What Is Your Daily Routine? | Biz To Biz Podcast

You are now watching the Biz to Biz Podcast with Allen and Justin. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz Podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Dale Earnhardt of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And in today's podcast, we'll be talking about morning routines for business owners or how to just, you know, get yourself going. In general. It's very important to start the day off right, to get your mind right, both physically, mentally, and spiritually, if you're into that. So yeah, man, morning routines is a big craze. You know, you've seen a lot of people doing ice baths every morning, saunas, etc. Running, jogging, walking, meditating, praying, push-ups, etc. I feel like there's not a specific morning routine for everyone. I think everyone has their own way of getting theirself going. I think there's not a right or a wrong way to start. Well, let me take that back. If you're in a routine, that's great. If it's a shitty routine, you should break that routine. So I mean, So there's that. How you doing, man?

I'm doing pretty good. But today, let's dedicate today's show to my Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe passed away, 98.

Good life. That's a good life.

Yeah, he was, uh, quite a businessman.

There you go.

And his, uh, young kind of business. So my uncle, when he was very young, they, you know, it's unusual, but they sent Instead of him going to like regular high school, he went to this special technical high school in New York where he learned how to like fix stuff. And he became like the fix-it guy to fix stuff.

And I mean, I don't know, it's an engineering—

well, no, I'm just saying like that the whole like, you know, they got rid of all these programs, shop and all those kind of things.

Yeah, there was a high school like that in Milwaukee Tech.

Milwaukee Tech. And they have one or two technical high schools in Broward County, which is horrible, that services maybe a few hundred students.

Yeah, I was looking for that in my daughter to get her in there and no.

Yeah, it takes forever.

The waiting list is crazy.

Yeah, it's insane.

Got to know somebody from what I heard.

So my uncle was in, he had a fight in World War II. He was in the Battle of the Bulge. And he was in a very—

bombing Nazis, kill Nazis! No, I'm kidding.

He was in a really bad—

I'm not kidding.

No, no, but he was in a really bad situation and he said a bunch of prayers and he said he's gonna be— do whatever, be— he's gonna change his life when he got back to the— if he made it out alive. But when he came back to the— after the war, my grandfather at the time owned a knitting factory and they knitted sweaters.

Dope.

And the machines used to break all the time, so my uncle had to fix them, right? But my uncle figured out not only how to fix the machines but like improve them.

So he made like an improvement to these machines so they wouldn't break anymore, right?

And then he was fixing everybody's machines and he was making like some insane amount of money for the— for the time, you know what I mean? Because people is worth a lot of money, you know. Yeah, maybe you got a couple hundred bucks, right? But that was like $20 grand. No, for sure, in today's money. So shout out to Uncle Joe. And, uh, also today Richard Lewis passed away, the comedian. He was— I, I couldn't believe it. They said he was most famous. They said he was most famous for being on the Larry David show Curb Your Enthusiasm. I don't know who that is. Oh, he's an older comedian.

Now I have to Google him.

76.

That's young.

Yeah. And morning routines are important, you know, in the morning, you know, I know you do your thing.

Oh, wow. Really?

Yeah. You've seen him. You know who he is. Holy—

he looks old though.

Yeah.

He looks like he lived a great life. He probably lived an awesome, like, he probably—

yeah, no, he partied.

He— in the pictures that I'm seeing right now Almost every one of them, he looks like he just woke up from a very vicious hangover.

Well, I'm sure that he partied down. He's been around for—

he was not— this guy was awesome. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if he was awesome as a person.

No, he was an awesome comedian.

He was a funny guy.

He was really funny on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I love that show. I've never— you know what's funny? I never got into it.

Yeah.

Curb, when it was, when it was current. Yeah, I was whatever. I was living a different life. But yeah, man, I I've been trying to get caught up on there.

But that's a crazy shit.

It's hilarious. So what do you, so what does your morning routine look like, sir? What time do you wake up?

So usually I'm up by about 6.

Yeah, if you ever decide to send me a message at 6:00 AM on Sunday morning again, I'm gonna come to your house at 1:00 AM.

I don't know why I sent you a message.

To wake you up. 'Cause I'm just going to sleep at 1. So I'm gonna just knock on your door. What's up, brother? Brother, what up, brother? So yeah, so you wake up at 6.

Rocky is adamant about that. Although the other day he got up, he went to the door, he wouldn't even go outside. It was so cold. It was like 44. Yeah, it was like 44. Yeah. He was like, no, I'm going back to bed.

That was a wild stretch of weather.

And what was crazy, it was colder here than it was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where my daughter is.

You want to hear something wild? Yeah. It was 70 degrees in Milwaukee yesterday. That's what I'm talking about. I'm saying in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it was 70-something degrees.

Same in Iowa.

Today?

Yeah, it's negative something.

15.

Yeah, it's crazy.

And there's snow on the ground.

It took an 80-something degree swap out.

That is like, that was nuts. I'm not a big person that says like global warming, 'cause I don't think, we just don't know enough data to say what it was like 3,000 years ago.

Right.

Okay. So the way I look at it is that Earth is constantly changing.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of stuff that is a part, you know, everything is, you know, connected.

Yes.

So I think that the Earth is going through a change.

We'll see.

In that, well, you know, I just hope that it doesn't flip like Florida turns into Canada and then Wisconsin is like all tropic.

No, but what's, you know, my daughter's a meteorologist, so I always hear, you know, she's like, oh, the wind was coming from this way and then the next, and then the wind was switching to come from the north.

Yeah.

So I don't know how that, you know, all that.

A lot, a lot going on.

Yeah. So we start off the morning We go on the walk, I get up, I get suited up, I check the temperature because if it's cold, need a sweatshirt.

So I'm, you know, I'm, what is the word? Stickler.

Yeah.

For like details, right?

Right.

So like, so you get up at 6 and then you what? You just put your joggers on and well, not that you, I don't need to know that, but so then you get up and you just go or do you do something in between that time?

Well, usually I let him out so he can go in the yard. While I'm getting dressed.

I'm saying for you.

Yeah. And I drink, I usually drink a bottle of water.

That's the first thing you do?

Yeah, I get the water and I start.

Do you brush your teeth before you go on this walk?

No.

No, I wouldn't either. Stop me from talking to people. I didn't brush my teeth yet.

No, I get, you know, and I get my headphones in and then—

What kind of, what do you listen to when you're on that walk?

So sometimes a podcast, sometimes this podcast, sometimes another podcast, music, or it could be news, but not too much news. Usually it's music. So I put on, I'm partial to some classic rock, or I get on YouTube and find a couple of music videos because you can still listen to the music.

Yeah, right, right.

Listen to some songs and I head out. We go on our walk.

How long do you take a walk?

Over an hour. He can— Rocky can go like usually 2 to 2.5 to 3 miles.

So you walk 3 miles every morning?

Yeah, at least. Yeah, the other day we went 4 miles.

Nice.

Yeah, so, and you know, we try to go early because then it's— the sun's not out and it's not too hot. I do take some awesome pictures of the sunrise.

I know if you follow me on Facebook, I do see the I do see some of the morning pictures when—

Yeah.

The algorithm is so weird now. I don't even know, like, I don't know. It's like I gotta un— Did you ever hear that when you unfollow people and then follow them back and that's how you get them back into your algorithm? I gotta do that with some.

Yeah, so.

Well, 'cause I just deleted like 6, anyway, it doesn't matter.

So like in the last week or so, I think we're gonna have like a time change coming up, right? Time.

Finally the sun goes down after 6:00 PM. Today is the first day for that. So we made it, ladies and gentlemen. We made it through another winter. Yes. So all you, you know, everyone, let's not be so depressed, you know what I mean? We made it through another year of wickedness. Uh, yeah, man.

So the last few mornings, it's been crazy. Out west, you see the moon, big moon, and then to the east, the sun is coming up. So you got a sunrise and a moonset.

That's awesome.

Going at the same time. And then we usually see like—

That's only like riding around this time of year.

Yeah. So then we see, you know, sometimes we'll see somebody, other people walking dogs. Sometimes we see people out walking, jogging, running, riding bikes. Everybody, you know, I know, I mean, I've lived in the same neighborhood for 12 years, so I know a lot of people. Rocky has some friends that he likes to visit.

Nice.

They're in their backyard.

They go mess with him.

He goes by, they bark at each other or whatever. And, uh, you know, that's the—

so that's like, that's your exercise for— do you do any exercise?

Yes. Then sometimes, depending on how fast I get done, you know, hop on Peloton for 10, 20, 30 minutes. There you go.

You know, the Peloton is the bike for anyone that—

yeah, the bike. And get the Get the blood pumping while the coffee's brewing. Get the coffee going and then have a bite to eat.

But what kind of— big breakfast? What's your bite to eat?

I swap around. Could be some oatmeal, could be just an energy bar, could be scrambled eggs.

That's every morning?

Yeah, every day I make sure I have some food.

Before you get to the office?

Before I get here. Oh yeah, I got to have some food.

Interesting.

Yeah, it's part of my thing to get—

Anything, do you need any personal care, like meditation time or—

Well, I think like walking, it's very quiet when we go in the morning.

I guess.

It's literally like sometimes I won't even have music on and it's so quiet because there's No cars, especially when there's no school.

I love when it's quiet.

I mean, I live in an area where there's a golf course.

Those quiet— They say that those are the hours of the makers.

Well, let me tell you, sometimes it's so quiet in the morning, you can just hear like the wind. You can hear birds.

You can hear the insects.

No, it's just quiet. And I enjoy that. I'll turn off the music if there's like No cars around. I'm like, oh yeah, depending on which way he wants to.

I can't wait for that.

And I just like go, oh, it's like so nice to, you know, you just, you just don't, there's nothing.

April 12th through the 14th, I'm gonna be camping.

Okay, well before you go camping, on my birthday, April 8th is supposed to be some insane eclipse event that day.

Uh-oh.

On my birthday. That's weird, right? An eclipse.

So much going on in the universe. Hence what I said, yeah, that I don't think we know crap about what's going on on Earth.

And then one thing that I do, that I, that I, that I do is, um, on Saturdays is my day of— I limit, I limit, um, looking at my email and opening up my laptop.

That's good.

If there's like something important, somebody texted me, they need some information or something, I'll handle that. But I try to take a break off of the laptop.

That's on Saturday. 'Cause in Judaism, you're not supposed to do anything.

Right, you're not supposed to do anything.

You're not supposed to cook, you're not supposed to—

Yeah, if you're doing Shabbat, but I don't do Shabbat. But that's like my one, you know, you gotta unplug.

I mean, in general though, like most Jewish people that I had known.

Yes, if you're religious, Friday night, At sunset until Saturday night sunset, no electricity, no driving, no nothing.

No TV.

No TV.

No radio. No cooking on the stove.

No cooking. Like most people make like fill up a Crock-Pot.

Hot roast.

Right. And make a—

Definitely we've had this conversation before.

They make the chulent or a pot roast or something or chicken in a pot.

So then after you, Eat your breakfast. What's next?

Bathroom.

Religious. Religiously.

Yeah, religiously. Shit. You know, SSS. Yeah.

Shit, shower, shave.

Yep. You got to handle that. Well, we don't shave, so. No. Got to do a little trimming and, you know, get the hair.

You know, can't be looking all feminine, right?

Can't be.

Sorry. So, you know, the reason I said that I seen this guy talking to this other guy. It was a Muslim guy talking to some other guy. And the guy says, "How come all Muslims let men have beards?" And the guy said, "Because we can't be walking around here looking like women." I just thought that was hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing. It was a good one.

Well, you know, Rocky makes sure I get out there and get that walk going. He usually doesn't care if it's cold.

I mean, 40 degrees is cold.

Yeah, 40. He like stuck his head out the door, he was like, he just like turned around, looked at me, and he just walked back to the bedroom and got back in bed.

And then we did lazy dirtbag.

And then I think that morning I ended up— it was a day.

So on those days, do you walk yourself or do you just say, ah, forget it.

No, we'll get the walk-in, just be happening later.

Oh, when the sun comes up?

Yeah, the sun will come up.

You won't be having to worry about that no more. You'll be—

we still go early. I mean, if the sun starts breaking really early, we'll leave at 5:30. Yeah, because he can—

you're up at 5?

Yeah, I usually like get up.

So with the time changes, you go with the sun?

Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's good. Get up and go.

Because after the bathroom, what?

Then getting ready for work.

What's— what does that look like?

You know, getting dressed, getting— checking some emails, possibly. You know, I get a lot of text messages, phone calls, you know, so just get that whole routine going, you know. Gonna have somebody new working in the office soon, so I gotta get here a little bit earlier.

Very grateful for that.

Gotta get here a little earlier for a few weeks to get her trained.

Oh my goodness, what? No, you don't. You do not have to get here. We got it covered. We can train her just fine.

The new trainer.

Samantha knows what to do in the morning time. Is she gonna be opening the shop or no?

Well, Samantha opens now.

She comes, well, is she coming at 9 as well?

Yeah, she's gonna come at 9.

Well, that's good, that's good.

And some days, you know, she might do 10 something comes up, you know, we discuss. We like to— I like to have the employees to have flexibility. There's things that you can't get done on the weekend, you got to get done on a weekday, and I'm flexible to when that happens. Yeah. And, you know, and also Jacob is done with his PT, so I don't—

oh, he's all done?

Yeah, he drove himself today.

There you go. So hallelujah.

So he's, I don't have to—

Praise Jesus.

Well, I was having like a couple of days a week where I was having to swap around my schedule.

Oh, you, this was terrible.

Yeah.

And then you'd come in here, are we shooting a podcast? Shut up, bro. No, we're not.

Well, we had a little interruption in the schedule.

The schedule was off the chain the past 2, 3 months.

Yeah, well, you gotta take care of your—

Hey, I'm not complaining.

He couldn't drive, so you had to take him where he needed to go.

Yeah.

What's your deal in the morning? You got a lot going on.

Oh yeah, my— it's funny because when I, uh, wrote that on the board, I've been in the middle— I'm in the middle of making some huge shifts. Um, typically I wouldn't wake up until like the very last minute because I take my kids to school, right?

Um, but I don't miss those days.

Yeah, so my other daughter, she gets the school bus or my wife drops her off at the crack of dawn for whatever reason. I love you, Mariah. She is like the scholar of the bunch. So she gets to school super early with my wife and does whatever she needs to do. So I kind of got that taken off my plate, but I still take my other daughter to school. But she doesn't have to be there till 9. So I've been, I'm in the middle of waking up earlier, forcing myself to get up earlier. It's a challenge because I'm a night owl.

Right.

So, but I mean, earlier to me is 7, right? I mean, that's pretty early if you don't have nothing going on. And so I wake up at 7, The first thing I do is I take a shower, and then from there I go straight outside and I get sunlight for at least 20 minutes. I feed my birds, I stretch.

You have pet birds or just birds that hang out?

Just birds that I've— that constantly come back.

Okay.

I, I feel like I can The blue jays are always the same pack. Like there's like a crew of them.

Okay.

And you know, I can—

That's supposed to bring you good luck, a blue jay.

Yeah?

That's what they say.

I mean, I don't really necessarily believe in luck, but I feel like—

Well, it's supposed to bring you—

Positive energy.

Positive energy.

Positive vibes, word. So I can feel that. So yeah, I feed my birds and then I stretch. I stretch my shoulders because I have, I've had surgery on my shoulder. And then from there, I set— I get myself a cup of tea and then I go and I do push-ups and I do 5 sets of— well, now I'm up to 15.

We'll call them calisthenics.

I do calisthenics. Yeah, I got to mix into some, some bodyweight squats and I'll be good to go from there. Like you said, the SSS, shit, shower, shave. I've already showered, but if I get sweaty from doing the push-ups, then I'll hop in the shower again.

Okay.

Or like I said, I'm in the middle of like trying to get it all together. So like I've been doing the ice bath. I just haven't been doing, it's expensive, you know, I don't have a place to keep ice. You know, I'd have to get like a whole deep freezer to dedicate for the ice.

Either that or you got to get you an ice machine.

I got an ice machine. Still, it's not enough ice.

No, I mean like a restaurant one.

Ooh, that'd be great. That's not a bad idea, Allen. Anyway, so I hop in an ice bath.

If you want to know what else you could do, you could get, you know how like at the gas station sometimes have those freezers outside that have the bags of ice? Okay, so when I had my catering company, right, some guy came to me, he's like, oh, you want to buy some of these, a couple of freezers? I said, what are you talking about, freezers? And he's like, yeah, these freezers over here, they were just sitting in a warehouse. He goes, yeah, nobody wants to buy them. And they were like $50 each. He says, just get them out of here. And I was like, $50? I go, wait, I said, I said, I got to get, rent a truck. He goes, okay, free, just take them. And we used to, you know, I used to have ice for like—

It's a great idea.

I used to have need ice, like when we would go cater a huge party, right?

Right, no, for sure.

So we would plug those things in, plug it in in the warehouse, take one of them or both of them if it was a huge party, put them into the truck. And then I had like a massive ice machine, right? So instead of having to go buy ice, we would just bag it ourself and fill the whole thing up.

Yeah, I mean, that's where I really, But I also look into that.

But I also saw these— I, I got the—

when Jacob had his, um, you got to think I'm putting it inside a big tub. I know, little cups, this, this ain't doing shit.

No, no, but I saw online that they have these rock things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I would need a deep freezer for that. Yeah, because then they look like blocks of ice that you cut out of the—

yeah, but they cut— looks like a loaf of bread. Yep, these things I saw them, but they was way too big for Yeah, I know.

I mean, I'm wondering where these people are, like people who are rich, dude. Geez, they just have endless resources.

Like, no, they get a chest, one of those big chest freezers.

Yeah, deep freezer.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

But then where do they put— I don't know.

Anyway, some people leave them outside in Florida. I don't know about in Florida, maybe in their garage or somewhere.

We got a— it's too hot. That would be making your electric— my electricity bill go through the roof. My wife wouldn't have it like that, so. Yeah, so, but the ice bath thing, you know, so I've been doing that, like I've been trying to do it every other day. I for sure do it on Fridays. I like to start my, get my, I don't know, it feels like I work my, the whole week and then on Friday I'm, I should start doing on Thursdays because I'm noticing Thursdays are really hard for me. Really hard.

Okay.

Like, I don't know what it is.

You know, you have to, you know, with mornings, you know, you gotta, you know, Rocky forced that morning routine on me and that's been the routine ever since I had him for 9 years.

Having a pet, I mean, a dog specifically will do that.

That's a big routine.

I mean, my cat, she wakes me up at 5:30 'cause that's when she wants to eat.

Right.

She, and I'm not, she crawls through the blinds tap dances my chest, headbutts me, and then just plops down on me. Like, literally, it's—

yeah. And then, man, he, you know, sometimes— and he— Rocky's all over the place with eating. So, you know, eat at home, or sometimes I bring his food here, then he eats it here.

So with the— when I was saying interesting about you, you know, eating breakfast every morning, I've been, uh Basically, I figured that I've been— I, I do intermittent fasting my whole entire life, right? Okay, that's pretty much how I've always eaten. It's like I eat one meal a day and then I don't eat again, um, like a big portion of food, right? And, uh, so I've been slowly like trying to get into the habit of getting some protein in my body because I'm doing so much working out and lifting weights and stuff. I know I need to eat more protein. And yeah, so I got to figure out— I got some yogurt, some Greek yogurt that I've been eating, but I still just don't have the craving to eat when I wake up. Like, I'm not hungry. So it's tough. It's just tough. So I've been feeling—

one of the things I used to not eat, and then when I lost weight, I started to eat. That was one of the things that they wanted me to do was eat a breakfast.

Yeah, everyone in that's, you know, around me is like, they're all worried about, they like, you look so skinny and you're small.

You lost a lot of weight since you started here.

Well, I lost total, I lost probably like 160 pounds. Wow. You know what I mean? So yeah, that's great. But you know, the main thing for me in the morning is getting those pushups in. I've noticed such a big, um, difference in my energy level and stuff like that. So, but hey man, whatever works for you, right?

Yeah, you gotta tell us what your morning routine is. Maybe people will comment, they'll let us know.

I hope so. I mean, I'm always interested in learning and seeing, trying new things and stuff like that. So, but yeah, that's the morning routine. That's our morning routines. I try to write a little bit of daily affirmations every morning too, but that's tough.

Yeah, well, if you ever, like if I have a goal, I always write it down.

You got to. Yeah. Write it down, speak it into existence, say it over and over again.

Exactly, yeah.

That's cool. Make sure your mind and your body and your soul believes it, what you're saying. But yeah, man, that's the podcast. If you got any morning routine tips or something that really gets you going or motivated to get your day to crush it, I'd love to hear about it.

Allen would too, I'm sure. Yeah.

Comment, send us an email. But yo, be sure to subscribe to the channel, Biz to Biz Podcast. Peace out.

Carpe diem. Seize the day.