Episode 11 - My Morning Ritual

Routine / Structure.  Join us today as Rob talks about his morning ritual (routine) and how it came to be what it is today.  Detailed notes to follow.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:48

And forgetting and remembering how we feel. I'd like to express some gratitude again to many of the listeners out there. Steph, Andrew, Melissa. You guys specifically, I've had a lot of correspondence with you guys outside of the Facebook group. I appreciate the support that you guys have provided, and I'm really enjoying the dialogue that we have with each other. And we can have a lot more of that outside of the Facebook group through the Telegram group that was started last week on account of Andrew's suggestion. That is really cool. It allows and facilitates some personal one-on-one, or what seems that way, one-on-one dialogue with one another because it's effectively a group text message. So check it out. It's a public group. We don't have much to hide. So definitely consider checking that out and join us over there. As far as today, today's topic is concerned, the the morning and evening routine. I've begun calling it ritual because the little note card that I have that I have written my own rituals down on is referred to exactly that, the morning ritual and the evening ritual. Now, I have for quite some time engaged in certain activities in the morning and the evening just because I thought it was good practice. For example, for many years I've done some sort of stretching or something like that in the mornings. But for many years, I also have not. My morning routine has varied from a structured routine or something resembling some structure to absolutely no structure at all. Waking up late, trying to get out of the house on time, you know, shoving some coffee down my gullet to try and feel awake before grinding it out one more time in a manner that just wasn't really conducive to any sort of happiness in my life whatsoever. So what changed? A few years ago, I found myself listening to and reading a pretty fair amount of the work that Tim Ferris has done in the form of podcasts and books and things like that. And from time to time I still do, but this is really where all of that stemmed from. He spoke about, and I can't reference this exactly, but he spoke about the importance of his morning and evening routines. And I do believe that this also tied into the past year review that he did. And that is something that I have talked about and written about at great length before. I'm behind a school bus right now, so we might have a little bit of extra time this morning as we discuss our routine, and that's okay because I left a little bit early. But Tim Ferris has a wonderful exercise for the past year review, and in the process of finding a journal that fit the needs that I was looking for, almost two years ago now, I decided to settle on, or at the very least, try the best self journal. And you can find all the products that they have at bestself.co. I am an ambassador to that program. And if you like what you see, please drop me a message. I can give you a link, and you can support me and support this show and the work that we're all doing by utilizing that link, but that is not something I am actively promoting at this time, but it is something that I think would be wise to consider as we engage in various things related to side hustles. So again, I use the best self journal. You can check it out at bestself.co. If you like what you see, let me know and I will dig up my affiliate link. I'll even see if I can't do that down the road when I get around to updating the show notes, which will not be this morning, immediately upon the release of this podcast. I'll have to circle back and do that again. But that also leads me to believe that that might be something I could include in my morning routine is some time set aside specifically to this podcast and specifically to the notes generated for the podcast. But today, the only notes I have are the card that I use to basically guide the routine that I have. And it is always a work in progress, and I'm actually a little bit behind because we are in the fifth week of autumn, and I am just now getting around to identifying my routine. Oh, that leads me to one other thing about the journals. Previously I had outlined and used the journals in a seasonal basis, in that I use them spring, summer, fall, winter. And that was nice, it seemed a little bit more fitting since I work seasonally, but the reality is I think that after doing this for a couple of years now, the seasons are going to, while they work, the journals are going to work a little bit more effectively if I utilize them per quarters of the year. Because, well, the more I learn about business, the more I learn about various side hustles and explore things that I'm interested in learning about, a lot of the way in which I'm going to structure my business, my life, is going to revolve around the quarters of the year. And um boy, this bus is taking a long time this morning. Um and accordingly, I am going to restructure my journal or my journaling process in the same way that uh that the quarters are outlined in the year. And we are just beginning at the early uh part of October, the fourth quarter. So this would be when I would begin, when I would be beginning the the next journal instead of doing so on the equinox like I did this year. Okay, so what does my morning look like? Well, I have been getting up earlier and earlier from my five o'clock-ish wake time to 4.45 over the past week or two, and trying to get, I'm sorry, to uh a little before 5 to 445. And today I woke up at 4.30. Now I use a cool alarm clock that mimics the sun rising, so I'm not greeted in the mornings with an obnoxious loud beep, beep, beep. I am greeted with a gentle sunrise, if you will, in my bedroom, and that is a Phillips uh Phillips sunrise clock. I'm not sure of the exact model. Again, when I listen to this and insert some show notes, I will try to link to that as well. But upon waking, I drink a little bit of what I call a morning tonic. Or at least I try to. And that tonic consists of uh right now, currently Yoder's Good Health. Uh it's just sort of like an apple cider vinegar, some other juices and things like that. Um it's good stuff. I've been using that here and there for a couple of years, and if I don't have any of that, I will take a swig of some homebrewed kombucha. Um, I don't flavor it or anything, I just make it straight up and with a healthy dose of uh Yerba Mate and green tea, in addition to the black tea. After I have the little morning tonic, I do a yoga or movement routine, and I subscribe to the Guyam services for about a hundred bucks a year, and I think it's worth it. I've been using these videos on and off for 20 years now, and I first stumbled across them when I was living in Colorado with or by some roommates who had them on VHS tapes way back when, and I started using them at that time. After the yoga or movement routine, which generally is 25 to 30 minutes, I take a cold shower. The cold shower is something new. I'd like to give a little hat tip to Wim Hof, and although I don't necessarily fully engage in the Wim Hof protocol, if you will, I have been taking cold showers. I started experimenting with those at the onset of this year, 2020, and I did so for about seven to ten days. It was a little intense and I stopped, but I found that when I take a cold shower in the mornings, my showers are a little bit more brief, but damn, if it's not invigorating, I don't know what is. So if you have not done that, but you've heard about it, uh, I would encourage giving it a try and stick with it for at least a week. See what happens. And you know, I think you'll be surprised at the results that a um cold shower will provide you. I I get dressed after that, but I do not put socks on. All right, and uh why? Why is that, do you say? Well, I am and have been sort of a um closet proponent of barefoot living. Now, that's hard because I work full-time at a nursery and tree farm for now. And when I am not working full-time at the nursery and tree farm, I am oftentimes doing some sort of work at home. And because the work at home consists of homesteading and things of that nature, there's oftentimes a need to wear boots or some sort of protective things on my feet. Um in years past, probably ten years ago. Um so again, like why what like what's the deal with this whole barefoot thing? Well, I started running ten years ago. Uh no, I always have run here and there, but the inspiration for me to run the way that I did actually s goes back to Dave Ramsey. Um, Dave Ramsey inspired me to go running? Yeah. Uh here's why. Let me let me expand on that. Um Dave Ramsey was and has been an integral part of my life for a long, long time now. And years ago, he talked about how he ran a marathon. And I mean, I'm I'm listening to this this this redneck guy talk about finance on the radio and give advice to people who were calling in, talking about their money problems, and in his words, he's been there, done that, and got the t-shirt, and not only that, but he's done a bunch of other things in his life as well. And at that time, Dave was probably in his 50s, and he had run a marathon, and that motivated me, and I realized that Christ, if Dave Ramsey can run a marathon in his maybe late 40s, 50s, well, I'm in my 30s, I can do that. So I did. I I left, I kind of I quit social media, alright, um, just got off it entirely, and started engaging in the real world with real people. Picked up a running routine, attended a bunch of meetup groups, one of which included a barefoot running on the beach while I was living in San Marcos, and I trained and I ran. But during the course of that training, my my body and the way that I was running hurt. I experienced some injuries, so I tried some different things to deal with my injuries, and I spent some time learning about my body. And the way in which I was able to effectively deal with those injuries, specifically shin splints, was through changing my running form. And I got involved in something called qi running by Danny Dreyer out of Asheville, North Carolina. Um, and ultimately I began running barefoot. I read a book called Born to Run about the Terrahomara Indians in Southern California, northern Mexico. That was inspiring. And accordingly, I engaged in a Kickstarter to support bedrock sandals, and I started running barefoot with just a I think it was a four millimeter or maybe even a six millimeter sole and a couple of thin straps with a bicycle inner tube, you know, kind of holding it all together. And I ran with these things and I ran miles and eventually ran a half mile, and the best pace that I ever ran while I was living in Austin, Texas on my final project in my past life, um best pace I ever ran was in these barefoot sandals. So a little bit of a segue regarding my morning routine and why I'm not wearing socks in the morning, but I've gotten back into this in order to you know embrace and improve my health. So I walk the dog barefoot and um walk around in the grass and do that in the mornings, do it also in the evenings, but I feel that there is some value in trying to be barefoot as much as possible, and I am trying to change my routine to facilitate that and be mindful of that. Now, um after I walk the dog barefoot, I come in and I journal and have some coffee. I uh do not eat breakfast, I make a bulletproof coffee. Basically, just some coffee and some MCT oil, and uh used to do it with butter and coconut oil, and that was tasty, but I wanted to try something different, and I have since begun using uh MCT oil, which blends a little better and just produces a little bit higher quality, bulletproof-esque coffee. Um after I journal, sometimes before I'm still working out this last little kink in my morning routine, I spend some time doing what I call priority work. And for the past 10 days, the priority work has been working through this passion and purpose plan via the Bible app. And now I continue the passion and purpose work by working through 10 questions that good old Uncle Jack outlined in a podcast of his, I think 2738, if I'm not mistaken. But um that's it. And I have one additional line left on my morning routine or morning ritual card, and that may be the missing line item of spending 10 to 15 minutes and working through the notes for the podcast. Because having done this before, I know myself well enough that I have a bad habit of sometimes not following through in a timely manner to get the show notes in the podcast in a timely fashion. So if I can get a jump start and write some thoughts out, I uh I will do that. But there's also some other ideas that I have for, you know, just rob shows last minute when I don't engage in my morning routine in the best way that I like to. So um, you know, do I do this every morning? No. Do I do it well every morning? No. Am I trying? Yes. At the end of the day, um I have a PM ritual or an evening ritual as well, and I'm gonna talk about that tomorrow. Uh it's very similar to the morning routine, but I will also talk about the um why this is of such benefit to me tomorrow as well. So uh before I get into waxing about why this is good and why I like this, I'm just going to end the podcast now. And again, say thank you for listening, thank you for participating. It matters a lot to me, and um I'm grateful for your involvement with this, your support in doing this, and uh I appreciate you. So um if you haven't yet, please consider participating in the Telegram group. We've got some great people there. Uh let's help lift each other up and have a great day, everyone, and remember to make someone else's day great as well.