100. Own Your Morning!

Hey, welcome back to Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary and this is episode 100. We have arrived at the century mark. I can't tell you how excited I have been. If you have been an early listener, somebody who's been listening into these first 100 episodes, I just want to thank you. Like, thank you for sticking around, thank you for your patience, thank you for your consistency, thank you for showing up, downloading. Hopefully you've given it a nice review and man, I'm excited. So what are we going to talk about today for this episode of 100? Episode 100? Well, I'm actually going to go back and.

Talk about a subject I, I talked about early on in one of my episodes, and that is owning your morning. So let me, let me set the, the preference, set the tone for where this episode is going to go. I can't tell you how many conversations I have had with.

Insurance advisors, those who I coach, those who I'm looking to coach. And the conversation is around that feeling of being stuck.

And right now, they know they have goals, they know what they want to accomplish, but for whatever reason, they just feel stuck. They just feel like the day is getting a hold of them before they can do anything about it. And so that's where I want to take this episode today is how do you control the day? Well, it starts by controlling your morning. As this title of the episode says, own your morning, own your day. And that's what we're going to talk about. In fact, I'm just going to share with you my morning routine because if there's one thing I feel so confident in right now, so locked in, right when it comes to taking control of my day, it's how I start my day. And so I'm going to literally give you the blueprint, give you what I do every single day that has allowed me to feel locked in. It's allowed me to wake up or not wake up, but at least apply energy to my day positivity and just has given me that vibe to get out and get after it. And so if you're listening in and you're struggling right now to really get going in your day, really tell the universe you are here to play for keeps, you mean business. This episode is for you. And let me go back to the conversation or conversations I've been having with the insurance advisors that I alluded to earlier. When I hear that, when I hear that feeling of I'm stuck, I just don't have the energy. I just feel like I'm not doing enough. I feel like my days are controlling me. I'm not really getting anything done. The first question I ask every single time is, what is your morning routine?

Because if I sense that lack of energy, I sense that feeling like you're not getting anywhere right now. You're not taking action. I know it always comes back to how you start your day. And this is where I want to set the foundation of the blueprint. Whether you played sports as a kid growing up or not, I want you to start viewing yourself like an athlete. So what do I mean by that? Well, as a baseball player, could I just show up for the game.

Walk in easily, stir casually stroll into the dugout about 10 minutes before the game started, put my bag down, put my shoes on and just walk out onto the field and play the game? At least play it at a high level. Hell no. Right? As an athlete, as a baseball player, especially as a pitcher, I had to prepare myself, I had to warm myself up for the game.

You know, when I look at my pre game routine when I was a starting pitcher in high school and college, it started, man, probably an hour before the game started. You know, I would get up, I would get in the dugout early, put my bag down. I had a whole routine that I applied to every start that I made that allowed me to go on the mound first inning locked in. So if you think about, when I think about what I did before every single start, here is what my 60 minute routine looked like.

I would grab rubber band. If you're a pitcher, you'll know exactly what I talk to, talking about. When I mentioned the rubber band, that's what we stretched out with, right? So I would use the rubber band, I'd tie it to the fence and I would do my stretches with my arm, my shoulder, my elbow, get my right arm, my throwing arm loose and ready for its job today. And then I would head out to the outfield and I would go find myself at the corner of one of the warning tracks, right where the foul pole sat. Now if we are on the third base dugout, I'd go to the left field foul pole. If we were in the first base dugout that game, I'd go down to the right field foul pole and I would start jogging from foul pole to foul pole, nice and easy, get my legs going. And I do that for about 10 minutes.

When I was done with that, I'd finish back up at the foul pole that I started at and I would head back to the foul line. So again, if Our dugout was on the third base side. I'd go down the left field foul line. If I was on, we were on the right field, first base dugout. I go down the right field foul line and I do about 10 sprints. I'd start short, quick burst of energy, and then I would slowly sprint farther and farther out. By the time I was done with that 10th sprint, I was probably sprinting a good 80 to 100 yards. So by this point, I've now stretched out my arm with the rubber band. I've done my jogging back and forth, foul pole to foul pole, and now I've done some sprints. Now I've got a sweat going, right at this point. This is where my routine took a little left turn for most pitchers. I was a superstitious guy, still am. I would grab a jump rope. I always had a jump rope in my bag, in my baseball bag. I would go into the bullpen and I would jump rope. Now, as strange as this sounds, I felt that if I got my calves going that I could perform my best on the pitcher's mound. So if anybody who utilizes a jump rope to create cardio, to build in some cardio activity, you know, not only does it give you a sweat, it allows you to break a sweat, but at the same time it works the legs, it works the calves, right? So I do my jump rope, I jump rope. I think it was 500 or a thousand times. I can't actually remember what it was.

Now at this point, we're almost a half hour in, right? So we started the routine 60 minutes before the game started. Now I'm about 30 minutes out. And especially if it's a home game, I'm going to be the first pitcher on the mound that day, right? So about 30 minutes before the game would start. Now I would start going into my pitching routine, my throwing routine. So at that point I would grab the catcher who's going to be sitting behind the plate that day and we start playing catch. He would stand on the left field or right field foul line again, depending on the dug up side of the field we were on that day, we'd start playing catch. We'd start at about 20 yards part and we'd slowly, I'd slowly build it backwards. I'd slowly walk backwards as we threw, as we were playing catch, slowly, slowly. By the time we were done playing catch in the outfield, I was A good again, 80, 60 to 80 yards out, if we put it in feet a good 100ft away. But now when I Was playing catch. I was, I had a purpose. I wasn't just lobbing the ball to my catcher from a distance. I was throwing it hard. I was getting my arm ready. I was applying a little pressure to the arm to make sure it was ready to perform. Now, with about 15 minutes for the go the game, before the game to go, I would walk into the bullpen and now it was time to take them out. And I had a routine in the bullpen before. I would actually tow the rubber and start pitching, start throwing to the catcher to get ready my final five or ten throws to be ready to be locked in for the game. So think about that an hour before the game. It started with stretching, it started with jogging, then it went into some sprints, then it went into jump rope, followed by long toss with my catcher. And then it was finally time to get in the bullpen to actually get laser focused and start hitting my target.

That is how you have to approach every single day that you have right now. Approach it like an athlete. Now, am I telling you to go out and do some sprints, do some jump ropes? No. But here is what I'm hearing from most of the advisors, most of the people I talk to today when it comes to starting your day. Yeah, Well, I wake up, you know, and for many, first thing they do is they open their phone, they check their email, they check their text messages, and before the day has even started, the fires are started. You get the email from the angry client or one of your account managers or one of your employees, Something has gone wrong and now you're flustered before you have even had a chance to control the day. Or worse yet, right now, you turn on the freaking news. Like, if I can give you one piece of advice, please don't watch the news right now. Don't watch any media right now from any of the news outlets. No offense, it does you no good. Or people don't even have a routine. They get up, they shower.

They maybe have something to eat lightly for breakfast, they grab a cup of coffee and they're on the road. Or if you work from home, you're already sitting at your computer, turning your laptop on. There's no routine. So that's like the athlete who is literally walking into the dugout on the baseball field five minutes before the game starts, Put the bag down, puts the shoes on and walks out to the field thinking you're actually going to perform at your best. That's crazy. So how do we turn it around? Well, this is where I have started applying A new routine. As a pitcher, I had a pre game routine, but now as a business professional, I have a pregame routine that I want to share with you today that I have to tell you, I feel is so locked in right now that when I start my day, when I say start my day, I'm talking about work. When I start my work day, I am ready to rock and roll. I'm ready to bring positivity to the world. I am ready to make an impact to this world. My brain's on fire. It's like, come on, day, let's go. And so I want to share that with you now. If you just take a snippet or two from my morning routine and apply it to your life, I promise it'll make massive changes. So let me share with you what my morning routine looks like. And I'm here. I'm going to share this little tidbit about my morning routine. I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to it. I actually get excited to go to bed the night before because I know I'm going to get up and do my morning routine. Yes, I'm that much of a geek, but it's because it makes that much of an impact on my day. So let me share my morning routine with you. Here's the first thing that happens. I wake up, stroll out of bed, put my feet on the ground, and before I even do a thing, I put my feet on the ground. I say, all right, here we go. Then I walk into the kitchen.

Grab a cup of lukewarm water, a glass of lukewarm water with a lemon, about 10 to 12 ounces and I down it. It's good to have warm water first thing in the morning, not ice cold water. Then I make my coffee. We have a nice Nespresso machine in the kitchen. So make my diaper double American or my double Americano or my cup of coffee. And as that's boiling or as that's cooking, I pour another glass of water, this time a little colder, and I fill it with, we have some powder electrolytes. If you live in Colorado, you live at 5,000ft. You have got to be constantly filling your body with electrolytes. So I have my glass of electrolyte, I have my cup of coffee, I walk back into my bedroom, and the next thing I do is I take an ice cold shower. Yes, I still take this ice cold shower every single day, regardless of how cold it is outside. Because here's what it does. It absolutely lights your body on fire. Yes, you think fire? You mean cold? Yeah. It lights you up. It gets your body ready, shocked and ready to take on the day. So I jump in that ice cold shower. Depending on the day, it could be anywhere from a minute to three minutes. Now I jump back out, dry myself off. Now it's time for some instructional videos. So I go to YouTube, I watch a Gary Vee video, I watch Ed Mylett videos, I watch Ryan Sirhant videos, you name it. People that I consider mentors, people I've never met, but people who I learn from every single day. And while I'm watching those videos, I'm having my coffee, I'm having my electrolyte drink. Then I turn that off after about 10 minutes and I read about five to 10 minutes of a book. I'm reading whatever that book is right now. Right now in this moment. I'm reading Atomic Habits. I just got done reading Getting Naked, two fantastic books. So I read for about five or 10 minutes. Then I go into my breath work and this is where people think I get a little weird. Now I learned this from a colleague of mine, Dialan Ali. So Dialan, if you're listening, thank you, buddy. It's one of the best things that's. This thing's been a life changer for me. I go into an 8 minute breath work activity. Now when people think of breath work, they think of, you know, the breathe in.

Breathe out to de stress yourself, right? What I'm talking about is actually breath work that lights your brain on fire. This is where the brain gets woken up for the day. So here's what my four breathing exercises look like. Now, if you're listening in, you're not going to be able to see this, but if you're watching the YouTube version of this, the live version, you're going to see this wholeheartedly. First type of exercise I do is I breathe out as fast as I can. Yes, you're going to have snot come out your nose, but deal with it. I breathe out as fast as I can. It sounds something like this.

I do that for two minutes. Yep, I got snot coming out my nose. Now after that two minutes is done, I go into breathing in as hard and as fast as I can. Sounds like something like this.

You do that for two minutes. Actually, you will feel lightheaded when that one is done. The third breathing, third exercise in the breath work is I want you to imagine your body is like a wave. So you breathe in and, and then stretch and elongate your body and then you Breathe out fast.

I do that for two minutes, followed by the last set of breath work. And that's what I call the dog's breath. If you ever watch a dog sniff, you know how fast they sniff. You do the same thing with your nose, it's going to sound like this.

Yes. So you do all four of those eight minutes. I promise, by the time that eight minutes is done, Whoa. Your brain is on fire. You woke up, you're awake, you're ready to rock and roll. You are ready to take on whatever the day has in store for you. But I'm not done now. I go into meditation, and I am hot right now on Tony Robbins morning priming exercise. I love it. He's got a video on it on YouTube. So I put my headphones back on, I go to YouTube, I go to that one specific priming exercise, and I light myself up with some Tony Robbins to get my mind ready for the day. It's a lot of visualization. When I'm done with that, I go out into the dining room and I journal. And what I am into journaling right now is fast forwarding three years from now. So I'm doing this episode. I'm recording it on March 1, 2021. Today, I would write, what am I doing on March 1, 2024?

Because what I'm going to do is I'm always going to be in visualizing my future self. Because my job is if I write down what my future self is going to be doing three years from now, I need to go chase that guy now. I need to be the person today that is going to become that person three years from now. And then the last thing I do is I go get some exercise and I hit the gym, go do some sprints. Now, that sounds like a lot, but let me replay this to you. I start my day by having a drink of warm water with my lemon, get my coffee, get my electrolytes ready. I jump in a nice cold shower. I watch about 5 to 10 minutes of instructional video followed by 5 to 10 minutes of reading. I go into my breath work, do my meditating, journal, what my future is going to look like, and then I exercise. I can get all of that done in a little over an hour. But here's the deal. Here's what happens by the time that is done. Number one, I know I have done more than most people do in an entire day. Number two, I now feel like that athlete, like that pitcher I was before the game. I am locked in. I am ready to go. I am looking the universe, I am looking the day in the face, going, bring it on, give me your shit, I'm ready to go. And I want you to do the same thing.

So take from this episode what you will. Take one or two of those pieces of my morning routine. But if there's one piece of advice I'm going to leave you with today, it's this. Start taking control of your mornings. I get it. Some of you have children, you might have children, you might have some morning distractions that I don't have. I understand that. But it's still about controlling your time. It's still about doing, controlling the one part of the day you have the most control over, and that is your morning. Because if you apply the blueprint I just laid out for you or just even pieces of it right now, I promise you're going to go into your day, your work day, with more energy, with more focus, with more confidence, and you're going to be ready to take on whatever that day is about to throw at you. So that's what I'm going to leave with today. You know what happens when you take control of your morning, you take control of your day. But more importantly, here's what happens when you get a locked in morning routine. You get clarity. And then when you get clarity, you know what happens? You get confidence. And when those two things collide, you know what happens there, my friend? Massive action. So go make that happen today. Have a good weekend. And lock in that morning routine. Here we go.