Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | Do This Every Morning to Reduce Overwhelm, Boost Your Happiness and Fix Your Focus | Robin Sharma #512

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

“It’s what you do each day not what you do every year that makes a difference” Robin Sharma. Today’s clip is from episode 471 of the podcast with best-selling author and one of the top leadership and personal mastery experts in the world, Robin Sharma. He advises companies such as NASA, Nike, Microsoft, Starbucks, Yale University and the Young Presidents’ Organization. Robin is probably best known for his thriving 5AM Club community, and in this clip he shares insights on the power of intentional morning routines, including his ​​five-question morning maximiser, and the benefits of daily movement. We also delve into practical strategies for fitting these habits into our busy lives. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/471 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Today's Bikesize episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free

travel packs to 10 and these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More Byte Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 471 of the podcast with bestselling author and one of the top leadership and personal mastery experts in the world, Robin Sharma. Robin is known for his thriving 5am club community and in this clip he shares insights on the power of intentional morning routines including his 5 question morning maximizer and the benefits of starting your day with movement.

Your morning routine, that first hour, that hour, I call it the victory hour in the 5M club book is one hour to make yourself stronger, wiser, more peaceful, more loving, more brave. Now, I'd like to be tactical and offer a tool. I call it the Five Question Morning Maximizer. So let's say you're up. What do you do at 5 a.m.? We can get into it, but first thing you want to do is sweaty exercise. It'll release dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, which builds focus, BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic

factor, which promotes neurogenesis, the creation of new brain cells, helps you process more quickly, et cetera. So get the exercise done on this book tour. I haven't felt like it, but after the workout, I'm happy I did it. So the five questions. Once you've done the workout, pull out your journal, have a cup of coffee. Coffee is a fantastic cognitive enhancer, antioxidant. First question, what am I grateful for?

We all hear everyone talking about gratitude. Gratitude is the antidote to fear. Write down what you're grateful for. The Persian proverb says, I curse the fact I had no shoes until I saw the man who had no feet. You have a roof over your head, you have work that allows you to contribute value, you have people who love you, you are a rich person. Second question, where am I winning?

So for 20 years, I've been talking about micro wins, 1% wins. Now this idea is getting very popular, which isn't that a wonderful thing? Because I think people understanding it's what you do each day, not what you do every year that makes a difference is powerful. So where am I winning? That will give you energy and protect your hope. Third question, what will I let go of? Just a little paragraph.

I'll let go of the resentment from yesterday or someone I need to forgive. Fourth question, what does my ideal day ahead look like? Gives you intentionality. Fifth question, powerful one, what do I need to hear at the end? You literally connect with your mortality every morning, fast forward to the last hour of your last day, connect with what you want your loved ones to say,

write a paragraph on it, it helps you live to the point. Yeah. What's so powerful about writing these things down, do you think? It refocuses your mindset in a world where a lot of us are busy being busy chasing mountains that might not be the right mountains. So it gives you focus. Secondly, intentions are creative.

That's all I can say. Like when you write your intentions, I want to be more loving. I want to execute all my ideas. I want to build this business. I want to change these lives. Writing is prayer on paper. And prayers are heard. And maybe if you don't believe in God, I believe prayers are heard by your subconscious mind. So I think that's the second thing. I think the third thing is you're doing some emotional

healing with the third question. You're letting go. What do you do with the therapist? You let go. That's the whole idea of talk therapy, or in part. Well, journaling that third question, what will I let go of? That is processing. You're metabolizing the resentment and the anger. You're not holding it out, holding it in, excuse me. You're in 60 seconds metabolizing and letting go. To heal a wound, feel the wound. And then the final question, you're doing something that so few of us do, you're connecting

to your mortality. Yeah. No, I love it. And I totally agree that writing these things down is deceptively powerful. I mean, people hear this stuff, they hear me talking about it, they hear you talking about it, they'll hear it on Instagram Reels, on YouTube videos,

but a lot of people hear it and don't take the next step and take action. You know, I don't answer those five, I have my own three, which are quite similar. You know, first one is, what do you deeply appreciate about your life? Second one is, what is the most important thing you have to do today? Again, just brings focus with all the noise, with all the busyness.

It just helps direct my attention as to what is the most important thing. And the third question I asked myself is, what quality do you want to showcase to the world today? Love it. Again, very similar in themes to the five that you asked yourself, right? But I guess if you're having that one hour victory hour, as you call it every morning, you are doing daily self-improvement. You are doing a level of personal growth in that victory hour. You're also massively helping your wellness. You're working out in that victory hour. You are journaling, which we know can improve our mood,

lower anxiety, lower depression, improve decision-making, increase the chance of us sticking to those healthy behaviors that we want to stick to. When you get up at 5 a.m., you experience a form of wealth money can't buy. Societist doesn't say, he meditates and she journals and this person reads the wisdom literature, this person goes for walks every day at the end of the day

and reflects on how they're living. This person has been in a sweat lodge, this person is doing emotional healing. Wow, they're really rich. You don't hear that. But what a currency to release your limitations and insecurities and your fears and your faults and take back your true power that you were born into to build greater awareness of how

strong you are, your gifts, where you want to go in your lifetime to make yourself more heroic, wise, loving. That one hour is wealth. Yeah. I mean, there's so much to say there, because I'm a huge fan of getting up early in morning routines as well, right? So I think that time to yourself each morning, the silence, the solitude, you get to know yourself better. You get to know when you're overworking or something is off in your life that needs addressing. I see it exactly as you see it.

We will never rise any higher than we are. Our outer life reflects our inner growth. Our primary relationship with ourself, our mindset, foreign interior empires, mindset, hearts, and health set, and soul set, call those your character, your inner life, your intimacy with who you truly are. The more you can connect with your gifts and your talents, your true values, your native powers, who you were before the world taught you to disbelieve in yourself and become like everyone else you see on the selfie reels, the more you can spend time getting to know that person and building that person, the

more every other relationship will be transformed. As you become stronger, more loving, more intimate with your gifts, the way you deal with your family is different, the way you deal with your friends is different. As you take time while the rest of the world is asleep and you inspire yourself, you can inspire your teammates. The rest of the world is asleep, you're up at 5 a.m., you're thinking about how you wanna live your day. What a radical concept. Thinking about how you want your day to unfold.

Well, you'll be kinder to people in the streets. And if you stumble, you'll get back up. Isn't that a form of wealth? Our society should be celebrating for the mountaintops. And what would the world look like? Mother Tracy said it well. She said, if everyone could only sweep their own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.

Yeah, that's brilliant, isn't it? Absolutely brilliant. You call it the victory hour. There's a lot of busy mothers who listen to this podcast. And sometimes I'll see comments online about morning routines from a variety of different people. But sometimes people will say, I'm too busy or you don't understand my life. I've got lots of stuff going on.

I'm a mother. I've got to look after the kids, getting them ready for school. I don't have time for a one hour morning routine. I know what I think about that question. I'm very interested as to your thoughts, because I'm guessing you must have had some pushback against the 5am club. And I'm interested as to, first of all, how you would answer that question, but be, you know, what is some of the pushback that you've received and how do you counteract it? Sure.

I think it's a very fair point. What I hear is some people saying, I'm a new parent and it's very hard. I also get, I do shift work. It's so sincere. Like they want to join the 5 a.m. club. They just say, I I do shift work. It's so sincere. Like they want to join the 5M club. They just say, I'm a shift worker. How do I do it?

So the first thing I'd say is, I'm not interested in saying you need to do this. If you want to experience the wonders of the 5M club, test it and do it for a month and see if it's for you. But I would say, stay open to it. Because if you're not and someone says, let's go get Vietnamese food and usually you eat Italian food, you might miss your new favorite food. And if you don't test it out, and I'm not talking for a week, test it out for a month

until you reach that point of automaticity and fluency with the new habit of getting up before the sun, you might miss something that changes your life. Last night at the book signing, I had so many people coming up to me saying the 5 a.m. club changed my life. There's one gentleman in particular, and he moved me. He said, I was a drug addict.

I read the 5 a.m. club. I've launched my own business. He said, I made 100,000 profit last year. So try it, if it's not for you, hey, we can still be friends, be a night owl, no sweat. Then yes, I totally hear the parent issue, but I just must report truth. There's a lot of parents who say, I do the 5AM Club.

They just work around it. And maybe it's three times a week, not seven days a week. Maybe one parent, if it's two people, maybe one parent takes care of the child on three days a week. So I hear the resistance, but I also out of love and respect must say, if you repeat your excuses long enough, you're actually going to hypnotize

yourself to think they are true. And we don't just do it with the 5 a.m. club. We say, well, I hear you that this is a great time to launch a business, but here's why I can't. And they actually believe they can't. But people are launching a business every day. And other people say, well, I hear you, Rangan, that I can find true love or work on my wellness, but I'm too busy right

now. What are we so busy with? Often you look at some of these people making the excuses and they're on their phones half the day. Let's go to the research. On an average day, the average human is using their phone 4.37 hours a day. That's three months a year playing, looking at influencers and people dancing to hip hop songs with their families at the dinner table. That's three months a year. Did you know that 75% of human beings check their phone within the first 10 minutes

of waking up? Not meditating, not visualizing, not praying, not doing journal prompts, they're on their phone. So what's the negative of that? Every action has a consequence. So if someone says to you, Robin, you've helped so many elite performers around the world live healthier and happier and more productive lives. What's the problem with me within 10 minutes of waking up looking at my phone? What is the consequence of that? What do you say to them?

Attention residue. So there's been research that says we wake up with a full well of focus. Yeah. And every time we focus on the phone or focus on a TV show or whatever, we take some of the fresh attention we woke up with and we leave it on the phone. So I think then we wonder why we have no focus and presence for our family, for the special moments in our day, for our work,

and we can't focus on getting the things done. Second thing I would say, a problem checking your phone first thing in the morning is, what do so many of us do? We check the news. We check our email. We check our notifications. And then we get pulled in and it's an hour later.

And in a lot of cases, we lost an hour of our lives, we'll never get back by watching things that were superficial and often destructive. So I think that's, I don't like the word problem, but I think that's the problem, checking your phone first thing in the morning. If you want a great day, why would you start it like that? Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, these things are so addictive that unless you keep it out of your room, it's very, very hard not to look at it. The other thing for me, first of all, I love that term attention residue.

I think it's such a gorgeous term that really says so much. It's really evocative. The other way I look at the problems or the potential problems with looking at phones and emails and it doesn't matter what you're looking at on it first thing in the morning is that so much of what we think, so many of our behaviors, our feelings, our thoughts are downstream of the content we consume. So if you wake up and let's say you don't have long,

let's say someone goes, you know, one hour, no chance. Okay, what I say to them, what I've said to patients for many years is can you do five minutes? Can you do 10 minutes? Because even five or 10 minutes of intentionality first thing in the morning, I have seen can make a big difference. Now I'm a fan of victory hours, right?

I do live my life in a way where I create that space in the morning for me, but I appreciate not everyone either feels that they can yet or maybe they want to start small. But it is a magic, they're magical minutes, the first few minutes after you wake up, the first five, 10, 15, 20 minutes, if you can stop putting in nonsense comments on Instagram and negative news, is it a surprise to you that you're reactive with your partner and your kids and your colleagues an hour later when you're with them? Should that really be a surprise to anyone? If you spent time investing in yourself and you're allowing your own thoughts to come up

and you journal and you work out and you move your body, whatever that may look like for you, I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to kind of understand that you are going to show up as a better human being in every aspect of your life that day. Again, we're singing from the same songbook. And I would say be selfish.

To anyone who pushed back, I'd say be selfish. And what I mean by that is, once you do it and do it for let's say three weeks, four weeks, we could go to the research of University College London, 66 days to install a new skill. And anyone who says, oh, well, I can't get up at 5 a.m. or I can't journal or I can't work out or I can't read every night, I would say you have a gift.

Every human being has a gift and the gift of the human brain is the gift of neuroplasticity. We all are geniuses on in this world. We have neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to adapt to new conditions. So we all were meant to grow. So why would I say be selfish? I would say by taking the time for a strong morning routine, it's so good for you. It will make you so much more inspired. That's good for you versus building someone else's dreams.

By reading something great, it's good for you. You'll build wisdom. You'll understand how to do life even better by doing what I call MVP in my methodology, meditation, visualization, and prayer. You'll live longer. You'll have more energies. You'll extend your telomeres or prevent them from shortening, which as you know is one

of the key markers of true aging. So be selfish. Second thing I would say, if we settle for negative information first thing in the morning, because you've mentioned morning routine, well then let's not be surprised if our habit, actually a non-morning routine is a routine and if it's watching news and checking your feeds and et cetera, then please don't be surprised if your day is more negative, you don't have as much energy, you've lost the sparkle in your eye. Your creativity's low. You're not productive.

And when you join the 5 a.m. club, it creates this. And I'm not selling anyone on it. Don't do it if you don't want to do it. Right? That's absolutely fine with me. I'm just here to serve. But it creates an upward spiral of success because you've had a great morning.

Now you're better in the day. But it also builds discipline because you did the workout, so you eat better at lunch, you feel better in the afternoon. Because you feel better in the afternoon, you're more joyful with your family and rather than watching three hours of mindless entertainment, you have the energy and the focus and the enthusiasm to read something great. And so you sleep well and you wake up the next morning and your days are your life in miniature. So as you live each day, so you craft the life.

Yeah, love that. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. If you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest? If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will

really enjoy my bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five and each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it free of charge at drchatterjee.com forward slash friday five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday and the latest

episode of ByteScience next Friday.