The Power of Morning Routines: Habits, Identity, and Intentional Living | Ft Glenn Lundy

Welcome to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. I'm Josh Negron, and this show is all about sharing lessons, ideas, and strategies that sharpen your thinking, strengthen your habits, and push you to grow beyond comfort zones. Let's dive in. Welcoming to the show today, I've got the one and only Glenn Lundy. I've got great friends, so I wanted you to see Mr. Glenn. Glenn, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, you know, Josh, just a humble, quiet, reserved, you know, introverted guy.

Yeah, for sure. I don't buy that one second.

No, no, no, man. Just, you know, husband to 1, father to 9, founder of 800% Elite Automotive Club, which you guys have been a part of for a really long time. And got a morning show that I do, got a couple books that I've written, some stages that I've spoken on. And ultimately, man, just a guy trying to unlock his full potential and help others do the same.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So you have a morning show. So it seems like you built the foundation of a lot of things on this what you call the Morning 5. Can you tell us a little bit about why you're so passionate about this?

Well, yeah, man, I just, um, I went through a season of life where I was homeless and lost and didn't necessarily understand my identity and so on and so forth. And so I started studying like successful people and, uh, and, and just what I found is that anyone who's reached any type of high level of success, the common thread that I found is that they all have A powerful morning routine that taps into mind, body, and spirit. And so I was like, well, I don't have that. That is for sure. And so I started implementing different aspects of different people's morning routines, trying to figure out something that works for me. And ultimately, I came across 5 really simple steps that transformed my life. And so, I applied those in my life, 5 steps, never hitting the snooze button, don't touch your phone first thing in the morning, writing down gratitude and goals, taking care of yourself physically, some form of exercise, and then sending out an encouraging message, right? So, I started doing those 5 things every day in my life and it transformed things. And then, I ended up writing a book about it. Morning 5, 5 Simple Steps to an Extraordinary Life. And that's kind of gone all over the world. And, you know, and then fast forward, it's now we have an app where people can check in and get streaks and so on and so forth, doing their Morning 5. It's really been impactful just being able to teach, teach people 5 little simple things that you can do every single day that changes everything.

Hmm, I find when people want a life hack or find these optimizations that they can make, sometimes the simplest things are the most Discarded, right? They're like, well, that's not sensational. I want to go from 0 to 100 today. And gratitude just doesn't seem— it seems a little marshmallowy for me. So, do you encounter that objection often that people don't want to do those simple things?

Well, yeah. And I try to remind people, anything that's easy to do is easy not to do, right? And so, when I come across that, I'm like, yeah, totally get it, man. Seems a little light, seems a little fluffy. Maybe it's not big enough. Maybe it's not transformative enough. But since it's so easy, why don't you just try it? It's not a big lift. It's not heavy. Just try it and see what happens. Just try it and see what happens. And typically when that person does do that, they'll come back to me and say, man, that was a little bit harder to do than I thought it was. I thought it was going to be. And I'm like, no, it's just easy not to do. It's not that it's hard to do. It's easy not to do. And most things in life that really matter, that's usually the case, right?

Mm-hmm.

It's not that it's hard to do it. It's just that it's really easy to not do it. And we can convince ourselves, we can sell ourselves on excuses and reasons why not, right? Right? Yesterday, 5 degrees in the morning, right? Yesterday it was 5 degrees outside. I've worked out every single day this year. I do my morning 5 every single day. I'm sore as can be because 2 days ago I had to do deadlifts and lunges because I'm training for HYROX, right? So yesterday it's like, okay, it's 5 degrees out. You've worked out every single day. Your body's sore. You deserve rest. Like, you don't need to work out today.

Mm-hmm.

Like, it'd be just, you don't have to do it today. You can do it tomorrow. Be very easy to not work out today and to justify it. And all my friends would probably say, yeah, dude, you need a rest day. Like, holy crap, man, you're freaking walking around here like a, like a mummified freaking 90-year-old right now, right? Like, you probably need to rest. Um, and so we're really good humans. We're really, really good at convincing ourselves of why we shouldn't do something. And it's easy to not do these 5 steps. And so that's just what I challenge people, man. I get it if you think it's light and fluffy and airy-fairy, and that's cool. Good news, it's not a big heavy load. So why don't you just try it and see for yourself?

So you work with high elite operators all the time, and you're teaching them these foundational things. And so you always say it takes 67 days to build a habit. So describe to us what that looks like, because it's takes 67 days, how do you bring them up to have grace for themselves and keep trying?

Yeah, you know, Harvard and Yale did a study. This was back in the early '90s, late '80s, I think is when they did this study. And, you know, everyone was like, how long does it take to make or break a habit? And some people would say 20 days, and some people would say 60 days, and some people would say you could do it in 10 days. And, you know, there was this big debate. And so Harvard and Yale came together and said, hey, well, let's study it biologically. Like, let's get rid of emotions. Let's fact it, not feel it, as they would say, right, Josh? Let's fact it, not feel it. And they decided to study the human mind and actually discover when there's a biological change and when does a new neural pathway get created, right? And in that study, what they found is it's 67 days. It takes 67 days before something becomes becomes easier to do than to not do. And that's 67 straight days, 67 every day, no breaks, no weekends. My buddy Grant Cardone always says, weekends make you weak, bro. Weekends make you weak. So, no, it's 67 straight days. But what's cool about that is I think we, as human beings, can do hard things more consistently if we know where the finish line is, right? Not knowing the finish line is kind of the— that's when it gets scary. That's when it gets a little bit, you know, how long do I got to do this? I don't even know. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know if I can keep going. Whereas if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, you're like, let's roll, right? So knowing when there's going to be a biological change is really a beneficial thing. when it comes to creating or stacking a new habit. The negative side, I guess, would be is that you know it's going to take 2.5 months before this thing becomes easier to do than not do.

Exactly.

And so, you're a month in, you're like, this still sucks, man. Why does this suck? I don't want to do it. 6 weeks in, I don't want to do it. 8 weeks in, I don't want to do this. Right? So, that's the crazy part. But knowing that, it's nice. Don't make a commitment to change or a commitment to transformation if you're not willing to commit 2 and a half months to it. And there have been times, man, where I've like, oh, I think I want to do this, or I want to add this, or I want to take away this. And then I look at it and I'm like, yeah, but I don't, I don't want to do the work that it takes for 2 and a half months. Like, it's not that valuable. I remember, Josh, I don't know if you ever saw it, but I interviewed a, uh—

No.

This professional ultramarathon woman, incredible, incredible young lady, ultramarathoner. I interviewed her on my show and she was talking to me about her whole process. And she would say she'll see a race, you know, 6 months down the road, there's a big ultramarathon, 110-mile race or something like that. And she would ask herself, hey, do I want to be in that race? And Her mind might say, yeah, that would be cool. We should go do that race. And then the second question she would ask herself is, am I willing to put in the work that it takes between now and the race to compete in the race? And she said, sometimes the answer's no. Like, hell no, I don't want to do that. And that's okay. And so she doesn't sign up for the race. And I think it was a great lesson for me when I learned that from her. It's like, it's okay. It's okay to say, no, I don't want to do it. Right? Like, a lot of times people are like, yeah, that sounds great. Sign me up, you know, but they're not really thinking about the effort and energy and attention that it's going to take to get there. And it's okay to say, I don't want to put in that freaking kind of work. Like, it's not valuable enough. It's not impactful enough. It's not going to be transformative enough. It doesn't fall in line with everything else that I'm trying to do. So yeah. I'm not gonna do it, you know, man.

Yeah. I mean, because at some point you have— there's only— everyone has the same amount of hours in the day, right? So, you know, people often say, I don't have time for that, you know? And so it's like, you have time what you make time for. And so that, that requires you to know how to say yes to everything.

Yeah.

So yeah, man. So by that very nature, you have 9 kids. That's, that's a—

I do.

Slightly above average number, I think. Surprised they're not crawling on your chair.

Yeah, I'm at the studio. I left the house, so they're all back home.

Well, I mean, so yeah, you're a, you're a family man. Like, how do you juggle? You got a lot of irons in the fire. You're— you got a lot of travel in your schedule. How do you— it would be hard enough to give 9 kids intentional time for a, quote, normal, you know, dad that, that's, that's home all the time. So how do you, how do you optimize your family time for your kids, your wife, and all the things you got going on?

I learned long ago, not super long ago, but many years ago, I learned that there's a big difference between the word invest and the word spend, right? I mean, you and I have talked about this before. I personally was investing in my business, investing in my career, investing in myself, but I was spending time, spending time with kids, spending time with wife, spending time on social media, I'm spending time on vacation. And by definition, if you look those 2 words up, the word invest is defined as putting energy, time, or attention towards something with the expectation of a return. Whereas the definition of the word spend is defined as a deficit, a minus. So, here I was saying, hey, I'm spending time with my kids. Well, that's a deficit. I'm spending time with my wife. That's a deficit. Spending time on vacation, that's a deficit. I'm spending time at the gym, that's a deficit. I'm spending time on social media, that's a deficit, right? And so at some point, like once I realized that, I was like, oh crap, okay, I don't want to spend time, effort, or energy on anything. I want to invest time, effort, and energy into everything with the expectation of a return. And when you start looking at your actions, your decisions, your conversations, when you start looking at it through that lens, you start to find that not every investment is equal in order to get a return. It doesn't require equal amounts, right? I'll give you a metaphorical example. My wife used to, she doesn't anymore, But my wife used to, for Christmas, she believed we had to spend the same amount of money on each kid. She's like, okay, each kid, we got to spend $100, right? It's got to be equal. The amount's got to be equal. I got to spend— if we're going to spend $100 on this one, we got to spend $100 on that one. If we're going to spend $200 on this, we got to spend $200 on that one. And finally, I convinced her. I'm like, no, no, no. It's all about we got to get a return, right? We're looking to get a return. So, my 5-year-old, I can invest $8 into a jar of slime and I can get joy on her face. The return is huge. I don't have to spend $200 on the 5-year-old because I spent $200 on the 15-year-old. Like, I just need to make sure that the investment that I make is going to get me a return. Right? And so the same is true for all these different areas of our lives. I believe there's 8 primary pillars of life, right? Faith, family, fitness, finances, friends, career, education, and mental health. So in each of those areas, they don't require the same amount of time to get a return. Each one requires a different investment. So, my business, for example, my business, I invest 2 hours a week on live Zoom calls with you and other members of 800% Club. I invest those 2 hours a week and we get a massive return because that's our face-to-face time. It's where we build relationship. It's where we answer questions, so on and so forth. Those are the only 2 hours a week that I am absolutely locked in. Like, my travel gets scheduled around those 2 hours. Everything gets scheduled around those 2. I never miss those 2 hours, right? I won't say never, very rarely. I'm there 98% of the time for those 2 hours a week. And we get a return from that. My business does not require 80 hours a week of me Being in this chair to get a return. It requires those 2. Now, there's lots of other things I have to do to be able to be valuable in those 2 hours. I've got to do lots of research and have lots of conversations, and I got to be available for one-on-one coaching and so on and so forth. So, it's not like my entire business— this isn't a 4-hour workweek over here. That's not what I'm talking about. But I understand the investment of those 2 hours is what's required in order for us to get a significant return. With each of my children, there's a different investment level to get a return. My daughter, Willow, if I invest 5 minutes talking to her where she feels seen, heard, and significant, bro, that's all she needs from Dad. She's great. She's like, okay, cool. The only difference with her, though, is it has to be now. Like, whenever her now is, that's when the 5 minutes got to happen. I can't put Willow off. Till next week. It doesn't work. My son, on the other hand, he requires a different investment. Being at his soccer games, getting up early with him and taking him outside and doing soccer drills, time alone in the car, him and I, like, it's, it's a different investment to get a return. My wife, to get a good return from her, all I got to do is lay in bed with her every night and watch Friends, Big Bang Theory, Everybody Loves Raymond, or King of Queens. Those are her 4 favorite shows. She watches them on repeat every single night. I guess it just allows her brain to dump after running the house. But as long as I invest that— I don't like those shows. I don't love those shows.

Those are her shows.

But as long as I invest that 45 minutes to an hour every night laying in bed with her, just letting her kind of deflate while those shows are on the background, her and I have an amazing relationship. I travel. She never complains about my travels. She never asks where I am or why I'm doing whatever. Completely trusting relationship. Like, it's awesome. So, how do you do all the things? Well, you look at them individually and you figure out what investment is required in order to get a return. And when you look at it that way, you'll start to find that there's way, way more time in the day than you think because most people are spending time doing things, not investing. And when you're just spending time doing things, And, you know, it'd take you 24 hours to get nothing, man.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, imagine if you went to the gym, Josh. You're a very, very, very fit guy. You're in great shape. So imagine if you just spend time at the gym. Like, you're like, I'm just gonna hang out here for 3 hours. How— what kind of result would you get?

Would not.

But if I'm like very strategic and I invest 20 minutes a day, I can turn into a freaking— I could sculpt myself into a machine, right? Like, it doesn't take a significant amount of time to get your heart rate up. It doesn't take a significant amount of time to tear your muscles down, right? Like, if you're investing properly, boom. So now that the, the one person that was at the gym for 3 hours, I can get the same result in 20 minutes. So I just opened up 2 hours and 40 minutes. You know, that I can now invest in my business, or I can invest— social media, same thing. If you just spend time scrolling on this thing, you'll get nothing from it, and you'll, you'll, you'll burn through ridiculous amount of hours. But if you invest 30 minutes a day in social media, making content that matters to people, responding to people's comments, engaging, now all of a sudden social media, dude, the return that you can get is ridiculous. Right? So, that was the game changer for me, man. Invest, don't spend, and be very, very, very intentional about getting a return out of everything that you do.

And then, I assume that what comes with that is when you don't get the return that you expect, I'm sure that helps you make decisions of like, yeah, well, this isn't working. Next thing.

Right. Yeah. The investment I'm making is not yielding the results. So, I either need to increase the time, effort, or energy being invested, or I need to take this off my plate because it's taking too much time, effort, and energy. And the result on the other side is not a big enough return. Yeah.

Yeah. Solid. Solid.

Pretty cool way to live life, man. I don't know who thought of it, but that guy's smart.

He's pretty good. He's pretty good. Is there, I mean, in this age of like tech evolving and AI getting all interesting, you, I mean, you talk about AI a lot, you do a lot of research in it. Is there any tech that you use on a regular basis to help you execute?

Oh yeah. You know, this AI stuff's amazing. And when ChatGPT first came out 3 years ago or whenever it was, you know, when it first came out, I immediately had a meeting with the whole team. I'm like, look, we're going to invest 17 minutes a day In learning this stuff. Like, I don't care if it's on a, you know, I don't care if you're making silly baby videos. I don't care if you're, you know, just asking a bunch of questions and having a therapy session with ChatGPT. Like, I don't care what it is, but we are going to invest 17 minutes a day in this world. Because what's fascinating, Josh, is if you invest 17 minutes a day in anything, The studies have shown you will be more efficient or more expert than 95% of the population within 12 months at just 17 minutes a day at anything. If I do 17 minutes a day of swinging a golf club, I'll be better than 95% of the population at playing golf. If I do 17 minutes a day of reading, I will be more, I will have more information and knowledge. I'll be wiser than 95% of the population. And so we did that with AI, man. And now fast forward, holy smokes, dude. My entire team, they're all pretty adept when it comes to AI tools. We're much more efficient than we used to be. That the app, the Morning Five app that we just launched 12 days ago, Nick, He'd never built an app before, dude. He'd never built an app. He built that whole thing with voice prompts in 14 days. Built the entire app, get to go, like incredible. Built in 14 days with no previous experience, wisdom, or knowledge. Perplexity is a huge one. Perplexity AI, we use it a lot. NotebookLM, we use it a lot. I still use ChatGPT a lot. Some of my other people, they don't use it at all anymore. They're like, Claude and, you know, some of these other, they're too cool for school for the old school ChatGPT. But like my fitness, like today, as soon as I get off of here, I'm headed right next door to the YMCA and I've got AI working with me to make sure that every single one of my workouts is driving towards the results that I'm trying to get. So we're using it for that. We have AI assistants that answer phone calls, answer messages within our CRM. Respond, send emails. We have one AI system that's scanning every single person that's in our CRM. It's scanning them, it's going online, it's learning about them, and then it sends us little messages like, hey, by the way, Josh Negron just, you know, Josh Negron just bought 40 bazillion pieces of real estate and he's now the number one real estate holder in the world. You should send him a quick little message. So it's like scanning people. You know, kind of stalker style to make sure that we have opportunities to celebrate with those that we care about. The list goes on and on and on, but we are using, you know, AI tools in everyday life, every hour in this place.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So good.

So good.

It is fun. It's really exciting. What are you currently learning or studying right now?

Quite a few things.

How to high rocks?

Yeah. Yeah. Learning how to get my body to be able to perform for high rocks. That's definitely a new thing for me. I've never been into the weightlifting type stuff. I can run and I can exercise, but I've never been into strength, actually being strong. I've always just wanted to be fit. So I'm learning that for sure. We are learning a lot about community building, and I believe that bringing people together, equipping them with the tools they need to succeed, and inspiring them to be great is the future. As technology is separating people more and more and more and more and more, we want to be the catalysts that bring people together. So I've been, you know, and I read some crazy stuff, Josh. I probably, I can't even probably share on this podcast. People would think it's weird. But I study and have studied creators that have built big followings. I study leaders that have rallied troops. I study cults and how they use certain, you know, certain techniques and strategies and so on and so forth to get people. To come together over a common— even though with cults, it's a negative one, there's still a lot that can be learned from these people.

Sure.

You look at an evil, evil, evil human being like Hitler, and then you ask yourself, how was someone— how was he able to get millions of people bought in with this idea? This concept that a certain type of human's not human. Like, how did he do that, bro? That's insanity, right?

Mm-hmm.

But there's clues in that. Even though the outcomes can be negative and weird and devastating and truly evil, the methods can be used in positive ways as well. I think it's really important to not just take things at face value, but dig in and say, okay, what can we learn or extract from this? Right? You know, 9/11, really, really, really bad thing. What could we learn and extract from that? World War II, really bad thing. What can we learn and extract from that? I just feel like there's a lesson in everything. Right? And so I'm learning a lot about community building. I'm learning a lot about my body. Financially, studying a lot of different things around exiting a business, selling a business, how your business has to be structured to get a good multiple, those types of things. I'm 48 years old now. And one thing I do know is that I don't want to work for money for the rest of my life. I don't want to do that. I like working and that part's fun, but I don't want to work for money. Like, I just, I just want to work because I want to work, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

And so a lot of financial, a lot of financial things that I'm learning right now. And then also in our kind of book club thing, there's a book that I'm listening to right now, which honestly I'm not enjoying, but I am learning things from it. It's called The Mountain Is You by Brianna West. And I say I'm not enjoying only because it's really a book about self-sabotage and Why we self-sabotage and different ways that we self-sabotage and kind of how to break out of it. And I think the information in the book is really, really valuable. And I think the author did a phenomenal job of writing this book. I also feel like it's a book that I probably needed 10 years ago more than I need today. You know what I'm saying? I'm pretty disciplined these days. I'm pretty structured. I'm I'm doing a lot of good things for myself these days. I'm not sabotaging myself like I used to.

Hmm.

And so that's why I say I'm not necessarily enjoying it because it was reminding me of who I was a decade ago more than it is pushing me toward to who I want to be 10 years from now. So those are the primary things, man. There's those 8 pillars. I'm always thinking about those 8 different pillars and how can I invest, you know, More, or how can I get a bigger return out of each pillar? How do I get a bigger return out of my family? What does that look like? How do I get a bigger return out of my faith? That's one I've struggled with. I don't struggle with faith. I struggle with this idea that I should be or could be even more connected. Like I love my relationship with God right now, but it makes me want more. And that's where I'm struggling a little bit is how do I get even deeper? Like I do the daily devo thing. It doesn't necessarily. Give me the juice that I want. Like, I want to be like high-fiving God every minute of every day. That's what I want, right? And so I'm learning some things around that too. So great question, man.

I love that. Thanks for sharing. Last question I got is, uh, 27 years ago, what is something you wish 20-year-old Glenn, uh, was told? If you could go back, what would be the one thing? You would want to tell him?

The one single thing I would want to tell him is that he is a child of God, uh, the God of the universe and the God that made everything. And that God made him to be the absolute best version of himself that he could possibly be. Not an average version, not a little below average, not even a little bit above, but the absolute best version of himself that he could possibly 20-year-old Glenn did not believe in God. 20-year-old Glenn had a lot of identity issues. 20-year-old Glenn was a victim in every sense of the word. It was always everyone else's fault. And 20-year-old Glenn had a lot of potential, but it was totally pointed in the wrong direction because he didn't understand that the goal is to become best version of self. And so I think that would be the most impactful message. I think 20-year-old Glen would not have listened to it and would've told you, you're an idiot and you're a dummy. Get out of here, you 47-year-old man. You have no idea what you're talking about. I've got this whole thing figured out. That's probably what he would've said, but that's the message I would've delivered to him.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Man, that's good.

Yeah. I was such an idiot, man. I think most people are in their 20s.

Yeah. What is it? Youth is wasted on the young is a funny quote that I've been laughing about more lately.

I absolutely align with that.

You're like, you want to save, you want to save your kids the mistakes, but you know, they have to craft their way, you know?

Have to craft your way, man. I read somewhere once that the theory— there was a theory that kids have to go through this like little season where adults are just stupid and don't know anything. Otherwise, they'll never like leave the house. Right?

Mm-hmm.

So like, you know, if you're 16, 17 years old and your parents are amazing and they're just full of wisdom and, you know, you know, they've got all the answers and so on and so forth, like you'll never leave. But if you think they're freaking idiots and they don't know what the heck they're talking about, you're like, get me out of here. And then you go out into the real world and then like 25, 26, 27, it starts to shift back and you start to realize that, hey, maybe some of these people that came before me might have a lesson or two they could teach me so I can quit banging my head up against the wall every single day. So then they come back around, but it's all a ploy to get them out of the house from what I've been told. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I've never thought of it that way. That's funny. Yeah.

You know, if everything was too comfortable, they'd never leave.

Well, Glenn, we appreciate you spending time with us today.

Of course.

Such an honor. Guys, I'm going to include the link of Glenn's book in the description as well as the Morning 5 app. And if you are a dealer, check out the 800% Elite Automotive Club. It has been something that we've been a part of for many, many years. One of the one of the first dealers.

You guys are.

Short list. Yeah. So, it's been transformative for our business and our culture as well.

Thanks, man. You guys definitely lead the pack. It's amazing.

Appreciate that. All right, guys. Well, as always, thanks for listening to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. Remember, growth happens when you take action. Share this with a friend. And most importantly, remember, daily anything It changes everything.