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5a.m. the hour when legends are either getting up or going to bed

5a.m. the hour when legends are either getting up or going to bed

5a.m. the hour when legends are either getting up or going to bed

He swears we will feel more energized and productive. He tells us that Mozart, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Ernest Hemingway made a habit of rising early.

He promises that if we wake up at 5 every morning and follow his 20/20/20 formula for what he calls a “Victory hour,” our life will change. Our creativity and or productivity is going to soar, our fitness will improve, and we will just generally feel better about ourselves.

But.. Can we do it? What is the reward? Will it stick or be a one week wonder?

Sharma, the famous Canadian personal success guru and author of many best-selling books including 1997’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. Wrote The 5am Club.  Told in parable form, the story features four central characters: The Spellbinder, The Homeless Man/Billionaire, The Artist, and The Entrepreneur. Through the course of the book, the Artist and the Entrepreneur go through a complete life change due to the teachings of The Spellbinder and Billionaire characters. The main point of their lessons is, that the two should get up at 5 a.m. and structure their days according to Sharma’s formulas.

When the clock strikes 5am we are to begin our days with the 20/20/20 formula that is to change our lives.

Robin Sharma is the son of Indian and Kenyan immigrants to Canada. He says he came from humble beginnings, and the immigrant mindset that drives so many high-achievers took root in him from an early age. He graduated from law school and became a successful lawyer at a big firm in Toronto.

“But when I would wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, I didn’t like the person that was looking back at me,” says Sharma. “I was very empty. There was an angst.”

He turned to education, this time studying the lives of the great women and men of the world, looking to understand their tactics and methods to implement those practices in his life. Out of this transformation came his first book, 1994’s Megaliving.

Despite some difficulties as a first-time author, Sharma was able to sell enough copies of the book to begin his career as a speaker, author, and personal success guru. Out of that moderate success, Sharma started to dream bigger. His second book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, caught fire and launched Sharma into global fame.

Suddenly, Sharma was a man in his early 30s speaking to audiences of thousands all over the world. His morning routine and his disciplined life that had been shaped in his 20s were vital to helping him avoid the pitfalls that so many people experience when fame and success come their way.

What will you do today to ensure your tomorrow is different than your yesterday?

So, do we just get up at 5am and get the housework done before the whole house awakes? Do we get on the computer and get on top of emails and our to do list for the day then sit with our cup of tea trying to figure out where to start?  Go to the fridge to eat something while I think about it (or that bottle of vodka!  If I’m feeling overwhelmed).  Is that how we get ahead and stay ahead?

Nope … that is NOT the answer.

Sharma lays out a detailed routine in the book and claims it’s what has helped billionaires, superstar athletes, and others with whom he’s worked through the years.

Action Plan Here’s how the 20/20/20 formula is broken down:

The first 20 minutes of your day are for sweaty exercise. Sharma’s “Billionaire” character gets deep into the science of why sweating and getting your heart rate up early in the morning are so good for you. In summary, you’ll increase your feel-good dopamine and serotonin levels and kickstart your metabolism while lowering your levels of cortisol, essentially a stress hormone.  For me, Ferne Eliz King I get into my infra-red sauna I have in my bathroom (I will post the benefits of infra-red saunas on another day) and mix it up between this and taking the dogs for a brisk walk.

The next 20 minutes should be quieter, dedicated to journaling, meditating, planning, reflecting and contemplating. This should get your mind, heart and soul in the right place for a day that promises to throw all kinds of difficulty and stress your way. Taking this time to be quiet and still will increase your gratitude and your happiness.  For me, Ferne Eliz King I use an application for mediation called Synctuition.  20 mins is equivalent to 2 hours ‘old school’ meditation.   I also have beautiful journals / books to write thoughts down.   I have one for inspirational ideas, goals, plans.  I have one for my feelings / thoughts and what I am grateful for and the reasons why. In my ideas, goals and plan book I also write down the emotion I will feel when those things come to fruition, what I will feel, whom I will tell, what emotion they will have.  I put myself into that future moment in time.

While the exercise piece is a pretty specific and, in Sharma’s terms, “non-negotiable,” piece of the 5 a.m. puzzle, the reflection portion allows more creativity for you to do what is most comfortable for you. But one part that Sharma insists should be included in your second 20 minutes is journaling. Writing down your goals, plans, commitments, and the things you are grateful for will shape your day more positively.

The final 20 minutes allow for even more customisation. The “Grow” period is left for you to learn whatever it is you feel like learning.  So, if you want to listen to a podcast about successful entrepreneurs, or read a great book, or work on a language you want to learn, all of that is in play in these 20 minutes. The goal is to stimulate your brain and improve your intellectual capabilities.  For me, Ferne Eliz King on the last Sunday of each month I spend a bit of time making a list of things I wish to read, listen or view in the next month and I reward myself when I have achieved my list.  I purchased some really good Bose earphones so I can listen to material while I am going about my day – not wasting a minute.

How consistent can one be?

Have you done that analysis that advises what character you are as to what times of day it suits best for you to work / sleep… it’s very cool..

For every Hemingway the book uses as an example of an early riser, there is of course a Winston Churchill, one of the most prolific writers and human beings ever, who would write until 2 or 3 a.m. and stay in bed until the late morning. Surely there are those who are built for the 5 a.m. club, and there are those who are more suited for the night club.

For me, Ferne Eliz King, I used to be a night owl, I would stay up to the wee hours of the morning working on spreadsheets, client reports, analysis, leadership – sleep for 3 to 5 hours and then do it all over again.  OR I would be out partying and networking until the wee hours climbing into bed at 5am.  Every 6th to 8th day I would have a good long sleep.  THOSE DAYS ARE GONE. 

I now have a 6 year old ad I’m in mid 50’s!!!  I have my 84 year old mum living with us, independently in our back yard, but still an extended household.  I’m going through a separation from a 15 year relationship.  I don’t function the way I used to.  

I need a refreshed way to approach my day!  And the added stress and strain of this current Coronavirus outbreak .. mmmm .. let’s not digress to another topic.

Robin Sharma himself says..

“I slip all the time. I think most people do. Each day is simply about fighting the disruptive currents and getting back on track.”

So, what does this look like in my house?  I use the old way of waking myself up.  My dad told me many moons ago (an outdoor man and never traveled with an alarm clock – something extra and useless to carry he would say).  Bang your head on the pillow for the time of day you wish to wake up.  I have used it when I cannot rely on my phone and it works.. So, whether you head bang or use an alarm clock, I will leave to you.

For me, I wake often with my 6 year old entwined over, on, under, around me.  It takes me a few minutes to untangle myself.  I love that little arm across my neck!

I sneak out of the bedroom, I turn on the infrared sauna (I’m still trying to figure out the timer!!) – or I put on my runners and grab the dogs and go out into the dark morning.  They are excited to get the first fresh smells of the day and chase the kangaroos and every now and then chase the sound of the deer that come to eat our grass.

After the sauna or workout / walk.  I get my special magic water (I drink Kangen water) and set myself up in my special beautiful space in my ‘ladies lounge’.  I meditate, journal and reflect.  I often extend this to 40 minutes if I have not meditated the night before.  I try and have the habit of meditating before I go to sleep – I find I have a better quality and quantity of sleep when I do this.

I then spend the final 20 minutes of my learning time multi tasking.  I will either read, sitting in my space.  Or listen or view something online.  If it is the latter, I will quite often do this while multi tasking doing something else as well.   A definite focus on LEARNING and EXPANDING my knowledge or thinking.  I have my special LEARNING journal that I carry around with me during this step.

Ferne Eliz King journals:

  • inspiration, goals, actions, new ideas, strengthening current ideas
  • feeling, thoughts, gratitude
  • learning, expanding my knowledge

It’s now 6am or 6.20am …

Now it’s shower, personal care and looking myself in the mirror and liking who is looking back at me. I feel inspired, energised and clear to start my day ahead.

My productivity in my day has expanded.  I have wobbly days for sure, but they don’t last long, I’m able to kick myself back into gear quite easily without a lot of effort.

And to tell you the truth, there are a few mornings a week I start this routine at 4am or 4.30am depending on my evening prior.  I try to be in bed by 9pm, meditate and asleep by 10pm at latest.  Some nights I am in bed at 8.30pm.

I try to plan my meals a week in advance, I try to cook and prepare on a weekend so that I am not at 3pm starting to stress about the evening meal.  I’m fortunate in that my ‘ex’ partner cooks much of the time during the week.  With the current situation we still share the same property and the care of our daughter and treat each other kindly which is GREAT. I’m grateful for that.

One of the impacts I found is not checking my phone or computer until AFTER I have got myself ready for the day.  Prior to this I would often be still sitting in my PJ’s at midday as I had got ‘caught’ in the virtual working environment and getting into my work before I was personally ready to do so.

There are days when I am not consistent at this routine.  There has been a few days where I wake up and go.. ‘oh this is too wonderful to get out of’ (the little arms wrapped around me and the comfort of my bed).  I do a quick equation of the impact of staying in bed and then make a decision.  If I decide to stay in bed, I do not beat myself up.  But I only allow that to occur once or twice a week.

Robin Sharma advised a journalist. “I slip all the time. I think most people do,” says Sharma. “One time the pilot on a little plane let me fly a little bit, and as I was holding the yoke, I noticed the plane was constantly being pushed off course by the winds. My goal was to make sure that we stayed on course. That’s what happens every single day to every single one of us. There are temptations and distractions that get us off our habits and our priorities. Each day is simply about fighting the disruptive currents and getting back on track.”

Knowing that many entrepreneurs slip, makes it easier to put boundaries and limits to not ‘being perfect’ at this plan. 

I do feel the difference, I feel I can manage my day and week in a better way than I did before.  I feel the difference which is all I needed as evidence of the benefit to continue with striving for a 5am start to my day.

What will you do to ensure you tomorrow is not the same as yesterday? Will you start that thing today?

Ferne Eliz King

Love Life Love YOUR Life

This article was inspired from an article in Success Magazine talking about the 5am Club.

About Ferne

Ferne is globally recognised and called upon for quickly accelerating complex change to achieve business strategies.  Translating strategies to actionable plans, prioritisation of those actions, engagement from the right people, bringing business architecture to life or your life plan if individual and in many cases driving the change as a program director.  The bottom line is Ferne accelerates businesses or individuals to achieve outcomes and enabling that is her passion.

What's the consequence if you take no action?

“If you do the same thing today as yesterday, your tomorrow will be the same as today”.  Ferne Eliz King

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My Mum and I; resilience and health is everything!!

My mums 84th birthday, cleaning and disenfectant WATER, gardening cloves up to her elbows (as the skin gets thinner as you get older)

Focusing on getting our comfort back.  Tomorrow will be different than yesterday and what are WE doing today to be comfortable with what tomorrow brings. This blog covers my mum who is 84, me at 55 and my 6 year old daughter.  My mum lives independently in a tiny house on wheels on our property..

We can do this!  We can get our comfort back.  I’ve noticed this week a greater level of comfort than last weeks inconvenience, disruption, fear and hope.  Everyone is still adjusting … This blogg is to tell our story and help to get our comfort back with a focus on health and our home.  As we move forward having a heightened focus on mindset, health and our immediate environment in our home.

Mindset and health are paramount, it is the foundation in moving forward.  If we don’t have either at a certain level anything that follows will be ‘wobbly’. If we are not solid on mindset and health it will hinder us in the future, it will slow us down, it will hinder our focus.

Resilience is something we have within ourselves; we all have it.  In fact Australian and New Zealand women and families are renowned for it across the world.   Recognise you have it, draw on it.  Recognising the resilience, we have built up over our lives will be critical over the coming months; take comfort in knowing that we have the resilience to support ourselves. Resilience is not something that we just start doing, it is something we have built up over time.  What resilience have you built up in your life?  What history of resilience have you got in your family, in your community?

Mum has HUGE resilience, her father passed away when she was still in nappies, her mum raising the kids on her own for many years, and my mothers mum took in a cousin as well to raise.  There was a family tragedy of an aunty taking her and her childrens lives through years of an abusive husband.  My mum had 9 pregnancies with 3 surviving children, she has been married 3 times, every marriage, bless her, was a happy one.  But here she is at 84 on her own, all three husbands have passed and are no longer living.  She is 1 of 4 siblings and her and her eldest sister who is 90 are the surviving sisters.  She fortunately has the joy that all three of her precious children are alive and healthy.  She has been in some successful business ventures and some terrible financial disasters.  She won a small amount of lotto once. I remember that phone call of excitement, it came just at the right time for her.  I also remember the phone call to advise my dear stepfather who was a wonderful man had terminal cancer, and mum had cancelled their private insurance cover the month prior to save money.  Mum has a massive resilience reserve to support her through the next few months.   In fact she comes from a long line of resilient women and families and passed that down to us.

My resilience bank draws on experiences with childhood challenges, drinking at a very young age (so many experiences where I should not have woken up the next day!), not valuing myself but at an early age recognising something related to Entrepreneur Mindset which of course I did not know what to label or call it at the time.  I got married, which did not last.  I’ve had a long term relationship which has recently broken down.  I have had a very successful professional career taking me around the world, I had turned myself into a workaholic and ‘high achiever’.  At a very young age I was told I could not have children which really shaped my 30’s to be a workaholic and the fun girl.  I recall quite clearly telling a guy I had been dating for a few months the news I could not have children (at what point do you tell someone?).  We were in a restaurant, he stood up and abused me for wasting his time. mmmmmm.. that was an experience.  So single I stayed – why would I re enter that world of the unknown?  Then, due to a breakthrough in fertility treatment, to be given options in my early 40’s of having children… too late I said, then on reflection I realised actually how much I would like to raise a child.  I have many many god children, probably because they thought I would not have my own ..ha ha.  Anyway 8 years and 15 rounds of IVF followed …. Which eventuated in my little girl being born!!  In my 49th year! 

Something I’ve realised with my recent relationship breaking down is I’ve never been alone without my dad or a man in my life.  I have certainly been single for most of my adult life, but my dad was there.  And he was the greatest support – always believing in all of his children.  I meet my current partner while dad was alive.  Now I’m standing here a bit wobbly as my dad is not there to say – it will all be ok Ferne, you’ve got this.  

My bottom line is at 55 years I thought I would be further along in my comfort zone than what I am.  I thought I would have retired, happily travelling the world with my little girl in tow visiting all my friends and creating experiences and memories and having a wonderful base to come back home to, with a solid bank account to never have to check the balance on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. That is not my current reality.   I have stopped looking at my superannuation balance in the last week !

So step it up I will … I have resilience, my mother has resilience we have a long history of resilience in our family, in our communities in the Southern Hemispher.  We do things every day to ensure our mindset is strong and focused.  I meditate each day, mum gardens every day – it helps form our foundation.  I am very fortunate that I have an Entrepreneur mindset.. It’s in my blood, in my bones.  I have passion and I’m retraining myself on how to take my knowledge + passion and influence others more broadly than I otherwise would have without social networks!!

What has occurred in your life to give you resilience?  Draw on it now and focus on your mindset.

So how does this help with our tomorrow?  The inconvenience, risk, fear and uncertainty that is occurring today in our lives in March 2020 all around the world.  We have to make sure this one event is not the event that brings you undone, it’s not THE thing that takes all your reserves of resilience and uses it up all at once.  Do not empty your resilience tank! 

“The outcome of a choice made in fear will always be more of the same”– Paul Selig.

Every single one of us is dealing with a collective event never experienced before by most of us in our lifetimes.  And let’s be honest…it is terrifying.

Draw on your resilience you have in your reserve bank.  We have, each and everyone of us, been dealt events that build resilience.

The four of us here at home have self-isolated with mum, my daughter myself and my partner.  Even though my relationship has broken down with my partner I’m very grateful we have come together and figured out ways to treat each other with respect and stay at our property to support as a family.  We will deal to ‘us’ at a future time, but now is not the time to figure out our individual futures.  It is a time to figure out how to support and demonstrate what family resilience is.   

So getting our comfort back.  Recognise tomorrow will not be the same as last week and that is OK. We just need to get comfortable what the new tomorrow is going to be

Suggested Actions

  1. Limit your time listening to news news news – chats with friends about doom and gloom, give yourself a time limit each day to be part of that ‘movement’
  2. Recognise you have resilience, reflect on times in your life that has built resilience in your resilience bank! Look at your history within your family, your community, your country.
  3. Reflect on what gives you joy, what tops up your mindset, what keeps you in a good mindset – do more of it!  Recognise the triggers that distracts you from a good mindset, put management plans in place that if this ‘trigger’ occurs what is your management plan to draw out of any downward spiral
  4. Back away from people who don’t share good energy with you.  You are in the driver’s seat of your life.  Don’t be a passenger in something so critical as your life.  
  5. Stand in front of that mirror in the morning and throughout the day and smile back, love the person you see, love the person you will be tomorrow.

Ferne Eliz King
Love Life Love YOUR Life