The Nick Bare Podcast - 107: Why I Wake Up Every Morning at 4:30AM

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

An absolutely essential one for this week. I discuss the benefits of waking up early as a life hack, based on my personal experience of getting up at 4:30AM daily. This episode covers the importance of establishing nighttime and morning routines, the significance of sleep, and overcoming various life challenges, including balancing family, business, and personal goals. It also stresses the value of front-loading your day, time management, and habit stacking to achieve productivity and success. CHAPTERS 00:49 The Importance of Sleep 04:43 The Evolution of My Sleep Schedule 10:04 Family Dinner and Evening Routine 16:16 Nighttime Routine and Sleep Preparation 21:13 Morning Routine and Waking Up Early 27:46 Creating Time and Space in the Morning 29:50 Balancing Responsibilities and Uncertainty 34:57 The Power of Habit Stacking 41:36 The Benefits of Waking Up Early 46:44 How to Start Waking Up Early 52:06 Front Loading Your Day for Success 55:55 Concluding Thoughts on Waking Up Early MENTONS: Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, PhD https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316 FOLLOW: IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFE https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/pages/bpn-membership?srsltid=AfmBOorlpjVeag2kkt3eZ5UpWcFA5Bb2v5V_93lmO47Vn_Y8DRdLwDLL

What is going on, guys, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today, I'm talking all about why waking up early is a life hack. I wake up at 4.30 a.m. 7 days a week. I want to talk about why. I want to talk about the how and why I truly believe that waking up early is one of the greatest life hacks that you can learn, implement, adopt, and make it a habit. Make it a routine. It can change your life. Like I said, I wake up at 4.30 a.m. every single day.

Every single day. And I have been for years now. But before we dive into that, I want to make it very clear of what this message is not. This is not an anti-sleep. message. I am not promoting sleeping less. I am not saying that sleeping is bad. I think sleep is one of the greatest things you can implement, not implement, we all implement sleep, but one of the greatest things you can value and prioritize in your life. Priorizing sleep can also change your life, just in the same way that waking up early can change your life. There's a very. There's a

There should be and probably will be a part two to this episode that is more sleep as a life hack. While waking up early as a life hack, so is more sleep. Again, this is not anti-sleep. But the reality is, you know, I am a business owner. I am a husband. I am a father to two young children. My son is five months old. My daughter is two and a half years old.

the reality is that in different seasons in chapters of life, we require focus. We have to decide where and what we spend our time on doing, we have to be resourceful. And there are tradeoffs. There are opportunity costs to where we decide to spend our time on what, doing what, with who. And the reality right now for me is that there are some nights where I do not get a lot of sleep. There have been a lot of those nights over the 13 years of building my company and being in the military and leading a team and building a family. They've run lots of different seasons in chapters of life where there are times I'm getting adequate, significant. sleep and there are some times in some chapters where I'm not getting much at all. And the reality is

that there are days, there are nights that I am willing, I choose to sleep less because there's an opportunity cost for something that I want to do or need to do that next day. We might be in a very busy season of business with big projects that are pursuing. I might have the these big training goals. And I decide to sleep less so that I can still accomplish the goals that I want to, pursue and chase down these objectives and these projects that we're working on without sacrificing time with my family, with my wife, with my kids. So we all know that sleep is significant.

We all know sleep is important. And to operate at our highest level, we should be getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night. Eight hours is ideal, right? But sometimes that doesn't happen. And that is the reality. I see a lot of people online talking about how they have to get eight hours of sleep a night.

It is a non-negotiable no matter what. And I respect that. I do. But there are things that I am working on and towards and I have these big goals and objectives and I'm ambitious, right? I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast, you are too. And there again, chapters and seasons of life where we have to pull back on our sleep a little bit to prioritize other things. That is just the reality of it.

Now, why is sleep important? I recommend that you go read this book at some point. It's a long book. It's called Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. And Matthew Walker has been on a bunch of different other podcasts, and he's done interviews, talking about the importance of sleep. The book is titled, like I said, Why We Sleep. And when you listen to Matthew talk about sleep and the importance of and what happens when we don't get enough sleep or prioritize it, it's probably going to want to make you prioritize sleep. I know whenever I listen to an episode or something he says or does,

it makes me look at my life in the way that I prioritize other things compared to sleep and it makes me want to prioritize sleep a little bit more. But sleep is essential for recovery, productivity, hormone regulation, or mental, physical energy. When you reduce sleep, when you're not getting enough sleep, that it increases our all-cause mortality rate, we are more likely to die earlier on in our life when we were strict sleep. And one of the things I found very interesting that he talks about

is that it's very rare for someone to go from sleeping, say, eight to nine hours a night to five hours a night. very few people, myself included, have chipped away at our sleep in one big chunk. And it's usually progressive. And maybe you guys can relate to this as well. This is certainly what has happened to me over the years as my responsibilities have increased. And my business has grown. I became a husband.

I became a father, like I said. I put these bigger goals on the scoreboard and I started pursuing them. Or say when I used to get eight hours of sleep one day years and years and years ago, and say I was maybe going to sleep at 10 p.m. and waking up at 6 a.m. And at some point, still going to bed at 10 p.m. but 6 a.m. became 5.30 a.m. And then 5.30 a.m. became 5 a.m. became 4.45 a.m. and then 4.45 a.m. became 4.30 a.m. And there are mornings when I wake up at 4 or 4.15, depending on what I have that next morning or that next day. And I can tell physically and mentally when I don't get enough sleep the night prior.

I mean, I can feel it the whole next day. Mental, physical energy, you feel a little. zombieed, you're drawn more towards caffeine sources. Maybe you pour that second or third cup of coffee in the early morning. And that is what has happened to me over the years is, like I said, 6 a.m. became 530, 5, 445, 430, sometimes earlier. But I thought it was a very interesting observation that it's very rare for someone to go from significant and adequate amount of sleep to overnight digging themselves into a hole. As our responsibilities increase, as we pursue greater and harder and more challenging, we start pulling back on that sleep time, we start waking up earlier to accomplish the things that we want to and need to accomplish.

So I wanted to really hammer in early on in this episode that, again, this message is not anti-sleep. It's not, but waking up early is and can be a life hack if you do it right. And there's reasons that I wake up at 4.30 a.m. every single morning. And I will continue to do that for the foreseeable future. because it allows me to do the things that I want to do. It has allowed me to accomplish a lot in my life. It has set my day, my weeks, my months, years up for success. And I would encourage you, if you can, try it.

But there has to be purpose, there has to be reason behind it. So I want to talk about my nighttime and my morning routine before talking about why waking up early as a life hack. So last night, I got seven hours of sleep. And for me, seven hours is great. I can operate very, very well off seven hours of sleep. went to bed at 9.30 p.m. last night, woke up at 4.30 a.m. this morning. Now, talk about how that routine kind of works. Now, in the evening, after dinner, we start our nighttime routine, essentially.

Having a two and a half year old and then a five-month-old, we try to sit down at the dinner table together as a family as much as possible. And I would say we do it successfully five to six days a week. Sometimes we end up just standing at the counter in the kitchen, the island or the bar, and just pulling things out of the fridge, making bowls and then eating it on the go. That is maybe once or twice a week. But for us as a family, we have made it a really strong priority and value. that we sit down and have family dinners at night.

Like I grew up having family dinners, whether we were sitting at the kitchen table or we were sitting at the bar. My mom would make dinner most nights during the week. And she'd cook it. We'd have like our go-to dinner. She'd leave it on the stove. We'd go make our plates. Back when I was in middle school and high school and early college, that's back when me and my

brother would go back for seconds and thirds and fourths sometimes. We could just eat like no other. We'd sit down at the bar or the dinner table and we'd have a conversation. We'd talk about the day. We'd talk about what was going on with sports that we were playing at the time or school or just things with the family. And that was instilled into me when I was younger. And the same thing occurred and happened in my wife's family.

So it became part of our family's ritual and routine. And I'll be honest, with two young kids, sometimes family dinners are an absolute shit show. I mean, it typically ends up where Charlie is on the table or on our lap and we're feeding her some of the food that we were eating off our plates. one of us is holding Nico, our five-month-old, to keep him, like, somewhat content. The dogs are trying to counter-surf our food on the island behind us. And one of us ends up eating, standing up, the other one ends up sitting by themselves at the table. That happens about 95% of the time.

You know, it's never like this picture-perfect family dinner, but it is important to us that we make the meal together, we sit down together, and then we try to finish the meal together. One of my favorite ways to finish these dinners, because we make a lot of steaks, we make a lot of pork chops. I love grilling, barbecuing, especially meat that has bone in it. My daughter, Charlie, she has found this love for steaks with bones in it or pork chops with bones in it or we'll do like chicken drumsticks, chicken thighs with bones in it. And when all chaos is occurring at the dinner table, me and my daughter are sitting next to each other or she's on my lap and we're both eating a piece of meat off of a bone, that for me is like all things are right in this world. Nothing can get better than that.

We're cheering our rib-eye steak bones as we gnaw that piece of meat off the bone until there's nothing left. I mean, picking every piece of meat off of it. It's my favorite things to do. That's a long way to say. Our evening routine starts with family dinner at the table. And after that, we start our bedtime routine. And Steph and I divide and conquer. So we throw all the dishes in the sink.

And right now, this period of our life, Steph takes my son, Nico, and she takes him to get a bath and prepares bottle and get him ready for bed, which is honestly the shorter time duration of the two, I take Charlie. And because she normally doesn't finish her meal at dinner, we have this thing called bath snack.

So I create a small plate of leftovers and I bring it with me into her bathroom. And we make her bath. She eats her bath snack at the edge of the bathtub. Like last night it was leftover chicken and potatoes and broccoli. And then we do the whole bath time routine, brush her teeth, comb her hair, put her jammies on. And then I sit in a chair with her, read her a few books. And she asked to talk.

So we talk, I ask her what she wants to talk about. And she typically lets me tell stories. I'll just share stories of my childhood or when she was a baby younger and stories of building BPN, the business. I just talk to her. Like she's a mid-30-year-old friend of mine. And I just share with her all these stories. And I finally get her down into bed. and me and my wife rendezvous in the kitchen around the island

and we just sit there with a moment of silence. And that's typically around 8, 8.30 p.m. By the time we've gotten all that stuff done. And then it's prep for the next day. So both my wife and I were big fans of setting the next day up for success the night before and backwards planning. So I will prep all of my meals for the next day to take to work. I will lay out all my clothes I need for the next morning, for my morning run,

lay out my supplements, prep everything. I'm a big fan. I'm just preparing as much as possible the night prior to set my next day up for success. Forward thinking and backwards planning. And after all of that is done, I will try to find some time to hop in the sauna for 15 to 20 minutes. And I try to be in bed by 9.30 p.m. That is our goal right now.

Does it happen all the time? No. But we really try, after the kids go down, it is a sprint to try to get in bed as fast as possible. So we can hopefully get seven hours of sleep. For me, seven hours of sleep is ideal right now. And 30 minutes before getting to bed, I take four gummies of peak sleep. So peak sleep is our nighttime sleep support supplement. We recently just reformulated that product to be in a gummy formula.

Previously, it was in a powder. So we launched peak sleep about two years ago now. And it was initially in a chocolate and in an apple cinnamon flavored powder. And recently we just relaunched that product to be in a gummy now. So four gummies per serving, they're absolutely delicious. I look forward to them every single night. Like I said, about 30 minutes before going to sleep. It's hard sometimes to just eat four because they are they're that good, naturally flavored, naturally sweetened.

And the goal with peak sleep is that we didn't want to create a product that would knock you out, put you to sleep so that you woke up the next morning feeling tired and groggy and fatigued. I've used sleep supplements in the past that have done that. They were habit forming. Peak sleep is non-habit forming. And I personally don't enjoy using melatonin because when I use melatonin, I'll wake up the next morning feeling groggy, fatigued, and tired. So we created and formulated peak sleep to be, like I said, non-habit-forming and melatonin-free.

So it's magnesium, levigen plus, 5-HTP, GABA, and theanine. And the goal with peak sleep was to help you relax, reduce brain activity, wind you down, bring you to a natural calm sleep state so you fall asleep faster. You have deeper, higher quality sleep throughout the night and you wake up feeling rested and refreshed as opposed to hungover, groggy, trying to pull yourself out of bed. Fall asleep faster, higher quality, deeper sleep, and then waking up feeling better. peak sleep is much more than a sleep support supplement. It is truly a performance and recovery supplement.

So you can wake up the next day and attack that day. Attack your training. Going to your workout and feeling better or feeling stronger. Feeling and being more recovered. So I take peak sleep, like I said, four gummies, 30 minutes before going to sleep. And then once my head hits the pillow, I mean, I am out. I am out fast. If any of you guys are married or in a relationship, you live with someone, you guys get

to bed together at night, your significant other tries to spark conversation. Like there are nights where I'm trying to hold on for dear life and I'm trying to respond to the best of my ability because my eyes, like once my head hits the pillow, those eyes start closing and I'm out. I am out. I don't wake up until my alarm clock goes off. I've never had trouble sleeping. And I stay active.

I stay moving throughout the day. I mean, I average about 20,000 steps every single day. That when it's bedtime, oh, it's bedtime. It's sleep time. So that's my nighttime routine. Now, my morning routine,

let's start getting into the meat and potatoes of, of waking up early and why it is a life hack, how it has changed my life. That alarm clock goes off at 4.30 a.m. Every day, I jump out of bed. I love my mornings. I love my morning routine. It sets the foundation of my day. But I'm going to sleep at night and I'm preparing to go to sleep at night.

I'm excited for that next day. I'm excited for the potential of what it could be, what it will be. I'm excited to, to make progress, to do, to achieve. You get excited for each additional day of life. So that alarm clock goes off at 4.30 a.m. And I instantly go out into the kitchen. I eat a go bar. and I consume two scoops of G1M Sport.

So this is me initially waking up and fueling for that morning run. And that morning run is going to start about 45 minutes to an hour after waking up. So one go bar, two scoops of G1Sport. That's 76 grams of carbs total, about 800 milligrams of sodium with the gobar and the G1M sport. And then I mix up a bottle for Nico. And this is so routine. I mean, I do six ounces of water, three scoops formula. Because you have to do one scoop of formula per two ounces of water.

And I mean, I'm just walking you guys through exactly what I, my steps, my exact steps in the morning. Because I keep my supplements in the same, same room. It's our pantry as where the formula is, the water, everything. And I go into Nico's room and he's typically stirring at that time or I'll wake him up to give him that bottle to buy us a few more hours in the morning. Because my fear right now is that if I don't give him that bottle, that he might wake up an hour after I leave. I'm still running. Steph is in the middle of her morning routine and we like our morning routines right now. Now, for anyone who has kids, whether they're young or old, you probably know that routines aren't guaranteed and you oftentimes have to be flexible and pivot.

So this routine that we're living in right now might not be the routine tomorrow or next month, but this has been our routine right now. We went through a period of life and chapter with Charlie where she was waking up at 4 a.m. every single morning. and I was with her just killing time for a few hours, and she was wide awake. But I go into Nico's room, I wake him up, I change him, I give him that bottle, I then come back out into the kitchen, and I start getting dressed and prepared for my morning run. And during that preparation, I'll get my clothes on, do some light stretching, I'll check emails, and then I'll catch up on a little bit of work. just the necessity stuff

to kind of make some more free time for that morning to really focus on things that move the needle, things that I want to prioritize. And then from there, I go out into the garage, put my shoes on, and go for that run.

Now, right now I'm in marathon prep. So Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday is easy, 10-mile runs. Wednesday is a speed workout that rotates between a track workout and tempo. And then Saturdays are my long runs. Saturdays I'm still waking up at 4.30 a.m. and going through the same routine.

I just get back a little bit later. And right now I'm running roughly 65-ish miles a week, being coached by Jeff Cunningham. I want to get back from that morning run because I run in our neighborhood so I leave from the house. I come back to the house. I get back. My wife is up. Our kids are still asleep. I make breakfast.

I take my supplements. And then as soon as I'm finished doing all of that, Charlie is just waking up. It's timed almost perfect right now. Get Charlie up. Make her breakfast. hang out with her a little bit. Nico starts waking up, and then by 7, 45, 8 a.m.,

both Steph and I have finished our morning workout. The kids are up. We're preparing for the day, getting ready to go into work. That is our nighttime routine. That is our morning routine. And it works for this chapter. It works for the season of life. Now, I could easily, not easily, but the other option is that both my wife and I, both Steph and I,

we sleep in, we sleep in until the kids wake up, and that entire morning is reactive. We're blocking and tackling. And we don't have time to set the conditions for the day. We don't have time to take care of our personal. health and fitness, our first workout, our first meal of that day, getting things set up and prepared. I don't want to live a life. I don't want to set up my day personally in a reactive state already behind. I want to start each day in a proactive state. I want to set the conditions for my morning.

I want to create the time and space so I don't have to find it later. If you create the time and space, I think this is very important. If you create the time and space, you don't have to find it later. Think about that. If I create the time and space early on in the day, if I wake up early and create that time and space for myself, for my relationship, for my spouse, for my health, for my family. If I create that time and space, I'm not forced to try and find it later. Like I mentioned earlier on in this episode, there's opportunity cost and there's

tradeoffs of where we spend our time and our energy. I personally, we personally, are responsible for creating the time and space to get the things done that we need to do in order to reach the goals that we've established. And when you're in a reactive state of mind, when you don't set the conditions, when you're trying to find time, you are, I would argue, being irresponsible and there's a massive tradeoff. There's a huge opportunity cost when you're trying to find the time. I want to knock out my responsibilities.

I want my personal responsibilities. I want to set myself up to accomplish my goals, set the conditions, show up for my obligations early on where I can create time and space so I have to find it later. Because what happens if you don't create the time and space early and you're trying to find it later, is that opportunity cost, that tradeoff is time with your family, energy away from your family, time away from your job, your work, your professional

goals, your other personal goals outside of what you could have done early on in the morning. You don't have to wake up and go for a run. You don't have to wake up and work out. You don't have to wake up and prepare your meals or make breakfast or any of those things. That's what works for me. But imagine the things you could do based off your other responsibilities and obligations in life

with those early moments early in that day when you're creating the time and space as opposed to trying to find it later. This for me is the greatest life hack that I currently implement and have adopted into my life because of the season and chapter of life that I'm in.

Like I said, I'm... a husband, I'm a business owner, and a leader. We have 40 full-time employees here at BP and HQ that I am responsible for. I have two young kids, a two and a half year old and a five-month-old. There's a lot of uncertainty in my day with those responsibilities and those obligations. And when there's a lot of uncertainty in the back half of your day, things happen. with business. You're putting out fires. Meetings pop up. Meetings go late. Kids get sick. Dinner goes late. The kids don't go down for their normally scheduled bedtime.

The routines are great, but responsibilities are greater. And if you get so rigid and stuck in a routine, what happens that when unforeseen circumstances, or uncertainty arises, that routine goes out the window, and now you have to prioritize responsibilities. And if you list your responsibilities in order of priority and importance, some things just have to go before the others. So I create my morning routine. I wake up early so that I can do the things that I want and need to get done for me

so that when uncertainty strikes later in the day, I know, well, I've already got my personal obligations. I've already gotten the things that I personally want to work towards and for done. Check. Completed. Whatever else happens on the day, I know I set the conditions to succeed. I accomplish the things that no one can take away from me

because I've already knocked them out before. everyone else has woken up. Life can throw me curveballs back half the day, and that's okay. I will adapt. I will pivot. I will adjust. But it's not going to affect or influence my ability to accomplish the things that I want to do because I got it done at 4.30 a.m.

I knocked out my morning run. I responded to those emails. I got those things done. And it's another life hack waking up early is because it instills time management. I mean, time management is a skill that anyone can adopt and implement. Time management is a personal responsibility. And if you don't manage your time appropriately, that's no one else's fault. That's something that we have to personally, individually own.

So if you're not creating the time and space early on and you're trying to find it later and you start your day and things happen and arise and change, if you can't get to the things that you wanted to get done because uncertainty happened, well, unfortunately, because you didn't manage your time appropriately and you didn't wake up early and get it done, there's, no one else to blame but yourself. That's the way that I personally think about it and view it. And that's why I wake up at 4.30 a.m. There's things that I want to get done and I don't want the back half of the day's uncertainty to affect that. There's this thing called habit stacking that is another great life hack that comes with waking up early. And the way that I personally stack habits, there's a bunch of different ways that I stack habits throughout my day. But early on, this is a good example,

is that when I go for my morning run, I also either listen to an audiobook or a podcast. what I used to do before having a family, before I had all of these responsibilities and things that I had to show up for. And when there was more certainty in the back half of my day and throughout my day, I would separately go for my run

and I would separately read a book, listen to an audio book, listen to a podcast. I would do them separately. But after having kids, realizing that time is limited, and I am responsible for managing that time, I started stacking some of these habits, some of these routines. So I now listen to an audiobook or podcast while I'm running. I have 75 minutes almost every single morning, six days a week,

at least 75 minutes. of opportunity time to learn, to educate myself, to expand my knowledge on a topic, whether that's fitness, family, business. I listen to sermons sometimes when my morning runs instead of an audiobook or a podcast. I can listen to an audiobook in about a week, week and a half right now. I can consume so much information and gain so much insight and perspective and knowledge by habit stacking. Now, I'll be honest, when I first started running and running was more challenging for me,

and I'm going to use this as an example, but it's applicable to all things. Like habit stacking typically cannot be done overnight. You can't go from doing nothing to doing two things at once. When I first started running, running was challenging, running was hard, running was uncomfortable. And the entire time I was running, I was trying to fight this mental resistance to want to stop, to want to quit, to want to slow down. if I would have tried to listen to an audiobook or podcast or anything while I was running back then, I wouldn't have consumed any of that content. It would have been background noise the entire time.

I would have been so focused on the run and my breathing and the effort that I wouldn't have been able to actually digest anything that was going through my ears. but over time you get better at one thing, you become more efficient, you can almost go into autopilot. And what started happening, the more I started running, and it became easier,

and it wasn't as much of an effort, and I could just go into an autopilot type scenario, my brain would start wondering. I would forget I was actually running, and I'd think about issues I was, dealing with in terms of the business, or I think of new creative strategies to market the brand, things that I wanted to accomplish, I would just start thinking, like my brain would go all over the place, it'd be firing on all cylinders when I was running.

And realizing then that I was becoming more efficient, running was becoming easier, my mental bandwidth and capacity wasn't consumed by the challenge of running, but it was going elsewhere, that's when I started exploring, listening to audiobooks and podcast and consuming content while running. And I was able to have it stack when one thing became,

I don't want to say seamless, but I became more efficient at that one thing. We can't expect to be able to have it stack early on instantaneously. But as we become efficient at one thing and I don't want to say

we master it, but it becomes easier. We then can add more habits on top of that. So now my mornings are habits stacked. So it's a life hack in itself.

Habit stacking where I'm knocking two things out at once. I'm killing two birds with one stone. I am getting in my workout. I am working towards my physical fitness goals, this marathon goal. And I'm also consuming content that is helping me grow personally and professionally. That 75-minute run in the morning is some of my most productive time in my entire day. That sets the conditions. I know my kids are still asleep. I know my wife is

going through her morning routine back at the house. It's still dark out. The world itself is waking up. My emails aren't blowing up. Phone isn't blowing up. There are no distractions. There's nothing pulling me out of that headspace. That time is mine. That time is for me. That time that I created, a time and space that I created is setting the conditions for a successful day. That time is is certainty. I don't have to fight uncertainty. I don't have to fight disruptions or disturbances. That is my time because I created it.

I'm not trying to find it later on. I created this time for me. Again, it's why it's one of the greatest life hacks that you can implement waking up earlier. Some people are morning people. Some people are nighttime people. I recognize that. I personally have always been a more.

morning person. I love the mornings. So maybe waking up early doesn't make sense for you. And that's okay. I'm not here to say you have to wake up early. I'm here to share what has worked for me and why I wake up at 4.30 a.m. and why I continue to wake up at 4.30 a.m. Like I mentioned, when it's early and it's dark and it feels like the entire world is sleeping, my phone isn't going off, emails aren't pinging, Slack isn't being flooded, which Slack is the messaging platform we use for the business. There's very limited distractions, but there's a lot of focus. And that's where I get a lot of deep work done. That's where I get a lot of intentional thinking done. That for me is solitude. I was actually having this conversation with Sawhill Bloom a few weeks ago when he came on

the podcast and we were talking about solitude and how important it is for us to spend time by ourselves in our own thoughts. And I found it very interesting where he asked, of this time you are by yourself, do you still have your phone with you? Because the argument is if you still have your phone with you, you're really not by yourself. You're still connected. Now, when I'm running, Yes, I have my phone with me, but it's because I'm consuming some type of content, valuable information. I'm not connected to the outside of world. I'm not engaging with other people or content.

So there's an argument there. Am I alone? Is that real solitude? My argument is yes. Because even when I'm listening to these audiobooks and these podcasts sometimes, my brain will drift off. and that audio book, those words, those sounds, the conversations, they become background noise because the content itself has sparked some sort of thought, provocative thought that I am now

exploring in the depths of my mind and I eventually come back to the content. But I will oftentimes tune out what I'm listening to and explore these caves of discovery in my mind as I'm running. So there's almost like a third habit stack on top of the additional two. I think it's important that we all create some sort of time and space for deep work, for solitude, for intentional thinking. Because if we don't have that, it's really hard to visualize the potential of what we're working on or towards.

When we're constantly distracted, when we're constantly connected, at least I know when I'm constantly distracted and connected, it's really hard for me to form my own thoughts, opinions, perspectives, visions. Some of my best visions and ideas come when I'm by myself in silence. I'm on a run. I'm consuming some sort of content. I let my brain just wonder. and go elsewhere. Those are some of the most powerful moments of my day. And I know for a fact,

I couldn't find that during my lunch break. I couldn't find that in the evening because I'm mentally and physically fatigued to that point. The morning for me is it's a fresh start. It's a clean slate. My mind is clear. My mind is fresh. My thoughts are new. And I want to utilize that type of energy as much as possible. That same energy isn't there. Those same thoughts aren't there midday after work in the evening before bed. They're most clear in the morning right when I wake up. And I want to take advantage of those as much as possible.

So for a lot of people, the question is oftentimes, well, how do you start waking up early? And I kind of teed this up, you know, earlier on saying, And talking about how Matthew Walker has explained that most people don't go from eight hours of sleep to five hours to sleep. I think it's best to find consistency in the times you go to sleep and the times you wake up. If you can be consistent with when you go to sleep and when you wake up, you can build routines around that. So you might have to slowly teach your body how to wake up a little bit earlier. And with that, you might have to start going to sleep a little bit earlier to make sure

you're getting enough sleep to prioritize sleep still, which, again, depending on the chapter and season of life you're in, might be hard, might not even be possible right now. That's the truth, depending on your work and your job and your responsibilities and your family and all these different things. But if you can, if you're willing and able, maybe right now you naturally allow yourself to sleep until 7 a.m. And then you're reacting to the day in the morning and you're just trying to get called up to get ready for work and get to your job. Well, instead of waking up at 7 a.m., maybe you start waking up at 6.30 a.m. And a few weeks later, you wake up at 6 a.m.

And a few weeks later, you wake up at 5.30. Then a few weeks later, you wake up at 5. And you start slowly teaching your body how to wake up earlier. Again, and maybe at the same time, going to sleep a little bit earlier. Allow for this adaptation period so it's not zero to 100. But I think it's really important to establish a routine. You don't have to be married to this routine. You don't have to do this routine religiously every single day.

I mean, my morning routine is pretty locked in. And I probably have like a 95% success rate with this routine and being dialed and locked in because it works for me. I think it's important to establish a routine, nighttime and for your morning because that will help facilitate the consistency. and consistency around sleep, around these evening and morning routines is critical. It's very important. But almost more important is having a plan. When you wake up earlier, how are you spending that time? Are you waking up early just to wake up?

Are you waking up early going to the kitchen, making your coffee, sitting there at the table saying, now what? well, how do you want to utilize that time to be productive? How you're going to maximize that part of the day where again, distractions are limited. Your phone's not blowing up. Social media isn't pinging left and right. Notifications aren't blowing off the walls. Limited connectivity.

Early on in the day is, easier to achieve than mid-morning, afternoon, evening. But having a plan, like making a do-list. What am I going to do within this routine every single morning and manage my calendar as effectively as possible to make sure I'm maximizing that time? I'm a big fan of to-do list. I have a to-do list on my phone. it's locked at the bottom, you know, the bottom screen where I have like my phone icon, text messages,

email, and my to-do list. In my to-do list, I'm constantly adding things to it throughout the day and checking them off, adding to and checking them off. And if I don't have anything that's extremely demanding in the morning when I wake up as I'm going through my routine, I will just try to chip. way at the to-do list. Get as much done early on as possible. So then later in the day, I can focus on these big picture needle-moving objectives,

ideas, projects, spending time with my family, sitting down with my team, working on these big initiatives within BPN. I'm a big fan of having a to-do list. But how to start waking up earlier? Slowly chip away. allow for a period of adaptation. Don't go zero to 100, have a plan

and manage that plan appropriately. Why this is going to potentially change your life and how it's changed my life is this concept of front-loading your day. And this is all part of forward thinking and backwards planning. But the way I think of front-loading my day

is I want to get as much done as possible earlier on in the day. I'm going to create the time and space, as I've already stated, early on when my energy is at its highest. I just woke up. I'm rested. I'm refreshed. I'm recovered. Mental and physical energy is at its highest. There is limited mental fatigue from conversations and actions and behaviors and movement. You are at, your best earlier on in the day, I want to front load these very important things that I'm working towards when my mental and physical energy is at its highest and it's freshest. And when you front load your day, it also reduces the risk of not getting things done later

on in the day. And for me, it allows for what I consider free evenings. And I think back to my life years ago, again, when business responsibilities weren't as demanding, I wasn't married, I didn't have kids, I could spread my workload pretty evenly from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. And I think back to when I first started documenting this whole journey on YouTube, I would start filming videos at 6 a.m. I would film until 5 p.m. While running and building the business, then I'd have dinner, and then I'd sit down on my couch,

and I would upload all of the footage from that day into my computer, and I would edit that YouTube video from 6.30 p.m. until 11, 11.30 midnight. Spent hours editing, upload to the whole thing the next day. because, again, my responsibilities weren't as demanding. There was more certainty in my day. I could space things out, but now as responsibilities are greater, I can't space those things out because, again, responsibilities, obligations.

So if I front load as much as possible, and that's why I wake up early at 430, front load as much as possible, my evenings I consider free. And when I get off of work and I get home, that time is now for my family. That time is to prepare meals together. That time is for our bedtime routines. That is just time where I can be present and active with my wife and my kids. And again, there are seasons in chat.

chapters where I have to work during those hours or travel or something is very demanding and a project needs to be pushed forward. And I'm not always at home in the evening or we can't always do family dinners. But I try to now set up my schedule to allow as much time as possible to have these free evenings with the people I love, doing things I love, and being mentally and physically present. That's why I wake up at 4.30 a.m. every morning. And that's why waking up early is a life hack. So thanks for tuning in, guys.

Appreciate all the love and support. This is something that is honestly made a big impact on my life. And there's a reason I keep doing it every single morning. There's a reason it works for me. And I believe that if you want to create the, time and space, waking up earlier can be a life hack for you. So you're not forced to try to find that time and space later. So we'll see you in the next episode.