My 4:00AM Morning Routine as a Multi-Millionaire

Welcome to the Growth Stacking podcast. This is Dan Martell. This is what my morning routine looks like as the CEO of a multi million dollar company. You know, when I was in my 20s, I would stay up till 2, 3 in the morning writing code and then sleep until my first meeting. And my whole day would just be ahead of me. I could never get caught up and I always felt kind of behind on everything I did. And then I read a bunch of books about high performers and I noticed that every book talked about the power of a morning r ritual. That change added millions of dollars into my life. And why for today, if you don't have a morning structure that you follow a routine, a systems, a process of habits, then you're just allowing the world to react on you instead of you reacting to the world. It's playing defense versus offense. So I've distilled my morning routine into eight steps and the first step is the night before. So I look at the magnesium that I take so I make sure that I get a good night's sleep. I do a calendar review so I know what my next morning is going to look like. If there's any critical things that need to be cleared out, we take care of those. Then dump my mind into my journal so I don't have any open loops running that might cause me to toss and turn. Then after I put the kids to bed, I usually hang out with my wife and that's our personal time. And then afterwards I watch comedy so that my brain turns off. I'm not thinking. I definitely don't read super productive business books. And the comedy usually kill Tony allows me to just kind of slowly relax and sleep within 10 minutes at the most. The second step is I wake up at 4 in the morning. I try to get up around that time. I don't use an alarm, but I've been doing this for so long that that's usually the time for me. But I also to bed early so I always get about seven to eight hours of sleep at night. If I was you, an alarm. I never snooze. Snoozing is the devil. It's the thief of productivity. It's a bad habit to get into. Do not snooze. And then I go into my bathroom and I get my multivitamins so I take them next to the sink so they're always there. I never forget them. Vitamin D, because that's one of the deficiencies if you live in a place that doesn't have a lot of sun. I do my NMN which is really good for pulling vocabulary and recall. And then a very high quality multivitamin so that I've got any other nutrients that I need to collect in my body and available in that decision. Then I go and I have my clothes ready to go, and then I go downstairs and I walk right outside and I take a photo of my view and I share on social media because I like to share my process, share my path. The third step is hydration. I go into the pantry, I grab my water bottle, I drink a full liter with electrolytes. I shrug it. So I get that in my body to kickstart the day. Then I get the coffee made because everybody needs some caffeine to kickstart the day. The fourth step is I go to my chair. And this chair is an anchor for me. It's where I do my best creative work. I always start by reading 10pa of a nonfiction personal development book so that I can ramp up my mind. It feeds me and it sets the context. Then I start creating. So I usually do some kind of diagramming on my iPad. I'm designing, I'm solving problems, but I always create connected to my creator. And then the boys wake up and this is probably one of my favorite parts, where they come in all sleepy eyes and give me a hug. And I never let them go until they tell me they're ready to move on. And I will cherish those moments until they get and they're almost there, where they're too big for them to be able to even lay down and hug me. The fifth step is I go into my office and I do gratitude journaling. I use this great journal called the Five Minute Journal. It's all about not only being grateful for things and kind of using that as the glue to set the day, but I also look at the intentions I want to create for the day and the affirmations of who I want to become. And then I work on the Mendy app. It's a brain training app that helps me work on pulling vocabulary. The most important things that I do is train my brain so that I can be more productive, focus and creative in the meetings that matter most. Especially we're making big decisions. Only one or two big decisions I have to make per day. And I use the brain training at Mendy so that I can get the focus I need to make those decisions. The sixth step is working out. So I go downstairs. I have a gym in my house. Anybody can do this. You just need a couple weights to make it happen. But I Exhaust the body to tame my mind. Think about that. I put my body through stress, what I call EU stress, stress on myself, so that I don't have to deal with distress or dis ease in my body. So it's this concept called sweat. Every day I go downstairs, I sweat every day. It can be as simple as just going for a walk. It doesn't matter what you do. Just put some weight on in a backpack, go for a walk. But this is where I ramp up. Stop. I get my body ready, and when I'm done that, I always go outside for a cold plunge. Because if you don't cold plunge, record it and put on the Internet, you can't be a billionaire. Number seven is I go upstairs and I have breakfast. Now, I like to eat similar things pretty much at every meal. That way I don't have decision fatigue, I don't have to overthink it. And it hits my macros because I track all the food that I eat. So I have this really cool, beautiful egg white protein bread sandwich with sriracha and some barbecue sauce to make it sweet and hot. And I do it all while I'm getting ready. So I set it up, I go upstairs, I get ready, and when I come down, it's almost ready to go. I can do it in about three or four minutes because it's net time, no extra time required. It's set, it, forget it, go. And it's delicious. And I eat it pretty much every day. The eighth step is I review my goals three times a day. Usually when I sit in my office at the studio or I get into my car, I always pull up my phone. I have my major goals for the year pinned in my notes app, and I review them and I visualize and I think, who do I need to become to achieve those goals? Because what I want to do is I want to pull the future forward, forward into my current reality. And the only way to do that is to know what you're aiming at. Most people don't have a primary aim. I use that review process to always have my goals front and center and use my calendar to prioritize what activities I'm doing to make sure I hit my goals. So that's my morning routine as the CEO of a multimillion dollar company. Now, if you want to learn what my full day looks like, click the link and I'll see you on the other side.

If you like this week's episode, be sure to visit itunes. Leave a review that'll help us get in front of other found just like you. And if you're looking for more resources and video trainings, be sure to check out dan martell2l's the martell.com to subscribe. Keep up the hustle, keep stacking your growth and I'll see you in next Monday's episode.

Peace. Grow Peace. Bye bye.