The 5am Club

 

The 5 am Club – Robin Sharma

 

Robin calls the early morning time as victory hours. The early morning routine is an attempt to get out of detrimental modern-lifestyle and built up a new habit that improves our productivity. He says, “These days too many of us die at thirty and get buried at eighty.”

For us to overcome this modern day miseries, there needs to be simple changes, starting from personal awareness. We are worried about society, results, and health issues. Things become miserable when fear and worries supersede faith.  Limitation is nothing more than a mentality that too many good people practice daily until they believe it’s a reality. Robin says that our excuses are seducers, fears are liars and doubts are thieves. The moment when we feel like giving up is exactly the instant when we must find it in us to press hard.

Victims love entertainment most of the time and Victors adore education most of the times. In a culture of cyber zombies, addicted to distractions and afflicted with interruptions, the wisest way to guarantee  mastery-level results is by installing a world –class morning routine.

The morning routine is tough but all changes are hard initially, messy in the middle and gorgeous towards the end. The book gives Rules, Methods, Research theories that are too tempting to be adopted with the deep urge of bringing changes in modern day life

A.                     The four focuses that takes us from Superficiality to granularity:

1.       Focus#1:Capitalization IQ:  The idea is to keep re-scripting our personal story, every time we get a realization of getting dropped into the victim mode

 It’s not the size of the dog in a fight that matters, but the size of the fight in the dog that matters. Dedication and discipline beats Brilliance and giftedness every day of the week!. Dedication and discipline are tough to have. To improve these qualities the mind needs victory points in every small resistance that we make. Each time we resist temptation and pursue optimization, we invigorate our heroism. Victims have big TV’s whereas the Winners have large libraries. The changes in oneself alone doesn’t suffice. The people around us are equally important. Our friends, colleagues and the work team matters a lot.  For best utilization of the team, the team strength is more important than that of the leader. Alexander said, “ It is better to have a Sheep leading lions, than a lion leading sheep.” As we leave our youth there is a pull towards complacency. We reduce the efforts to improve the productivity and we forget the point that there is a difference between being busy and being productive.

   Focus 2: Understanding the biology behind distractions and the freedom from distractions:

 The closer you move towards being genius, the more you’ll face the sabotage of your fears. So the Amygdala, the almond shaped mass of gray matter in the brain detects the fear- gets all fired up. You then begin to tear down the productivity that you’ve built. You can disempower this simply by watching the attempts to denounce your mastery. Abraham Maslow said, “If you plan on being anything less than who you are capable of being, you’ll probably be unhappy all the days of your life. The amygdala kicks into high gear as we exit what’s familiar and try something new. The Vagus nerve gets provoked. The fear hormone cortisol gets released. We then begin to destroy the progress of our mastery. With the release of cortisol our perception narrows and the breathing gets shallowed and we drop into fight or flight mode. 

Prefrontal cortex is a part of our brain responsible for rational thinking as well as constant worrying. That’s the transient part of ‘Transient hypofrontality.’ In the early morning hours the nonstop analyzing and stressful over thinking stops. Our brain waves actually shift from beta to alpha state. The solitude, silence and the stillness of the daybreak also triggers the production of neurotransmitters like dopamine, the inspirational fuel that serves super producers so well and serotonin, the beautiful pleasure drug of the brain. Automatically and naturally you enter the “Flow state”. Flow state is the peak mindset that the exceptionalists and legendary leaders inhibit when they produce their finest product or their skill.

  Focus 3: ‘Personal mastery practice- Training the best part of you’.

There are four interior empires to train, cultivate and iterate before the sun comes up. Mindset, Heartset, Healthset and Soulset. We’ve heard a lot about positive mindset. This paragraph highlights the other three along with Mindset. Mindset is about Psychology, Heartset is about Emotionality, Healthset is about Physiology and Soulset is about Spirituality. Great mindset with a poor Heartset is a giant reason why good people end up dissolving their attempts at greatness. All four interior empires are exercised in the 20-20-20 formula of 5am practice.

Soulset : After we are born we begin to move away from the powers and descend into the what damaged more of the world wants us to be. We become more of comparing and less of creating. In the early morning hours remembering the best traits of yours is one of the spiritual exercise. It’s the awareness of the most magnificent part of you.

 4.       Focus 4: Day stacking; All you need to do is own the day. Make those 1% course corrections over each 24 hour allotment you receive. These are micro–wins. Enhancing anything in your day, ranging from morning routine to a thought pattern to your business skill to a personal relationship by only 1% delivers at least 30% only a month from starting and 365% at the end of a year. The main point is to concentrate monomanically on creating great days and they stack into gorgeous life.

 

B.                              The habit of installing non habitual Protocols:

 Our brain can continue to grow throughout our lives. This is called as neuroplasticity. The brain growth is directly proportional to the practice of fresh habits. If you don’t have the brain that you desire, actually you have the brain that you deserve. This is simply because you’ve created your brain not just your parents’ genes.

Human brain has malleability and muscularity to it. What makes the great ones great ones is the fact that they understand that the daily discomfort and the pushing hard practice is the price of enduring success. The Latin root of the word ‘Passion’ means ‘Suffer’

In one of the studies the brains of London taxi drivers were studied and the area responsible for the spatial reasoning, the hippocampus was found to be significantly larger in them compared to the brains of ordinary people. Guess why?

“Because of the complexity of the street system in London”. Just as the body builders develop muscles by push-ups and lifting doubles, the cabbies in London flexed their hippocampi as they drove each day.

Improving the way of handling the non-routine tasks makes us a troubleshooter. At the same time it is important to develop new habits.  The research data of university College London has a “66 days minimum” process of making new habit yours.

 

C.                              The 66 days minimum process: It is hard initially, messy in the middle and gorgeous towards the end.

 

 

The practical tactics to help us to lock in new habits

·         To make a habit, never install it alone.

·         The teacher learns the most.

·         When you most feel like quitting, it is the time you must continue advancing.

The first point reminds us about a point that the rituals run the deepest when performed in a group.

 

D.                              The 20/20/20 formula:

    Break the 60 mins into three equal parts.

Pocket 1 - First 20 mins: Exercise.

Do intense exercise. The heavy work out will release dopamine, which is the neurotransmitter of drive, along with elevating your amounts of serotonin, the wonderful chemical that regulate happiness. Although Robin formed a formula with 20 mins allocated to exercise, it can be customized.  We can make it bespoke, to modify our lifestyle.

 Pocket 2-The next 20 mins: Reflection.

Reflection pocket is to invent, visualize and dream. We need to remind us to be brave in every event we plan to do.  That injects, not just the enthusiasm but also happiness. Couple of decades later we would repent more on something that we didn’t do, than something’s we did wrong. Reflecting on what’s most important to a beautifully lived life will leave us with “Residual Wisdom” throughout the rest of the day. Eg. Thinking quietly about weighty value of purely producing a work that represents mastery or remembering your commitment to treating people kindly and respectfully during the second pocket re-anchors those virtues within our awareness. And as we experience the remaining part of the day, the residue of our reconnection with this wisdom stays in focus, infusing every single moment and guiding each of our choices.

 

E.                               The pre-sleep rituals

7:00 pm to 8:00pm           - Dinner

8:00pm to 9pm                  -Real conversation with the loved ones. Work free fun

9:00 pm to 10:00pm        - Technology free – bedroom. Preparation for sleep. Next day exercise gears.

 

F.                               The tactics of lifelong model

 

Tactic # 1: The tight bubble of total focus (TBTF):

It is a metaphorical moat that builds around the assets of our genius, so that they not only stay strong, they increase. Each morning in the pocket 2 phase of 20/20/20 practice, we need to enter this bubble. The five primary assets are mental focus, physical energy, personal willpower, original talent and the daily time. Our bubble should have a porous membrane that decides what is to be allowed inside and what needs to be kept outside. Anything negative, toxic and impure matter needs to be blocked.

 

Tactic # 2: The 90/90/1 rule.

Plan one task that needs efforts for 90 days, to be done for exclusively 90 mins every day.

 

Tactic # 3: The 60/10 method.

Great performances do not happen n a linear way. After the 60mins of productivity sprint take a break of 10 mins for re fueling. The actual growth happens while resting.  That’s the paradoxical truth of productivity.

 

G.                             Joy as GPS:

1.       People Fuel                               

2.       Pursuit fuel

3.       Place fuel

Only be around those people who fuel your joy. Only perform those pursuits that feed your bliss. Only be around those places that make you feel most alive.

 

 

Disclaimer:

 The summary written by me is just an attempt to preserve the good points stated by Robin Sharma.

In this article I have mixed my experiences, observations, foresights and my perceptions.

 

Vinay Wagh