The 5AM Club tells the tale of two strangers and an eccentric tycoon who reveals how the powerful early rising habit of waking at 5AM can revitalise your health, mindset and spirituality, giving you the tools to succeed and enjoy life.
The 5AM Club Summary
Robin Sharma wrote this book as a sequel to The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. Written as a narrative, the book profiles his revolutionary early morning routine which draws on neuroscience, personal experience and the lives of inspiring leaders including Edison, Mozart, Mandela, Gandhi and Steve Jobs.
Encouraging us all to become heroic leaders and take control of our own destiny, the 5AM club rests on an extraordinarily simple concept with immediate practice applications for all of us.
Below are some of the key insights from the book.
Key Insights
- “Own your morning. Elevate your life”
- All of us carry a quiet genius and trumphient hero within our hearts.
- Better awareness enables better choices which enables better results.
- Success is linked with your ability to capitalize on your innate talents rather then the talents themselves (Capitalisation IQ)
- Stillness, solitude and silence help use enter a flow state where brain waves move from Beta > Alpha > Theta creating healthy neurochemistry (Freedom from distraction)
- Your influence in the world mirrors the glory, nobility, vitality and luminosity of your being (Personal Mastery)
- To work on personal mastery, expand your (1) Mindset (psychology) (2) Heartset (emotionality) (3) Healthset (psychicality) and (4) Soulset (spirituality)
- Habit formation is a practice. Willpower is based on grit rather than inborn strength.
- “How you practice in private is how you perform in public”
- It takes 66 days to install a habit – Destruction, Installation and Integration.
- When forming habits: (1) Never learn alone (2) The teacher learn the most (3) When you feel like quitting is when you must advance instead.
- When you wake at 5AM use the 20/20/20 formula to spend 20 minutes (A) Moving – with exercise first (B) Reflecting – With journals, visuals (C) Growing – With books, inspiration.
- Early exercise creates BNSF (brain derived neurotrophic factor) which powers peak performance throughout the day.
- If you wish to double your results, triple your performance (The 2X3X Rule)
- Create technology free periods at the start and end of your day to reduce the cognitive strain of constant distraction.
- Use a tight bubble of focus (TBOF) combined with an oscillating work pattern between focussed activity and creative activity (superfocus + scatterfocus)
- Always work on the activity that when performed correctly will make you a world expert in your industry.
- Timeblock two massages each week to enjoy the health benefits regardless of cost.
- Use the feeling of ‘joy’ or ‘bliss’ as your personal GPS to decide intuitively what to do in life.
- Own your own magic and collect miraculous experiences over material possessions.
- Failure makes you fearless.
- Heaven is a state of mind not a place.
- Health enables longevity which is the #1 secret to being truly legendary.
- Despite this, Tomorrow is always a bonus and never a right – so expect the unexpected in life to throw you off course and question your faith.