish i want to become fluent in spanish one day that's one of my goals and i was taking spanish class in the beginning the first six months around six o'clock at night and this was after a full day of work this was after an intense workout and my brain was fried and i couldn't stay awake i would be in an hour session and i'd be like over zoom after i'd done zoom calls all day and i'd be like this trying to remember stuff and after months i was just like i can't do this at night so what i did is i started scheduling it at 8 a.m and it's one of the first things i do 8 a.m i work on something that is meaningful for me something i want to learn a skill that takes and requires a lot of my mental energy and by doing that first thing in the morning it sets the tone for the rest of the day i feel more confident i feel like more productive and i'm doing something i care about first thing and it lowers your stress so you can improve in other areas as well so again it's setting the tone it's lowering your stress levels because you're not waiting to the end of the day you're not like i got to do this thing later that that energy that stress will will hurt you in every other area of your life so you want to take care of your body you want to take care of your mind in the morning and it allows you to show up to love those things around you instead of taking out your emotions on people and experiences in your life it also helps you improve your memory so having the same routine has helped to show that it will improve your memory when you have the same routine consistently now you can switch up your routine you can try things over time but having something that's similar i'm going to do these things these three things every morning it really helps you increase your memory you're far less likely to forget things that you need to do because you know you have your day your morning and how it's going to start so you don't have to spend a lot of brain power on it later ah i got to still work out i got to remember to do this thing i got to do this thing over here like you don't need to think about it because it's the first thing you do and you get it out of the way so it's really helping you boost confidence in my mind this morning i got up early i breathe in this meditation i made my bed and i did a hard workout and now i came here to the studio to talk about this and for me i feel confident i feel like man i've accomplished so much before 10 am right i've already done some all the things that i care about i've done and i feel more confident so this is what's this is what's powerful this is what's available for you is gaining if you feel like you're not a competent person if you feel like you doubt yourself if you feel like you're unsure of yourself or you're insecure spend time for an hour and a half in the morning doing some of these things and trying them doing things that are uncomfortable for you you're gonna build confidence in the first hour and it'll go into the rest of your day so i'm far more confident in my skills and abilities as a creator as a partner as a friend and as a leader because i know i put in the things that i care about first thing so you want to think about how can you make your morning routine and habits actually stick this is a question i get a lot and you don't want to throw everything on your plate at once okay i'm going to do 20 things in the morning routine to optimize my day it's going to be exhausting you're not going to be able to do it so we want to start small try two or three things in the morning don't go for hours but just try two or three things what are two or three things that take five to ten minutes that you can do and track it for seven days and make it the most important thing that day if you say i'm gonna do this first thing in the morning really think about it the night before i'm gonna do this first thing in the morning you do it every day if you wanna have a you know check it off or an x off a calendar or market somewhere on your phone to track it you're going to see every day you do it you build confidence you're going to be being your word which builds integrity with yourself by just following through on these things you're going to feel more productive after that first hour so start small and take it one day at a time start with seven days don't say i'm going to do this rest of my life this is my new routine no i'm going to try this for seven days and see how i feel and once you complete that say okay let me try this for another seven days and then keep doing it consistently seven days at a time i really recommend finding an accountability partner that you can check in with every single damn person or even just a quick text message so whether you're you know in a relationship and you're waking up next to someone you say hey can we do these three things for seven days and just try it out as experiment and you guys keep each other accountable if you're living alone text your best friend and say hey for the next seven days i want to challenge myself if you want to join me let's let's challenge each other and i'm going to text you every single morning that i completed this can you hold me accountable this will support you accountability is key accountability is key i like to pay for accountability because it's even more commitment so if i just have a workout partner we'll commit to each other but if i pay for a trainer or coach i show up every time so you want to stack the odds in your favor whatever that work looks like for you and if you don't want to coach right now if you can't afford that that's fine you can have an accountability buddy or a friend and that works too you can also post about it on social media and track your progress there and say hey guys i'm gonna do a challenge and here's what i'm committed to that could help you be accountable as well if you know people who are waiting to see what you're sharing every single day and how you're gonna run your morning routine you're more likely to get out of bed and do these things because you don't want to let people down so that's something you do is have the accountability and there's lots of different stats out there about how long it takes to create a new behavior or to make it more automatic and more of the norm for yourself but i've i've seen the recent studies say it takes 66 days for a new habit to really stick so what i would suggest is break it down into a week at a time so seven days i'm gonna do this just don't say i'm gonna do this for 66 days say for the next seven days i'm gonna do this and then do it another seven days and think of it in week chunks not months and years which can seem overwhelming and you gotta decide uh what you can commit to for at least 66 days so that it can really become part of your day where you eventually don't even think twice about it so i get up and i make my bed every day because i've been doing it for so long now i've scheduled in my workouts in the morning most of my workouts are in the morning some days i schedule it later in the afternoon uh based on my work schedule but it's scheduled in so i'm getting it done most of the times in the morning you know i'm drinking a glass of water before i have coffee or tea and i'm scheduling the most important things in first scheduling and meditation it's just part of the routine because of doing i've done it for so long now so people ask what is what is my morning routine look like so i try to go back to the basics you know i've tried advanced things i've tried tricky things i've tried to bio hacking extreme stuff but what i've found works is the basics the fundamentals just like it works in everything the fundamentals are key something that i'm a big big fan of is perspective every breath i'm taking right now is closer to my last breath of my life every day that i wake up it's getting me closer to my last day of my life and i hope i live a very long time happy healthy and fulfilled mission driven purpose driven that's my intention but every morning i wake up i wake up and i just say thank you thank you for another day thank you for another opportunity to live my life to experience connection with people to experience the magic the wonder the adventure of this world it's an incredible thing what we're doing we are a speck of sand floating around in a globe that is an infinite space an infinite universe and we are here for whatever reason to experience life thank you for another day it gives me perspective i woke up a lot of people did not wake up this morning and i got to wake up to experience it thank you puts gratitude in my heart it makes me in a positive mood and i don't know many people in fact i don't know anyone who is negative that lives a good life again back to the fundamentals people say well attitude is everything i believe is true when you come from a place of negativity or lack or insecurity fear scarcity frustration anger resentment holding a grudge when you come from that place of being you attract more of it when you come from a point even if everything is going wrong in your life and you are frustrated when you come from a place of positivity people are drawn to you you're a magnet for opportunities you're a magnet for love fulfillment joy financial success you are become a magnet for more opportunities in your life when you have a positive attitude an attitude of gratitude all these things which are fundamentals basics these are things we are taught in growing up in elementary school all these things are key and it's something that i continue to live by because it continues to bring abundance in my life fulfillment people opportunities connections to help me and improve my mission in my life so say thank you for another day and express gratitude and carry that throughout the day yes there's going to be times where you're frustrated and sad and hurt you're not going to be a robot but i'm telling you the more you can focus on this as the foundation for your life the more opportunities will come your way so that's what i do is the first thing say thank you the second thing is i make my bed we talked about before making my bed cleans my space it sets me up for the later in the day gives me delayed gratification which i get to practice consistently when i make my bed now i'm not rewarded until the end of the day okay i made it but i get to experience the joy of a clean space pulling back the covers putting my pillow down at the end of the day so it's it's making a deposit now that i don't get the cash until later at night and that helps train us to do challenging things now that will pay off months years decades in the future by being consistent in that simple act of making your bed is a powerful thing i think about my goals and my dreams and what i need to create today to get closer to that if we don't have an aim jordan peterson talks about this in his book 12 rules for life if we don't have an aim then we are wandering and no man's land if we're not clear on what we want to create where we want to go what our focus is where the target is then we're in this wandering desert where things go to die where vultures come to pick at you and attack you and take you down because you're not moving in a clear direction you're wandering in a circle you're sitting still you're stuck and that's where things go to die this is where the vultures of life come to attack you negative people negative opportunities sickness disease uh bad decision making goes there so you want to think about your dreams your goals your aim you want to have a clear aim and this doesn't have to be well my dream for the rest of my life is this it can be what's my aim for this week what's my aim for this month what am i trying to do today to get a little bit better and a little bit farther in my life i think about my dreams and my goals and then i have a schedule that supports this and that's what's really key i'm practicing gratitude because the rest of the day isn't guaranteed i don't know if i'll be here in an hour in a minute i don't know the body can shut down at any moment i hope i live a long happy healthy fulfilled purpose-driven life that's my intention i'm setting myself up to live that way but there is no guarantee zero guarantee so it's something i think about is practicing gratitude and that's really the main things that i really think about and the easiest and people ask what are the easiest and most important habits to start building going back to the basics making your bed drinking water this first thing i do is i drink a tall glass of water most people drink coffee right away or tea tall glass of water what that does your brain and your cells need hydration the first thing putting something else besides water in your body first is not the optimal way the brain needs to get activated through water it feeds off water so drinking water first will wake you up will make you sharper give you energy give you clarity give you focus so i do this then i sip on a bulletproof coffee after that but water is the key ingredient for a healthy life then i'm making my bed and i'm focusing on how can i get eight hours of sleep i don't get ages i don't get eight hours of sleep every night i try to i try to focus on it but life happens sometimes it's six and a half hours sometimes it's seven hours my goal is always eight hours and again this is not going to be a perfect routine every day life happens but when you set yourself up for structure and success you'll be more likely to accomplish it and feel more productive every time i follow this routine and i do it i feel like i have a great day even if the rest of the day doesn't work out as planned at least i spent the first hour meaningful doing the things that matter so getting eight hours of sleep from all the longevity experts from all the doctors from all the health experts the brain experts this is about recovery recovering your mind allowing your mind to dream allowing your mind to cleanse itself your body your cells to heal you need this time especially with the demands of what a human being has today over a hundred a thousand years ago there's more demands and stress than ever before going for a walk if you're not used to exercising i like to exercise i like to push myself and have structure pain but if that's not where you're at in your life right now then go for a walk get a brisk walk 10 20 minutes is key question people have is describe how you were before and then after you developed strong routines for me when i don't have my routine in place or if i'm traveling and my routine's off i can feel my day is off and before when i didn't make my bed when i'd get up late when i not sleep well it was just again i wasn't as productive i wasn't as clear i wasn't as focused i could still get things done and and have good days and things like that it's not like my day was going to be horrible if i don't have my morning routine but i just didn't feel like i was living up to my fullest potential and i'm a big fan of getting as close to your full potential as you can on a consistent basis we're human beings we're going to make mistakes we're going to fall off things we're going to slip here and there but before i wasn't really able to have as much clarity and focus structure it just held me back and structure always supports me and moving forward so in terms of mindset health everything it's been a lot better with morning routine and when i started to develop some habits and routines i felt better waking up each day i was able to focus more on my business my relationships and everything started to get healthier and stronger so that is the answer to that question and it's okay to get off track sometimes but i found that this this two-day method by youtuber matt diabella that i really liked he has this two-day method and uh we'll see if we can find this video and link it up in the description but matt says that he never skips the thing you're trying to accomplish more than two days in a row so again life happens you're traveling you're up late you you had to get up early for something you didn't get to do your morning routine don't do that two days in a row and this is something that's important again it may be something as simple as going on a 30-minute walk and one day it's raining and so you don't go but the next day you've got to find a way to take that walk even if it's raining and even if you're not set up for success and you don't feel like going you can never miss two days in a row so that's key in in that strategy with matt so i hope this gave you some insights on the morning routine and how to set up your day for success again the fundamentals are key get to the basics try two or three things for seven days in a row don't make big commitments in your life you're gonna do this for uh the rest of the year your whole life just say okay i wanna try these three things for the next seven days and we also wrote a book we have an entire guide called the millionaire morning and you can go to millionairemorning.com and you can get this short little guide it's teaching you everything you need to know about how to break free of the mindset that you can't make millions about the 10 steps to develop a millionaire mindset the top habits of millionaires that you can do every single day we talk about the money math and how to create a plan to achieve your financial goals and the keys to building the right relationships to grow your business this booklet has been powerful for so many people and if you want to have the optimal morning routine for your life then make sure to follow the things we talked about in this video but if you want to learn about how to earn more money with your morning routine then this book will support you in figuring out the strategies of what millionaires do in their morning routine to help them earn more money so again this video has been all about optimizing your life having a fulfilled healthy happy lifestyle but again if you want to learn more strategies then get the millionaire morning if you go to millionairemorning.com you can get this book you can learn more about it uh we've we've we've got a lot of copies out there in the world and it's fun to see all the results there's exercises in here there's a lot of different content strategies from what millionaires do in their morning routine to help them earn more and become more financially abundant so check that out at millionairemorning.com and i'd love to hear your feedback in the comments below here on youtube make sure to leave a comment of what part of this video you enjoyed the most what part you're gonna try and make sure to share this with a few friends and get them involved maybe someone who's an accountability buddy say hey come watch this video and have them leave a comment below of what they're gonna try for their morning routine i would love to hear your feedback what else do you do in your morning routine that really helps you to become more successful in your life leave some of your strategies leave some of your tips the things you do below in the comments would love to learn more from you again make sure to subscribe to this channel if you enjoyed this and if you want more on optimizing routines and mindset and habits then we've got some great content after this coming up right now i want to dive into morning routine at the start because you're a huge uh advocate of a very specific morning routine and you know morning routines are talked about a lot on success-minded podcasts and uh high achiever podcasts these days but you have a different approach to it and yours is the 5 a.m morning routine which is the 20 20 20 plan and first i want to ask if you can talk a little bit about what that plan is why it's more powerful than other morning routines that people might talk about and then i want to ask you a follow-up question on it after that you know louis i've been teaching morning routine uh for 24 years i wrote a book years ago called the monk who sold his ferrari where i talked about the ritual of early awakening and i talked about the 5 a.m club you know the spartan warriors i learn a lot from them these are human beings that were fierce in the resolve to do amazing things the spartan warriors had nobility and honor uh look at the world we're in right now we need to do what it takes to become stronger as well as more compassionate the spartan warriors mothers used to actually say to them come back on your shield come back victorious or don't come back at all wow and the spartan warriors also used to say sweat more in training and you'll bleed less in war and so we live in a world obviously there's covet but i think this is a time of incredible unrest we've got social unrest for all of the unjust injustice that is has been out there for so many years we've also got a financial crisis which i believe is going to get much worse and uh we've got we for sure i'm i'm no financial expert or an economist but i mean if you look at if you look at all the quantitative easing happening right now if you look at the low interest rates and all the encouragement that we buy more and spend more right now to pump and jump start the economy we're just pushing uh the inevitable collapse further down the road i believe so i think we have you know we have the coronavirus and we've have some early optimistic trials on the vaccine which i'm very encouraged about and we've got all these other things including an environmental uh catastrophe in the making so with that context i think one of the most important things a human being can do is press the pause button each morning while the rest of the world is asleep and ask yourself how can i fortify my mindset how can i insulate my heart set how can i optimize my health set how can i escalate my soul set the four interior empires that i've introduced in the 5am club so that when i walk out in the world i'm creative i'm productive i'm compassionate i radiate positivity and i have resilience in case i get knocked down and so i think one of the best ways you can do that is this 20 20 20 formula that i've been teaching to the billionaires the nba stars the film icons and many of the most successful people on the planet for as i say 20 24 years and uh very high level lewis the 20 20 20 formula is simply this you get up at 5 a.m and anyone can get up at 5 a.m one of the gifts of a human being is neuroplasticity we are built to change so please i would encourage you know if we recite our excuses long enough we actually believe they're true we are built to change we are built to grow we are built to own our heroic nature and so according to university college london if we do any practice or habit for 66 days we reach a point of automaticity where it becomes easier to do that new habit than not do the new habit once you wire in the new habit for the first 20 minutes 5 to 5 20 you move because you can release bdnf brain derived neurotrophic factor which promotes neurogenesis it optimizes your brain uh if you move first thing in the morning you release serotonin which makes you feel good you realize dopamine which you know sets you up for inspiration second we can get into it more deeply but second pocket from 520 to 540 is reflect you know while the rest of the world is asleep there's such quietude in the air this is where you can pray you can meditate write in a journal sit in quietude so that you're focused living your life and your priorities through the day and then the final pocket of the 20 20 20 formula that i talk about in the 5am club is grow you'll never get old if you grow you'll never become obsolete in your business even in a time of great volatility if you're growing you'll always stay happy if you grow so 20 minutes at the end of this victory hour that's what i what i call it uh you spend some time listening to a podcast like lewis howes on a school of greatness a man adored by a majority of humanity um you listen to an audio book you read a book you study your battle charts and anyway that's a really rough general way to explain the 2020 formula that is currently helping millions of people navigate this hard time does it matter the sequencing of 20 20 20 do you need to move first can you meditate first do you grow a lot you know or is that a process that is proven scientifically the process has been proven in the trenches of elite performance for a long time with my clients yeah and having said that you know i would say the 20 20 20 formula is minimum viable morning routine and you're a biohacker i'm a bio hacker i'm a productivity hacker i'm a life hacker and so i would say do what's right for you you know it's like this whole field of personal mastery and leadership that we inhabit i i'm not one to say you must do this because we all have different learning types we're all on different journeys someone might be right now upgrading their spirituality so they connect with their crusade and their higher power in this time of house arrest other people are creating their master work right now so i think we have to find the routine the morning routine that works best for us what about people that say you know what i'm just a night person you know i like i think at night i work out at night that's when i meditate uh you know i strategize the next day at night and i just i've tried the morning it just doesn't work for me what would you say to that i've had a lot of night owls who have that's a great excuse isn't it to be a night owl i've had a lot of great a lot of night owls who have said you know i could never be a morning person i've had a lot of people who've said you know grandma couldn't get up early grandpa couldn't get up early my parents couldn't get up early i don't have early rising genes you know and what i would say is if you don't read that book you've been resisting because you don't think it's for you you might just miss your new favorite book if you fall in love with your most closely cherished beliefs and you're not open to trying new things you might miss your new fa trying your new favorite food if you say well here's the kind of friends that i hang out with and i'm not open to anyone else you might miss that new friend or that new mentor who will transform the way you run your craft and live your life and it's the same for the morning routine the 5am club i mean it's just i've had so many people read the book run the models in the book live the message and achieve what they never thought they'd achieve and so what i would say to a night owl or a lot of people say shift workers or whatever i would say give it a try don't just give it a try for for a week you know give it a try for three weeks four weeks the 66 day minimum and then judge but then judge by your results hey it's louis here and i would love to connect directly with you text me the word youtube to my number 614-350-3960 to receive weekly inspirational messages from me i did this for i was getting up at uh not not that i was in competition but i was getting up at 4 50 a.m robin for a few months a couple years ago and i was doing a 5 am workout and that's how i do it so i was spending an hour in the morning working out at 5 a.m then i was coming back and meditating and strategizing for the day and it was extremely challenging for me for the first month but then it got better and better and i started to make it a you know something i was proud of you know i would call it beating the sun i was like i'm gonna beat the sun tomorrow and i'm gonna wake up and the first 20 minutes are not fun for at least a month and maybe it's never fun in the first few minutes because you could it always feels more comfortable to sleep until your body really starts to find a routine and a rhythm that okay you're just going to bed by eight or nine and you start to appreciate that process in a different way you might have loved being up late before in its own way but this is a new way to find appreciation so i i'm not in that space right now my you know my girlfriend moved in and i said you know what i'm gonna allow myself to sleep in a little bit with her and experience something different but i tell you what i always feel more productive when i'm consistently waking up earlier um even if it's uncomfortable well there's a line in the 5m club which is all changes hard at first messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end yeah and so you were telling me i don't think you'd mind but before we go ahead started recording you you were sharing how you're running more and it's it's like the first time you run it's like the first time you ski it's like the first time you fall in love it's like the first time you played chess i mean we we we stumble before we walk and then on shaky legs we embrace the new habit and that's the very nature of personal transformation i mean every master was once a beginner every professional was once an amateur and so this this this idea that we need to be masters right out of the gate that we need to you know get up to 5 a.m and instantly it should be easy well falling like a great relationship isn't easy building a world-class business that stands the test of time isn't easy uh becoming a maestro or any kind of a virtuoso it's it's always a process i mean i know you you interviewed kobe well i think what made kobe kobe was his intense rigorous practice over many many years yeah you know he just out practiced everyone around him and i think you know we live in a world of easy we want the easy morning routine versus the morning routine that'll give us the greatest payoff and i just there's a reason lewis that a lot of the great saints sages poets military leaders world changers got up at 5am and before the sun i think it's the quietest time of the day you if you look at willpower researchers we wake up with the most willpower when we first wake up you have the most mental focus before the phenomena attention residue takes over and cognitive bandwidth is high and you know it's uh it's it's it's been profound for me how does someone be consistent in their discipline you know when most people say i'm going to do this for three months or six months but then ah interruption covid ah i got sick uh something someone in the family needs needs me and i'm up all night and what's the difference between what kobe did for two decades in the nba where he was disciplined how is he able to stay motivated and how are the greatest able to stay motivated where others seem to lack the motivation and discipline to be consistent because anyone can do it for a few weeks but how do you do it for years and decades what's the difference between that it's it's an excellent question and i and i would say first of all in covid right now may we give ourselves permission to be gentle with ourselves i think you know even this whole idea that we must be machines in terms of our morning routine or even our pre-sleep rituals this these messages that are out there that we must be monomaniacally consistent and flawless human beings for us to wear our badges of honor in society as leading members of the cult of productivity you know i i'll just i'll confess right here to you right now i sure am no guru and i slept i slept you know i i slept on the 5 a.m club i have had those those evenings where i feel like a few extra chocolate croissants and i i just think we must give ourselves permission to be humans i think you know i was flying on a little plane from white river south africa to this game reserve and the pilot let me fly the plane for a little while and he kept on saying you know the winds are going to push you off course and just you know keep keep that i think was the altimeter or whatever but just keep it in the center and so the the currents lewis would pull me off course and then i just you know look at the dial and i'd come back and i really believe you know that's that's that's how we live our days as human beings i mean i'll get up and sometimes there's a current like you said you know a child who kept you up at night or it's a pandemic so maybe you're worried or maybe you've lost a job and so those currents will take us off course and so our job is just to steer back on course each day we're we're not perfect human beings yeah so it's okay to sleep in once a week or to miss miss the routine once in a while it's not going to affect your overall you know results or process is that what i'm hearing yeah i think you know if you want to commit to the 5am club you want to commit to a world-class morning routine because the way you begin the day profoundly sets up the way your day unfolds and this again this is not an anecdotal you get up in the morning and you run the 20 20 20 formula that i explained in the book you will create the flow state you will release serotonin you will release dopamine you will release bdnf you will increase your metabolic rate you will boost creativity you will uh increase your willpower you you know all those things i mean we we want we all have the ability as human beings to arrive at our own original form of greatness we have not been schooled we have not been taught a lot of us have not been mentored on the mindsets heart sets routines rituals that will create and allow us to live our personal genius but you know if you look at the greatest women and men who have ever graced the planet these were so-called ordinary people who just set up their lives in such a way that their native gifts saw the light of day it's funny about how no one ever teaches this stuff unless you had a parent or an older sibling that's that you were able to model and mimic like oh my my dad gets up very early or my brother gets up and does his violin or practices sport whatever it may be and i want to be like that and i want to try that it's you know we're not taught this in school you know louis i am when i was a kid i wasn't believed in by a lot of people i marched to my own drum beat i had a different way of seeing the world i was very sensitive i was very creative very much a dreamer in many ways and i didn't fit in with the cool crowd and in grade five i had a history teacher and her name was cora greenaway and she was one of the first people in my life who believed in me and we all meet a cora green away and may you and i and everyone listening from around the world are watching from around the world may we be a cora greenway to someone else what i'm suggesting is all it takes is that one person who coincidentally shows up in our life and maybe it's a book maybe it's a podcast episode to introduce us to a new frame of reference and a new way of living might even be that's why i love reading so much you know it's it could be one idea in a 300 page book and that idea opens you up to a new galaxy of possibility and the hand that puts down the book is a fundamentally different hand i mean all it takes is one new insight to change the way you see the world that's very good and so yeah and that's why i'm on such a mission i've been on such a mission for 24 years to remind people of who they're meant to be martin luther king jr said if you have not discovered something you're willing to die for you're not fit to live and i believe we all need to find our mighty mission and our crusade it doesn't have to be lofty it could be delivering pizza by ubereats it could be a you know a teacher it could be a lawnmower it could be a coder it could be a gravedigger or a street sweeper all labor has dignity but you know there are no extra people on the planet i think you know that's why i appreciate the work you do so much i mean we do have greatness within us and society has brainwashed us and heart washed us into thinking that the great ones are cut from a different cloth and it's not it's not true as a matter of fact in the 5m club i say you know genius is less about genetics and and much more about your daily habits wow that's true that's i mean that's that resonates with me because growing up a kid that was you know dyslexic and still struggles with reading and writing today and was in the special needs classes i never thought i was going to amount to much and i didn't have belief in myself until i found a spark and belief in myself and then i started leaning into that gift which was sports and started to realize oh i have some vision and i have some coordination and i have some speed even though i was never the fastest or strongest i had some height and so i would lean into this gift that was here and see if i enjoy this gift and see if i like this gift and see if this brings me joy and it did and i continued and then i built routines and habits around that gift and kept pursuing it until as far as i could pursue it until it was no longer a dream or until the gift was no longer there so i wanted to pursue other things and i think you know even if whoever's listening or watching even if you didn't think you were talented or smart enough at some point there's something inside of you that is talent you've just got to keep trying things and see what brings you that joy and that uniqueness at least that's what i would say well you know just uh just to hitchhike off without lewis i think no one will believe in in you until you believe in you and um you know as i'm writing this new book i'm writing you know i've been i've been looking at people like jk rowling for example i mean everyone laughed at harry potter you know oh no one will ever re read this and she believed in this character about a child wizard who who had all of these adventures and she was a single mother and she was suffering and she had no money and she wrote the whole idea for the harry potter concept came to her on a on a delayed train ride and then i believe in edinburgh she wrote the first harry potter and it was rejected and we all know this but like you know just a gentle respectful loving reminder for everyone who's who's tuning in here which is every visionary is initially ridiculed before they're revered and look at jonas salk look at elon musk right now i mean look at shakespeare look at oprah look at martin luther king jr look at nelson mandela look at mary curie look at edison and einstein look at galileo these were all ordinary people who followed their joy who who came up with the vision and the very nature of a great vision means you're going to disrupt the status quo so you're going to scare people i mean if your idea is really good for that new business or that new relationship or that new fitness routine or morning routine it it's it's going to scare people who are card-carrying members of the status quo and so it's much easier to shoot the messenger than to embrace the message and so it's much easier it's much easier i mean i'll tell you completely candidly i spent four years writing the 5 am club i put my heart and my soul in in the book the models and the art that was done by this amazing artist and every line i wanted calibrated and you know people didn't understand what i was trying to do and when the book first came out i looked at the amazon reviews and they were terrible really why well and i just want to say now it's one of the best-selling books in the world and it's almost as if the tide shifted once enough people read it and the narrative changed it was the most interesting thing but i i've actually that that really hurt when the book came out it's like holding your baby out into the world and you know everyone's looking at it going you know i just want to tell you your baby is really ugly not so clever not so pleasant to look at yeah and you know what i would say is jk rowling again she said for some to love you some must loathe you i would say also bob dylan don't criticize what you don't understand and so if you do anything that's disruptive and also if you put if you put out work that challenges people to leave their comfort zone to wake up to their genius if you if you challenge people to be more loving to stand for love on a planet that has too much hate if you challenge people to get up at 5am spend one hour working on your mentality purifying any toxicity within your heart set upgrading your health and longevity mining your spirituality in a world of selfies and dancing cat videos and a lot of superficiality and a culture of comparison you're gonna you know i mean it's easier for people to shoot you down versus to embrace the message does when we're on unusual times right now does the 5 a.m routine uh and the 20 2020 shift if things are there's an excuse i'm tired and then there's a shift in the world does the 5 a.m club shift at this time do people say you know what let me really take it easy for a few months or is that an excuse for too long to get back into your vision i think that's a profound question and i would say trust your instinct there are times for example as an artist when i'm writing and it's flowing and i just know this trust your natural cycles because your higher power call it your instinct call it your intuition call your artistry knows what it's doing so there are times to be productive and there are times to rest now i i very much believe in the 5 a.m club in the 20 20 20 formula i very much believe that it will create a pharmacy of mastery within your brain it's been proven by science you know even just the the simple idea of starting your day with some sweaty exercise why sweaty exercises because sweat reduce when you sweat it'll release the bdnf which john rady at harvard calls miracle grow for the brain but just that idea of exercising first thing in the morning what will help you become more resilient peaceful strong during the day so yes do your morning routine yes from the 20 20 20 formula and then judge by results having said that if you've been up at three in the morning because you've lost your job because you're just picking up on the energy of the world right now where there's so much here uh you're dealing with covid or you have a family member you've lost as a result of the pandemic self-love personal care requires that you rest recover and do what you need to do and i think you know that's one of the things i say this with great respect but when i read the books or see people saying you must be like a robot and follow a morning routine or nightly ritual or whatever your your best habits are i believe there must be room for the hard seasons of life and you know when my heart has been broken when i've gone through my periods of suffering i haven't been as disciplined i haven't been as rigorous i i've i've had the inopportune pizza night you know and and here's what what i would always also say is my ego because a bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul my ego says robin you're not being productive you're not on your a-game you're not a warrior but you know what i've realized i might not be creatively productive according to the definition of society during those cycles or seasons of suffering but am i not spiritually productive am i not emotionally productive i mean when does a human being crack the shell of the ego that covers their hearts and learns the human virtues i mean nelson mandela learned how to be nelson mandela in his robin island season yeah and so i think we learn honesty and compassion and vulnerability and creativity when things are falling apart not when they're in not in the seasons of sunshine yeah and i i look at uh life in terms of sports analogies and so for me there's four seasons in uh you know i guess the seasons of the year but then also in sports there's there's really kind of four seasons as well there's the the pre-season to prepare you for the season and then there's the the playoff season which is where you're you're hustling you're all in you're you're you're only thinking about one thing and you're focused on that energy and you're you're not burning the candle on both ends but you're you're all in on that thing and less on everything else and then there's the postseason where okay the championship is done or that season is done and now we have the postseason the time to reflect the time to reevaluate our goals our life what worked this last season what didn't work do i need to tweak my routine do i need to you know be in different relationships who do i need to bring into my circle what do i need to eliminate in my circle so i look at life in terms of you know sports seasons um just because that's how i've lived my life but i think if and if we can we can do that then you're going to have time to rest and reflect and you're going to have a balance in that kind of seasonal progression of life where it doesn't have to be robotic every single day you know for 20 years for the rest of your life so at least that's the way i look at it you know i think i think rest is a secret weapon there there's a line in the 5m club which is rest is not a luxury it's a necessity one of my favorite authors is haruki murakami the great japanese novelist and he said when i'm not writing the book i'm writing the book i mean you're an author but it's not any creative any productive we we beat ourselves up or maybe it's just me but we beat ourselves up if we're not doing but how can you calibrate world-class doing if you don't make the time for being and so and so those times where you know nature or our instinct or our inner artist says these are times to pull back from the world and sunbathe and read the classics and write in a journal and have four hour meals with the people we love than travel when it used to be safe to travel those are not times to feel guilty john lennon said time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time and so what i've realized is the greatest productives the greatest artists the greatest thinkers the greatest heroes they were cool with rest and recovery they understood that elite performance is not like a marathon it's more like a sprint and the energy project to give credit where it's due that's they've evangelized this you know when they talk about energy it's you know the greatest productives work in sprints versus marathons and so all i'm saying is you know you're right like life is a series of seasons and enjoy the seasons and that's what's going to actually allow you to play the game for a long time but also do your greatest work i mean my instinct now is i'm about three weeks away from submitting this manuscript on the new book and my instinct is get into another book and this morning i realize i'm going to take next year i'm going to have great conversation i'm going to travel hopefully it'll be safe to travel i'm going to enjoy the fruits of my labor and enjoy life and that's going to be incubation for the next book after yeah i think that's key because you know i started about a year a year and a half ago i started saying okay i'm going to write my i'm starting working on my next book and about overcoming self-doubt because i think what you said in the beginning of this interview is if if people can take away one thing from this interview is what you said in the beginning where it doesn't matter if the world believes in you if you have billions of people that say you're the greatest you can do it if you don't believe that you're capable you'll never be able to live up to that potential or achieve those goals and the opposite if the world is saying you are crazy you can't do it this is a dumb idea you'll never be enough you suck it doesn't matter because if you firmly believe it only takes one it only takes one either way and most people don't understand that self-doubt is the killer of dreams and if they can figure out how to eliminate the noise from the outside but most importantly eliminate the noise of the inside that keeps them from their dreams then they can achieve them if they learn that process and i was a year and a half ago saying okay i'm gonna start working on my next book project then a few things came up in my life you met me in a time which i acknowledge you in a deep way because you met me in a time where i was going through some some challenges with a breakup and also just people whatever gossiping about me whether they knew what happened or not and i was like wow i thought i knew my friends and i started to quickly know my friends after these few months of challenge and i was really grateful for the wisdom you gave me you said you know this is a blessing it's a blessing for the ego to go through this type of thing because it allows you to have more compassion more humility everything you've been saying in this interview it allows you to purge relationships in your life and purge ideas thoughts processes that maybe don't work for you anymore i was planning to start writing this book a year and a half ago and i started working on the proposal but something wasn't clicking and i was like okay well this is an excuse and i'm not gonna allow writer's block to hold me back i'm gonna keep going through this so i kept doing it every single month working on the proposal but still didn't feel i didn't feel excited about it i didn't feel proud of it something was off and then i felt guilty because i was like come not putting it out when i said i wanted to put it out i'm not completing it when i said i wanted to do it but there was a lot happening in my personal life as well and i said you know what it's gonna it's gonna come when it's ready and i'm not gonna put pressure on myself anymore in this kind of year and a half plus season of not doing anything quote unquote has actually been a lot of insight reflecting research and i just now in the last couple weeks have dived back into the process because i feel like wow i've actually gathered so much data from the last year and a half of not working on it that i feel like i have the information i need now to move forward so i think this time of reflection can always be powerful i call it strategic messing around where you're like playing more you're doing other activities and things are coming to you in a different way you know i i think lewis instinct is 100 times wiser than the intellect our intellect right like most people we're running our lives from our intellect but the intellect is just the sum total of what society has told us is possible intellect that's just what's been done before that's what the experts tell us is possible well look at banister in the four minute mile no a human being if a human being runs a mile in under a for in under four minutes die she or she is gonna blow up but in the weeks and months afterwards people started doing and then you just you talk about you know elon musk and what he's doing you look at the great scientists you look at galileo who said you know the the earth is round and it just goes on and on and i think any great creator any hero any history maker any human being who wants to live life fully completely spiritually creatively we've got to learn how to trust the silent whispers of our instinct over the chattering voices of our intellect and you know when you were talking about your book on overcoming self-doubt criticism is a symptom of greatness you know you are making traction around your creative ambitions when the cynics critics naysayers come out to play that's when you know you're doing something great i mean i'm really big into documentaries and i watched a recent one on miles davis and miles davis you know great you know a legendary trumpet player as you know so well and he suffered you know a challenging childhood he came from a a fairly well-off family but he suffered from a lot of racism and then he started playing trumpet and he became really good at it he played with his heroes eventually did uh duke ellington and charlie parker i believe and then like a lot of people they start playing like they're heroes but it wasn't until he said i've mastered the game so now i can destroy the game what did picasso say first master the rules so you can break the rules and so charlie parker technically you know world class at playing the trumpet according to the traditional rules but his instinct said this isn't where i want to go i want to i want to go blue ocean i want to go green green field i want to do what no one else has done and this is where my my creativity my instinct is leading me and so he got into his late 60s bitch's brew album where he experimented with cadences and styles and rhythms that no one had ever heard before and in the documentary his son said you know dad never kept his old albums at home and the documentarian said why not and he said because he wasn't interested in what he'd done before his only interest he was only interested in where he was going he told john mclaughlin the guitar player who played with him he said in this session i want you to play as if you don't know how to play guitar so all i'm saying is you know you're right and we can talk about the tactics but living your truest life as an artist as a productive as an entrepreneur as a leader as a someone trying to make the world better it begins with you doing the interior work and that's why the 5m club is so powerful because you're giving yourself an hour while everyone else is asleep the time of below is digital distraction the time of the least interruption the time of the it's the time of greatest quietude and you're up at 4 15 or 4 30 or 5 a.m and you have one hour to pray to meditate to visualize to read the classics of the great women and men of the world who all will say and reinforce within our mindsets and heart sets trust your instinct learn to love yourself be to do not be too much in the world and of the crowd so that you learn to trust your values your instincts and take your craft and your life where you want to take it versus where society wants you to take it and if you can start doing that through meditation journaling verbalization visualization reading mentorship etc then you're you're an army of one against the world and i think that's how that great heroes roll um i'm loving this and do you think there are from all the the great leaders you've talked to of this moment right now the the billionaires the the ceo leaders the financially abundant leaders to high performers are those successful and wealthy people doing anything different than unsuccessful and wealthy people in this moment oh absolutely i mean i think um let me just if i may i've worked with a lot of super wealthy people and one thing i want to emphasize is there are a lot of extremely wealthy people and money is all they have and so i believe there are multiple forms of wealth as a matter of fact i do believe that once you pass a certain threshold of net worth and an annual income you actually add complexity to your life which destroys happiness you have to learn to be happy in spite of the wealth you create the happiest cohort i have ever met in my life are ski instructors i'm a level one ski instructor which means i barely pass the grade but it was it was a dream of mine so i you know i went and i got it and i taught little kids to ski at minimum wage for a year and it was one of you know one of the great victories of my life but the point i'm trying to make is they would always say we're not rich we don't have a lot of money but we're really rich they're just happy like they're out in the mountain they were eating the food they wanted they were turning people on to skiing and they were doing what they love to do and so i just wanted to make that point which is you know i've worked with a lot of billionaires a lot of the celebrities that people would know about instantly and you know you probably know i as you know i used to do the titans summit i've had a lot of the superstars on my stage but generally speaking you know what's the expression mo mo money mo problems yeah and so i i just you know jim carrey said it well he said be careful what you want because yeah so um but the people i work with right now what they're doing is they are leaning out there a lot of them are leaning out their businesses and looking for efficiencies so it's a great time to rework your business if you're an entrepreneur and just ask yourself what is your biggest f what is the single greatest opportunity right now for you to distribute astonishing value to your marketplace and then build all your resources around that singular singular opportunity i mean great companies die not because they don't have enough good opportunities but because they're chasing too many shiny toys so that's what my clients are doing another thing they're doing is they're upgrading their health they are biohacking they're also upgrading their spiritual spirituality by meditation by prayer by journaling by working with spiritual counselors i mean i think this is everyone's saying oh it's a once in a generation pandemic i think it's a once in a generation opportunity for us to look within and heal our hearts develop ourselves and and reconnect with who we're meant to be the people i'm working with are also a lot of them are are reconnecting with their families louis i i think a lot of industry tightens our industry titans because they've lost the connection with their families and so a lot of people i work with and mentor it's like you know this forced quietude of the pandemic has allowed me to be a better father or mother and reconnect with my kids or my or my partner or even you know i call it the great reset even reconnecting with your priorities you know you look at some of the trends like ruralization right now people are leaving cities moving out to the countries people are working at home so i mean this great upheaval will lead to much brighter days once we get through the mess should we should we be focusing on the future or the present you know in order to be in flow state we need to be in the present obviously in our morning routine are we focusing on this moment this day or our dreams and aspirations of the future how do we navigate that of future present thinking what a great question i don't think i've ever been asked it what i would say is be like be like uh you're climbing mount everest because you really are climbing your own private mount everest keep one eye on the summit one eye on the climb so your morning routine is the preparation for you to be a warrior poet during the day but then when you're living your day you know if you're if you're let's say writing your book or working on your code or then you want to enter flow state we can talk about how to orchestrate your environment so you lit enter flow state and one of the ways is you leave your phone in another room because you can change the world where you play with your devices you don't get to do both so you you live your day because your days are your life in miniature you live your day fully in flow state and with fiery presence because that's all we have you you you live your day because your presence on your work allows you to birth your genius on your work or be with your family but you also want to be strategic because what's the point of climbing a mountain to realize you were in flow state climbing the wrong ones and and to make it tactical in a time of crises i would say hope for hope for the best and plan for the best and prepare for the worst i would say spen i'm not so i'm i'm someone who's been saying you know sell your tv and don't watch the news for a quarter of a century you know and now i'm starting to watch the news but i think you want to do it very intentionally and very deliberately yeah so you see what's coming and then you can plan for it and if you're an entrepreneur you can battle proof your business for what's coming and we can talk about the advice i'm giving to entrepreneur my entrepreneurial clients but you can you want to be strategic you want to plan for what's coming you want to protect your family for what's coming and yet at the same time you want to find ways to see the benefits that crisis brings because suffering can breed great artistry calamity can breed great creativity nietzsche said chaos gives birth to dancing stars i've done my greatest healing when i've been down on my knees right that's when you're the most you have to be the most present when you're suffering the most it forces you to be in the moment of that pain right well when the pain exactly when the pain is in your body that's all you think about you know like i don't get how people go oh you know i was heartbroken or i was going through a divorce i was going through a bankruptcy or job loss so so you know i just kept busy and i was out there having fun with my friends like i'm not judging and i understand we have different types but for me when i'm in pain i'm like a an animal i need to go to the forest and lick my wounds you know i need to lick my wounds and then once my wounds have healed i go back into the world and i can you know do the stuff that you do in the world yeah and you may be healing for you know a year or two after something a heartbreak but you may be productive half the time and still need to heal a little bit here and there so you don't have to always be in the woods for years when you heal but uh i understand that for sure what are what we talked about this in the actually i want to ask you you mentioned the how to bulletproof businesses and the some of the advice can you touch on that a little bit of what you're sharing with with uh you know leaders on how to bulletproof their business and protect themselves during this time for making the most out of this opportunity well i think for i mean this is the time that real leaders come out to play i mean anyone can be a leader in the sunshine but when everything's falling apart one of the books i've read in in lockdown uh is um the splendid and the vile and it's all about how winston churchill became winston churchill and louis winston churchill became winston churchill may 10 19. i believe when he became the prime minister of the united kingdom and he was thrust into greatness and so what i'm trying to suggest is hard times look bad to the ego but it's in the it's in the difficult times that we get to see what we're made of i believe there is a a mystical orchestration of life nature knows what she's doing and so i think this is all happening for a reason and i think when we experience the storms of our lives i don't think they happen at um random times and so what i'm what i would say to leaders and entrepreneurs is number one there's always room at the top look at peloton right now peloton is experiencing explosive growth it's bloating and and there are a lot of other you know look at online uh online media companies look at the people in in our field who saw a lot of this who have planned for things falling apart so have built digital businesses and digital courses and it just goes on and on so what i'm saying is you want to as quickly as possible ask yourself how long will this take where will this go i actually think this is going to be a few years i don't mean to be in any way negative but i want to be of service you know if you look at what's going on i think there's the health crisis and the pandemic and then there will be the hunger crisis which there is one now but it's there's going to be all the suffering from the fallout and that's going to go on for a while and so i would say if you were asking me for some entrepreneurial advice it would be number one ask yourself what value can you give to the marketplace that your industry peers are not giving number two i would i would also say right now a lot of peers in the industry are getting knocked out of the game whatever the industry is they're scared they're exhausted they're contracting so for someone who is feeling strong again the way you feel on the inside is going to determine the way you feel on the outside that's why morning routine in the 5 a.m club that's why nutrition that's why biohacking that's why learning that's why your daily habits are so incredibly important if you don't have any confidence right now you're not going to be able to build a build your business but ask yourself what value can i push to the marketplace that no one else is doing i would also ask um what where can i get costs and lean out the business right now because in good times we fall in love with growth and when we fall in love with growth sometimes you know we we build a highly complex business where all we need is a nimble little business that is actually more agile a few other things i would say is clean out digital distraction right now in the 5m club i talked about your menlo park um edison used to have a menlo park at the top of the hill in new jersey where he and his code his teammates would go to get away from the world and i think right now where we we want to check the news we want to you know connect with our friends digitally we want to do all those things it's very easy to fall into the dopamine loop where we become addicted to distraction and checking our notifications and when that happens you will not get into the flow state which will allow you to do the work that will allow you to lead the field you know we're at war we're war and it's not only against the coronavirus where war against distraction we're at war against digital interruption right it's a war it's a war because we must protect our genius because the world will be less of a place if we do not bring our light our love our genius to it i believe that man um and in the first interview we talked we talked a little bit about self-doubt and i want to bring in bring up and go a little deeper than that because we talked about it here as well i'm curious is there a difference between building self-confidence and eliminating self-doubt i don't know i'll have to think about that what i would what i would say is i'm going to be very contrarian here you know so many people are talking about mindset and you know this from our first interview you know it's like mindset is everything it's like if you only build a pma positive mental attitude the world will be okay well then if that was the case i'm gonna actually be a little bit dramatic and i would say that's the big lie of positive thinking now does positive thinking not work it does work but a positive mindset without a purified heart set leads to an empty victory so what i would say on your question about self-doubting what we try to do is we try to remove we try to build confidence psychologically we meditate we visualize and we read the books and we watch the podcast our intellect yeah with our intellect but as human beings we are these four interior empires empires i teach in the 5m club it's not just mindset it is our psychology but it's also our emotionality our heart set and then it's our third interior empire our health set our physiology and then it's the fourth interior empire that i wish more people were talking about because it's not weak it's brave our fourth interior apart are spirituality so i would say when you use your morning routine or your nightly ritual or spend some time every day working on your four interior empires that's when you release your ego and when you release your ego when there's no more darkness all there is is light yeah and that that means that's who we are our truest nature is pure creativity vitality love heroism compassion for other people honor and honesty so what i would say is the missing link in self-confidence and turning down self-doubt is read the positive books listen to the positive thinking gurus and get your psychology to world class because your daily behavior does follow your deepest beliefs no question but then do something that not a lot of people on the planet are doing which is do your heart set work which is if you've got anger sorrow resentment shame guilt repressed within your subconscious within your heart set well then you're at war because you've got a positive mindset but a toxic heart set so doing that emotional hearing is the game healing is the game changer then you get into health set massage you release the toxicity for massage reiki acupuncture etc sweat lodges etc and then you do the soul set work where you connect your higher power your inner hero you do those four things you start to dissolve self-doubt yeah can we can we achieve great things with pain and resentment and anger living inside of us well it depends on what you define as great things i i think a lot of great companies have been created by very damaged people and great music great art well for sure i mean i was once on an airplane from new york i believe new york to paris sitting next to an artist and he said you know i look for romantic partners who break my heart because he writes great songs i go why do you do that he goes because when i'm intimate with suffering i do my greatest song my greatest part so but what i would say is in many ways a lot of the great companies have been created by damaged people and here's the point i'm trying to make they were never enough for mommy or daddy so they were relentless and because they were relentless and never took no for an answer and just you know incredible drivers they built these great companies but is that a great company you see what i'm saying so if we wanted a great world i think a great world is built from an intention of love and this is not weak because i think the greatest artists they were not coming from fear of not being the greatest artists industry titans world builders i don't think they were building from a place of inferiority in security and not enoughness i think the great masterpieces the great movements were born of love mother teresa worked from love mothma gandhi died with less than 10 possessions why he didn't care about those things he reached the level of spiritual maturity where that wasn't the game he played he played a completely different game it was how can i bring love into the world and i think our greatest teachers are teachers of love and i think if you can be an entrepreneur but operate from trying to serve the world and help the world and distribute awesome value to the world that lifts people's lives if you're a painter who works from love because you want to bring joy to people through your craft if you're a school teacher or a world leader who works from love and service and honor because you want to be a humble servant to humanity and you know that life is short ultimately i think that's when you do amazing things yeah that's beautiful and why do you think people make excuses of their past uh of the the presence why do you think it's human nature to make excuses because it seems like what unsuccessful people do better than everyone else is they make a lot of great excuses whereas the successful people who are happier healthier achieving more in their genius are making less excuses why do we do this in general because we're human why is it human nature to make some excuses because because human nature is we're flawed i mean i make me i i'll uh i'll say right now i make excuses too i just make a lot less excuses than i did last year yeah i mean it's a it's a journey it's it's i think we all make excuses and if you don't you know and the people who don't think they're making excuses are not aware of the excuses that everyone around them sees them making so um but why do we do it because we are disconnected with who we truly are you know i think joseph campbell's hero story explains so much and if you look at the matrix and the alchemist and jonathan livingston seagull one of my favorite books and a lot of the great works in one way or another they're talking about the hero's story the hero is born in full blazing glory and in full intimacy with their genius the hero goes out into the world and the world remember morpheus in that old movie the matrix pulls the wool over their eyes the hero then starts to be programmed brainwashed heart washed we get the messaging of our well-intentioned parents but they give us their fears then we go to school you can't be an astronaut be practical and then we get the media and we get our peers and so the whole of society works its seduction and hypnosis on us and then we wake up at 25 35 65 105. mere figments of who we're meant to be and then we come up with this excuse yeah but that's easy for lewis house to do that's easy for you to do robin it's easy for muhammad ali or kobe or oprah or whoever it is because we have created a perceptual filter but not only perceptual filter an emotional mask you know one of your books like the i think it was the mask of authentic masculinity we don't to put masks over our psychology we put it over our emotionality our physicality and our spirituality and then we look through the masks so many times we believe the stories our lives are telling us are true and we would take a bullet for our story because it is so incredibly scary to leave the foundations we believe are true and that's why personal mastery is one of the it's not weak you know people roll the rise oh personal mastery personal development personal leadership it's the most heroic thing you can do because look how brave it takes for you to look in the mirror and leave the foundations you've built your entire life on and go go blue ocean and that's why the mystics talk about the dark knight of the soul because when you think it's all falling apart that's when you're really waking up um isn't it funny that every time there is a breakdown uh a break in the body a breakup in a relationship uh a near-death experience in a family member or your life that's when you you open your eyes and say oh this hurts uh you know something isn't working let me reevaluate what's not working and try to find the answer to what the truth is because the way i've been living has been a lie in some way shape or form it always seems to have it always seems to take some major breakdown for us to wake up why why why can't we just say you know what life is good but it's not great why can't i why can't we just wake up when it's good well you know oh i feel like we're just hanging out you know and and i love it because because i think you know these are they're very meaningful questions to me and i in many ways this is this is my fuel this is this is the conversation that brings me alive um richard bach once said what what the caterpillar thinks is the end of the world the master knows is the butterfly and i think this is very relevant for what we're going through right now like my heart hurts for the people who have died as a result of the turmoil on the planet right now and i want to do anything i can do to be of service and helpful having said that perspective is powerful as well our human society has gone through many upheavals we've gone through plagues we've gone through depressions and i believe upheaval and volatility is necessary for the long-term survival of our species i walk in a forest not too far from my home and there's a sign that says natural disturbances and it said from time to time nature sends natural disturbances to this forest like wind storms fires and insects whatever the word is i guess it's uh invasions when that happens large tracts of this forest are knocked down but this is necessary for the long-term survival of the forest well nature is nature is nature and we're all part of nature and the planet is part of nature and i believe what's happening on the planet now is absolutely necessary for the long-term survival of our species and the planet there is a town in india that finally sees the himalayas after 10 years because the smog is gone because of what's going on wow so it looks really bad and it is really bad we must acknowledge how we feel versus repressed how we feel because that just breeds more toxicity but let's also remember you know nature knows what it's doing and we are being taken to a better place and so to answer your question head on i think pain and suffering has got a bad rap in society you know i think the greatest spiritual lesson of all spiritual lessons is how may i find peace in the middle of a war zone you know the greatest of all spiritual lessons is letting go it's defined it's to find comfort amidst acute discomfort so what i try to do is as things fall apart go within build a stronger inner core that is not so attached on what to what's going on in the world because if you're not deriving your peace joy power strength creativity from out from outside of you you're getting it from it within you which is where the masters play the only the only reason something on the outside whether it's a loss of a relationship or this or is because we are attached to what's on the outside which is actually a very vulnerable place to be so we shouldn't attach ourselves to outside things but more inside things if you want to be peaceful and let's go deeper you want to be free you absolutely must find your axis of power from within then then people will say well robin are you saying i shouldn't build a billion dollar business are you saying i shouldn't write the next best seller are you saying i shouldn't change the world they're saying i shouldn't have a beautiful home or whatever my heart's desires are no you have those desires because your heart wants those desires honor them but don't need them don't need them it's like when you see people who completely fall apart when they lose something on the outside i i say this with deep respect but it's they were very attached to what was on the outside i mean you know i read a lot of meta marcus aurelius in my mornings and he just reminds me about the shortness of life like if i get tomorrow i'm a lucky man louis yeah i don't know i could be knocked out of the game tomorrow i could i could get kovit tomorrow and then end up on a ventilator and i could die so i try to keep my mortality very front and center for me and i it's not a platitude it's not something i'm just saying here i mean it is when i say goodbye to my kids in the morning i hug them and i kiss them because i don't know if i'll be around tomorrow and if you build that kind of intimacy with your mortality then you are in the world but you're not of the world and you don't really you do your best but it's all an illusion and if you lose it it doesn't matter because you're going to be as as marcus aurelius said alexander the greatness mule driver ended up in the same place there was a bunch of dust there was just a bunch of dust yeah and i think is it the country of bhutan that focuses on their death five times a day and they're supposed to be some of the happiest people in the world because they have that perspective and gratitude and appreciation for life now yeah i think bhutan is the happiest country in the world and i think they met they don't have a gdp they have a you know gross happiness index i was in south africa and there was a gentleman who every time he would see a human being he his eyes would light up and i said you know after spending a few days with him i said every time you see a human being you know you you really come to life like you just really you smile and and he said uh you know robin i've seen a lot of dead people in my life so every time i see a live person it makes me very happy and if we could if we could only connect with the shortness of life and you know the beauty of every human being and the dignity of every human being and the value of every human being and the opportunity we're graced with if we are alive today to do some some beautiful work that contributes and to share some love and some joy and it doesn't mean you have to work all the time i mean yeah i like take a good nap too that's another part of enjoying life right of course yeah it's been amazing i want to ask you a couple final questions to wrap things up uh before i get to them i want to make sure people check out your book 5 a.m club this is going to if you've enjoyed this so far you're going to love this book and i believe you have it on audio as well it's on audible people are loving the audiobook and you can get it on amazon.com and all the usual places yeah you should get the book get up at 5 a.m or or start at 6 or 7 if you need to get started there then work towards 5 and read this for 20 minutes a day or listen to it for 20 minutes a day while you're working on your routine but this is really going to support you in your life even if you just took one idea away from this book it will add value to your life and help you and you also have some free resources for people at robinsharma.com greatness can you share what these resources are to help people sure um so i wanted to to contribute some strong value to all your followers lewis in this time where a lot of people are facing you know a lot of volatility and uncertainty and a lot of stress and challenge so i put together what i call the victory over difficulty tool kit and these are three uh strong high value reports the first is the victory over difficulty manual it's not long it's about a 15 page handcrafted report that will help creative people productives and entrepreneurs navigate these times so they battle proof their lives and their businesses uh and then come out of this much stronger than before the second resource is the war measures manual and i believe we are at a war against the coronavirus and distraction and economic challenges and so i think it's really smart to look at how the greatest warriors navigated difficulty and that's what that report is about and then the final thing is actually a full ebook i believe it's about 80 pages long and it's called the world changers manifesto obviously no charge whatsoever pure value and you're right it's at robinsharma.com greatness in celebration of the school of greatness i love that i love that i want to ask you uh a couple final questions uh and and you had some amazing answers the last time on your three truths and your definition of greatness and i may i may tease people and not share what you said but really powerful responses and i want people and i'll link it up in the show notes to go listen to the previous interview where you could hear those answers so i have a different question for you today beyond the three truths and your definition of greatness is happiness the goal today for people or is it an outcome of following a routine in your day-to-day life is it the goal or is it the outcome i think it's a byproduct i believe the goal is truth now truth is not some kind of philosophical truth i'd say the goal is truth live your truth that could be do work that's meaningful for you your truth live your values even if no one believes in you your truth stand in your power versus external power i think the goal is to be truthful to yourself i think if you do that you're going to be happy because then you're not becoming who the world wants you to be you're authentic and honorable to yourself that's when you fall in love with yourself when you fall in love with yourself you do amazing work because you wouldn't betray and dishonor yourself you eat great food you get up early exercise you treat people well i think if people understood the art of falling in love with yourself the world would be much better because it took me 30 years to learn how to forgive heal let go of anger resentment and it was i was constantly in war in my emotions and i was still productive and it drove me to achieve but it didn't make me feel peace inside and it wasn't until i started to heal all those past things and say okay i'm allowed to love myself that's when i started to truly feel fulfilled that's when i could sleep at night without stressing i mean that's when i truly started to unlock um who i am and i think it's a game we should all learn how to play well uh is how to love yourself and it's probably a lifelong journey i'm you know i'm not sure what it's going to look like in 10 20 30 years from now hopefully i can continue to live that long but i'm sure it's a constant process right it's a it's a messy dangerous amazing wonderful incredible process i think it's the best sport you could ever play i think the world is selling us a good bill of goods which is the goal in life is ffa fame fortune and applies i've never felt happy from fame fortune applause for a day i do right but i believe the real goal and a completely different sport is jpf joy peace and freedom and the interesting thing enjoy peace and free joy peace and freedom doesn't come from anything in the world it comes from learning who you are living your truth expressing your truth loving yourself here's the paradox if you have that level of power where you're deriving your creativity your love your honor your expression from everything within the world beats a path to your door because you're so incredible you're so incredibly powerful that's true things unfold things naturally come to you you're like a magnet of all your dreams we could i'm we can write a whole book on this whole episode robin i really acknowledge you for your consistency of how you show up in the world for being there for human beings i mean again the way you were there for me when you came on the interview the first time a year and a half ago you met me at a time when i was going through some challenges and you really showed your light towards me and you were there for me in a powerful way and the way you keep showing up for yourself keep writing to serve humanity it's inspiring my friend and i want everyone to get this book 5 a.m club it's gonna change the game for you i promise you go check it out right now robin is there any final thoughts because i want people to go listen to your three truths and definition of greatness on the episode on the other episode but is there any final thoughts while we wrap up i just say you know when i've gone i remember a particularly hard time in my life when someone said something he just said this too shall pass and obviously it's it's a it's a old piece of wisdom but that really helped me i want to say to everyone tuning in here you know what we're going through will pass better days are ahead and um the key is to ask yourself when i'm looking back at this time that we've navigate that we have to navigate right now in five years what will i wish i would have done during the time of the pandemic to set me up for a glorious life as i go ahead and i'd secondly i'd say you know you are stronger than you know everyone and how many times have we faced a crisis we didn't think we could get through get through it and the final thing i'd say is i'd like to applaud you louis you know you um you're very consistent you really care about the world and all the all the work you do and i think you know i just want to celebrate you for uh you know you're changing the world and uh and you have i think you have a really good heart and i want to you know i want to just celebrate you for that and um thanks for reaching out to me of course appreciate it robin thanks so much man we can't spend our life in continual outward pursuit of an external goal because in all likelihood we're pursuing something spiritual anyway without knowing it we're looking for approval or connection or power or status or whatever it is you can't get that you have to have something that's separate from it

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 699,184

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Lewis Howes interview, school of greatness, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, success habits, success, wealth, motivation, inspiration, inspirational video, motivational video, success principles, millionaire success habits, how to become successful, success motivation, millionaire morning routine, perfect morning routine, how to achieve anything, successful morning routine, never be lazy again

Id: 7NHMXpVHNbQ

Length: 116min 31sec (6991 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 07 2021