Transformation Tuesday: Win Your Morning

On this episode of the podcast we have a Morning Routine edition of our Transformation Tuesday webinar.

This week, we talked about how to win your morning and why the way you start your day determines how the rest of it goes. We break down the routines of experts like Andrew Huberman, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and his 3 M's (mindfulness, movement, and mindset), Dr. Shriram Nene's "hour of power," and neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki's tea meditation. We also go all the way back to Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics to show that the struggle to build a routine is nothing new.

Plus, our five simple, transformative habits that cost you nothing.

Transformation Tuesday goes live every week on John's Facebook page (facebook.com/johntesh), where you can also join the Transformation Tuesday group. 

And for daily encouragement, sign up for the free Intelligence for Your Life newsletter.

For more information, and to sign up for our private coaching, visit tesh.com

Our Hosts:
John Tesh: Instagram: @johntesh_ifyl facebook.com/JohnTesh
Gib Gerard: Instagram: @GibGerard facebook.com/GibGerard X: @GibGerard

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm Gib Gerard here with another one of our Transformation Tuesday episodes of the show. This is where we take our weekly broadcast, Transformation Tuesday, which is all about helping you get from the place you are to the place you want to be, and we turn it into a podcast episode. So you are going to hear what it's like to to be a part of Transformation Tuesday. If you would like to be a part of Transformation Tuesday, we go live on John's Facebook page. So Facebook.com/slash John Tesh, where you can also join the Transformation Tuesday Facebook group. That's where we interact the most with our goals and our desires to change and grow, and using intelligence for life. Our years of research in reporting on the latest research, and we bring it to bear for your life. So that is Transformation Tuesday. If you like this kind of content, sign up for our newsletter link in the show notes. We send a small newsletter every day with actionable stuff, actionable information that you can use to change your life for the better. All of that's available to you absolutely free of charge, just like this podcast. So, without further ado, here is our Transformation Tuesday broadcast with me and John Tesh. Hello. everybody, and welcome to our Transformation Tuesday weekly webinar. We are so excited to have you guys here. We are having some issues with our Zoom. If you guys normally watch on Zoom, you are missing out right now. So we're going to try to get you guys over to Facebook as quickly as possible because for whatever reason it is it is you have ghosts in the machine today, so we're trying to figure that out. I'm Gib Gerard alongside John Tesh. We are going to be talking about how to win your morning today, specifically the morning routines that give you the best bang for your buck, the most what's the word I'm looking for? The the best way to start your day, because we have talked multiple times about how how you start your day determines how your whole day goes. So the routines that you put in place in the morning, we've been talking a lot about procrastination. We've been talking a lot about finding your goals. You can't achieve your goals if your days are not packed with the kind of psychological edge that you need in order to win your day, so that's what we're going to be talking about today. But first, we want to talk to you guys about if you guys like the kind of content that we put out here on the Facebook page, all across Intelligence for Your Life, on the radio, podcast, all of that. You need to have. You need to get the daily Intelligence for Life John Tesh newsletter. It comes right to your inbox. It gives you actionable things that you can do every single day. If if you're looking to just get that slight improvement, that that little bit of edge, this is how you do it. You can sign up, and Chrissy will put the link in the show notes or in the in the comments for you guys to be able to join us with and subscribe to our daily newsletter. John, what say you about that? Well, what we've been concentrating on for the last two or three weeks is sleep hacks. So there are when you sign up, you will get. We were at the tail end of of this flurry of sleep hacks, and we're and we're transitioning into brain hacks this next week, and then we'll start back again with sleep. And because one of the reasons is we have an enormous amount of of intelligence surrounding sleep hygiene, the foods you should eat, you shouldn't eat at at night before sleep-because part of what we do every day on the radio show is we're connected to all these high-level researchers, doctors, nutritionists, PhDs, authors, and so we get their stuff and we we turn like 10,000-page reports into into like two minutes, you know, and so it only takes about two minutes to read these emails. But you'll find something in there, a nugget. And what's really interesting is that you know when you send out an email, and we have 100,000 email subscribers right now, is you can instantly see what people are are reacting to. And so our our key areas are right now are getting a better night's sleep. Part of it is because we're just all of us going through whatever stress level we have now has been amplified just because of the uncertainty. I mean, finances, war, grandchildren-you know, all grandchildren's on that list. That's just my life, and so so yeah, it's pretty easy. Just click on the link that Christy puts in there and in the Facebook chat. Send it to your friends, and you will. And you can unsubscribe anytime if you don't like the stuff. But I guarantee you, you'll find something in there that you want to share with a friend and help them along. Absolutely. So, guys, check that out if you are interested. In getting that into your inbox, it will help you move the needle because that's what we're all about. For those of you that are new to Transformation Tuesday, our whole concept is getting you from the place you are to the place you want to be, and we are working to unlock that with a variety of different ways. So, to that end, our focus today is going to be on the morning routine, on winning your morning. And if you guys have been paying attention, if you guys have been on the on the Zoom for a long time, you've been on the Facebook a few times. You know that we have our five key habits that help you do that. These are things that cost you nothing, that only take five to 10 minutes, that make a huge impact on your life. Number one is you're going to want to wake up at the same time every day and make your bed. That sort of is the of our five easy habits. That is the linchpin for a morning routine. That is what starts this concept for you guys. But we are going to talk about how to we take those five simple habits and we want to build on those right and make our lives a little bit better. The number one again, wake up at the same time every day and and make your bed. So here is Andrew Huberman, whom we've had on the show a whole bunch of times. We have used his info a whole bunch. He is he's he is a physician, but he mostly focuses on research and science communications. And here he is talking about what he believes are the best things to do for a morning routine. We'll unpack it on the other side of it. For me, I tend to wake up sometime around 6 a.m. 6:30, and I write down the time in which I woke up. The second thing I do after I wake up is I make a beeline for sunlight. So getting outside for a 10-minute walk or a 15-minute walk is absolutely vital to mental and physical health. We get back. I purposely delay my caffeine intake to 90 minutes to 120 minutes after I wake up. So for me, I just drink water. I also put a little bit of sea salt in the water, and I also drink my Athletic Greens, which is compatible with fasting. So I don't eat anything until about 11 a.m. or 12 noon. Next, I would do a 90-minute bout of work, and that's typically phone off and out of the room. You'd be amazed how much you can get done in 90 minutes if you are focused. After I finish, I do some form of physical exercise for about an hour. Very last, but certainly not least, deliberate cold exposure, and that's what I do each morning. And I'm certain that these tools work. Yeah. So that's that's that's that's Andrew Huberman, right? And and I guarantee you that no matter what he says, there are mornings where he's got to be on somebody else's podcast, or he's got to be on a television show, or or it's raining outside, or something like that. And and I'm not putting them down or anything. I'm just saying that that it. I would say the number one thing that that that keeps me going, and it's actually in everything that I do, whether I'm recording something, or or I don't know, writing a putting together a routine or or working out, I always have a backup plan, right? Because because you know it's it it was Mike Tyson who who said that that great line. You know everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face, and and the the equivalent to getting punched in the face is that all of a sudden you got to go. Something happens in your in your apartment, or your boss wants you in, or you got sick last night, or whatever, and so always having a backup plan for how you're going through it. And I think that the things that Huberman mentioned, I have to get a lot of times. I don't get morning light. I mean, right now I've just got a cataract surgery, so I don't want to be anywhere near morning light. But anyway, the the the workout thing is really important. Really important. Finding a way to if if if you can get it before noon, you're gonna just gonna sleep a whole lot better. And the thing that I'm struggling with, Gib, is I know that Huberman says I know there's all kinds of you know great data supporting this. Is that I have a hard time not starting the day with with coffee. Yeah. What I've done is what I've done is when I get up in the morning. Usually, it's before Connie gets up. Is I I pour a big glass of water with ice in it, and I have my coffee cup next to it. And so I've made this deal with myself that I won't have that first cup of coffee until I drink a full glass of water. And oh, that's good. We know you and I both you and I both know that that you're sleeping for 678, hours, and you're breathing like that's just me, and and and you're expelling all kinds of moisture. So we are dehydrated when we wake up. So that's my my big takeaway is or or edit on this is have a backup plan and you got to drink water in the morning. So to your point, we are going to show you guys what experts do in the morning. I also have at the end of this, I have what the what what Ryan Holiday says about the Stoics, and we can go back 1000s of years to Marcus Aurelius and see that the struggle that we all have in the morning is not a news struggle. So I have that coming up for you guys. But to your point, and the. The whole reason we want to have our morning routine locked in is for exactly the reason that you talked about, which is stuff happens. You get punched in the mouth. That's why we want we want to be waking up slightly earlier every single day. We want we want to set that tone where we are getting up at the same time, and it's going to be early because we got to we want to get that time into our day before we are expected to respond to an email, before we have to take the kids to school, and by the way, to your point, I mean, in in my life, I have I can have all the plans in the world that I'm gonna finish working on some stuff and then go to bed and then get up early and exercise, and then one of my kids throws up in the middle of the night. Great, guess what? Guess what's gone? Everything that I had planned for the day, but if we have those routines in place and we know what the best is, we can begin to build that morning routine in a way that that we are able to get to even when we get punched in the mouth. So for you, I love this. It's the idea of, and we've talked. Andrew Huberman talks a lot about delaying coffee, and you've heard that that you don't want to. There's your. That's your your your timer that you use. Your boxing timer that you use to. Yeah. So on right on days when this is so it's just called boxing timer. There's a million of them. But on days when I'm just like, oh my gosh, I I don't know where to start. Whatever. I I set this is this is actually a workout one. But there's there's also okay. So this one. So I know that my that my limit for for working on you know boring tasks is about 20 minutes, and so this will go. You hit it, and it goes, and it starts to it starts to count down, right? And at the end of it, it goes. At the end of it, it's just a boxing bell, and and basically, what I do is I I work for for 20 minutes, and then for for 18 minutes, I go and do something else. I go do something like enjoyable, or I'll go I'll go work out. It goes back and forth, back and forth. Right. You can see I have it set for almost three hours or four hours, right? Which is I've never gotten that far, but but it's not about it's not yeah yeah but but but little little tricks like that, you got to figure out. You you have to hack your own brain. I guess is what I'm saying. Your brain is is is your brain, and and it may not be what Andrew Huberman says or Lewis Howes or any of these guys. Might be you take you take what you want from that, and then you get encouraged. And and again, Gib said, you know, stay with us because I'm a big Marcus Aurelius fan, and when you see what the how the Stoics live their lives is pretty amazing. I take some great stuff from that. 100% And when we think of the Stoics, again, we think of these people who do not understand modern problems, who do not understand our modern situations, and yet so much of the stuff is is applicable. So, you know, just to to put a button on on Huberman's routine, you know, we talk about needing to avoid coffee right away. I can't do it. I gotta have that coffee. But to your point, what a lot of research shows is that because we are so dehydrated in the morning, to replenish that with a glass of water first thing in the morning is actually one of the healthiest things you do. And I love that you connect the two, so that if you want your coffee, you've got to drink your water. So make sure that you're getting that water in the morning. And if you want to take what Huberman says and pull some nuggets out of it for yourself, by all means, get that deep work in. Make sure you get exposure to sunlight. Um, get that little bit of exercise right after you wake up. This is where your hormones are most activated. But we don't want the. I say this all the time. We don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, so lean in to what works for you. Here is, this is Dr. Chatterjee. He is he's going to give you guys a framework for exactly exactly how what what are the key elements for a morning routine, and I I absolutely love these, and it's the 3m's and we'll talk about that on the other side. I'm a huge fan of morning routines, and the framework I create for people is a morning routine has 3m's and the way I

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mindfulness, movement, and mindset. So, if you want a morning routine, you don't know where to start. Think about those 3m's Now, you can personalize them to your own life. If you have got an hour in the morning, great. If you've got five minutes, you can still do it in five minutes. Mindfulness that could be meditation, it could be breathing. Whatever you want can be mindfulness. Whatever appeals to you. Movement, anything you want. Do some push-ups. Do some yoga stretches, and then mindset. Mindset is do something to put you in a positive frame of mind. That can be reading a book that you enjoy that makes you feel good. It could be doing some affirmations, like I often do with my daughter. Yeah, or, or, or you could go to Pandora or or Spotify, and you can download my sports record. Oh yeah, because that's going to get you, and so and get this. So we not great, not great for mindfulness, but definitely for getting going in the morning. So I I actually I. Fundamentally disagree with you. I think it is good for mindfulness, if or at least good for for movement and the mindfulness movement connection. So we have talked about before the benefits of listening to music when you exercise and how that actually makes you work out harder. There are a lot of people who believe, as a counterpoint to that, that listening to music when you exercise is a distraction, and it gets you not focused on your body, which has some truth to it. But for me, the right song puts me in the framework to move at the right pace. In fact, I will spend a lot of time making a playlist for my workout with that exactly in mind. With this idea that I need the move, I need the motivation from the music to get that going, and and you can begin that practice. Like a mindfulness practice is not sitting there saying Om. It's it can be prayer. It can be sitting and meditating, but it can also be listening to some music that pumps you up in the morning, that sits there and helps you motivate. Right, and that's what I love about what he's saying, what Dr. Chatterjee saying is because it's it's a framework that you can use and find your own M's, right? So your own you want to be mindful. You want to get a little bit of movement in. It can be it can just be stretching. It can be jumping jacks. It can be a long morning run if you have the time for it. And then you want to set your mindset. You want to focus on what you want to get done for the day and tell yourself that you have what it takes. And by the way, a good soundtrack is a. There's a reason why when we hear the Rocky soundtrack, it pumps us up. There's a reason why you were selling so many Tour de France tapes out of the back of cycling magazines at the beginning of your career, because of because it gets you in the mindset. Right, exactly. So that's that's so that's a sports album available wherever you get your records. But to your point, you know, when you first started your your music career, you had written the music for Tour de France, and you were you were selling tapes out of the back of cycling magazines because people who watched the broadcast, who were into cycling, wanted to be able to have that same mindset, that same that same focus, when they were cycling, so they put it on their Walkmans and they listened to it while they were cycling, and they felt like they were riding in the Tour de France. That is a true story from your background, and that is a thing that we can leverage into making ourselves have the best morning routine possible. But yeah, you know, it's also what what happened for me is it just happened by accident when I got the job at CBS Sports, where all of a sudden they're sending me. I didn't know that much, as you know. You know more about baseball, football, basketball still than I do. But they sent me on these anthology sports, which are basic. So so the Tour de France bike race, which is going on right now, downhill skiing, swimming, track and field, speed skating-you know all that stuff. It's all like forward movement and just intensity, and these and these athletes that are at such a level, and you're with them every every day, and you're watching everything go-you know-everything go by, and that's another reason why you can. YouTube is amazing now for if you just if you just search motivational videos, you'll find you know you'll find great music with people like shouting at you, you know, and and there are these guys that they just they take motivational music and then they then they find speeches from everybody from Denzel Washington to Matthew McConaughey to all these guys. I love it. They put them in the music, and you wake up and you hear that in the morning. All you need is like five minutes of that, or do what I do is I wake up every morning and I try to read like five pages in a self-help book and says what? Yeah, and a lot of times that's a Ryan Holiday book where it's courageous calling, or its obstacle is the way, or it is discipline is destiny, which is well the Stoic philosophy, which is Gib said. We're going to get to later in this program. Well, that's the M of mindset. That's the the mindset M. So again, the 3m's which I think are great when you are trying to craft a morning routine. It it is meditation, which can be prayer, meditation, anything that you use to get into that flow state. It's movement, which can be a 10 mile jog or a weightlifting routine, or it can just be jumping jacks, or a little bit of stretching to get your day started, and then mindset, which can be a long process of reading and journaling, or it can just be a couple of affirmations that you say to yourself in the mirror while you're brushing your teeth. But those 3m are a great structure for you to build a morning routine that helps you unlock what you need to do. I want you guys to stop for just a second. First of all, you should share this video. This is not a marketing thing, but you should share this video with your friends because there's great stuff in here, and there's more stuff coming up as you know as well from these experts and from from Coach Gib as well. But also, before we get to the next video, while you're listening to it, I want you to write in the comments what are the top three things that you do in the morning to get you started, so that we can minister to everybody else that's on this call? Go ahead, Gib. So while you're doing that, I'm going to play. This is Dr. Shriram Nene, and he is talking about the hour of power in the morning, and I I really like this. It's particularly. This resonates with me. I think for some of you, you'll be like,"What do you mean, hour path? But I'll tell you, I'll tell you why I need this on the other side. What do you do in the morning to get focused? I'll tell you one of the biggest things I find that helps me is taking an hour of power for myself, and in that hour, I reflect on what needs to be done, what my goals are and where I'm going, but more importantly, I also focus on myself. I've said it before that when you're on a plane, they always tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you put it on anyone else, and yet a lot of times people forget that lesson, and they're always helping everyone else around them at the expense of themselves. Take that hour every single day and invest in yourself, and then go out and make the world a better place to live. So love it, love it. the The reason why that resonates with me is again for those of you that don't know, I have three children. They're all school age. My morning, I get out of bed, my foot hits the ground, and I am trying to figure out telling the kids what their practice schedule is for the day, what they have to get, you know, what they need to bring with them to school, what time they need to be picked up, what time they need to go to school. All of those things, I'm doing as soon as I wake up, and that process means that I am, I am starting the day without the oxygen mask on, but when I should be doing, and when I'm at my healthiest, I get up that hour early. I get the movement. I sit down and I plan my day so that I can be a better version of myself. The problem is that with and again, this underlines for me the reason why I like that video is it underlines for me exactly why we need the morning routine and why we need to take that power back? We need to have that hour of power because for me, if I don't do that, if I'm not intentional about my own morning routine, I end up sitting, basically sitting on a plane flight without an oxygen mask on, putting oxygen masks on everybody else, and then by 10 a.m. I'm exhausted. I I have I don't I don't have a sense of what my day is supposed to be. I'm lost. I need that. And for a lot of us, you know, I know for you, you your morning is yours. But but for a lot of us, it gets taken over by. And if it's not kids, it's the email from your boss. It's the phone call that tells you that you know your your parent and assisted living needs needs you to come check on her or whatever that thing is. Yeah, I I don't have an excuse. I don't have much to do in the morning. I don't have three kids to get to get to school. Really, really great great response. We're hearing from Kathleen and Astura, Roberta Johnson Myers, also from Jeanette Bennett, one of our close friends, Nancy Gonzalez, Linda Wilson, and we've got the answer to. I just asked you to put in the top three things you do in the morning, so that we can encourage other people. And so we've got Connie Bayovich says prayer, morning affirmations, and stretching and exercise. So we got a bonus one there from Rebecca Countryman: pray, reflect, and move. Oh, that's really good too. And Jeanette says, "Make my bed, read, and and take my my vitamins. A bunch of people are saying that that based on what you've been saying, Gib, is that is that they're going to start making their bed in the morning. And you should again. We our five habits are get up at the same time every day and and make your bed. Get 7500 to. 10,000 steps. The research is kind of going back and forth on that. It's replace as many processed foods as you can with fresh fruits and vegetables. It's add a mindfulness or prayer practice for five to 10 minutes every day, and to journal specifically journal about gratitude. Those five things cost you nothing and are proven to absolutely make every part of your life better. One of the things I want to point out in in this in the comments right now is Margaret De Palma, Margaret Moscatello De Palma, is talking about how having a dog helps her with her morning routine. Oh yeah, and by the way, research supports this that you are healthier. People who have dogs are healthier, and it's for exactly the reason that she's describing there. It gets them. It gets her up in the morning. Dogs need to be walked on a routine. Their bodies have they have a circadian rhythm too. So when you are locked into your dog's circadian rhythm, the fact that you have to get up at the same time every day again that's one of our key habits, and the fact that you have to walk the dog at the same time every day-that's that physical activity and exposure to morning light. So the dog actually forces you into these healthy morning habits, whether you like it or not. Which you know, it's proven to push back on depression. It's proven to help with a sense of purpose. All of these things add up and make you live longer. So that's we we have talked before about how dog ownership is fundamental to living longer. That or I mean I wouldn't say fundamental. The dog ownership is strongly correlated with longer, healthier lives, and it's because of some of these other habits that that are associated with having a dog that you. No choice but to deal with. And there's Leroy. I had a dream about Leroy last night. Oh man, I couldn't. I could not get him to come, so I had to use the the just pork to the last five minutes of the intelligence for that program was brought to you by just for food, just food for dogs, and their and their pork treats. Yeah. They actually, this is just yeah. They don't pay us for this, but anyway, I like this stuff. So, but but you gotta you gotta make sure you have a pork treat. There you go. We are running out of time, so I I do want to get to these last two experts. No, you're fine. I don't mind the pork treats. So I want to talk about this is Doctor Suzuki Wendy Suzuki. She's a neuroscientist, and she's talking about a meditation routine that I actually have a version of that I do, and it is, and and people are always asking me like, don't I want to do something quicker? And this is this is a way to get slowness into your life without actually having to slow down. And I will explain what I mean on the other side of this. So every morning I like to wake up and I do a tea meditation, which is a meditation over the brewing and drinking of tea. And this is after many years of yo-yo meditating. I knew meditation was good, but I just couldn't really get into it. And I was introduced to this form of meditation from by a monk who who invited me to tea and and just did this silent meditation outside in a beautiful location and the ritual and the the sequence of brewing drinking seeping re starting over again kind of kept me in kept me in the flow, and so I start with about a 40-five minute tea meditation. Then I do about a 30-minute workout. I try and do cardio strength. Sometimes I do yoga. Sometimes I just do mobility, and then I have breakfast, and then I go to work. Speaking of, here's what saves me every day. Yes, yeah, it's a it's Bigelow teas, ginger, honey with with zinc. Now we we know that the guys at Bigelow they're very much into these into functional supplements, right? Supplement that's what I'm calling tea because I've used my voice. Gib and I both we I use my voice every single day, right? And talking is much more stressful for your voice than than singing, and also for my gut health, I use ginger because ginger it it calms my stomach, and we know that zinc can actually it can actually reduce the severity of a of a cold. But but the team I love the team moment thing. It's it's and that's you know the guys the the guys that I mean we had a tea party about 250 years ago so we we know our tea but to that point right like the the tea itself is beneficial and I mean wars have been fought over tea like we know that tea tea has all kinds of benefits, but that's what I meant to say. That was that's the line. The the the routine is, and so what she talks about there is exactly the same as what the what Dr. Chatterjee's 3m are. It's this idea of having a meditative process. So I hand make my coffee every day. I do a pour over coffee every single day, and that for me is its own version of meditation. It is a moment where I am taking the time to make my coffee. It makes the coffee, in my opinion, the coffee actually does taste better, but it also makes the coffee process more meaningful and makes me more attached to the coffee. And that anchors helps anchor my day. It is its own form of of meditation, so I am a huge fan of that concept. And if you look at what she talks about there, it matches what the other doctors are talking about. So this idea of, for her, her meditation is this tea process, a 45 minute process of making tea exactly right, and whatever that is for you, it it doesn't have to be the tea meditation, but it's something where it's a routine with mindful attention to details that helps you wake up and ease into the day that you know by heart and that creates something warm and inviting at the end of it. For me, it's hand making my coffee in a Chemex every day. That's how I do it, and and I think it's it's incredibly impactful. So that's her meditation M, and then she does her movement M, and then I, you know, I don't know what I'm sure she does a mindset, but she doesn't talk about it. I feel like I feel like Ron Popeil right now. But for those of you who know who that is, I know Gib does. So my my morning routine did the pocket fisherman make make it no. I don't. I think they must have that around here somewhere. But I make. I'm almost done. I make I make smoothies every morning. I make it in my in my very affordable in my in my NutriBullet, and I make sure that I have this kiwi. Really good for you, kiwi. Unbelievable, great. I mean, it's it's just great for for calming you down. It has a tremendous. Amount of a fiber in it, so I put two of these pieces of kiwi in there, and some strawberries, and actually some protein because we know that people that are a little bit older like me, you need more protein. So that's my ritual. Well, and also if you have protein in the morning, you ensure that you're getting your protein, your your what what's what another you're getting your protein intake for yourself, right? Like because you're doing it in the morning, so you're making sure that you get it. And by by doing it first thing in the morning, you you are creating that baseline for your protein intake for the day. Okay, I promised you guys we would talk about how everything old is new again in terms of Stoic philosophy and mornings, we are over time, but I am going to present to you Ryan Holiday talking about his favorite passage and one of my favorite passages in Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. Just for context, Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, he's writing a diary, and the diary that was never intended to be read by other people. It is Meditations. It is he is writing to himself to encourage himself and sort of talk about what he's going through throughout the day. Again, this is why journaling is one of our practices. But here is Ryan Holiday talking about Marcus Aurelius talking about how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning. So if you think this is new, if you think it's just because you have the best bed in the world, that may be true, but it also is not a new concept. There's a passage that hit me when I first read it. It's the opening of book five, where he's like talking about not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, not because he's depressed, but because he's like, when it's early and you wake up and you're like, I got to go to work, I got to go do this stuff, and then there's a part of you that's like, but don't you want to stay under the covers? It's warm here. Like he says, it's warm here. Like beds were warm 2000 years ago. Like and it's cold outside. Like nothing about that changes. Nothing about that changes whether you're the emperor or a regular person. Like that is always a part of existence. And philosophy isn't this abstract theoretical thing. It can be, but the best philosophy is like. Let me walk you through why you're not meant to stay under the covers and be warm all day. It's not new. Let me let let me show you one of my favorite all time favorite Ryan Holiday books. They're all fantastic, and they're they're based on. It's not Ryan is not one of those guys. I won't mention any names, but he's not like he's not like Robin's character. No, but I think the I think Oprah and Tony are great, but Ryan's whole thing is not like his personal how I live my life thing. Right. His is what what does history tell us about people who are courageous in this book in particular? He has several, but what does history tell us about what what courage does and why it's calling us and and how we take action? And so, if he, I'll tell you what, you won't you won't be sorry if you download the audio book or or or the the Kindle book, or the you know, or the printed book, his stuff is is tremendous. A lot of what Gib talks about with Stoic philosophy is right here in this book. Absolutely, and one of again, this is not a pitch for Stoic philosophy, except for the fact that it is a great way to reframe the stuff that is happening in your life. So many of us become so inundated with the idea that stuff is happening to us that that we are uniquely victimized by circumstance. Stoic philosophy helps, at least for me, unpack the fact that it is not a new concept. And as we talk, what I liked about this clip from Holiday is that as we talk about these morning routines and the benefits of them and how important it is to win that morning. We think of that as sort of a new, you know, tech bro concept of like, yeah, I got to get up and write my 10,000 lines of code before you know anybody else is even out of bed. No, this is something that no matter what you are trying to do, no matter how you are trying to live your life, no matter what when we talk about getting you from the place you are to the place you want to be no matter what that path looks like. Winning your morning, owning the first part of your day in a meaningful way is fundamental to you accomplishing what it is that you want to accomplish, and it is not a new concept. This goes back 1000s of years. Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, inarguably had more responsibility than you do. Inarguably had less tech and distractions than you do had you know had more things pulling on his attention that were existential than you do, and as a result, he has the same struggles that you do. So use that as motivation to unpack your morning to help you understand that everything old is new again. That this that this process of getting you to the place you want to be is not a new concept. We don't forget if you want if you want if you want daily encouragement, Christy, will you please put the link back in there? Yeah. If you want daily encouragement, just sign up for our Intelligence for Your Life newsletter. comes every day to your email, and there's something in there that you're going to use or something you're going to share with a friend. We can't. Guarantee it because we-that's what we do-is we we we study life acts 100% So, folks, for John Tesh and everybody at Intelligence for Life, I'm Gib Gerard. We will see you guys next week. Thank you so much for being with us. That's it for the show today. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate, comment, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast, it helps us out a lot when you do that. We also try to respond to every mention of the show, every DM about the show. You can tell us what you think about it because ultimately, we do the show for you guys. So thank you so much for listening.