My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Their Day

February 21, 2019

My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Their Day

My ex-boss used to repeat this phrase so often that it has been permanently imprinted in my brain:

“If you replicate 100% of the actions of successful people, you will get 75% of their results”

The lesson was to copy the routines, strategies, and habits of successful sales- people so that their results could be replicated, and it worked! I also found that this approach could also be utilised in other areas of my life like working out, meditating, listening, learning, investing, managing etc. This is one of the primary reasons that I consistently read autobiographies of successful as well as not so successful people.

While these autobiographies provide the mental conditioning required for the long road ahead, very few provide details on the daily routine these people deploy to start, run and end every day. While I have always been in awe of how a Warren Buffet, a Richard Branson, an Amitabh Bachchan or a Brad Feld find the time to run a much larger operation than mine, write books/blogs/poems, make videos, devote time to their respective social causes, be famous and make it all look so effortless, I was certain that there had to be a secret to the system or hack that they were using.

To find an answer to the riddle, I subscribed to various podcasts, read multiple books on time management, signed up for several productivity apps or hacks, attended seminars and even bought expensive diaries and journals. These solutions would only work for a few weeks and also at the trade-off of my close ecosystem going insane. (Sorry, Sandy)

Invariably, I would find out that these systems were built for a machine and inflexible for the needs and wants of an entrepreneur’s time. Even worse, these systems would make me feel guilty if I missed out on a dot or a tick or on making a task list. I had to look for something better!

Then I came across a blog post in my news feed that listed out the morning routine for a regular joe like me and I was intrigued. I went through the website (where the blog was posted) and saw several examples of morning routines that I could identify with. I signed up for the newsletter trusting that I had finally found the answer I was seeking. But my prevailing habits won and I didn’t end up diligently reading those newsletters or making any changes to my routine.

At the beginning of this year, as I was cleaning out my inbox, I found several Morning Routine newsletters. That’s when I promised myself that I would make the change this year. I took the first step by buying the book ‘My Morning Routine’. I started to write down the elements from the morning (and evening) routines of people being interviewed that aligned with my own goals and life situations. Then, I began to incorporate those changes into my daily routine and have witnessed excellent results for the last 52 days of this year.

Who is this book for?

I believe that this book is for any individual who wants to focus on getting results versus getting busy. It is written as a collection of interviews of CEOs, artists, journalists, actors, entrepreneurs, authors, VCs and working parents.

In my honest opinion, it is a must-read for entrepreneurs and people working inside VC firms (especially you Nikita, Karishma and Sandesha)