My Morning Routine (updated)

Hello, Book Thinkers family! Today's video is going to deal with my morning routine. I'm going to talk a little bit about how things have changed from 2019 because I did create a video back then, but things have evolved. I've read a lot of books and introduced a lot of things, phased some things out, phased some new things in, and I'm going to talk about some of the products that I use during my morning routine as well as why a morning routine is incredibly important. I really do believe that it's not the most motivated people that win, it's the most consistent people that win. And that was from Ed Mylett's book Max— Ed Mylett's book Max Out Your Life. I really enjoyed that book. So my morning routine starts the night before, and it starts the night before because an evening routine, when done properly, sets you up for a killer morning. So it's very important to start things off the night before. One of the products that I want to introduce you to is this Reishi Mushroom Elixir. It's from a company called Four Sigmatic, and I take it every single night before I go to sleep. Reishi mushroom has a lot of beneficial properties. The 2 that I like the most are: number one, it increases your immune system. I have a very bad immune system, and in the past I could get sick very easily. Now that's not really the case. I've been taking this for about 4 or 5 months now. Another thing is that when taken over time, studies show that it does improve the quality of your sleep. So I have really enjoyed drinking this before I go to sleep. And the other thing is that I make sure I'm in bed By 11:30 PM reading a book. I put my phone on the other side of the room. I get rid of all the blue light. I have a little light next to my bed that I turn on for reading, and I read. And there's nothing better than reading a book before you go to sleep and priming your mind for the next day, educating yourself, making sure that you're putting in some good work before you go to sleep. When I fall asleep, I usually have no issues. I sleep all the way until the morning, and I wake up at 8 AM every day. I have a little tip or a trick. If you don't like your phone alarm, you should set a song as your alarm. A lot of modern-day phones have this ability, and I put something that's fun, energetic, and makes me want to get out of bed and have fun. Sometimes I'm singing along to the song, whatever the case may be. I have a lot of fun with it. The next thing that I do in my morning routine is I get right out of my bed and I drink what's called a Miracle Morning cocktail. And this was from the book Own the Day, Own Your Life by Aubrey Marcus. The night before, I fill up a little water bottle. I put some lemon in it, which helps with your digestive system. And then I also put Himalayan sea salt. And this is the Himalayan sea salt that I use. It has 84 minerals and nutrients and electrolytes and so many other beneficial qualities in these trace minerals that can help function in the morning. A lot of people just dump coffee down their throat, and that's kind of like waking up with a fire alarm instead of an alarm clock. It just sets your system off crazy. This is a way to hydrate yourself from the night before and get your body ready to go. Then what I do is I walk over and I pick up this kettlebell and I do kettlebell swings. And this kind of morning fasted cardio gives my body a really good wake-up call. There's about a 0% chance that I am going to go back to sleep after doing kettlebell swings and drinking a whole bottle of water the minute after I wake up. So it's a great way to kick off your day and to get things going. Then I go and I wash my face. I have pretty bad skin. I know this camera and the light actually makes it look like I don't, but I do. And washing my face in the morning is something that I didn't do for 20-something years of my life, and now I'm doing it, and I— it definitely pays dividends. Then I say my daily affirmations and I say some prayers. So my daily affirmations are things that I want to speak out into the world. And they're things like, you know, I'm grateful for this, or I'm grateful for that. You know, it talks a lot about joy. It talks a lot about how I'm hardworking and things that I just want to continue to say out and preach into the world. And I really do enjoy my daily affirmations. Then I read a chapter of The Daily Stoic. The Daily Stoic is a book that you've probably heard me talk about 2,000 times before, but I'm probably going to be reading this every day for the rest of my life. 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living by great Stoic philosophers like Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. Fantastic. Then I post on Instagram. I post a picture or a video. I make sure that I do that every single day. And after I post, I answer comments. I do a little bit of social media management. I clean some things up. I answer some DMs. And I also do what's called the $1.80 strategy. It's a strategy that Gary Vaynerchuk talks about, and you go out there into the community— so in my case, the book community— and I comment on trending posts and I share my 2 cents and I like other people's pictures and comments. And I don't ask them to follow me, but it gives them the opportunity to be exposed to my profile, which is just a little fun Instagram hack. And I make sure I do that for a few minutes every single morning. Then I do a Duolingo Spanish lesson. As I've mentioned many times, I'm in the process of learning Spanish, so I make sure that I get a little bit of that into my morning routine. After that, I meditate on gratefulness. I used to journal about what I was grateful for, and I did that for a year or so. Now every single day I sit there and I prime my mind with something that I'm grateful for, and I spend time reflecting on why I'm grateful. It's like a little I guess prep session for my actual meditation session, which happens after that. So after that, I use the Headspace app and I meditate. I use this meditation pillow right here. I just sit down on it. I don't know what the pose is called, like a yoga pose or a— I don't know. I sit Indian style and I meditate. And I use the Headspace app. I meditate anywhere from a couple minutes up through 10 or 15 minutes. And it's such a great way To kick off your day and to have fun and be grateful and spend time and truly be present. And then right after that, the screens open up and my workday starts. So I get all of that done every single morning, and it's consistency. I do every single one of those steps every single day because I know that when that 1% change that I've made in my life compounds over the next 10, 20, or 30 years, I'm going to wake up. So happy that I was doing these things every day. Every single activity in my morning routine has a meaning behind it, and it has a desired outcome that I'm looking for. An example of that would be meditation. I'm looking to continue my emotional intelligence growth. I'm looking to continue to be in the present moment and add a little buffer between when something happens and my reaction. There's so many benefits to meditation, but I'm continuing to go towards that desired outcome. As far as books go, I recommend quite a few. The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod was fantastic. The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma is amazing. Own the Day, Own Your Life by Aubrey Marcus is one of— well, it's become one of my favorite books on morning routines. I also shared that little tidbit about it's not the most motivated that win, it's the most consistent, and that was from Max Out Your Life by Ed Mylett. So Tim Ferriss's books also, Tribe of Mentors and Tools of Titans, I learned so many amazing things in those books. So anyway, that's a little bit about my morning routine. I hope you found some value in it. I surely find some value in it, and I'm so joyful and happy and fulfilled every single day performing those activities, knowing that it's going to continue to lead me to a better life. Comment below, let me know what you think I should try out. I'm happy to do so, and I'll make some videos on the other routines in my life sometime soon because I have a lot of them. I kind of have a post-morning morning routine. I have a lunch routine. I have a post-workday routine. I have an evening routine, a weekend routine. I'm a routine guy. Adios, guys. Bye.