I'm the CEO of Happy Gorilla Vegan Protein Bars.
We make vegan protein bars that are 150% vegan.
Last year we did $11 billion in revenue.
- I think the most important aspect,
like literally the most important thing
is my morning routine.
I get up at three a.m. every single morning
and I meditate for six hours.
After that, I'll write in my gratitude journal for a bit,
run about 14 miles, and after that I read two books.
I use Bulletproof Coffee every single morning.
It's super super good for your brain
because it has butter and midichlorians in it
and alongside that, I usually fry up about
eight slices of black pepper bacon,
a slice of beef liver, and three hard boiled eggs
and that's why my business is so successful.
Morning routines.
It seems that no matter where I go on the internet,
I'm constantly seeing articles, videos, and books
about why building a morning routine
is the most important thing I could ever do,
how it's gonna help me build a billion dollar business
and basically become the next Elon Musk,
but despite the over-saturation of morning routine
related articles on the internet
and the hyperbole in a lot of them,
I do think this is an important topic to talk about.
Building a morning routine
was actually very meaningful to me.
Now, I'm not gonna say it changed my life
or helped me build a billion dollar business,
but it really did build some structure
into the flow of my day, so in this video
I wanna share some of the things I have learned
for creating a productive morning routine
and also sticking with it over the long term.
(upbeat pop music)
The first thing we gotta tackle right off the bat
is getting up earlier and this was
really the first challenge for me
because for many many years I was that kind of person
who would roll out of bed 15 or 20 minutes
before my first scheduled thing,
throw some clothes on, and basically rush out the door.
I didn't have time to make breakfast,
let alone read or do any of the other things
that I wished I could've done,
so I had to build some structures
to make sure I would get out of bed earlier
and if this is something that you need to do,
I do already have a video on this channel
that I'll link to down in the description below
that you can check out for lots
and lots of tips on this subject,
but I do wanna share one additional idea
that my friend Evan Carmichael shared with me last week
and that is to never hit the snooze button.
This is one of those things that seems obvious in theory,
but difficult to put into practice,
but the way that Evan framed this
really stuck in my head because he said,
"If you hit the snooze button in the morning,
"then you are accepting that
"the first thing you do that day is fail."
That made a lot of sense to me
because if you're gonna set an alarm for yourself,
you are essentially setting a goal for yourself,
so instead of taking that extra 10 minutes of sleep,
just grit your teeth, jump out of bed as fast as you can
and make that first act of the day a win.
(upbeat pop music)
Tip number two is to start small and track your progress.
The investor John Templeton once said that,
"The four most expensive words in the English language are
"this time it's different."
You're probably familiar with this.
Maybe you've failed at a gym routine
or a New Year's resolution only to come back and say,
"This time it'll be different.
"This time I'll have more motivation, more willpower,
"more discipline and I will win."
But this is self-delusion, right?
You don't just magically increase
your willpower reserves overnight.
You don't magically build habits overnight.
These things take time.
In fact, one study in the UK found that a habit can take
on average 66 days to fully crystallize and become concrete,
so if you just jump in and try to copy the morning routine
of someone like Elon Musk or that blogger you read last week
the novelty might carry through a couple of days,
but that is far short of habit building territory
and you're probably going to derail.
Instead, pick a couple of habits that are meaningful to you
and prove to yourself that you can
do those consistently over time.
Just stretch a bit beyond your comfort zone and once
you've established a new comfort zone, then add more.
Along the way, you should also have
a method for tracking your progress.
Doing so will essentially give you a chain of successes
and you're not gonna wanna break that chain
when you can look back on it, so you're gonna be motivated
to keep up your morning routine in the future.
Now, if you wanna use the app that I use
to build my routine, it's called Habitica
and it's essentially a gamified way to build habits.
Every time you check off a habit,
you get experience points that build up a character
and it's very Final Fantasy-esque, like an RPG.
If that's a bit too nerdy for you
and you want something a little simpler,
there are apps like Today on IOS and HabitBull on Android.
(upbeat pop music)
So, at this point you're probably wondering,
okay, Tom, but what do I actually do in my morning routine?
And we're gonna get into all those specifics in a second,
but I wanna start this section off
with a quote from the writer Leo Babauta.
"The reason I like having a morning routine
"is not only does it instill a sense of purpose,
"peace, and ritual to my day, but it ensures
"that I'm getting certain things done every morning.
"Namely, my goals."
What I wanna point out from that quote is that
Leo mentioned two main benefits to his morning routine.
Number one, it gives him a sense of ritual to his day,
some peace in the morning and number two,
it helps him make some progress on his goals
and it's important to highlight both of these benefits
because I personally know people who do get up early,
but who just use that extra time as quiet time,
as some space to be alone, to think,
and to start their morning slowly and deliberately.
If all you wanna do is get up early and make some tea
and then take your morning slow,
do it and don't feel guilty about it.
If however you do wanna fill your morning
with productive habits, then a few I might suggest
include having a glass of water right after you wake up,
meditating for five or 10 minutes,
going and doing a workout or some cardio
to give yourself some energy for the day,
and cooking a good healthy breakfast.
One thing that you should definitely leave out
of your morning routine though,
at least for the most part is your phone.
Now, I do use a timer app for meditating in the morning
and I also listen to Spotify or audio books
when I'm in the gym, but I'm really deliberate
about not looking at email or social media
or anything of that type in the morning at all
and that's because those things
are really likely to derail me
from my habits and my routine.
(upbeat pop music)
Finally, if you wanna stick to your morning routine
for a long period of time, then you need to put some thought
into your evening routine as well.
When I've been derailed from my routine in the past,
two of the most likely culprits have been
a lack of sleep and a lack of organization
and preparation for each habit and an evening routine
can make both less likely to happen.
For example, because I go to the gym every single morning,
I always make sure to have my water bottle filled,
my gym bag packed and my headphones charged
before I go to bed and because I do these things
at a specific time each night,
I'm also less likely to stay up too late
and that gets me into bed at the correct time
for when I want to get up and on that note,
if you don't know when you should be going to bed,
you can use a site like Sleepyti.me
to set when you wanna wake up
and it'll tell you when you should go to bed
based on the science of sleep cycles.
Now, my entire morning routine, so if you're curious,
you can keep your eyes peeled for that,
but one thing I can mention right now is that
a big part of my morning routine
involves listening to audio books.
Not only do I often listen to books
when I'm in the gym or out doing cardio,
but I also usually listen to them when I'm walking
to the coffee shop or I start my day's writing
and the place where I get my audio books
is Audible, which is this week's sponsor.
Audible has an unmatched library of audio books
in pretty much every genre you could think of.
They also have a great app for managing them all
and one of my favorite features of that app
is their bookmarking tool, which allows me
to add bookmarks and notes, which is great for nonfiction
because sometimes you wanna go back
and review things later on.
Now, if you'd like to give Audible a try
and see how it fits into your morning routine,
you can get a 30 day free trial over at audible.com/thomas.
That trial also comes with a free audio book
of your choosing that's yours to keep forever
and if you'd like a recommendation,
I'm just gonna recommend the book
that I'm listening to right now,
which is Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
This book is a really insightful look at both the history
of Apple and what made Steve's brain tick
and if you're interested in Apple itself
or the history of computing in general,
it's a great book to pick up.
Thank you so much to Audible for sponsoring this video
and guys, thank you so much for watching.
Seriously, I appreciate each and every one of you
and if you wanna subscribe to this channel
and you haven't done already,
you can click right there to do so.
I'm also gonna put a couple of video suggestions
right here that you might find interesting as well.
Thanks for watching and I will see you next week.
Dank memes.