Hack Your CEO Miracle Mornings for Maximum Productivity

All right. The miracle morning, the CEO morning start. What time does it start? What goes into it? What's the best ones of all the different recipes and formulas out there for starting your day right? For maximum effectiveness, for super results? I'm going to tell you, but they're all missing something. Something that I learned many, many years ago. I'll share with you my routine and the critical elements and the missing thing. Hey everybody, my name is Bill Gallagher, scaling coach and host of this Scaling Up Business podcast. We bring our show to you every week. I either some lessons or stories from my clients and my work scaling companies over many years now or from a guru, expert, CEO in the world of scaling something that they've done. So we bring the best folks to you every week. We share some great stories that you can put to work in your business. You'll find all our shows and more wherever you're getting this right now, turn on like subscribe notifications, that kind of thing. Get them every week. You can also find more than 600 shows on all sorts of topics in our back catalog right here. So everything to do with getting your strategy right, the people, the strategy, the execution, cash, all that and more right here. Wherever you're getting this right now, you can also go to scalingcoach.com and if you go there, you can sign up for one of our monthly workshops where I'll take you a little further, go a little deeper, costs very little. Spend a few hours with me and some others and we'll go get started in some of the work. You'll get a taste of what it's like to work together. All that and more. Scalingcoach.com all right, back to this miracle morning thing. So let's talk first of all about what people have different names for them. Mine has evolved quite a bit. So people start with meditation, they start with writing morning pages, they start with intentions, they start with gratitude, they start with prayer, they start with family, they start with exercise. All these things are good. There's no actually one good formula that works for them. They're all useful and you might even change it over time. There isn't one like whatever. And in fact, if it's takes too much work, if it stresses you out, then you probably shouldn't do it. Growing your business is really, really hard work. I'm going to take you through mine. I'll talk to you about some of the different practices I've noticed and how it's changed over time and then help you design your own. But I'm going to Tell you the one thing that I think they're all missing that I learned many years ago at a different time in my life. Look, here's the deal. I. I get up in the morning. At this point, I really rarely use an alarm clock. Like, either my body just knows to up or like I'm going to wake up before I need to for my routine. So I kind of get up, you know, out of habit. But I'm 60 now, so you might not have developed the same habits or sometimes, you know, there's something really compelling. You got to just make sure so you've got some kind of alarm or something like that to start your routine. So what time does it start? Do you need to start at 3am, 4am, 5am I certainly don't. But, you know, it could be the way you're wired that you like to get up really, really early before everybody else. Tim Cook does. Lots of people do. So figure out what's the optimal time for you to really be productive, but don't chase somebody else's goal of what the right rhythm is for you. I get up about 6am I might get up as early as 4. I might get up at 5. I get up kind of when my body feels right. Sometimes it feels too soon. I'm like, oh, I want to sleep longer, but I can't. I'm up, I'm ready to go. But 6am is actually when I get up these days now, that's been different at different points of life. And it. And there's not the right answer for you. What works for me and what works for Tim Cook are two different things. What works for you will be something else entirely. So the folks that I work with, entrepreneurs, they tend to get up anywhere from 3am to about 7am and it's pretty rare that I see people getting up that late. But it does happen. So for me, I like to begin with gratitude. So I look up, I notice my body. So there's a certain amount of like, body mind, mindfulness awareness. I just kind of. I don't jump up, but I notice. How do I feel? How's the body feel? What was my last dream? So there's a, just a, like a little moment of pause before I spring right into action most of the time. And then I look out and I have a great view from my bedroom. But I. I pick something to think about where I can practice a little bit of gratitude and awe in the morning. So if I'm at home, I've got a beautiful view, but I could Be in a hotel room with a terrible view. I could be whatever it is. I allow at the beginning to start with some gratitude and some awe. Right after the sort of just basic body mindfulness awareness. And then I will either do writing or reading. Most of the time I will start with some reading the news, things that amuse me, interest me, issues that I'm following like that. But not just the core focus things, but also go pretty wide and try to graze. Now I'm an ideator and I'm strategic in nature, so I'm looking for influence and stimulus. I'm looking for amusement. I'm looking for wide things outside of my normal focus areas. Not like what I'm working on the day, like super intentional, but broader than that so that I can intermix things and have fresh ideas or new approaches to things. So I go then reading widely a range of things. It's not the same thing every day. In times when I'm working on writing and creating stuff, which cycles in and out every quarter, I will do some morning writing, early thoughts in the day, things I'm noticing and that kind of thing. With that also comes coffee. I like to have coffee very early in the day, right, right after my wake up. And my gratitude, like writing the coffee. And the coffee kind of bridges the gratitude. Then into the, the grazing and the thinking and freeform thinking. Then writing. And then I look ahead, okay, what's coming up in the day? What are my first meetings, that kind of thing, remembering them. I looked at them before, but I want to look at them again in this day, kind of now what's going on. And then comes exercise, showering, that kind of thing, getting cleaned up, getting dressed and ready for the day. And then finally I eat something every morning. So I don't like to skip stuff. I like protein most of the time. Rarely is it very carby. I. I'll have like eggs most of the time. But that has changed over time. There was a time that I just had yogurt and granola every day and times don't change more, but I will have like a, like a single scrambled egg or something like that. Pick something that nourishes me. I don't want to be like on a protein deficit as I go through the morning's work and that kind of thing. And then pretty much like that's it. So I will be ready for work and so on. Now when I'm at home and on some of the days of the week, I try to carve out time to take a Morning hot tub. And that would be part of my gratitude practice as well. So just having a moment and I'll usually go take a hot tub on those days and I'll get a little chance to talk with my wife like how you doing? What are you thinking about? What'd you dream about like getting kind of sick. It could get really businessy in our conversation. It could be about our family, it could be about life and the broader picture. It could be like anything. But we're just going to sit there in our sort of tree circled background in the hot tub early in the morning. So that would not be every day. And here's the thing. I think about these morning routines being too rigid in something. There's discipline and value in that. But also then you're kind of locked into one thing. I know on the days when I have a morning hot tub before I shower up, that'd be the last thing before I showered. On those days I will be way more mellow and less productive. So if I really need to burn out a lot of stuff, it's definitely not a hot tub day. On those kinds of things. Hot tub days would be like when I come back from a business trip which is about once a week. So the day after the next day or maybe even the day before those might be days where I would pull relaxation. So what have I got in my day? I've got mindfulness, like just body awareness, mind awareness. I've got gratitude and awe, appreciation. I've got reading and grazing. I've got looking ahead. I've got connecting with wife or family. I might have some deeper like relaxation when I add the hot tub thing in. So I have some regular recurring things and then time to take care of the body like shower it up and go to the bathroom and like that can of thing that nourish me, that delight me. And then I'm always asking myself, does this still serve me? Am I taking too long with this? Too short? Like am I ready to go? So I generally start my day somewhere around 8:30 or 9. Like the working part of the day and 9 might begin my first calls, recordings, things like that of the day. But I might start as early as 8:30 on getting ready. And then you know, some days I might work with somebody in a different time zone so it's much earlier, later. So there's the current routine, there's things that change appropriately and I don't get hung up about being like too rigid. Oh, I have to do this in this way at this time. So that's how the sequence is now. If I'm traveling somewhere and I'm in a beautiful place or on the beach or in the mountains, I might change the whole routine because I want to ski early or I want to go surfing or there's something like that that I'm going to bring into the sequence of that. So there's flexibility in the time and a variety of touch points. When I'm writing, there's going to be more like morning page writing, kinds of open, freeform writing in those days. So those would be the differences that would go on. So here's the thing. I think if you get too caught up in an exact structure or you try to copy what works for somebody else and it doesn't work for you, and you find that you're beleaguered, haggard, stressed by your morning routine, then you should change it. What works for me won't work for you. What works for Tim Cook won't work for me or you. Like, you have to find the vi, the flow that works for you and play with it and then let it change to fit different days of the week, of the month, cycles in the quarter. Like, allow it to evolve a little bit. You have a interesting, complex life, so make sure that these things nurture and support you and bring out your best habit. But if they stress you out, that might not be a good thing. When I was much younger, in a different phase in life, you know, the morning involved much more like kid prep things. So having a balance of some gratitude and gratefulness and then bringing kids into things like that connection, even as you're rushing around to try to get kids out the door to school. And that kind of thing can be really useful to balance that out. Now, I told you that there's a big secret, and here's what it is. The most powerful morning routine actually starts the night before. Years ago, when I was raising the kids with my wife, we had our businesses and we're doing a thing and our lives were even fuller and differently fuller than they are today. I took on running triathlons. And running triathlons really served me of having big sort of meaty physical exercise things in my life at that point. And I would do about. For a year I did these. I did about 45 in total of different lengths and types and things like that. And I noticed that if I didn't prepare the day before, the night before, mentally, physically, like, whatever, that it all was off so I could get up in the morning without having prepared the night before and still get in a workout and still do my other routines in the morning. But it could be all off. And yet if I did a little bit of preparation and thinking before I went to bed, the morning routine was dramatically different. So kind of the biggest thing that I have to say about like almost anything is that there's a sort of the regular prep time and a cycle of phase of what you have, but it actually begins like the day before, the week before, the whatever. So the night before, I would think about, okay, what does my day look like? What does my workout look like? So, oh, tomorrow's a bike day, and then I have these meetings and then I have to get ready to fly out of town to a trade show. So I would think about a thing like that and then that would help ground me and connect how the day would flow. And I would get the bike out, I pump the tires, I'd fill the bottles, depending on how long I'd lay out the bike kit, the clothing that I'm going to wear. So it was all like set there, ready to go, that kind of thing. And then when I get up in the day, I'm not behind the curve. I'm not like fumbling with things. I just put the stuff on and get in motion and drop the bottles on the bike and I'm out the door. And same thing with the swim or the run or a gym day with weight training. Whatever it was, I would think and plan and prepare it the night before and I'd think about the other parts of the day and what was going to go on to it. And then, you know, it could be like, oh, I need to grab my laptop or I need to print some pages or, oh, there's one little thing I forgot and I'm going to start the day on the wrong foot if I don't, like, just do that now. So doing all of those things an hour or two before bed, let me go to bed and sleep more peacefully, not worried, not waking up at three in the morning, like, oh, I forgot to prepare this thing for that call I have later in the day, or, oh, I have a special workout and I need some whatever. It was like the complications of life Anticipating the night before, looking ahead before you try to go to sleep or before you leave the office, that kind of thing. So the wrapping up and planning these things, like we do with the daily huddle with our teams, it's good to do with ourselves. So beginning of the day, I have the huddle to look ahead. At the end of the day, I have a wrap up the day at the workday. At the end of the personal day, I have a wrap up and a look ahead and getting ready of a little things. Then I wake up calmly and have abundant time that's well planned and thought through to do the workout, the practices, the whatever I need to do with ease. And so anyway, I think that's the big secret. Do whatever sequence works for you. Let it evolve over time. Let it change even week by week, day by day to suit the changing circumstances of your life. But get started with all of it the day before the thing occurs and that'll be a fantastic routine that's entirely yours. I hope that's helpful. I hope that you can put it to work. We bring our tips and shows and things like this to you every week. There are things that help me, that help my clients scale and grow their companies and survive and enjoy the process as CEOs and you'll find 600 million more shows of these on a whole range of topics, with all kinds of other coaches and gurus and authors and CEOs right here where we're getting this now or@scalingcoach.com as we wrap. Let me say a big shout out and thanks to my friend and mentor Vern Harnish who created the whole scaling up framework and the folks at Storeon who get our show produced and ready in and out every week. Thanks to Seth, Cameron Christel, the team over there. Thanks again for watching, for listening until we talk to you again. Next time, keep scaling Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think Doxa Talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. 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