IAM2233 – Mastering Your Morning Routine for Business Success

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Intro 00:00
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. And I wanted to share with you some of those eight business pillars and how you can continue to kind of leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to of course, rockstar and luminary.

So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you enjoy this I AM CEO special episode.

Gresham 00:20
In order to win the day, you have to win the morning. And I'm Gresh and I am from I AM CEO podcast CB Nation Blue 60 Media. We hope to help you to increase your success in business.

We're really tackling success, increasing the success rate of entrepreneurs, CEO's and business owners. And what I wanted to bring to you today was something that was really impactful for me for this special episode.

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And this is something that I have nicknamed or renamed, might be a better way to say this as your star time. Like, how are you spending your star time? And if you don't really know what your start time is, just think of your start time as your morning routine.

Could potentially be your evening routine as well, too. But more than anything else, it is sacred time that you're spending to be very intentional with where you want to be and achieve success.

So with that being said, to give you a little bit more of a backstory why I call it start time. I have a dog. Her name is Star. We had to say goodbye to star a couple weeks ago, and as we're going through this, literally, as I'm recording, we're also potentially having to say goodbye to my grandma, as well, too, which is something that is, honestly, it's difficult. It's. It's challenging. It hurts, honestly.

And as I start to try to come up with the words of, like, how exactly I want to phrase it, I think because these things have happened so, close to each other and are happening, I should say. You know, you have those feelings of, I don't know if it's overwhelmed, you're just sad. Like, I'm really sad around this time, but I've always been the person that tries to get lessons or things that I can hold on to.

Not to forget the people that have been special in my life or family members that have been special in my life, but really to try to amplify, you know, their impact that they have. And so when I got star, you literally had her for nine and a half years, almost ten years. And I know she's been very impactful for me in my life.

I had her since she was a puppy. So she was literally two months old, you know, to see the transition of going from who she was as far as this puppy that was super shy, quiet to seeing this confident. I always, I have been joking to saying, the leader of our pack, our vocal leader of the pack, she had definitely those leadership skills, just like her dad or her dog dad or her pops. I know that my life has also transitioned and changed.

And as we think about the human part of business, we can often gloss past that or move past that and not realize how impactful that is. It has been. But seeing that transition, I've also noticed that my awareness around business and entrepreneurship, but definitely even my morning routine has adjusted dramatically.

I'm not a morning person. Never have been really a morning person until this past probably year or so. And the reason that I've become a lot more of a morning person is because I realized how impactful that has been.

So with the morning routine, I just want to kind of give you a quick snapshot of what that looks like. This is actually something that has been highlighted over and over again during the I AM CEO podcast.

We're also going to have that, of course, the snippets of it in within the Netflix for business as well, too, so that you can get an idea of like, what exactly that looks like and how exactly that impact can be within your life.

But when they kind of give you a some ideas. But first and foremost, I want to kind of throw away this, this, I think, misconception around your morning routine, around your star time. Your star time does not have to check off any of these boxes.

It doesn't have to do these specific things because I think so many times when we put this into a box, we think that we have to. And I was just on a podcast where I talked about this, where we have to do a cold plunge at 04:45 a.m. if we don't do it at four or five, four forty five am and read a chapter of a book, then we are failures.

And that is not the case. I believe your morning routine is something that is sacred. It could be anything from an hour, 2 hours. It could be two to ten minutes, five minutes. It could be something that is just a mantra that you say in the middle of the morning to you, actually writing out a complete story on our journal, on what you want your life to look like.

But I think the big thing is that you begin with the end in mind. The seven habits of highly effective people you begin with in mind. You understand. Exactly. This is how I want my day to go, and then you work backwards from there. How can you control the things that you can control so that you can make that happen?

And so my goal with this is not to say you need to do this. You need to do that during your start time. It's really just to let you know that these are elements that you can consider and why you might want to consider, so that you can have the best and most impactful day, week, month, year in your life.

So I know, trust me, that it ends up being very challenging to juggle and sometimes become more of a morning person when you're not a morning person. So know that your start time is really just outlined as your peak time, a focus, intentional way to start your day. It creates clarity, focus, and even energy so that you can reach the goals that you ultimately want to reach.

And I think it helps to really set that tone, that foundational element, to make sure that you have a successful day before the day controls, or I would even say, hits you. Mike Tyson has this quote where he says, everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face and life can punch.

And literally, as I told you a little bit more about some of the things that are going on right now, for me in my family, life is punching. Life is life. And as they say, and once you start to understand that, it doesn't necessarily mean that you control what's happening, because as much as I want to control what happened to star, what's happening to my grandma, it can't. And.

But what I can control is the way that I'm approaching it. So this star time has been really impactful for me because I had it set. Set up where I would wake up, read the Bible, take star out. After I take Star, I would give her her food, and then I would spend some time either listening to a sermon or journaling or a combination of both.

Usually some movement, some very light movement on top of that, that has adjusted and changed, because now I don't have the time where I'm walking with Star, where I'm feeding star. And those things have honestly left somewhat of a gap of void in my life.

But I think that one of the big things that I really take away from the star time is that it evolves and it changes. It evolves and changes for where you are in life, but also where you want to. What. What things you want to achieve in life.

And I've been holding that space in the container, more or less, so that I can create space so that I can just be, you know, I can just feel what I need to feel. I can just have the space so that I can cry if I need to cry. I could shout if I need to shout. And I'll give you a little bit more of a peek into my morning routine.

But I think the biggest thing that I want you to kind of take away is that when you hold that space, you create that sacred time, that peak hour, ten minutes, five minutes, whatever it might be, it allows you to potentially boost your productivity, reduce your stress, and improve your decision making.

Because I always say that entrepreneurs, CEO's and business owners are part time firefighters. Because you're literally putting out fires all the time. You're literally battling all these things, whether it be internally within your organization, between team members, or potentially clients and customers, or getting funding or making payroll, whatever those things might be, and might look like, you know that there's so many things that you have to be aware of. You may not necessarily do all the things.

As you move from a builder to an architect, you're working more on the business than in the business. The clarity that you seek sometimes happens earlier and earlier and earlier, because it doesn't get as noisy as you go on throughout the day.

And that's one of the big reasons that I'm a big proponent of not doing your start time at the evening. Even though you might start, you plant that seed, maybe for the next day, which is what I often do. And I'll give you a little bit of a peek into that.

Know that that time is going to be extremely valuable for you to be able to do it, because it's a where things are a little bit clearer. You don't have all the things that are happening, you don't have the fires and things like that.

So that usually allows you to have better decision making. So give you some ideas of some elements. These are just elements that you don't necessarily have to have, but you can have what your start time can actually look like.

You can have mindset, rituals, which can be meditation, affirmations, gratitude, also prayer. You can also do some type of movement, maybe exercise, stretch, wake up your body. You can also do some type of planning. Maybe it's five to ten minutes, maybe it's a lot longer, where you start to review your goals and prioritize those goals.

I actually just did a podcast and the guests talked a little bit around. If you compare somebody that writes down their goals on a daily basis for two years, versus somebody that does it, that person, that is intentional, that's literally doing that, is feeling that feeling the feelings, embracing, like what that future looks like.

It's probably more likely to reach that goal than somebody who's not, doesn't guarantee it, but it might make it more likely. So that planning ends up being really, really big. And then fuel, which can be dehydration, it could be having and eating healthy breakfast.

I might do another podcast around, how important it is to, how I've started to do time restricted eating, which some people have said, you know, fasting, but eating within that is 8 hours. So I don't do the breakfast as much as I have done in the past. But again, you just want to figure out what works best for you and know that that could adjust and change as well too.

So big things I want to talk about before I get jump into my actual routine is that it can literally take ten minutes a day, 510 minutes a day. Don't beat yourself up about it. Make sure you start small, start gradually adding that in.

And again, like I said in a hammer home, it can start the day before. So if you already know your intention the day before what you want to do, it's going to help you tackle the next day in order to win the day, you win the morning. That's the Tony Robbins quote.

So know how important that morning is, but know that morning can actually start the day before. Focus on consistency over perfection. Make sure that you show up daily. You know, the daily part is the consistency of it is going to be the really big thing.

One of the big things that you hear around podcasting, blogging, just around everything in life, is that the people that actually separate themselves are the people that consistently do that. If you are able to do that consistently over a period of time, that's just going to increase your likelihood of success.

So if you know that you can do something literally, maybe it's just a mantra that you can say before you wake up, the kids, before you drive into work, or whatever it might be that is in alignment with what you're trying to do. Do that, start small, make it just a minute, make it just a thing that you do.

And then you can start to build upon that as you start to get that with a little bit more comfort and routine and allow it to evolve and change. Like we forget about that human part of business. As I often say in this operations, these systems, the systems will set you free.

As I say, they end up becoming so important because as you evolve and change, there might be things that you don't want to keep in your life or don't want to continue to do versus things that you do want to continue to do. So make sure that you leverage that.

So I want to just kind of go a little bit deeper into my morning routine. Typically, I wake up, my alarm goes off. I use this tool called better sleep, and better sleep usually wakes me up around 0445, and then I start to kind of go through my day. So keep in mind, the day before, I've already outlined the things that I maybe did accomplish or didn't accomplish.

So I moved those to the next day, I moved those to future days, and I have things that I do to kind of book in my days already. So I already have an idea of, like, what this day is going to look like, what, you know, it's going to be. I'm not as doing as well, I would say, at bookending that day for the next day of saying, okay, this is what I didn't complete.

This is what I want to complete. But I have a todoist app that I use, and that ends up being a really big part of being able to do that. So wake up. Using my alarm will wake me up. I'm out of the bed, usually around 530 at the latest, and then I'm reading my Bible. I read my bible, I brush my teeth, do all those things that I need to do.

And spending time with guidance of being like, how I want to prioritize my day is the most important part, I think, of being able to kind of have successful days to spend time in that sacred place. But of course, depending on where you are or your feelings, your beliefs, you may do it in a completely different way.

But I think it's important to, again, set that intention of what that day was going to look like. And I think that's the best way to do it, is to go to what I feel is my source. So from there, I used to take star out. I'm not taking star out, unfortunately, anymore.

So I'm doing some type of journaling. So I go downstairs, I do journaling. Journaling could be written. It could also be me just kind of speaking like I am now, you know, but it's just me kind of getting my thoughts and everything out there.

And then from there, I'm doing some type of exercise or some type of movement. That movement ends up being really big because it helps me to kind of release a lot of those things after I've already done some type of journaling release, but that ends up being big.

After that, I'm usually doing some type of hydration. I'm using in tea and water. I usually think I drink a gallon of water every single day. So I'm usually filling that up, um, making sure that I put, you know, everything that I need within that water so that I am properly hydrated throughout the day.

That ends up being a really big thing. And then after that, I'm usually listening to some type of sermon with some type of movement.  You know, usually a short, uh, I use peloton.

There's a, there's a yoga, uh, anywhere yoga. I would say it's more of a stretch than anything else. So I'm usually doing that, that stretching, and then from there, I'm just going on throughout my day.

So, after that, I usually am waking up my son. But prior to me actually starting my day, I usually have set out my intention for the day, which has already been set out that week, you know, mind you.

So I've already set out that week, that week of what I want to accomplish, what I need to do, high priority, so that I'm sending that over to my coach, my accountability coach, through the app that I use. And then from there, just getting my day started. But usually that first hour, within the day, ideally 2 hours, but usually, sometimes it's just an hour I am doing the high priority task.

So that's after I drop my son off, after, you know, we get him up, get him, you know, ready to go. I'm usually doing that. And I say we, because star used to always kind of go with me, come with me. She was always excited to kind of wake him up.

So that's just a little peek into my morning routine again. I think it helps to. Helps me to stay grounded, increase my productivity. I think it creates that momentum in my personal and business life. And I think that that focus, energy, and control over my day ends up being such a huge thing.

So that's just one of the things that we talk about, you know, in the Netflix for business, a lot of snippets like that that don't necessarily completely transform your day, but it's sometimes those little small things that end up being really impactful for especially busy people that are on the go.

So you can check out the link in the show notes, check out the free trial for eight days. Learn about some of those things from the 1600 podcast, 6000 blog posts, 600 videos that we're constantly updating every single week. So make sure that you understand that this is one really kind of two of the eight pillars that we kind of focus on, which include operations and human aspect of business. That's what I kind of focused on today. But just know that your star time is just a small part of that.

So if you want to check everything out, obviously I'm going to have lots and lots and lots of more unique podcasts, but this is Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of day. Make sure you check everything out in the show notes as well too, so that you can level up your organization.

Outro 16:07
Hello, hello, this is Gresh again, and I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Just like I mentioned at the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these eight pillars to show you as a builder how you can leverage these eight pillars and really level up there so it helps to level up your business and organization.

So hope you enjoyed this episode and definitely please check out the show notes so you can learn more about the pillar. This is Gresh signing out.Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

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