Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Makes Sense Mondays - The Morning Routine - Episode 44

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Never before has it been more important to learn the skills and tools to take command of your thoughts, feelings and actions and greet the day as the dominant force in your life. However, its easier said and understood than done. Lets talk about the steps required to creating a solid morning routine and how it may be the single most valuable action step you take in your life. This episode is available on bothe Spotify and Apple   Welcome to MAKES SENSE MONDAYS with Dr. JC Doornick "Dragon" where we makes sense of the things that make you go Hmmm? Start your week off the right way by reclaiming control of your Great Morning.   Connect With Dr. JC: https://zez.am/makessense    LIVE STREAMED on Facebook, Linkedin, and Youtube MAKES SENSE PODCAST SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW & SHARE our new podcast. FOLLOW the NEW Podcast - You will find a "Follow" button top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168    OUR SPONSOR: Enjoy the show and consider joining our psychological safe haven and environment where you can begin to thrive. The Makes Sense Academy. https://www.skool.com/makes-sense-academy/about Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hmm, make sense. Hello, great morning world. Great morning humans. This is Make Sense Mondays, and today you're going to hear about your morning routine. And we're going to be talking about why the morning routine is the most important routine of your life. This is called Make Sense Mondays, and I want to welcome you. My name is Dr. J.C. Dornick, otherwise known as The Dragon. Make Sense Mondays is a place where we kind of make sense of.

things that make you go, hmm, help people get into that present time conscious part of their brain rather than just hand the keys of trust over to the to the day today. We're going to talk a little bit about that in the morning routine concept. The idea is to set the foundation to win the morning and thus be the catalyst and the fertile ground to build and create and sculpt a great day. So welcome to make sense Mondays and today is your morning routine. We're going to talk about why the morning routine is the most important routine. I hope that this day excites you. Just a blessing to just begin this day and recognize that you have it. What an amazing opportunity we have. I like to think about that very often. We all have hopes and dreams and we all have our wants, needs and desires and our must

haves. And we very often speak to God or the universe and ask for those things. But if you think about it, if you're here with me right now, you've been granted everything that you've ever asked for in the realm of potential and opportunity. You're breathing. You're looking at me right now. You're listening to me. Your lungs are working. Your heart is working. Your brain is online. So everything you asked for you have in the realm of possibilities and potential. That's why I always say, great morning humans. Let's get into this. Let's get into the morning routine. As a side note, and I'll mention this a couple of times, I've got a full spectrum explanation of my morning routine that you're all welcome to. And it's not something that I charge.

for just send me a message through any one of our channels. Instagram at Dr. J.C. Dornick, Rise Up With Dragon.com, makes sensepodcast.com, or just in the comments here, if you just say, great morning, I will send you a copy of it. It's just a document and we're making an online course. You'll enjoy it and you can chop it up and you can make it your own. Just one quick disclaimer. We're going to be talking about a morning routine and the value of having a structure and how it can just completely be a game changer for you. But in the realm of a disclaimer, you can spend the next 20 minutes with me and learn some things and become inspired and get excited about those and create the illusion that you're actually doing something

just because you were here for 20 minutes. But learning is just nothing more than another distraction in the absence of action. So remember that. But the disclaimer I want to give you today is more in the realm of sleep. We're going to be talking about a morning routine about rising up in the morning that is going to help you become the commander in chief and just dominant force of your life. It's just something I've been doing for almost 19 years now and it's just been a game changer and it still continues to be one. But the disclaimer I want to talk about is in the realm of sleep because sometimes we forget about that.

So before we discuss the value and importance of creating a morning routine, it's crucial to add as much focus or maybe even more on the state that you are going to be rising up from and that is getting proper sleep. Transparently, that's one of my biggest struggles. And I'm going to share with you how the morning routine. teen can actually also present itself, and a lot of people don't talk about this, as the demise of something that is probably even more important, that is your sleep. So it's different for everybody's sleep, but let's just acknowledge that we can get hyper-focused on structure, on the waking

hours of our day, and we're going to be talking about the morning routine, but we can get hyper-focus on success and all of the things that come with a great morning routine and overlook sleep. And I know from my own personal experience, because I've been doing this for a long, long time. I love my morning. It's my favorite part of the day. I remember at one time I hated getting up early, but I knew the value of it, so I did it anyway and all that stuff. But now it is like Christmas for me. I love my routine. So for my experience, I've experienced what it's like to have my morning routine becomes such a high value and exciting thing for me. Well, safe haven. It's my time. It's a very rare time where I have my time. It provides me emotional regulation and business success and all of these things.

But I also remember a time where it was the cause of interrupting and disrupting my sleep. And what I mean by that, I would be anxious and restless in bed because of my excitement for getting up in the morning. I think that whenever we learn cool things like this, one of the things that I think we miss in personal growth and self-development and when we teach systems like this is some of the things that are in the blind spots of your life. So sleep is so important. It's the realm that I'm working the hardest on right now. And that has to do with what I do before sleep. And I'll talk a little bit about that today. But just remember that, you know, thou shalt not kid thyself,

the 11th commandment. So let's discuss the basics. I want to give you some nuances, because like I said, I have a full spectrum morning routine that I share with everybody. I call it the rise up great morning routine. And it's awesome. And like I said, you can tailor it to your own. And I actually have a challenge that I put out to people called the Rise Up Challenge. And it's just about hitting these metrics. But today, what I want to do is I just want to hit on some nuances and some interesting. Remember, we're talking about the things that make you go, hmm, I want to point out a couple of basic, basic things that you want to take note of in your morning routine as you're crafting it. You can either ask me for mine and use it. There's a million morning routines. I know that Andrew Huberman talks about that. It's not important, but it's important to understand

why you're doing certain things, because if you're strategic with them, then you'll understand the value. So the basic. First, if you have a morning routine, just the idea of setting it up, it's going to set up the intentions framework and focus for your day. What's interesting about that idea right there is if you don't have a morning routine, what you're also doing is saying, I'm not setting up the intentions framework and focus for the day. So take note of that. Not to mention the fact that it helps you claim control of both the income and outcome of your day as well. So when I say income and outcome of your day, one of the things that I teach in our private community called Make Sense Academy, and everybody's welcome to come check that out. And this is just a private community. I provide

guidance and support and just the foundational concepts of what I call the interface response system. We have these great discussions. But a morning routine could affect the income and outcome. So you understand what the outcome is, is if you want to have a better outcome of your day morning routine, fantastic for that. But the income is also the interplay and interface that you have throughout the day, which affects the outcome. So remember, if you set the intentions and the focus for your day and you become the dominant force of your life, you're also becoming the dominant force of the perspective and perceptions that you have in the interplay. So important to just take note of a couple of things I'm about to share because it places you in control.

I like to look at a morning routine as something that's analogous to a computer booting up. So think about a computer booting up. And I'm not saying it's on sleep mode. I'm saying like it's off and you're going to push the button. So when a computer boots up, it's operating system, very, very similar to what you're doing. What programs, think about your computer for a second. What programs and projects does your computer bring back up on the screen? So the ones from yesterday, right?

So that's why I recommend that you take this first. This is probably the most important part. We mentioned sleep. But when it comes to your morning structure, regardless of how you go about it, this is probably the most important part of it. And that is to take advantage of this extremely fragile instance that takes place right in the beginning when you go from offline to online or, as I say, from unconscious to conscious, eyes closed to eyes open.

So think about that moment. Think about that moment. You all know that moment, right? It's a little bit confusing, but you know that first moment that your brain goes online and you recognize, oh, it's time to get up. I don't know what the hell just happened. Maybe you remember your dreams or not, but you're going online. It's in that moment right there. After you push that button of the computer, that's the analogy. So if I push the button on the computer, there's this moment when the computer goes, oh, it's time to boot up. And in that moment, that's when the computer has this opportunity. to say, what am I going to boot up? So I want you to think about your brain and the fact that it does the same thing. It's the most important step of your morning routine. And that is to take advantage of that fragile moment by doing two things. So you don't even know what programs and projects you're going to boot up. You know that if you let it happen and you hand the keys of trust over to your boot up, it's going to boot up yesterday's stuff. That's typically your problem. And that's when you don't become the dominant force of your life. The day becomes the dominant force of you.

These are the two things that you want to do in that fragile moment. One is you want to place it on pause. Place yesterday's programs and projects on pause. And then the second thing that you want to do, and I'm going to tell you how, is claim control of your first intention and theme with an untarnished sense of present moment consciousness. You have to put yourself, and I'm going to share with you how, you have to put yourself in this place, in a state where you can decide what's going to happen that day. And that's, I said untarnished or untethered to something else, because if you're tarnished

and tethered to another idea, it's going to impact that decision of how this day is going to go. So how do we do this? What's the key to accomplishing those two things? Putting it on pause and then having this clear blank slate where we can decide what is to be that day. It's gratitude. Now, everybody says, yes, I have an attitude of gratitude. And that means thankful for the things that I have, but I can't tell you how important this is in that first instance. Gratitude. As a reminder about gratitude, gratitude only exists in one place, not the past or the future. So remember those past projects and programs that want to boot up. That's not where gratitude takes place and the mystery of the future. It happens right now. By capturing that moment with gratitude, very simple, you can put

this into play right away. What you're going to do is create that space where you can start to create and unlock that creative process. And it's just two words. So as soon as my eyes crack open and I go online, I just say the words thank you. Those are the two most important words you can begin your day with because when you say thank you, your brain will be forced in its kind of confusing state to take recognition of what you have. You don't even know why you're saying it. Just remember, that's right. I saw this podcast yesterday. I'm going to say thank you. So you say thank you and it will force your brain to pause yesterday because it'll say thankful for what. But if you say thank you in the morning, you're

already winning because you put it pause on yesterday's stuff, but then you also question, what am I thankful for? And you can only figure out in that confusing state what you're thankful for in the sense of right now. That's a power move. To accomplish that goal of pausing yesterday's programming and then create that blank space and page to begin building your great morning. You see, you can't just say, I'm going to do this and that in the morning. You have to set the precedent of it or else you're going to be playing catch up already. And you can you can recoup. That's what's really important. And remember, if you create your great morning, you're going to create the fertile soil to grow your great day. So a reminder, I've created, once again, I keep

going to keep telling you this. I've created a full description of my rise up, great morning routine, and I'll send it to you if you just simply comment, reach out to me, DM, smoke signal, email, whatever on all these platforms. Just say, great morning and I'll send you a link. And then you can get access to that and anything else that I have for that's free. Let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsor. The Make Sense podcast is sponsored by the Make Sense Academy, co-created by both myself, Meeker, aka The Chicken and The Dragon. The Make Sense Academy is a live interactive community where like-minded, solution-focused,

curious seekers of expansion, gather daily in a mastermind setting with both chicken and Dragon, where they have access to premium content, online courses, and powerful collaboration and networking, all for $24 a month. The Make Sense Academy and its members are solely responsible for funding the Make Sense podcast. So feel free to reach out to us at www.orgizeupwithDragon.com and check out the Make Sense Academy, risk-free with a money-back guarantee. Now, back to the Make Sense podcast. So first thing that we want to do is we want to create space for it. Now, now that you know how to boot up the computer, it's really important that you understand anything great is going to have some suck to it. I always say embrace the suck. So you've got to create some space. And it's not

easy to get up early in the morning, but not everybody has to do this, but most do. It may be necessary, if you think about it, in order to build the space in a busy schedule to have a morning routine. That's part of that 11th commandment. Thou shone not kid thyself, right? So if I don't have any time for a morning routine, and that's the story I'm playing, I have to build the time. I have to create the space. You might not like getting up in the morning with so much value, and I'll share with that,

but that's the first step. You have to create space. You can't just assume that you can fit a morning routine into your already packed schedule. Me personally, I chose 4.30 a.m. And I do that robotically. I don't even need an alarm clock now. And it sucked in the beginning. But the reason why I chose 4.

30 a.m. because you'll figure out what works for you. Is that unveils and uncovers two hours of free time for me. I want two hours of my time to get my day started. That's how serious I take this. So 4.30 a.m. that means that in 6.30 a.m. That's when my wife, the chicken gets up. That's when a potential daughter comes downstairs. That's when there's some sounds from other rooms and things like that. So 4.30, mine. Very rare that that gets interrupted. So there's much, much value by the way. and this comes from the stoic principles of voluntary discomfort. A lot of value in practicing voluntary discomfort in rising up early also. Think about this for a second.

For those of you that say, ah, I don't want to do that. Say, well, you'll do it the moment that you understand its value. It's important to rise up early because it also sends a message to the universe as well as that observer in your mind. You know that part of your mind that's always in observation if you're taking life seriously or not. A little combo of ego and where self-doubt and all of that excitement and motivation and confidence lives in that space wherever that is. It's important to send a message that you mean business. By getting up early, you're making a statement to the observer, the observer of you,

as well as the universe. You're making a statement that you're taking that day seriously and intend to sculpt and push it around to your liking. So here you are on one sense saying, oh, I need my sleep, well then you have to work that out on the other end. But if you don't get up early, you're automatically letting the day sculpt you. By getting up early in the morning, even if it's just a little bit earlier, you're automatically sending a message out that the universe goes, oh, this is interesting. I've never seen this before. So rather than getting up late, like I said, and inviting the day to sculpt and push you around,

you want to get up early and then tell the day it's going to be sculpted and pushed around to you're liking. When looking at the mechanics and structure, once you're out of bed, there's a lot of flexibility for that. But if you get this stuff right, getting up early and that first gratitude, everything is going to be a lot, lot easier and a lot more effective. The key to your morning structure is to protect your mind. You have to protect your mind from outside stuff. So I like to talk about this dopamine. We get all these dopamine hits out there. Some are positive and some are negative. You want to protect your mind from any outside dopamine hits that you might get by getting on the phone right away. This is a tough one, especially if you use your phone for your alarm clock. If you're

telling the truth, do you use your phone for your alarm clock? And listen, it'll be good for you to tell the truth because the universe is always watching. If you don't, fantastic. But if you do use your phone, which I understand, it doesn't mean that you also should open the phone and start getting those outside in out of your controlled dopamine hits. So that's the key. No dopamine hits right away or by maybe turning on the TV, triggering stress and anxiety. You have to control the consumption, the intake in this fragile part of your morning. So think about it. If you move past your alarm and then open up social media and some sort of messaging app, you're putting your keys of trust into what the universe is offering you. You're not taking command of the day. So you're placing yourself at the disposal of an

outside stimulus if you do this the wrong way. And that would commandeer and take control of your mind. Remember, you want to become the dominant force of the day. Even in the absence of these dopamine hits, even if I don't look at my phone, I don't know if you're like me, you're most likely going to wake up feeling some sort of anxiety. Remember, there's a reason why we have to protect our mind, right? There's a lot of shit going on in the world, and you're still going to think about other things. Even in deep meditation, I think about other things. If you know that you're already going to have to overcome some stress and anxieties and maybe

even depression about yesterday's concerns, don't make it even harder on yourself. So if you don't do anything about it, it's going to drag on all day. So if you don't protect your mind and you allow these outside forces in, these dopamine hits, it's going to come with you all day, won't it? And then that'll attack your nervous system and put you in a state of survival all day long. Have you ever been through a whole day where you just feel like a victim and you feel like, I'm just, I'm in survival mode? It's interesting. I've tried to stop saying that. Even if I am in this, that, I try to stop saying it and affirming it because I don't want that. So I can actually have an attack on your nervous system. So in other words, the day starts to run you rather than you running the

day. So take command, protect your mind, protect the cranial vault because a lot of stuff is just easily coming in unless you protect it. Put a bouncer outside that door. So what do I do first? I get present and further nurture my state of gratitude. I go deeper into understanding what I'm grateful for. I give my wife a kiss. I think about my kids. I think about a roof over my head, my lungs that are breathing, my heart that's pumping, my eyes that work, my ears that work, all of that stuff, that I get to get up and I have another 24 hours and I thank the universe for that. I ask the universe how I can serve and things like that. So I nurture that. But then I also start my day after that. The first thing I do, I do grab a cup of coffee and I walk to a comfortable place. I have a very comfortable place where I do

my meditation and I do some transcendental meditation. By the way, very, very much into transcendental meditation and I follow this really cool 100 day course and it's free. If you want that, just put in the comments, TM for Transcendental Meditation. It's very easy to learn. I'm creating a 100 day course myself. That's 15 minutes of my time. Even if you did it for 10 minutes, super valuable. And the reason why is it further cultivates gratitude and it further allows that blank space because I'm about to go into action after this. So meditation. Oh, if you've never meditated, by the way, it's a lot easier than you think and you don't have to be good at it. You get good at it. I love it. It's one of my favorite, favorite things to do. And my preference, as I said,

is transcendental meditation, otherwise known as TM. If you're interested in that, just ask me, I'll give you a link to the YouTube channel that will take you through 100 days. Mine is going to come out soon enough, but either or it's awesome. So after my meditation, think about it. I'm rocking. I'm I'm ready to go. After my meditation, you have to control what you consume. Whatever it is that we consume with regularity ends up being what we assume with regularity. So now I have this blank space, and I'm just like perfectly poised to create and sculpt my day. And I've protected my brain from outside stimulus. I still haven't looked at my phone and things like that, are check messages. But what I do after meditation is I very, very instinctively, I select some sort of consumption,

whether it's podcast reading or watching a YouTube video, and I do that for 15 minutes. So I control what my brain receives in this blank state. I decide. I journal about that for 15 minutes after, and it's just wonderful to actually learn something that is intriguing and accesses conscious control. It can be in support of what you want to do. This morning I watched a really cool video that I've been fascinated with lately because it's part of that creative process.

And it spoke about the fact that the human brain is some really cool. stuff out there. And I'll give you this video if you want to. The human brain is kind of like very, very analogous to the universe. If you look at the universe and the stars and the webbing in between, you know, that connects everything in the ether and stuff like that. There's a lot of similarities that open up this theory that the universe may just be one huge, big, conscious brain. Now think about it. Here I am. All this other stuff wants to come into my brain, problems and challenges and all that stuff. And I'm going to tackle those that day, but I want to do it with grace. And here I am learning that the universe might just be one huge brain.

And we're just like a reflection and an extension of it. And I'm just like, hmm, isn't that cool? So by this time, think about it. Think about my mood. A lot of people say, how are you always in a good mood? So my mood and my focus are moving in the right direction, right? In the direction that I want, that I prefer, that suits me. And my energy is inspired.

Think about what that means to be inspired in the morning. If you want to inspire others and be inspiring, first you have to be. inspired. So I'm inspired at this point. So I'm not only set for a good day, but I'm set to help others. So then I do some sort of exercise, specifically cardio. Now, right now I'm working out with a trainer in the afternoon and a CrossFit gym, but I always work out in the morning. So I do some sort of cardio, basically continue the consumption. If I'm out there on my own and I'm running or I'm walking or something like that, I continue to nurture the consumption by listening to a podcast or something like that.

If I'm not going to listen to something that is nurturing my brain, I will do nothing and just let nature be that nurture. Isn't that kind of cool? So ready and set for a great day, I commit to some sort of high leverage action steps. That's the latter part. Remember, if you want my full schedule, just ask for it. I'll give it to you at no charge. I commit to high leverage action steps, healthy eating, just sensical things that support

my desired state. I fuel my body. My wife and I make this. beautiful smoothie. We use our Optovia protein. We put spinach in it and all this stuff. And it's just like we just feel like we're just nurturing ourselves and we're like, wow, look at this. We're ready for the day. Imagine if you didn't do any of these steps. Imagine how easily the day takes control of you. Man, if you do this. And it's not easy in the beginning. You got to push forward. So again, there's so much more to it. So just say great morning and I'll send you the link to that.

So extra bonus for those living with a partner, okay? This is really, really important because one of the major downfalls of personal growth in relationships, and just so you know, Chicken and I are about to announce our first relationship retreat. That is going to be amazing. It's going to be in October in this mansion in Costa Rica. We're only taking six couples, but if anybody's interested, I think we have two more spots of that. It's about renewal and reacquaintance and all of this stuff. It's going to be awesome.

but we're very focused on relationships. And one of the things that we do in the morning is we integrate some of this stuff together. Now, she gets up at a different time. She has a different schedule. But have you ever heard of the concept of in a relationship I'm sure you have of two ships passing in the night? I just want to maybe another disclaimer. Just remember, you can be in a relationship and you can be like fully locked in and committed. Because sometimes in relationships, your partner might not be as interested in a morning.

routine or something like that. Sometimes your partner's like, oh, great, they're out of bed. I get the whole bed now. Just recognize that if you go on this trajectory of growth without them, it's like leaving home. So in any way, shape, or form that you can integrate and prevent that two ships passing in the night concept, that's not going to work for you in the end. There's a misconception, and we'll talk about this on a retreat. There's a misconception with retreats, this idea of spending time alone away from one another. I understand the value of that, but if you're not, not connecting with your partner in the morning, at least, and at night, like briefing the day and then debriefing the day at the end, you're going to hit a wall at some point. You might have

hit that wall. You might want to come to our retreat. What I want to share with you is there's huge, huge value. This is your little bonus material. Huge value in building a structured morning and evening routine to support a healthy relationship with your spouse. And remember, our relationship's not perfect, but we've been through some serious adversity, my wife and I, for years. And we've come through it with grace, and we're stronger than ever. And we get stronger every day. And that's because a lot of our structure. So we have a morning and an evening routine just in case we don't see each other during the day. So a morning routine can help strengthen relationships by providing opportunities for connection and positive communication. My wife and the time that I spend with her in

the morning is very, very much a part of my day, very much a part of my day because if I go have a good day without her, I'm not having a good day by the end of the day, right? For one, it's a great way to start the day on a positive note relationship-wise. So one of the most important tools of a strong relationship is to provide time and open curiosity from one another and interest in one another's lives. Think about that right now. If you're in a relationship, think about how important it is for your partner to make time. That's a language of love, right? And provide some time in that time where you're open and curious and interested in what they think and what's going on in their life. If you skip that, think about what that could cause. So one of the things that we like to do is we like

to share the day ahead. And that's our briefing. That's the beginning. We do a walk together. So I integrate the cardio with my wife. We did it this morning. We're seeing the seasonal change. We're feeling a a little bit of the October coming, you know, in the Halloween, and we looked at some water and we laughed and all of that stuff, but we briefed the day ahead with one another. We exchanged feelings, events, excitement, struggles, fears, provided support and encouragement for one another. Wow, the day is like ready to go. Not only have I set my mind up and protected it and done all these things, but I've taken my partner with me. So we've established a positive structure of consistent communication, and we're always doing something in the morning routine.

Doesn't always work out perfectly, but saying something is easy to one another in the morning and greeting each other. We like to have what we call a kitchen hug. She comes down. I give her a cup of coffee. We have a hug in the kitchen. And I say great morning. And at night, I say good night to her as well, right?

We always have time. We like to shut up our technology an hour before dinner. And I learned that from one of my mentors, Wayne Anderson. And that's called twilight hour. But we don't just say good night and kiss each other. we debrief the day, we talk, and we have these certain areas of the house that we like to do that. What's your day like? How is your day? That can help acknowledge one another that you care, right? I mean, like if you're not asking your partner, what's ahead and how is your day, you're missing out on

this opportunity to provide open and curious mutual respect and appreciation for one another. Why did I add that in the end? Because the last thing I want, as we close out today, is to take my morning routine and have you go crush life and leave somebody behind that that is probably in the package of the things that matter most. Personal growth needs to have those people involved in it. Your kids as well. Think about that miss sometimes. We think personal growth, self-development. If you're in a relationship or you're a parent, you could just depart from the station and leave everybody behind. So just be careful of that. Love and appreciate you. This has been Make Sense Mondays. If you want to learn about our private community where we do this every day, it's called the Make Sense Academy.

Just say, I want to learn. So say, make sense. If you want the transcendental meditation, write TM. If you want to learn about a morning routine and you want a copy of that, all free stuff. Just say, great morning and I'll send that to you. Hey, love and appreciate you all. Remember this day. It has everything that you've ever hoped and dreamed for.

So enjoy it. Squeeze it for everything it's got. Have a good day. Makes sense.