How High Performers Start Their Day: My Exact Routine | Jeff Dudan's Winning Habits #229

Welcome back, everybody, to Franchise Friday on the Unemployable Podcast. I'm Jeff Duden. Now, before we jump in, I just want to remind you that you can grab a free copy of my book, the Business Athletes Regimen for a Great Life Through Better Decisions. If you're at an inflection point, this will definitely help you. And the link is right there in the description below. And if you're curious about franchising or you just want to see the innovative work we're doing, head on over to homefrontbranch.com and check out our five amazing brands and what franchising can do for your life. And today, as a budding entrepreneur or an existing entrepreneur, I want to ask you a simple but powerful question. What is your morning mission? Now, you hear this all the time on podcast. What do you do in the morning? What do you do in the morning? How do you start your day? I have something specific. I have something powerful, and I want to share it with you. I want you to give yourself the greatest probability of achieving what matters the most to you every single day. So last December, I was in Las Vegas to film the Ryan Pineda podcast. Now, Ryan has a huge podcast, like 8 million followers across channels, so it was worth it for me to fly out there. He has an incredible business, a beautiful building, multiple studios, and several thriving online companies inside of those buildings. Now I don't get nervous anymore. I can go up in front of any audience, any size, any show, no matter how big the stage, because it's just not helpful to panic or to get nervous, and I'm just over it. But on this day, for some reason, I felt different. The lights seemed a little brighter. Everything seemed a little bit warmer. They had this beautiful stage in these beautiful recording studios. And, you know, my head just was like. Felt a little uncertain, not fearful, but maybe just a little less sharp. And. And it was like I was looking at everything through a bottle of water. Everything was just a little bit fuzzy and seemed to be closing in on me. Just enough distortion for me to notice, and I'm like, wow, this must be a big opportunity. And. But it turns out it wasn't nerves. It was a raging case of COVID And on the plane ride home, my pores opened up, and with minutes, I was soaked from head to toe. So for all the people on that American Airlines flight who went home and were sick for three weeks, like me, my apologies. Now, if you know anything about me, one of my favorite mantras is never let a crisis go to waste. So after a couple of days of being sick and still banished to my frog, which stands for finished room over garage that serves as my home office, my thought space. I use the time intentionally. It's a beautiful space. It's got built ins and a slab, sliding doors and a floating edge desk, glass whiteboards, the whole banana. It's a workshop for my mind. A place to calm the swirl and let the universe organize itself in my conscience and in my subconscious now. And because it was December, it was already a season of reflection for me. A time to recast my vision for the next 12 months and and then lay it out the next 36 months. Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? A time to create clarity around the vital few things that will move you closer to what you desire and what you're responsible for. During this time, I read both of David Goggins books and listened to hours and hours of his interview, interviews and podcast. And after really thinking about why he repeats the same message over and over again, it finally sunk in and I finally understood. David Goggins is all about standards. And let me ask you something. What would your standards be if there were no consequences and no goals? Because those are your true standards. Yes, marathon runners have training standards. But if there was no external goal, no finish line, no medal, no praise, no race to run, would you train as hard? Would your standards be the same? Would they still test their mettle? Will they still have the consistency to get up every day and get out on the road and have that discipline? Or if there's no consequences for doing something wrong, or worse, doing nothing at all, would you still choose the behavior that's aligned with the person that you want to become? I'm not sure it's a real test. It was during this time up in my Frog that I committed to a very specific morning routine for the following year, one that's made a significant impact on my life and I want to share it with you today. But again, remember, if you're looking to make an impact in your life, grab your free copy of Discernment in the description below. Check out what we're building here@homefrontbrands.com now. The core of my morning routine is focus. Focus is not only about what you add, it's about what you subtract. You have to add by subtract sometimes because you have to remove things so that you can create the space, the white space, to become great at something. So that December, I committed to these three very simple things. Number one, the five minute Journal by Alex Icahn, which I have a copy of right here with me today. Number two was just minimizing social media to under one hour a day and only for specific reasons. And number three, a commitment to my health and wellness, including minimizing alcohol or bad foods, even at work events, and just being more disciplined about what goes into my body to make sure that I was sleeping well and then I was feeling well and I had the energy to do the things that I needed to do, how to, how I needed to show up for people that I need show up for. So now when you wake up, and this is important, first thing in the morning, first moment, assuming you slept well, your brain waves are as close to flow state as they will ever be all day. And we've all heard about flow state and how athletes are in there and people get in this zone. That's where you are when you wake up. Okay? But if the first thing you do is look at a screen, turn on the television, or start doom scrolling social media, you're instantly triggering a chemical shift in your brain. These are dopamine spikes. And your brain moves out of flow state into a completely set of different brainwaves. And flow state is your greatest state for clarity, commitment and innovation. So you have to maintain that state. So here's what I do. First thing I do is I grab a cup of coffee because I'm addicted to coffee. And that's one thing I'm not willing to compromise on. Then I sit down with my 5 minute journal by Alex Icahn. I want you to pay close attention to the prompts in there. I have it here right for me. The first thing is that, that you do in this five minute journal. You do it five minutes in the morning. You do it five minutes before you go to bed. The first thing is five minutes. Three things that I'm grateful for. You start with gratitude, like what are the things that are going on in my life? If, if I got sick today and I knew that my time was limited, what are the things that I would hang my hat on that happened for me that I care great about? The second thing is what would make today great? This is what I'm really going to focus on. What would make today great? So what, as I think about my day, what are the outcomes that would move me forward, that would make me feel good, that would make it a successful day for me? And then the third is give me a daily affirmation. Okay, what do I know about myself that's an absolute that I can absolutely count on myself for that I actually believe to be true. If I am being the person that I aspire to be to get the things that I want to get and be the person that I need to be for other people. So those three, three things in the morning, what am I grateful for? What would make today great? And a daily affirmation. Okay, now the purpose of this routine is to identify clearly while you're in flow state, while it's quiet, maybe while it's dark out, the two or three most important things that you need to accomplish that day and to make sure then that my calendar and my mental preparation are aligned with then. So after the journal, if I have some extra time, I will read a physical book. I will, I will sit and think, enjoy my cup of coffee, I'll pet my dog, but I will have some quiet time to invest in my brain and kind of in my calmness while I'm in that, in that moment. Now, the next thing I go to immediately is I go to my calendar. Now time and love are your two most precious assets in life and you have to protect those things relentlessly. And if you haven't read buy back your time by Dan Martel. I highly recommend it because successful people manage their calendar, not their to do list. And the more successful you want to become, the fewer things you should do that others can do. Okay, let me say that again. If you want to be successful, you need to do the things that only you can do and delegate the things that anybody can do. So if you're going to have a day and your goal for your day is to spend your time doing only the things that you can do, you need to be really clear about what those things are because everything else belongs to somebody else. And that's how you work to your highest value role and time blocking. Working to a calendar and identifying your calendar instead of working to a task list is the best way to make sure that you're allocating your time, your most precious resource, to the things that matter the most, which you helped identify those early while you were in flow state, doing your five minute journal. Now, once you've identified what would make the day great and you've reconciled it with your scalinger, make sure you are investing that time in your most important outcomes. I typically keep two or three open blocks on my calendar for deep focus. Once my calendar is aligned, it's and ready to go and I've got some free space on my calendar for the thinking and focusing on the things that I need to deliver, then it's time to suffer a little bit and go do something hard. Because if you can suffer every day, a workout, a cold plunge, whatever it is, then you start your day with something hard. And the rest of the day you know you can do anything because you can do hard things. So around 6 or 6:15am, I head to a workout three days a week with my trainer. The off days I do something on my own and then I follow immediately by a 30 to 35 minute sauna, get my body temperature up, make my heart good and healthy. And because I've already identified my top priorities and this is, this is the through line, okay, I woke up, I did my journal, okay, then I aligned it with my calendar and now I've identified these things. So now during my workout and during my sauna, I can process these things and start to organize my strategies, my notes or my ideas in my head. So I've told my body and my brain what to focus on. So by the time I get to work at 8 or 8:30, I've already made meaningful progress on the most important things for the day and I've created time, space and mental clarity to continue focusing on them. And again, what you remove matters just as much as what you add. So limiting social media ending, doom scrolling, it's not good for you, it doesn't matter, okay? Nothing out there is going to make an impact in your life. Choosing daily not to drink so that your sleep and your energy stay high one day at a time. And if you follow this routine consistently for seven days, just one week, I promise you, you will notice the most remarkable change. Because your focus is going to increase, your energy is going to rise, your ability to move the most important things forward improves dramatically. You'll start getting results almost immediately and doing the hard things matters. So creating your own standards matters. Creating daily expectations for when your brain will enter flow state matters and being disciplined about it. Because that's how by the way, great authors operate this way. Stephen King the same time every day goes into flow state, the same four hours at the same time block every day and then when it's over, it's over and he enjoys the rest of the day. Stephen Coulter use almost exactly the same system, writing first in the first thing in the morning. By the way, that's where I learned this from Steven Cutler, who is the Stealing Fire author and the great Flow State author. I met him in person and this is what he shared with me. This exact system is get up first thing in the morning, stay in flow state and be brilliant inside of that. So my question, as always to you, is why not you? Why does it always have to be somebody else getting what you want? Why do you always have to look at other people and say, I wish I could. Why not you? If anyone can do it, you can do it, too. Before you go, don't forget to grab a free copy of Discernment. It's in the description below. And again, if you want to explore franchising or see what we're building here at Homefront Brands, visit homefrontbrands.com Look, I'm pulling for you. I believe in you. You can do anything you want to do if you set your mind to it. All you have to do is get organized and if you start the day right, the rest of the day is going to follow. So I hope this has been meaningful for you. I'm Jeff Duden, this is Franchise Friday and we have been on the unemployable podcast. Thanks for listening.