I have another great book summary for you! I’ve just finished The 5am Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life, by Robin Sharma and I just couldn’t keep his teachings from you! Robin Sharma is a leadership expert, humanitarian and a bestselling author. The 5am Club is a #1 worldwide best seller and for good reason. It follows a fictional story of a billionaire, his mentor, The Spellbinder, and a struggling entrepreneur and artist. We’re taken on a journey across the globe as The Billionaire and Spellbinder teach The Entrepreneur and The Artist the importance of waking up early and show them the habits of a world class morning routine, leading them to happiness, fulfilment and ultimate success.
Again, there’s just waaay too much value in this book to squeeze into one newsletter so I’ll be breaking the summary into parts for you.
Here are some of the main points of the first part of the book…
- The most reliable way to produce the best results in your personal and professional life is to develop a world-beating morning routine. There is a way to start your day with purpose and energy, a pattern that will help you accomplish more and increase your mental and physical health. It all starts with waking up at 5am. It’s a way to escape mediocrity and achieve greatness. Getting up at this time increases creativity, doubles energy, and triples productivity.
- Everyone has a limited mental capacity or cognitive bandwidth. Throughout the day, we give our attention to more and more tasks: work, the news, interaction with others and social media. Our bandwidth gets used up by all of these so, by midday, we have a hard time truly concentrating on anything at all. By constantly shifting our focus, we don’t give anything enough attention. However, if you wake up at 5am, you have a golden opportunity to concentrate on a singular high-value activity without your brain getting distracted.
- This focus is further heightened by the concept of transient hypofrontality, which means that at 5am, you are well placed to reach a state of flow in your thinking process. This is because when you are experiencing a peaceful 5am start to your day, the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which handles rational thought, temporarily shuts down. So the inclinations to analyse, stress and worry are impaired. At the same time, the peace of daybreak spurs the production of neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. The result is that you can naturally enter a state of flow: being fully energised, focused and in the zone. If you get up at 5am, you’ll be more focused and productive for the whole day.
- If you want to be like the top 5%, you need to stop acting like the 95%. To achieve the same results as the top 5 percent of elite performers, you have to do what 95 percent of entrepreneurs, artists, and others are resistant to. Most people aren’t willing to get up at 5am, so if you are, you have a major competitive advantage.
- The greatest are not defined by their natural talent, but by the extent to which they capitalise. Self-discipline and perseverance can trump talent and giftedness.
I’ll end today’s summary with some of my fav quotes from the book 🙂
- The world needs more heroes and why wait for them -When you have it in you to become one
- Life is too short to play small with your talents.
- The great women and men of world were all givers not takers.
- Ideas are worth nothing unless backed by applications.
- The smallest of implementation is worth more than The Grandest of Intentions.
- World class begins where your comfort zone ends.
- The place where your greatest discomfort lies is also the spot where your largest opportunity lives.
- The moment when you most feel like giving up is the instant when you must find it in you to press ahead.
- Done is better than Perfect.
- Your surrounding really do shape your perceptions, your inspiration and your implementation.
- Don’t live as if you have ten thousand years left.
- You can fit in or you can change the world.
Feel like waking up earlier to achieve more yet? Hopefully this has planted the seed and inspired you if you’re not already, and once you’ve finished reading all the summaries and learning the strategies in the coming newsletters, you can join the 5am club too!
Have an outstanding week! And remember, early bird gets the worm 😉