How My Morning Routine is Saving Me Right Now

What's up, Business Freedom Podcast listeners. Lars Heddenborg here, founder of Real Estate B School co founder of High Performance Real Estate Advisors out of Charlotte, North Carolina. You know, I'll give a brief bio just so you kind of know why I'm so excited. I built my real estate team in the Great Recession. So the Great Recession started in probably in early part of 2009. Everything hit the fan in 2008 late that's September, October 2008. And then it was 2009, 10, 11. Even into 2012, our roster went from 15,000 to 5,000. I put my head down and I got to work. And when I look at how I'm positioned right now, I feel like this is everything that I was built to not take advantage of. I'm going to get in trouble for saying it that way. To thrive in the midst of all that's going on currently, where we're like shut into our homes to the stuff that's going to follow. And it's just going to be an economic shift. It's not going to be a whole lot more dramatic than that. Once we get past the craziness of what we're seeing right now. And I'm not making light of what we're going through right now, it's just crazy. Like, who would have thought we couldn't show homes or we couldn't go to our offices or whatnot. So we've got to let the dust settle on all of that and then it's time. It's go time to talk about today. I did this in our member group and I did it for our internal team members as well. I talked about my morning routine, and if there's one thing that I think prepared me for what's going on now and is also going to be the thing that allows me to crush it in multiple businesses while the rest of the world is freaking the f outdoor. It is my morning routine, and I just want to break it down for you in a way where you could either enhance what you're doing right now or maybe you've gotten away from doing certain parts of your morning routine doubling down again. And I want to go through some apps that I use, and I just want to slow down and kind of help you understand what my morning routine looks like. I don't have it all figured out. I know, though, this one thing is going to be the cornerstone, the main pillar that is immovable and keeps me foundationally sound while everyone else is shaky. And the benefits of that is that you can step into what's going on now as a leader, as a marketer, internally with your family, your messaging, in your marketing, as a real estate team leader. And you can be the calm in the storm, you can be the level head. Somebody needs to step up and lead because there's a lot of folks that are just getting inside their head and they're not able to process what's going on. So let's talk about morning routines. So I wake up, it's been off a little bit. We were traveling in a different time zone and it's been off a little bit. And it takes me about 60 minutes from the time I wake up to the time my morning routine that I'm going to go through with you, it takes about 60 minutes. And there's an app you can see here, it's called. The app is called Strides. I'm going to show it on the screen. So it's a little. It's called Strides. I have an iPhone. You can see it's just a little blue with a circle and three lines that are going up. Highly recommend it. And you could see this morning I've done five. My morning routine is in there. So I track every day. It's water upon waking, you're dehydrated. Morning meditation, then an abide meditation. I read something. For me, it's the Bible and then I journal and I use the five minute journal. And so let me break that down. So I get up, I am the first one up. Typically I have that hour where everyone is still sleeping. Luckily my family's still in a different time zone so I only need to get up a little bit ahead of them even though I've been sleeping a little bit later. So it's been cool. Normally it's 5:45. So 5:45 to 6:45. Nobody else is up in the house. Kids get up at 6:45 to 7. So I have that 6:45 to 7 until like 8, 8:15 just to be with the family, to eat breakfast together, love on each other and then get ready for work. The morning routine I follow is just in the order of the apps I have on my phone. It's the Headspace app. It's a mindfulness app. The Abide app, that's a biblical scriptural meditation app. I read the Bible. If you don't read the Bible, you don't believe in God or Jesus. Read something. Do some sort of. Sort of. Not devotional, but a daily something like John Maxwell has a daily. A daily thing you can read and journal on. There's lots of them available. And then I do the five minute journal. And so ahead of that, I drink at least 16 ounces of water. That's the first thing you do when you wake up is drink 16 ounces of high quality water. At least 16 ounces, if not 32. Your body goes through just. It dehydrates all night long and you need to get water back into your, into your system. I drink a gallon of water per day. I'll show you the water bottle that I have. It is called Build life. I think it's one word. I got it on Amazon and it just has different times through the day. 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3, 5, 7 and 9. And my goal is to drink this whole gallon. I've got to move it up here so I can stay true to it. For me, I've done all of them. I've done the ones that have apps on your phone and this is the best one. So that's part of a self care routine. We talk about hydration, sleep, moving your physical body and eating a lot of greens. Those are the four pillars of self care. But for the morning, I would get started on this. I would have this ready the night before and I would drink that first chug there. From there I turn our fireplace on. It's not like a wood burning, it's just flip a switch. Actually there's a remote for it. And I sit down, I put a blanket over me and I do Headspace app. It's a mindfulness app. It's not biblical. It has nothing to do with faith. The series that I'm doing right now, it's highly recommended. It's 70 bucks for the pro for the year. The series I'm doing right now is actually on mindfulness around eating. I tend to eat when I feel good. I tend to eat when I feel bad or stressed. I tend to eat when it's a Thursday. I tend to eat when it's date night or a family fun night, movie night. I just eat, I snack. I do all the bad habits around eating. So I've figured it out, I've maintained it, I've gotten around all of it. But a little bit of stress or a little bit of excitement will lead me into eating. So I'm doing a 30 part series on mindfulness. Three sets of 10 and I do 10 to 15 minutes. 10, 15 or 20 minute meditations on headspace. I have my AirPods in and so I just, I do it. It's dark. Then I go right into abide Abide is unbelievably awesome. If I had to choose headspace over abide, I would choose abide. It leads me through some questions around my faith and challenges in a very like in your face, but in a good way. Challenging you around your faith and where you might be, you know, falling a little bit and kind of getting away from the things that really matter. If that's not for you, then just have headspace. Just meditate, be mindful. Maybe there's just a moment, a period of silence after you do the Headspace app. From there, I go right into reading something. So for me, it's reading the Bible. I use the YouVersion app on my phone. There's these cool plans in there. The thing I like about it is that it's not I am reading the New Testament this year, but I'm also doing a bunch of plans. I'm doing six steps to your best leadership by Craig Groeschel. I'm doing unqualified by my pastor, who's Steven Furtick. I go to Elevation Church in Charlotte. And so if that's not for you, there's read a chapter of a book, just read a chapter of a book every, every day. And then from there, journal in some way. A written journal. Five minute journal has an app so you can see if you're watching the video I put an image to every day. You can see there the last few images. It's just things that I go back in my photo library and things that I'm grateful for. And then every day they also have a paper version you can get on Amazon. So for yesterday, I start the day. This was Sunday. I'm grateful for our church, for filling me up. We've gone virtual. Our home is a beautiful refuge during these times. Our love for others during this time. So I'm grateful for that. Then I answered three questions. What will I do to make today great? I was going to spend time with Julie and the kids. Love on my sister and my mom. We did a virtual dinner. And then I was going to work out and learn while I worked out. And then a daily affirmation. I am strong and centered in my faith. And then at the end of the day I answer three questions or I list three things. Three amazing things that happened today. I went in the hot tub with the kids at night at like 10 o' clock at night. I went through all of my monthly expenses and that was something I thought was amazing. To be able to eliminate things that I didn't need. Expenses versus investments. And then our church was really powerful. The message was super powerful. And then how could I have made today even better is the last question. And I said I could have eaten less. I snacked all day long and I don't know why. And so the next step. So water upon waking. I do headspace app, abide app read something and then I do the morning journal. Then I do a green smoothie. And so it's a pretty simple smoothie. I just do water, a little bit of ice, frozen organic strawberries and vega French vanilla protein. I think it's Vega one. I'm going to look it up here real quick. Amazon.com yeah if you just type in vega. And my son does the same exact shake. He's 12 years old. Yeah. It's one organic. So it is Vega one organic all in one shake. The French vanilla, it tastes so good and it's all vegan and even if you're not vegan, it's just, it's good and in one scoop it has everything you need. And I just do that once a day. So at least I'm eating salad as well. I'm eating two salads a day plus that vega protein shake. Like I'm filling my body with some good stuff. So that's the cadence. There's six steps to it there. I cover the first five and then just that shake green smoothie. So water upon waking, headspace abide, read the bible journal and then drink a big green smoothie. And then I also do bulletproof coffee which some people like Bulletproof coffee, some people don't. You can google bulletproof coffee recipe. I do a modified version. I do almond butter and I do this really good protein that I've tried. So many proteins in there. The vega protein does not taste good in it. The one that I really like, I'm going to look it up for you here real quick and I apologize for not being ready. It is So I use the bulletproof coffee, the little K cups, the original version and then there's a specific protein because I'm not vegan. So this is not. It's called prime protein beef paleo protein powder and it's got a blue. It's by equip is the company. It's keto collagen low carb ketogenic diet supplement vital for cavemen and carnivore nutrition of ancient source. So you can find that. And it's got a blue, then white, then a tan. It's vanilla is the flavor. And then it's called grass fed beef isolate powder and it's highly recommended by someone that knows what they're talking about. So that's not part of my morning routine. Although it is because I take my first sip in that hour and then I drink it for the rest of the morning. So hopefully this was helpful. It's a crazy time we're living in right now and you've got to ground yourself in a consistent cadence around that morning routine. And, and it's my best advice for you is to stay grounded and think about the things you can control, which is not a whole lot. You can just feed yourself with your physical body and your spirit with, and your heart with things that are gonna help you get through this. And so that's my wish for you. If you're at the point in your business growth journey. So you're a top producing real estate agent or you're running a real estate team and you don't know what to do and you're sort of, you don't have a clear plan. You know, there's not this clear plan forward. We have a clear plan. You know, we've, we've, we've already built the whole virtual consultation process out. We've already, you know, we were already only focusing on marketing that's getting a monumental roi. We've already shifted our recruiting messaging and so we pivoted really quick here. And so if you're at the point where you don't know what to do and what any of that looks like, that's where being part of a community like real estate B school can help tremendously. And the only thing we have to offer you is a conversation, a 45 minute coaching conversation with one of our business coaches that have been through exactly this. All of our business coaches have been through the Great Recession and built their businesses during that time. So if that's you, go to realestatebschool.com click on the Apply now button. We'll take a few bits of information, we'll jump on a call and we'll meet you exactly where you are. How do we protect what you have? How do we pivot your business and yourself personally and then how do we ultimately profit in a healthy way? There's lots of buyers and sellers out there that will need help and they need to buy and sell. They need you to step up and lead them through it and your team needs as well. So take care of yourself. If that's you, go to realestatebschool.com and, and we'll talk soon.