This 7-Step Morning Routine Helped Me Build a Billion-Dollar Brand

3. Exercise the mind

It’s not enough to exercise the body, you also have to exercise the mind.

In fact, to me, the body is but a reflection of the mind. Right after I finish working out, I meditate. The reason I meditate is to strengthen my ability to focus and to learn how to rapidly calm my mind.

We live in a fast-paced world with tons of anxiety and distractions. We celebrate the ability to speed up our minds and our lives, but it is absolutely essential to learn to consciously slow them down as well. It’s equally important to learn how to calm yourself. And you need to cultivate that ability.

How long I meditate depends on how stressed or anxious I am, but it’s usually about 20 or 30 minutes. I use a “just breathe” technique, where I try to quiet my mind and simply breathe.

When I first started meditating, I had to coax myself into doing five or 10 minutes. Now I love the feeling so much I usually go until my legs start to fall asleep from sitting cross-legged.

4. Thinkitate

One of the most beautiful things about meditating is that it puts your brain into an alpha wave state. This is considered to be the most creative of brain states, and that’s certainly how it feels for me.

So, once I’ve finished meditating, before the alpha wave state wears off and I return to normal life, I stop trying to quiet my mind and instead set it to dealing with one of my most challenging problems.

I call this process “Thinkitating.” I find this to be a powerful strategy because when I’m in this state of mind, I notice I make more unique and novel connections, allowing me to identify some pretty creative solutions to problems that otherwise seemed intractable.

5. Read

I try to read every day. I believe the most important math equation is II = IO (Ideas In = Ideas Out). Pretty much all of my time is accounted for every day. So I’ve had to find ways to ensure that I get time to read.

One of those ways is to read in what I call the “transitional moments”—brushing my teeth, getting dressed, cooking food, etc. One of the most opportune moments for me is when I walk my dogs. It’s a solid 30 minutes of time that I usually follow by my first meal of the day. That gives me a good 45 to 60 minutes of uninterrupted daily reading time. That’s in addition to all of the sneaky little moments that I catch whenever possible. Because I like to set aside time to really sink in and read, too.

6. Create a “most important things” list

I keep a list of the most important things that my business needs to thrive. Once I sit down to work, the first thing I do is go through that list. I take immediate action on anything and everything on that list that I can, and if I skip something three days in a row, I delete it from the list as my actions indicate that it’s not truly important.

As a rule, I keep the highest-impact stuff at the top of the page to ensure that I don’t fall into the trap of addressing something lower on the priority list just because it’s listed first.

7. Ignore email

Checking email is a critical mismanagement of time. It is, in my opinion, a dereliction of your duties as an entrepreneur.

If you check email before addressing the most pressing needs of your company, you’re admitting that other people know better about what you should be doing than you do.

I’ve trained myself to ignore email until everything else that needs to be done is done. I’ve usually put in between 5 and 7 hours’ worth of work before I check my email for the first time. And I try to spend less than an hour on email per day.

I have found the habits embedded in my morning routine to be instrumental in getting things done and keeping myself on track. Habits in general are, in my opinion, the very foundation of success.

I highly recommend that everyone adopt a morning routine that addresses both mental and physical well-being, while ensuring that you’re taking the necessary steps to be successful in whatever it is that you’re doing. May your morning routine serve you as well as mine has served me.