Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 195. Morning Mastery! With Bedros and Craig

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

Bedros and Craig are here to talk about their morning routines! The importance of the morning routine, and how to properly structure your day to leave anxiety and overwhelm in the grave. Stack up your morning routine against two of the best leaders in the game! 0:00 - Introduction 0:29 - Does Bedros remember his morning routine 10 years ago? 1:31 - What Bedros’ morning routine is now and how it drives his success 7:58 - Craig’s 3 steps to jumpstart a success filled morning 13:57 - The diet to optimize Bedros’ and Craig’s morning 17:28 - The importance of controlling your schedule and how you’ll be your best from it   “ The Genius is in the preparation.. You being productive before everyone starts, that’s how you get ahead of the game..“ Craig Ballantyne Connect with Craig Ballantyne :    https://www.craigballantyne.com/ https://twitter.com/craigballantyne/ https://www.instagram.com/realcraigballantyne/ Connect with Bedros Keuilian : Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/bedroskeuilian/ Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/KeuilianInc Twitter - https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bedroskeuilian/   Buy Man Up and get Bedros' High-Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/  

Doing a brain dump the night before actually lets me sleep with peace of mind. Yeah. Because I've written down what three to five things I'm going to do the next morning. And then it's just a now matter of waking up and having the discipline to do those things instead of screen suck. Pedro, do you remember 10 years ago your morning routine? 10 years ago, I do remember my morning routine. It sucked. What was it?

Well, I would eat really late at night, couldn't sleep all night. So then I would sleep until about 8, 30, 9 o'clock in the morning. And I'd feel behind the eight ball all day long because I'd take Adderall. and lots of pre-workout to be able to super charge myself. And then smoke weed at the end of the day to then calm down. And then, of course, the weed I'd eat again. And so the horrible cycle continued until that one conversation in Vegas. Yeah.

It was Vegas? We were walking through the Bellagio Hotel specifically. I remember going to one of our masterminds. And you were like, hey, have you tried waking up early? And I was like, who the fuck are you? What? And then that led to you like, don't eat late at night. Have you tried eating at 5 o'clock?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was profound. It was before you wrote your book. Yeah, yeah. And simple change, but very important, very valuable. And now you've got a morning routine where I'm like, dang, I've got to step up my game a little bit here. So walk us through what it is now. Yeah, so my morning's routine, actually, it's even changed since writing Man Up in 2018.

And you and I were talking offline before everything started rolling here. Like as you grow in life, you businesses expand, you have more leaders in place, your composition changes. Like I used to not be gluten, gluten didn't bother me. And now I drink a couple of beers and gluten bothers me. I mean, it's like everything changes, right? And so I'm in a phase of life where I like staying awake late at night with my wife and kids, watching a couple episodes of whatever.

We're currently watching Breaking Bad, finally. The whole world's watched Breaking Bad and we're watching it now. but I don't need to wake up like super- watch it with Chloe when she was 11. But all this is to say that nowadays, I get to sleep in a little longer, right? I get to sleep into like 5.36 o'clock, which is still early by most people's accounts, but I used to wake up at 4.30 a few years ago. And as soon as I do that, 30 ounces of water, I'll chug a lug, take my shower,

go downstairs, send out three gratitude text messages while I'm playing with cookie, my dog, and then make a protein shake. and a coffee and then sit down with my GSD list, get shit done lists, things that I wrote the night before that I have to crush where I can move the money needle. And it's usually sending out a broadcast, writing a blog post, putting up a social media post, and a few business partner emails that are all money movers.

And then by that point, it's around 9 o'clock, 9.15. I head to the gym. I'm BK Strength by 9.30 in the morning. Crush your one-hour workout. Go get in a five-mile walk slash jog, and then I'm here at HQ by 1130 or 12. Okay. Cool. And then so.

That's seven days a week, minus the HQ part, obviously, on weekends. Yeah. But I do that seven days a week because I found that when I sleep in on weekends, it fucks up my Monday. Yeah, because it screws up your cycle, and then you can't fall asleep on Sunday night. Yeah. That might have been something I learned from you as well. Well, I learned it the hard way because, I mean, when I was a personal trainer, it used to be like up at 430, 6th. days a week and then to bed at 4.30 on the one night. And then, and then you try to go to bed

on Sunday night and, you know, you slept till noon or two o'clock in the afternoon. It was horrible. I think, I think the last time we talked about this, you know, our audience is bigger and newer now, but they probably don't know what a party animal you were. Like everyone probably knows the structured Craig Ballanty, but I've seen you shotgunning Red Bull and beer back to back. Oh, no, I don't. But I was able to do that at one point. And it was obviously very stupid. But, you know, so it used to be the socially anxious introvert needed the beers and stuff to be able to not be that. And then now, I was just actually telling Bryce on a podcast that I did with him before this that, and I actually made a video about this yesterday at the mastermind was all I did was I modeled California Cool Bairos Kulian.

I would just watch you go into a room and see how you interacted with people. And then I've tried my version of it and it was very robotic. But over time, I just got better at it. And it's just like, hey, everybody, how are you doing? You know, it's just like, and now I can do it. So I don't need to binge drink. But I used to binge drink. And obviously, it's a horrible thing.

And it throws your mornings off for not just Sunday, but Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And then I'd finally be back on track on Thursday and then screw it up again a couple nights later. So, but the morning routine is incredibly powerful, super effective. And what did it allow you to do in addition to reducing your stress, obviously? But what were some of the changes that allowed you to make? And then what mistakes do you still see people making today? The biggest thing for me was that the morning overwhelm. Everybody who has any kind of leadership role, you know, if you own a business, you're starting a business, you're self-managed.

you got a lot of overwhelm in the morning because you're like, shit, I got a lot to do. Well, okay, if you actually slept on time where you can get a good seven hours of sleep and then if you made a list of the things you needed to do the next morning so you don't have to sit there and make a list while you're overwhelmed. My best thinking never happens when I'm overwhelmed.

Right. So, in fact, if you do a brain dump the night before, and so that's one thing I got, one of the many things I got from you when we talked about morning routines and how I should run mine, doing a brain dump the night before actually lets me sleep with peace of mind. Because I've written down what three to five things I'm going to do the next morning. And then it's just a now matter of waking up and having the discipline to do those things instead of screen suck.

And there's the other thing because if you're waking up and you're overwhelmed and you're bit anxious and stressed, then you start looking for filler stuff to do. So while I think about what to do, let me just go on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. And now you get stuck in the cycle of social. social media, before you know it, an hour or two has gone by, which doesn't mean you've been productive. It just gives you a greater sense, a heightened sense of overwhelm. And now you feel like, well, I'm not good enough. And I can't even have credibility with myself because I wanted to get up and work, but I've killed an hour and a half watching social media.

And, you know, the self beating up begins. And that's, that was my cycle. And so for me, it's just structure, structure, structure. And when I'm structured, I have virtually no anxiety, no overwhelm. When I lose structure, like this past weekend, we weren't, I was going to come and join you guys at the $100 million mastermind and hang out there with you guys. Dan and Joel invited me, but I was in Portland at an event. But because I was in an event, my morning routine was off. Yeah.

You know, I was working out at a gym that was like seven miles away. And so, you know, I'm driving to this gym and I'm at a hotel and I can't connect to the Wi-Fi and it bothers me. So I try and do my morning routine, but it was off. And I noticed physically that I was, I was short. with die. I was irritated with the kids and I wasn't my best self. That's how important that routine is, man. Yeah. Well, I want to unpack one thing here because what I've noticed, one thing that you said, doing the brain dump really, really powerful, one thing I noticed for all of our entrepreneurs out there who have young kids, they find it, they forget it, right?

So they're a busy entrepreneur and they know that there's three things that Craig Valentine wants them to do, which is do the brain dump. then do a priority to-do list, so organize that stuff, and then do a little bit of work on the number one tasks. Like even if you just outline like your article or your email or your presentation, do those three things in about 10 to 15 minutes and you'll be fully prepared to totally crush your morning. Now, the entrepreneur, it doesn't matter what stage they're at, whether a beginner entrepreneur or experience entrepreneur, but if they have young kids, there's just so much going on later in the day, they forget to do it. So if you're thinking, like, man, I don't, I've been forgetting to do this and, yeah, then I wake up overwhelmed. I don't care if somebody does this thing as early as noon, like lunchtime. Like, just don't forget to do it.

Better to be early than to not do it at all. But to what Bedros said, like, if you're doing your to-do list in the morning, you're already too late. This is the time of day when you have the greatest discipline, willpower and intention of any time of the day. And I believe it's when you have your greatest productivity and your creativity. And if you're figuring out what to do during that time, it's like making a grocery list at that time. It's not a very good use of your time. So make sure that you have the brain dump,

which is just basically getting all the stuff in your head, all those overwhelming lists of things to do. Just get it out on paper. It's like vomiting it out. And right away you'll feel like, oh, just a lot of relief. I literally started sleeping better because of that. Yeah, because then those thoughts aren't racing. around in your head all night long. And so if you're having trouble falling asleep, it's because

you haven't gotten that stuff out of your head. And when you get out of your head, then you can start to make sense of it. It's like pouring a jigsaw puzzle box out on the table. If you just keep that up in your head, it's completely cluttered. Now you have it on the table. You can at least start to organize it a tiny bit. You don't have to figure it all out, but you have to organize it a little bit. And then you have your to do list. So that's part one. You go to bed. You know exactly what to do. And I'm a big believer in a little bit of the woo-woo stuff that if you know what to do, your brain's going to work on that subconsciously overnight. And you're going to wake up with my idea.

Maxwell Malts talks about that in psychosiberetics, the theater of the mind. You're going to wake up in the morning. You're going to have some information that's kind of come together overnight. And if you have to write a chapter for your book, that book chapter is going to come out a lot faster if you did it that way than if you just woke up and made a list and like, oh, I should write that book chapter. today. Then you're going to open your computer up and it's just going to be that screen and you're

going to sit there. And I remember when I was writing, it must have been the first book. I remember at one point I was supposed to be writing a chapter and I hadn't done the proper preparation. And the next thing I know, I'm like sweeping in the corner. And I don't even know how to turn a broom on. Like, I'm not very good at cleaning and I hate it. And that's how much, you know, the procrastination kicked in because I hadn't yet perfected my morning routine. But when you have that system in place, all the heavy lifting is done the night before and then you show up in the morning and that stuff just pours out of you. And it's a habit that can be built really quickly. It's not going to take you like months and months of practice. You're going to be

able to get into it and you are going to feel, you're going to sleep better, which is going to help you perform better. You're going to be less stress, less overwhelmed. And then you just, you know, you always say like when you get up in the morning, if you hit the snooze button, you knock down the bad dominoes if you get up on time you get out of bed and you you knock down the good dominoes the rest of the day just starts going on that path too what are what are some of the things that you've changed in your morning routine let's say over the last year great question and so you know one of the criticisms that some people always gave me was like you're it's two structures too routine it doesn't sound like you have you know any room for for social life and stuff like that and it's not

that I didn't have room for it but I don't get up at 357 a.m. anymore. I used to get up at 357 a.m. I used an alarm. But I didn't use an alarm. We're in August now. I didn't use an alarm at any point in this year until last week when I had an early flight. And I was naturally getting up, you know, some days at 417 and some days at 3.38, and some days at, you know, if it was a later night the night before, you know, I did sleep till until five o'clock. Now I'm married and it's not because my wife goes to bed later. She goes to bed as early as I do. Sometimes she's happy to go to bed earlier. So we still go to bed about eight o'clock in night and we just communicated that and we both, you know, we're lucky enough to have

found each other. But I don't use an alarm. But when I get up in the morning, I know exactly what I'm, I still know exactly what I'm planned to do. And the other thing that has changed over the years is I moved from a maker schedule to more of a manager schedule, just by the business growth and the way that my business has changed. I'm no longer writing books or email copy or sales copy in the morning. Instead, I'm preparing for the coaching sessions that I'm going to do with people. I'm preparing. Sometimes I write video scripts, but most of the time it's not writing in the morning. Instead, it's preparing for people.

And I take calls a lot earlier than I do. I have, we, for some reason, I have a lot of European clients. Maybe it's just, they prefer somebody who's not American, you know, maybe they resonate with the Canadian more than American. So I have a lot of clients, even in Eastern Europe, so that's like nine hours ahead of West Coast time. So I'm taking calls sometimes as early as 5.30, 6 o'clock in the morning before my wife gets up and we hang out and take the dog out and stuff like that.

So the work is done a little bit different, but the same principles are there. The same foundational rules are there. What do you eat in the morning? Because I found what you eat or maybe even don't eat makes a huge difference. Like I keep protein shake, zero carbs, zero sugar because I feel lighter and like zero fog. As soon as I, even oatmeal, like healthy carbs, I do start feeling that insulin and creep up and starting feeling a little

yeah so I'm I'm lucky I'm gonna say I'm skinny through mostly genetics and so I had never had coffee until 2019 so it was like 44 years old when I had my first coffee it was when you met Michelle right yeah yeah yeah it was she

she got me to have my first coffee what I couldn't do in a decade she did in a week yeah that's right so among other things and and so well I refuse to you tried I I refuse to do that one thing. I was not going to wear more chapstick.

There you go. So I am up. You know, actually, you know the first thing I drink is everyday fit. Oh, really? Everyday fit combined with the immunity shot. Okay. Everyday fit and wellness shot by Trulene. Yes, absolutely.

100%. So I get up, I drink about a liter and a half of fluid. How many, in American, how many ounces is that? I don't know. A liter and a half, is that a gas tank? That's like a fucking gas tank. And that's a lot of fucking water, bro, and a lot of everyday fit. That is six cups.

Okay, so a cup is eight ounces. All right, eight times six. Forty-eight ounces? Okay. Okay, yeah, so 48 ounces of water and everyday fit and immunity shot. And that's about, then about an hour and a half I've been up. And then I'm starting to get a little bit hungry. So then I have a coffee, a protein bar, and walnuts.

Nice. Yes. Walnuts, man. You know, I started, I started, I started. I'm eating walnuts. When you started eating walnuts, like, during the mastermind, you were like, something about the fat. The omega. Yeah.

And you were like, I forget what reason you had to. And I was like, because I've been eating almonds up into that point. Yeah. And I think my almonds kind of tear my gut up a bit. So I was like, I'm going to try these walnut things. Walnut is still my go-to in the evenings. Yeah. Super healthy, man.

I swear that I some days eat like 800 calories worth of all of walnuts. Like a lot of walnuts. We should have invested in a walnut farm. I know. California walnut farm. Yeah. Anyways, so that's what I have. I actually, I'm not a grazer anymore, so it's usually just breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And so I usually eat the protein bar, lots of walnuts, and then drink another everyday fit halfway through the morning. Yeah. And then I'm curious about flavor. Michelle loves the Hawaiian one Yeah, the Pog. Yeah, the Pog one. I'm okay with that one, but I don't drink it that much

because I want to save it for her. So I'm anything. I don't care because you just want the benefits of it. Yeah, I mean, and I've just got all the flavors. So, you know, I just rotate through them. And it doesn't really matter to me. I just like some sweetness.

So anyways, I only feel tired if I have too heavy of a shake at lunchtime. And other than that, I'm fortunate not to feel tired during the day. Yeah, that's awesome. And I can also pretty much mainline sugar and be okay with it. Well, that's right off since you were a wee little pop. Yes, exactly. So that's the morning routine with the nutrition and stuff,

but it's kind of like you. Like for that first hour and a half, I'm just so focused in the work. I'm not hungry. I don't need anything. When you, are you, do you exercise it, I know the answer, but do you exercise it in the morning, in the afternoon at night? Late morning, late morning. So I really think, like, if you have any control over your schedule, leaving that workout till later is important.

You know, the way that you do it, I do it right before lunchtime just because, you know, it really should be a reward. Most of the people that watch this, I think you probably, you like working out. And sometimes when I coach entrepreneurs, I have to, like, dial their workouts back. because if you look at their main problem in life, your problem isn't fitness related. Yeah, you need to be in shape and stuff like that, but a lot of people work out too much and other areas of their life are suffering. So I'm like, you know, you're 45 years old, you're not going in fitness competition, you don't need to train five or six days a week.

So let's dial it back. And yeah, you should still move and do something. But maybe play with your kids for that time instead. Spend more time with them or go for a walk and feel. think about the business instead of, you know, being out there and doing another CrossFit session or something like that. If you're not in shape, then yeah, you do need to put more time and effort into that. But if you are in shape, there comes a point in your life where you just have to realize what matters the most and devote your time to the right thing. So it's get up,

do the work, reward yourself. I reward myself with any type of meditation or, it's almost always meditation or gratitude or journaling or stuff, but it's almost always meditation. I just look at that as a reward because I enjoy it and I do it after. I'm okay if somebody has to do it before. I'm okay if somebody has to work out first thing in the morning because there's no other time to do it. But if you have control over your schedule, it's best to do the hardest thing first because that's easily put off until later in the day. And by the way, and that's exactly why we want you to make that list the night before, put the most important thing at the top of that list, and then attack that list first thing in the morning once you drink your 30 ounces or 48 ounces or 1.6 liters

of water and everyday fit, et cetera. When you attack that list, then you're not going to procrastinate later and say, you know, hey, I'm going to go work out now, then I'm going to have this healthy meal, then I'm going to meditate, and eventually it's like 12 noon, you haven't gotten to your list. And the list is what moves the money needle. And that's a day of activity, not a day of accomplishment. So we've all had those days where it's like 5 o'clock and you're like, man, I've been so busy today. What did I get done?

And I've been there. I've seen so many people there. And it absolutely drives me nuts because there's a better way of doing it where just giving yourself an hour on that hard thing, first thing in the morning. And you'll feel better. Your business will move ahead faster. And it's a total game changer. and you'll find like those projects that have been sitting there that are so important that you procrastinate. They're so important I'll procrastinate on them because they're so hard.

They finally get done. And, you know, there was one Fit Body Boot Camp owner that once sent me a message at 7.30 in the morning. I've been up for two and a half hours, Craig, and I'm super stressed out because I just did my two and a half hour morning routine. I have all this stuff ahead of me. Oh, my God. And it kills me when we hear that. And we get these emails all the time from people who, who are like, you know, I've been in this program and that program and I like doing it,

but I never got anything done. Five years, I've been doing this routine and my business hasn't grown. And then I switched over to doing the hardest thing first, and we've had huge success in a short amount of time. And at the end of the day, what it comes down to is the genius is in the preparation. That preparation the day before, just like, you know, actors prepare for a play or a movie, football team prepares for, you know, they practice the play, they practice the play. It's a preparation that allows them to go out and have a championship performance, and it's got to be the same way.

It's like if you have an important meeting, you don't just go into the meeting without any preparation. Same with your morning. You have to do the preparation before, so you know what you're going to do. You let your brain work on it overnight, and you can believe me or not, believe me on that one, but it does. And then you wake up and you're just so productive before everybody else starts. That's how you get ahead of the game. And so to that point, guys, you know that success leaves clues.

Like, you know, our morning routines, while similar, are not exactly identical. And so, but you see the pattern, preparing the night before, waking up early before everybody else, letting your subconscious mind do a lot of the work the night before, attacking that hardest thing first, rewarding yourself with that meditation or workout after. And so our friend Joel Marion, similar routine, just happens. in the middle of the night. Yeah, he used to do the night owl thing. And I do say it's not about the hour that you get up.

It's about what you do with the hours that you are up. So 430, 530, 630, 7.30, it doesn't matter as long as you use the principles and make them work. If you are getting up at, let's say, 7.30 now and getting up at 7.15 would be an exponential improvement because it would allow you to be up before everybody else in your house and you could use that production. productively, then do it. But you don't have to be getting up a crazy hours in the morning, four o'clock, five o'clock, even like if you think six o'clock is crazy. You don't have to. That's not necessary nor sufficient for success. But in some cases, getting up a tiny bit earlier is probably the most important thing for you to do. Amen. Well said. All right, guys and gals,

listen, we hope you liked this episode of The Empire Show. And if you did, leave us a five-star review. Be sure to share this episode on your social media. And don't forget to tell yo, mama. Peace.