If you want to totally transform your life on every level, start with changing how you spend your mornings. In this episode, I describe the life-changing benefits I have experienced from doing my personalized exercise routine every day for the past five years. I share how my commitment to my routine has completely transformed my life by improving focus and discipline all day long, while also helping me avoid the distractions of hyper-connectivity that we all face daily (all day long!).

I discuss the meditative aspects of the routine and how to start slowly and build your commitment in a comfortable and sustainable manner, as well as the benefits of exercising outside, first thing in the morning, which calibrates your energy-boosting circadian hormones. It also sets an inspiring peak performance tone for the day, one that strengthens your ability to actively advocate for your own health and fitness. Another added benefit is avoiding the negative effects of hyper connectivity—one study revealed that 79% of Americans check their smartphones within fifteen minutes of awakening, and 46% check them before getting out of bed. You’ll hear about what the precise problem is with looking at your device as soon as you wake up (in short: locking your brain into the reactive, short-attention-span, dopamine-craving mode) and I share what psychiatrist Nikole Benders-Hadi has said about what immediately reaching for the phone does to your brain (“the information overload that hits before you’re fully awake . . . interferes with your ability to prioritize tasks . . . [and] you are more likely to increase stress and feel overwhelmed”). 

One important takeaway from this show is to ask yourself: how much time can I devote every day? As you’ll hear in this episode, I started with a short 12 minute routine—and now look at me! Make it easy, inviting, and sustainable, and you’ll experience success. Design the routine for yourself so it is customized to your needs—if you need any ideas, my course will give you a lot of helpful starting points for you to pick and choose from, and remember Atomic Habits author James Clear’s advice about the two minute rule: a habit must be established before it can be improved.

If you’re like me and you want to wake up and get refreshed, energized, and feel focused—in any way it takes—then having a morning movement routine is the best way to do it! Start small, make sure your routine consists of things you actually enjoy doing and that benefit your body, and watch the magic happen! The most important thing is just to do SOMETHING—that way, you can start amassing a streak to prove you are in control—and after that, you just keep going.

TIMESTAMPS:

Get up in the morning and hit the deck!! There are many benefits in the morning exercise routine. [01:24]

Brad combined many of his usual exercises like jogging, yoga, stretching, strengthening, and incorporated them into his morning routine. [03:17]

For the everyday person that maybe isn’t a serious athlete, a routine is still and extremely important element of your everyday life. [07:01]

The first step towards changing your life is to acknowledge the destructive effects of hyper connectivity. Don’t check your phone when you first wake up. [09:38]

Try the exercise routine instead of coffee, or at least BEFORE your coffee. It does the same thing. [13:55]

Step two is logistics. This can become an easy, inviting, and sustainable habit as important and routine as brushing your teeth. Start small. [16:27]

Step three is building the habit. Nothing is more important that taking care of yourself. Just do it. [24:02]

Four stages of habit change are: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. [34:58] 

By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform every area of your life. [38:03]

Exposure to natural light is imperative. Light controls all the activities in your body functions. [39:16]

Strengthen your commitment by celebrating your streak of following through. Repeat the exact same template every time. [43:15]

Increase your commitment after you have this habit established.  You are the boss.  Don’t answer to any outside forces. [48:31]

In summarizing the idea of creating a morning routine, make it enjoyable. Make it applicable to your athletic fitness and goals. Start it first thing in the morning. It improves your capacity for concentration.  [53:56]

If this is not clicking for you after you’ve made a good effort, take a look at what is getting in your way. [57:03]

When you’ve made the commitment, you will find it is difficult to bypass your morning routine. Celebrate your success. [59:45]

Use your morning routine as a launchpad for other desired habits.  [01:04:39]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• Brad Kearns’s Morning Routine
• Brad’s Original  Simpler Morning Routine
• Brad’s YouTube Jogging 2.0
• Atomic Habits
• The Miracle Morning
• Morning Routine Online Course

QUOTES:

• “A habit must be established before it can be improved.” (Clear)
• “Only the disciplined ones are free in life, otherwise you become a slave to your moods and passions.” (Kipchoge)
• “How you wake up each day and your morning routine or lack thereof dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life.” (Elrod)

LISTEN: 

Download episode audio by clicking the arrow in the top right corner of the player above

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B.Rad Podcast

Brad (00:01:24):
Hey listeners, I would love to talk to you in detail about what has become my most passionate and favorite healthy living topic. And that is getting started on a life changing morning exercise routine. And of course, you’ve heard me talk about the online course that’s been long in development and is now here for you to enjoy. I strongly urge you to take part, take a vote in favor of yourself and your healthy living and a healthy, balanced lifestyle, more focused discipline, resilience against stress and distraction that you face throughout these busy, crazy days that we live. And it starts with hitting the deck and getting some work done. The online course is wonderful. It takes you through everything that I’ve built over the past five years on my streak of doing this every single day and modifying it, testing it, refining it, and then sharing it with you.

Brad (00:02:17):
And it’s totally scalable to whatever time you have to devote whatever fitness level you’re at and also your particular fitness, injury prevention, athletic goals. Now let’s just get right into it with the discussion of the benefits and why it’s been such a big deal in my life and why I want to convince you that this is a absolutely non-negotiable element of living healthy, balanced life. In my own case, of course, fitness is not a weak area for me. That might be over into the realm of, um, distractability, managing finances, of other areas where I could put a needs to improve checkpoint in my list. But of course I’ve been a lifelong athlete and health and fitness has been a centerpiece. However, I have not really had a consistency at the baseline that I would like. In other words, my fitness routine has always been intuitive and varied.

Brad (00:03:17):
Even back when I was a full-time athlete, some days were pretty grinding. We were out there for seven hour bike ride, 30 minute swim, you know, from sun up to sundown. You’re pretty busy training. Other days where recovery days where whatever I would sleep in, maybe head over to the pool, get a massage, you know, quite a bit less stressful of an exercise experience, uh, but into my adult life beyond my career as an athlete, which basically was from, uh, ages 20 to 30, and then raising a family, having a busy work life, commuting, traveling, uh, those kind of things, lots of things got in the way of establishing and maintaining a healthy fitness baseline and also a well structured and prioritized day. I think we can all relate to this where, uh, your intentions to work out and move your body and get fresh air or whatever it is get pushed aside by the digital experience or whatever else you can blame.

Brad (00:04:18):
And so over the decades, uh, a lot of days were in there in my training diary where I was doing very little or just hitting out and jogging in a straight line with my dogs. And I talk about the revision of that experience on my YouTube video, Brad Kearns jogging 2.0 ,where I mix in different things. So when I’m heading out for the normal everyday outing, it now has more flavor and variety, but a layer on top of that was this idea back in 2000 early, 2017, late 2016, I decided that my sprint workouts were so stressful to my body, that they always took a disappointing amount of time to recover from. And so I’d come up the next day with really sore calves, whatever tight hamstrings, hip flexors, fatigue at, in everyday life, recovering from what was a pretty challenging session.

Brad (00:05:14):
And I realized that I really didn’t do anything to approximate the challenge of my most difficult workouts in day to day fitness experience. So I was either jogging, going to the gym, lifting weights for the upper body, whatever. And then I’d go out there and blast the sprint workout, maybe once a week, more like three times a month, because it was just so difficult to recover from and summon up the energy and have the right day to do it. And so I thought, Hey, what if I established a higher fitness baseline at just a starting point from which I launched all workouts, especially the high intensity sprint workouts. So that would be making my core, my hamstrings, my hip flexors, my glutes, a little more resilient so that it was time to challenge them, challenge the body. It wouldn’t be such a, a beat up experience, right?

Brad (00:06:05):
And so that’s when I started inventing, these mixture of, uh, stretching, strengthening, yoga, uh, a variety of activities that comprised my morning routine. And I started to do it at very baseline level. At first, it was a pretty low intensity, 12 minute experience. I actually have the original version on YouTube published in 2017. And then I have a 2020 version that showed the escalation of the degree of difficulty and the sophistication of the workout. And then of course in the online course, we’re gonna get into extreme detail and describe every exercise and help you custom design a routine for yourself. But I think the elevation of my basic fitness platform was a true breakthrough because then I was able to absorb and benefit from my proper training sessions, being that I had specific athletic goals and so forth. So that was a big thumbs up.

Brad (00:07:01):
But for the everyday person that maybe isn’t a serious athlete, I’m still going to contend that this is an extremel. Important element of your everyday life and your fitness goals, because no matter what you do after the morning routine, you still knock it out every single day. And it builds that focus that discipline, that resilience against distraction and kind of gives you a safeguard against life, getting too busy and getting away from you, such that you have these days characterized by inactivity. And that’s something that we’re all battling against. Even the fittest among us, even the, the CrossFit devotee, or the iron man triathlete who’s training 7, 12, 14, 17 hours a week. Some of these crazy training regiments, but guess what? The week has 168 hours. And a lot of those folks, particularly those folks might be sitting around for long periods outside of those formal and devoted discipline workouts. Katy Bowman, the biomechanist nutritious movement is her brand and her movement itself just getting people into a more varied and active daily life. She calls it the lazy athlete mentality whereby you give yourself a hall pass against basic activity because you do these impressive workouts.

Brad (00:08:21):
And we have so much science and research. Now, uh, some of it is, um, couched under the active couch potato syndrome concept. So much science is showing that a lack of daily activity and prolonged periods of stillness are extremely health destructive. So much so that the endeavor to just move more in everyday life might rank up there as high or higher than adhering to a devoted formal workout regimen. Okay. So that’s my brief argument for the importance of just waking up right away, hitting the deck, and getting some kind of work done. And again, I told you about my very gradual and graceful foray into this new life commitment. And I wanna encourage you to do the same, and I’m not kidding when I say, if you only have five minutes to devote, okay, you have a, <laugh> a chunk of time to devote to listen to this show, but going forward, if you only have five minutes a day, it will be tremendously beneficial to knock out those five minutes every single day. And it’s highly predictable that you will build upon that and get more devoted and more interested in increasing the level of sophistication and intensity over time.

Brad (00:09:38):
So here is the first step toward changing your life, form the intention and make the commitment you got to want it. You have to be willing to change your life for the better and actually care about it. It’s important to acknowledge the incredibly destructive effects of hyper connectivity. The study that I mentioned often conducted by a prominent global market research firm called International Data Corporation revealed that 79% of Americans check their smartphones within 15 minutes of awakening and that 46% of that 79%. So half of the 80% of people that are addicted to the phone in the morning, 46% check them before getting outta bed implying that they are able to reach their phone from bed.

Brad (00:10:31):
And we’ve heard from EMF experts about the destructive effects of EMF, especially at night when we need to get into that parasympathetic state. So, quick lifestyle checkpoint would be, please, please charge your phone outside of arm’s reach ideally in another room, unless you’re on the super emergency category, like my sister, Dr. Kate, delivering babies in the middle of the night. She has a free pass to have that phone right near <laugh> within, uh, loud alarm sound in the case that she’s needed. But for most of us, come on, who are we kidding here? So, charge your phone in the hall, or at least charge it across the room, and then you’ll have a better chance of escaping that disturbing statistic. Why is it so disturbing? Because when you engage with a device, as soon as you wake up, you actually lock your brain into the reactive, short attention span, dopamine craving instant gratification mode, and in doing so, you compromise your capacity to engage in more desirable executive functions in the morning, such as strategically planning your day, such as writing into your gratitude journal, reflecting, welcoming the day in a calm state of mind, rather than using your thumb to see what’s going on and all the crazy stuff that’s happening.

Brad (00:11:53):
And okay, we talk about all the destructive effects of being addicted to the news cycle and the fear mongeriing and all that. But even if it’s good stuff, right, even if it’s sports highlights, you’re still in this dopamine craving reactive mode, rather than that high level executive function mode, which is really strong in the morning. If you allow it to come out and play. Psychiatrist, Nicole Bendersati believes that when you immediately reach for your phone quote, the information overload that hits you before you’re fully awake, interferes with your ability to prioritize tasks, and you are more likely to increase stress and feel overwhelmed, end quote. There is so much support for this and other people echoing in Julie Morganstern, who wrote the book, Never Check your Email in the Morning. Hey, that’s a nice title. She says, when you check your email, first thing in the morning, quote, you’ll never recover. Explaining that it’s hard to go from your transactional shallow part of your brain, the frontal cortex, to the other parts of your brain, where strategy happens and relationships happen.

Brad (00:13:01):
It’s easier to start in the deep recesses of your brain and then move into the shallow parts. Okay? So that’s a sufficient fodder for you to form this intention and make a commitment to have a different looking day than just thumbing through your phone. And I know that, it’s not always easy to pop out bed bright and shiny with a smile and high energy. Some people need a while to get going for whatever reason. Sometimes we blame it on our chronotypes. I generally blame it on, uh, the behavior patterns of the previous evening and our overall lifestyle pattern of, uh, introducing a lot of artificial light and digital stimulation after dark. We’d also put a vote in there for diet, mindset, stress management techniques, whatever it is that’s causing you to feel a little groggy in the morning and need a while to wake up, guess what?

Brad (00:13:55):
There is nothing better than hitting the deck and starting into some gentle exercises. It’s actually better than caffeine because the basic, gentle activity starting the day will blunt your adenine. And that’s the, uh, the neurotransmitter that, uh, promotes sleepiness and builds and builds and builds throughout the day. That’s exactly how caffeine works. Is it blunts, adenine? So it allows you, caffeine’s not really a, a direct stimulant. What it is is blunting adenine to allow you to naturally, well, not naturally cuz you’re drinking the caffeine, but allow you to feel alert and energized. Do you get the difference there? Okay. So, caffeine blunts adenine, and then you feel alert and energized, but so does exercise at, at the same time, exercise also, uh, prompts, a natural and desirable spike in cortisol that we want to see in the morning so that we wake up feeling alert and energized.

Brad (00:14:55):
And I can tell you <laugh> at age 57, I would contend that I’m not quite jumping outta bed. Maybe like I did in earlier decades. A lot of times it takes me a little bit to get going, but guess where that little bit occurs. It occurs on the mat while I’m moving my legs and it never ever fails. Even if I really do feel like crap, don’t feel like doing anything, uh, would rather stay in bed. And again, sometimes I do stay in bed for an extra 30 minutes or an hour, especially if I’m asleep. I don’t wake up with an alarm. And so I have that opportunity, which is great and all of us will do the best we can on that level. But failing that, when you’re up and it’s time to get up, there’s nothing better than hitting the deck and getting that natural rise in cortisol and the blunting of adenine whereby why did I say it’s better than caffeine?

Brad (00:15:45):
Caffeine does the latter, but it also interferes with that natural spike in cortisol so much so that Dr. Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab Podcast, great resource for scientific based contentions about diet, exercise, and healthy living, suggests that you wait, I think he said two hours, maybe one hour, you wait one to two hours before having your cup of coffee so that the natural hormonal processes can take effect. And then you can get that desired boost from coffee without interfering with the stuff that sunlight and especially gentle movement is designed to do your body’s craving that type of, uh, natural awakening.

Brad (00:16:27):
Okay. So now this brings us to step two, which is the logistics. And the first thing I want to ask you straight up. Answer me honestly, how much time can you devote every day? Again, I started with 12 minutes. I don’t think that was too much to ask. I can reference other times in my life with busy school mornings and the desire not to compromise my sleep and be a military badass and get up at 4:30 in the morning and do all these wonderful things and check the boxes, post on social media and make you feel inferior because you can’t get up so early. I strongly recommend against that type of bulldozer strategy. You know why? Because we want this to become a habit that does not require motivation or willpower. We want it to be in the same category as brushing your teeth. Therefore, if you are forcing yourself to do this morning routine by moving that alarm clock back, and you’re gonna wake up, hear that alarm, cultivate a negative attitude immediately, that is no good. And at this point with my commitment being quite extensive, I’ll say from my own perspective, 40 minutes is a big chunk to bite off every single day, especially when, um, I might not totally feel like it because I’m recovering from hard training prior to it or traveling or having a super busy morning.

Brad (00:17:50):
Again, I don’t think about it. I just get it done. I don’t judge it to be, uh, wonderful nor, uh, super annoying. And so I’m kind of past all that I’m past deciding how motivated I am and I just do it. And I want you to jump, make that jump with me. Therefore it has to be an appropriate duration so that it’s no trouble. And if that’s five minutes right now, that’s fine. Hey, how about we bargain and say that you’ll give 12 minutes to yourself and your wellbeing and your brain function and your physical fitness first thing in the morning. So whatever it is to be easy, inviting and sustainable. And here’s the key, and this is backed up by when I last checked the number one best selling book on Amazon in the world, Atomic Habits by James Clear. Wonderful book. I highly recommend it.

Brad (00:18:44):
And one of his huge takeaway points was that you wanna start your habits as small as possible. And he even makes the ridiculous example of making the commitment to floss one tooth, if you’re not a good tooth flosser. So instead of saying going to the dentist, getting scolded, coming home with your free container of floss and thinking, I really gotta do it. I really should do it. I really gotta get motivated instead, make it a little game and say, Hey, can you floss one tooth a day, please? Is that an <laugh>? Is that possible? Of course, it’s possible pull the string floss, a tooth, go out and bow with your busy day. That’s so busy that you can’t floss your teeth in the first place. But that is a literal and emphatic example from one of the world’s leading experts.

Brad (00:19:28):
And so the same thing goes with the morning routine. And when you make that commitment, that’s the big part, right? So if you’re, if you’re gonna say five minutes or you’re gonna say 12 minutes, make it happen without fail every single day, and that will make it meaningful to you. This is just my personal recommendation, but if you’re thinking of, Hey, maybe it would be better for me to take weekends off. Cause I really like to chill out on the weekend. I don’t wanna be on my to-do list. All those kind of things where you’re negotiating with yourself, I guess it’s okay. But for me, maybe I’m in that black and white category, like many of you where you can’t have, uh, just a few Pringles, you’re gonna bury the whole box or you can’t have pints of Ben and Jerry’s in your house because the pint will be emptied and so forth.

Brad (00:20:15):
So maybe there’s some personality aspects here that you’re gonna figure out a commitment that works best for you, but I strongly, strongly recommend a low enough bar to climb over every single day. And so start small, easy inviting sustainable. If you struggle or you come back to this show in six months time, and you’re not locked in, let’s go and reflect on a different approach and was it easy, inviting and sustainable enough? And the answer is no, if you’re haven’t succeeded. And so you just rewind a little bit and maybe reset from your initial 12 minute commitment, cuz that sounded so simple. And then you realized over time that you missed on Monday and then on the next Friday you missed. And then on Thursday, a phone call came in, you talked for two hours in the morning, you never got it done.

Brad (00:21:06):
That kind of thing. And I will say that in my five plus years streak, there have been a, mm, a couple handfuls of days where I had to do some makeup work. In other words when the flight leaves at 6:40 AM or what have you, um, nothing happens. <laugh> again, I’m not setting my alarm into, oh, dark 30 just to get this done, that defeats the purpose. So in my personal example, I’d say one out of every a hundred days was some sort of modification of a makeup situation in the afternoon. Other times due to let’s say a track meet or some huge athletic opportunity, I did an abbreviated version and then what I do, what I do to myself to punish is I’ll double up on the ensuing days. And I’ll tell you what as far as doing the self negotiations and trying to get some back doors for yourself, uh, let me tell you how difficult it is to double up when you miss a few elements of the routine.

Brad (00:22:06):
And so it kind of keeps you focused and devoted and committed to doing the whole thing every single day. Okay. So start as small as possible. Atomic Habits, James Clear, and he offers up this concept of the two minute rule, for a true powerful habit to start on that easy inviting and sustainable, uh, category. Make it a two minute habit. And, why is this so important or why is this so effective? Because quote, a habit must be established before it can be improved. A habit must be established before it can be improved. First deep breath of the show, let that sink in people. Isn’t that awesome? All right. So that was step two is to figure out the logistics, put that time commitment. And of course in this category would be find an appropriate environment and the whatever implements you need.

Brad (00:23:06):
And I purposely tried to be super low tech, super low budget, and really you don’t need anything except perhaps a padded mat or an area to do some groundwork because I emphasize the work on the floor, especially outta the gate. And then the entire sum of the other tools that I show on my morning routine. We’re talking like an AB roll or for 15 bucks, we’re talking mini bands for what five bucks each or a pack of five for $25. And, I have that 2.5 inch soft pad exercise pad to increase the degree of difficulty of balancing moves. And those are all optionals, but, you know, if you just have a few tidbits that fit into travel luggage easily, you’re good to go at least on my routine. And, and certainly that how it contributes to making it easy, sustainable, and convenient. If you happen to be doing things in different areas or traveling a lot.

Brad (00:24:02):
That brings us to step three, which is build the habit, get to work. How do we do it? We wake up in the morning and we hit the deck and we gain that heightened awareness of how we live our lives, because we’re either gonna do it or we’re not gonna do it. And if something gets in the way after 30 days, and you’ve only done 17 or whatever, despite your initial commitment, you are exposing yourself as a victim of circumstance in hectic high stress, modern life, and nothing is more important than taking care of yourself and honoring your commitments and building habits rather than being a victim. Right? Eluid Kipchoge the greatest long distance runner of all time. the marathon legend that ran the one hour and 59 minute marathon, one of his great quotes, he’s a super quotable, amazing African runner.

Brad (00:24:57):
That’s like sage he’s a philosopher of modern times. And if you look him up on the internet, you can find all kinds of, uh, great insights from this amazing runner. And he says only the discipline ones are free in life, otherwise you become a slave to your moods and your passions. Yeah. I mean, that’s some serious shit. That’s all I all I can comment there. And, boy, it’s a real battle today, I think with the hyperconnectivity and the distractability, but it’s worth fighting this battle to not become a slave to your moods and your passions. And that is why I’m going to argue that first thing in the morning is the absolute best time, because that shows that you’re truly in control and it’s almost non-negotiable, but if you have a really, really strong case, okay, I’m gonna be open to it.

Brad (00:25:51):
Lay it on me, right? Oh, I have to get the triplets and the quadruplets off to preschool by 7:30 AM. And then my house is quiet for hours on end. So I intend to do it after the, the morning rush. Okay. Fine. As long as it’s locked into place and it’s fixed and it’s strong and it’s not a, there’s no a wiggle room where, I’ll get it done after I send my morning emails out. Right. You can see where this becomes a slippery slope. Whereas waking up and not reaching for your, your phone is not a slippery slope. <laugh> Okay. You may have heard of Jim Quick, the brain training expert, best selling author podcast host, and guy that I made fun of for having a popular YouTube video with seven and a half million views about his morning routine, which contained count them 17 steps.

Brad (00:26:45):
And I was like, okay, come on, man. <laugh> what is this? How is this relevant to the person that’s fighting the daily battle? But anyway, he also has tremendous amount of great information and, uh, helpful tidbits to get you focused and get the most outta your brain. And he gives three attributes to developing a winning, to building a winning habit. And so number one, as I’ve already talked about at length is to go all in and you have to deeply believe that this will improve your life, this endeavor that you are trying to get into habit. So, flossing that one tooth right, is going to lead to flossing a bunch of teeth and not having to do root canals over the next 5, 10, 20 years. Okay. Number two, this is again, Quicks list of three attributes for a winning habit is to find the fun factor.

Brad (00:27:39):
So yes, indeed we are allowed to partake in instant gratification in order to keep us in alignment on our long term goals. And so if you are not enjoying the experience when you’re done and you don’t feel better, let’s figure that out and let’s design a different morning routine. And so, I contend that I’m, uh, past that point of judging my routine as super awesome, exciting or drudgery. Right? So I, I don’t think about it in either of those terms. I just do it, but I will tell you how I feel afterward. And that is always invariably much, much better than before I started. So I think that’s kind of the essence that I want to share with you there. And the fun factor is, you know, once you get into it, once you get going, you’re moving your body, your physical, your outdoors, you’re more at peace than if you’re scrolling through your phone and you also have this sense of satisfaction that you’re someone who knows how to, uh, set and achieve goals, build healthy winning habits and get fitter.

Brad (00:28:48):
And as I sprinkle in the many benefits, one of them is I’ve become a much fitter person. I believe it really helped me with my fat reduction goals that I talk about on different shows. Um, I mean, how can it not, you know, I, I just kind of set the tone for a, a lean healthy fit body and healthy fit lifestyle because every day I’m out there getting work done instead of blank having another cup of coffee or doing the crosswords or frittering around and wasting time holding my device. Okay. So the fun factor, uh, would be important that it’s inherently fun and that you enjoy it. Maybe we can talk to you after, rather than right before, and you’ll have a thumbs up that it’s, it does have that necessary fun factor. And then the third attribute is repetition endurance that of so many experts talk about, uh, over and over and pound that into your head, that repetition and endurance creates a habit.

Brad (00:29:45):
Motivation is highly overrated, just commit to it and then forget about it. It’s on the list. Don’t worry about it. Just get it done. Don’t ask yourself, am I in the mood today? This is especially relevant. I think when I talk about cold exposure and the habit of therapeutic cold exposure, you know, this is where that little voice pops up every single day, especially when I had, I amassed a streak of a few years of jumping in the chest freezer or the cold lake every single day. Now I’m going to admit that is not part of my daily habit. It’s more like sprinkled in a few times a week. Uh, again, another recent Huberman lab podcast, entirely devoted to cold exposure, uh, was talking about research where if you accumulate 11 minutes a week total, you’re gonna get all these great benefits of cold thermogenesis, and you can sprinkle those in however you like.

Brad (00:30:42):
But anyway, the reason that it’s not locked into habit anymore is I prioritize the exercise routine. And I don’t wanna tip over that balance point to the extent that my morning commitment becomes a little bit of a stress and a drudgery and an inconvenience, because now as the clock’s ticking, I too want to get down to matters of business and obligations, responsibilities appointments, right? So if I was extending out and saying, here’s what I do, I do my 40 minute morning exercise routine. Then I go in the cold plunge. Then I go in the sauna. Then I’m gonna be in the Jim Quick category. Of course there are seven and a half million views of his morning routine video. You wanna hear that the, um, the steps that he presents? Okay. Number one is to recall your dreams, then you make your bed, which is so important for habit forming.

Brad (00:31:35):
Okay. Okay. You’ve heard that there was a best selling book. It was on the bestseller list for a long time called make your bed, uh, from a former general, talking about how these little things go a long way. And if you’re a bed making person, that means you’re gonna be focused and disciplined all the day. I kind of laugh and it’s hard for me to buy into that one. I think the exercise is way more interesting and important thing to talk about than whether or not you make your bed. And maybe it means nothing. If you’re a person that leaves the bed undone, I get the point, it’s a representation. It’s a symbol of being focused, disciplined, and cleaning up after yourself and, and so forth. Uh, but guess what? There’s research from Europe that shows that many cultures it’s routine to open the bed covers and leave them open throughout the day.

Brad (00:32:21):
And the research shows, this is actually allows microbes to escape, and otherwise they become trapped inside your sheets to the point that your bed becomes in some circumstance unsanitary, isn’t that wild. So what if the, um, what if the widespread recommendation was changed over to make sure you don’t make your bed every morning and then you’re, uh, escalating your, your health accordingly <laugh> okay. Anyway, so Jim Quick, recall your dreams first thing, then make your bed,. Drink some water in the morning. Of course, because you’re dehydrated overnight, take a probiotic, do some breathing exercises to oxygenate the body during early morning meditation session for just 20 minutes. That’s it. Do some gentle exercises like jumping jacks, uh, take a cold shower, uh, shave brush, do personal hygiene. Then you make a special tea that has MCT oil in it to get your, your brain going on on high cylinders. Then you engage in some journal exercises. Then you create two lists, a to-do list for the day and a to feel list for the day. And note that handwriting is better than typing. Then you read for 20 to 30 minutes, then you make a brain power smoothie that has a bunch of colorful fruit and vegetables in it. Then you go online and do some brain training exercises at guess what that’s right, his website, and this will help jumpstart your brain. And then finally you start your day.

Brad (00:33:48):
That’s the second sigh of the show and don’t get me wrong. I’m having fun here and making light of this, but of course, all this stuff is pretty cool if you have the time. And, um, let’s see, what does that add up to? He had a meditation in there for 20 minutes. He had reading for 20 minutes. So if this is an hour, hour and a half, Hey, this guy is a peak performer. And if you can’t do it, you don’t have that type of time commitment available. That’s fine. Maybe someday, you know, it’s worth thinking about. And in fact, even in my case, I bang out this 40 minute routine. And then usually I jump into something, some sort of obligation responsibility appointment. But on the days when I’m doing those formal and challenging workouts, I might head straight to the track after the morning routine.

Brad (00:34:37):
And then the hours are adding up to where I all of a sudden shake my head and it’s 10 o’clock and all I’ve done is fitness related activities. But of course I can’t do that every single day. And that’s the point is that you have a, a healthy foundation and then you can go out and kick some butt on whatever, uh, day that comes up to and whatever’s whatever’s happening in your life.

Brad (00:34:58):
Okay. this is another tidbit called, four stages of habit change. I think it’s James Clear. Anyway, the first one is to make it obvious. Uh, the second one is to make it attractive. The third one is to make it easy and the fourth one is to make it satisfying. So obvious the, the first step means that, you’re, you’re sort of like, uh, dude spellings, my podcast, guess where he talked about putting his hexagonal deadlift bar in the way in the door frame so when he leaves his office, he has to step through a hex bar to get out <laugh> and that helps him build the habit of doing one set of deadlifts every time he exits his office. So that’s the obvious part. For me, I mentioned that I don’t reach for the phone, like 79% of Americans, but I too, uh, need to stay in communication or, or like to stay in communication, see what’s going on with my, my day ahead. And so, uh, guess what if I’m not gonna reach for that phone? And I gotta do something before that that would be my morning routine. That’s pretty obvious. Then I get to reach for my phone. I also stack this with that important, uh, uh, obligation to drink water first thing in the morning. And I purposely delay that until I’m done with the routine.

Brad (00:36:18):
It might be nicer to hydrate before I start the routine, but I sort of think now that, um, my hydration session, which is, I do it pretty much every time I’m done is sort of a reward. It’s a celebration. Then I get to go make my homemade kombucha with sparkling water and, um, maybe make my smoothie at the same time. So anyway, I’m going in and I’m taking care of, uh, those matters, but they don’t happen until the routine is over. Okay. So that was the number one, make it obvious, make some, make it a passage way to the other things that you want or have to do. Making it attractive, for me, I realize that no matter how I feel at the start, I feel better afterwards. So that’s, the attractiveness is like, I know hitting the deck is going to naturally energize me and put me in a better state of mind and mood and physical energy than beforehand.

Brad (00:37:11):
So it’s kind of like the coffee pot is attractive to many people when they wake up. And so, in my case, uh, the wheel, you know, the yoga wheel, that extremely difficult yoga move where, you’re making a reverse, uh, your, your arching, your body, like the, the St. Louis arch. And that comes early on in my routine. It’s really tough. And when I finish the wheel, when I lower down from that difficult position that I hold for about a minute, that feels like a cup of coffee to me, cuz that’s when I become alert and energized, because it’s finally something that has a pretty challenging degree of difficulty where, okay, now I’m awake. All right. So then number three, making it easy. That’s starting with that small time commitment. And then finally, the number four satisfying is how, how good you feel after doing a nice morning session.

Brad (00:38:03):
Let’s hear from Hal Elrod author of The Miracle Morning. How you wake up each day and your morning routine or lack thereof dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings, generate focused, productive, successful days, which inevitably create a successful life in the same way that unfocused, unproductive and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive and mediocre days, and ultimately a mediocre quality of life. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life faster than you ever thought possible, end quote. And so, uh, who doesn’t wanna wake up feeling refreshed, energized, and focused, and I’m just arguing that this is the best way to do it, and then it can happen quickly. You’re talking about getting oxygen and blood circulating throughout the body. You’re talking about aligning with your circadian rhythm because I strongly recommend doing it outdoors or at least somehow exposing yourself to direct sunlight.

Brad (00:39:16):
And when I say sunlight, I don’t mean sunbeam. It can be cloudy overcast day in Norway. And if you’re getting, exposure to direct light, even overcast, that is sufficient to calibrate these circadian hormones. So weather permitting, I’m outside and weather not permitting. I’m still outside. And weather really gnarly. What I do is open up the slider, the kitchen slider, and I put the mat right at the edge and look out into the snow or whatever, and for a good portion of the year, my morning exercise routine doubles as a cold exposure session because I’m not wearing anything but shorts I’m purposely trying to be underdressed. And of course I warm up sufficiently, when I start the exercises. But a lot of times I notice when I’m finished, uh, I get chilly as soon as I’m done because I went out there exercising and the weather’s, uh, in the thirties, the forties, maybe down, I think I’ve been at freezing several times.

Brad (00:40:19):
And then when it gets in the twenties, that’s when, I’m going through the slider. And so I’m probably in a, uh, warm house and then letting a bunch of cold air in, Hey, what can I say? It’s important. And, we’ll work through that, as a family <laugh> okay. So the exposure to sunlight is imperative and not through a window because the window blocks those important ultraviolet rays that help with alignment of your circadian rhythm. Okay. Um, what’s going on there in the morning is natural light. I call it let’s call it natural light rather than sunlight thinking that it needs to be sunny when natural light hits the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the famous S C N that’s like the control tower for, uh, the way our body responds to light and all kinds of hormonal functions. That’s located, of course, in the hypothalamus, the control tower for all manner of human biological functions.

Brad (00:41:17):
So when natural light hits the SCN, it triggers a cascade of powerful hormonal responses to help you feel alert and energized. Instead of groggy. The SCN is a cluster of some 20,000 nerve cells located just below the brain. It’s like the master clock of your circadian rhythm. And so all light driven hormonal processes like regulating body temperature, regulating sleep, regulating wakefulness. All this happens on a 24 hour cycle that is strongly, strongly tied to exposure, appropriate exposure to natural light and lack of exposure to artificial light, uh, after the sunsets, that’s what throws us off our circadian rhythm in the morning. Here’s the cool stuff that’s happening. You are, as soon as that exposure to natural light happens, you, your body is suppressing melatonin. That’s the sleepiness hormone that helps you get and stay asleep. And it’s suppressing that in favor of serotonin.

Brad (00:42:20):
And so we want this rise of serotonin and cortisol. In the morning, we talk about cortisol in a negative context, a lot as, uh, the prominent or the preeminent fight or fight hormone. And we over produce cortisol. We exhaust the fight or fight response, and we turn into burnout because of all these stressful elements of hectic modern life. But in the morning, cortisol, spike gives you energy alertness and focus, and the serotonin also contributes to that. And then we also have that natural suppression of adenine. It’s typically a neuro it’s actually a, neuromodulator not a neurotransmitter. And anyway, this all, all this hormonal cocktail that occurs is going to be strongly facilitated and enhanced by exposure, direct exposure to natural light, not through a window. And then of course physical movement is going to enhance all these hormonal processes as well.

Brad (00:43:15):
Okay. We’re still on step three of building the habit. We wanna start slow. We got James clears to minute rule, and then I strongly recommend building a streak and celebrating it and making it important. Listen to how often I blab about it on my show, sharing with others and making myself accountable by talking about my streak. And so you build an appreciation, you celebrate your, your 30 day streak, your 60 day streak, your one year streak, whatever. And so it has great importance to you and it strengthens your commitment. And as far as building a habit besides starting slow, the other extremely important element, I would say non-negotiable as well is to repeat the exact same template every time. So you are doing the very same exercises in the same order every single day. And I’m gonna talk about modification, modifications and revisions over time.

Brad (00:44:12):
But this is the point is to make this a template. Therefore you do not have to tap into creativity, willpower decision making, or any of those cognitive processes that make habit forming and habit maintenance, more difficult. And for me, I also contend that this has wonderful meditative aspects because when I hit the deck, I immediately launch into a count of the sequences in my routine. So I’m doing 40 hamstring raises and leg kick outs to the right. Then I’m doing 40 to the left. Then I’m going into 20 forward frog legs. Then I’m going into 20 reverse frog legs. Then I’m going into 20 scissors. And then I’m going into 20 mountain climbers, with toes point in one direction, then 20 the other direction, and then 50, crossover crunches. And so during those 50 crossover crunches, I’m not wondering about I’m gonna have Captain Crunch for breakfast.

Brad (00:45:11):
All I’m doing is counting. And if I lose count, my penalty is I have to start that exercise over. And when will I lose count? If I’m getting distracted, for example, trying to listen to a podcast while I’m doing the morning routine or daydreaming, instead of staying focused on executing precise technique with each move and achieving the count and moving on to the next one. So it’s all I’m thinking about. And I count it, on the scoreboard as a meditation experience. Dave Rossi doesn’t agree with me. He’s been on the podcast four times talking about the wonderful benefits of a true meditation session, where you’re trying to empty your mind. And of course my mind’s not empty, but all it’s doing is counting. And some other experts have said, yeah, that counts as meditation for sure, man, count it. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna count it.

Brad (00:46:03):
All right. So use your creativity, use your variation and all that fun stuff in your formal workout schedule, right? Show up at the gym, do something different. A good trainer will keep it fresh and interesting and exciting today. We’re gonna climb the courthouse steps to the next session. We’re gonna go over to the park course at the park, and that’s great to keep things fresh. And, uh, uh, a lot of people think that you want more variation in your training to build a broader fitness base. Sometimes I disagree with that and I feel like gaining mastery over certain go-to exercises is probably just as valuable, maybe more valuable than being, uh, a versatile person who goes into the gym and does something different every time. I think it would get carried away with that concept, especially when you hear people that, uh, oh, if you just go in there and do the same number of sets and the same workouts, your body will hit a plateau and you won’t improve.

Brad (00:47:00):
And so you’re wasting your time. If you just go in and do, uh, four sets of squats, uh, with 200 pounds, guess what? It’s still fricking impressive. So don’t tell me that it’s a waste of time to wake up every day and do a very impressive and challenging morning exercise sequence that just makes no sense whatsoever. And, um, even in the athletic realm where you’re trying for peak performance, the great high jumper, Stephan Holmes, who’s the human who has jumped the furthest over his head of anyone ever. He won the Olympic gold medal in Athens 2004, and he’s a man of about five, 10 and a half. And his best high jump is seven, 10 and a half. So he jumped two feet over his head. Don’t you think that should be an event instead of just putting the bar up high?

Brad (00:47:45):
Cuz a lot of tall people are dominating in the high jump, but let’s see who can jump higher over one’s own head. Yes. A new Olympic event I vote for. And that doesn’t just come from me being on the shorter side, uh, of the high jump crowd. It just seems pretty cool. But anyway, Stefan Holmes said pick your five, uh, most favorite drills and master those and do those at every workout rather than throwing in all kinds of new drills in the name of becoming a more versatile or competent elite athlete. I love that concept. Okay. So in this cas, leave the creativity to your proper formal workouts. And this is just robot time because the main goal is to make it a habit. All right. So that was step three.

Brad (00:48:31):
And before we go into step four, just a quick recap. Number one, step number one was form that intention and make the commitment step. Number two was figure out the logistics. So you know what you’re committing to and then step number three is build it into habit nice and slow and steady. Okay. And then step four would be, pondering the idea, the concept of increasing your commitment, increasing your degree of difficulty over time. How are we going to do that in a manner that’s natural, intuitive, and sustainable? And don’t answer to any outside forces here. You are the boss, you are the one that has to interpret whether this is gonna work or not. Whether it’s a comfortable fit. You have to remember where that balance point is, where if you get too ambitious and aggressive, start with too big of a time commitment or escalate too quickly, you can easily dial it back and make sure it lands in that sweet spot at all times.

Brad (00:49:33):
And so that means that I want the degree of difficulty to be categorized or classified as medium to you, or medium to difficult. Some of the exercises might be considered that, but overall you’re kind of in that beautiful, medium sweet spot zone where it’s not a strenuous event that’s going to potentially adversely impact the pattern of your formal workouts, nor is it going to turn into something that becomes unsustainable because the degree of difficult is too high. So if I’m beat up after the day after a difficult sprinting or high jumping session, I can still get through my morning routine without any trouble, particularly because I’ve adapted to it over time. And yes, guess what’s gonna happen when you start accumulating this streak and getting really good at doing your template routine? The routine will become badass after a while. Become pretty impressive.

Brad (00:50:32):
I’ve had friends start in on mine and uh, complaining that their stomach’s burning after the first few sequences. I’m like, you’re kidding. Mine feels fine. Guess what? That’s because I do it every single freaking day. So if Brad from 2017, tried it in 2022, I, too, would be burning in the, uh, the muscles that, uh, haven’t been accustomed to it yet. So that’s the cool part is you build up, you become more adaptable and you raise your baseline fitness level, uh, to apply to all other fitness and athletic goals. We talked about keeping the template the same. And so over time, if you want to add or subtract, you’re perfectly welcome to try that. I just want you to try it in a very deliberate and thoughtful manner. So what I will actually do is audition a new exercise. I’ll give it a shot, I’ll throw it into the mix for a week or whatever and see if I like it and see if it’s something that aligns really closely with my athletic goals.

Brad (00:51:32):
So if you see me doing my routine on the course and I’m doing the yoga wheel where I arch my back aggressively, that’s particularly relevant for high jumpers, right? That’s the position I want to exhibit when I go over the bar that might not be something that’s, uh, interesting to many people and the degree of difficulty is high and a potential entry risk is high. So men might want to modify that into the typical bridge position where your shoulders are on the ground, along with your feet. And you’re just forming a vertical line between your knees and your shoulders. And that’s a great core and back exercise that’s much safer. And so you get the picture about how to customize it. Oh my gosh, if you have recurring injuries or weak spots and your glutes continue to cause you problems at whatever sport or activity you’re doing, you might want to increase your commitment to mini band work, which is so great for strengthening the glutes, which are often underutilized when we’re sitting in a chair.

Brad (00:52:31):
And also when we exhibit imperfect technique and a variety of activities, the glutes kind of turn off. You may have heard that language, uh, especially with Tiger Woods when he famously dropped out of a PGA tour event. And the reason why is because his glutes weren’t activating and the press teased him mercilessly about that, uh, for weeks and months afterwards, like, are you kidding? Jack Nicholas never dropped out of a tournament cuz his glutes weren’t activating. Ha ha ha. But this is the highest level of sophistication of athlete here. And the fact that his glutes weren’t firing appropriately, he detected that and realized that was gonna put more strain on his back, which has had 13 surgeries or something. So, uh, there you go, the jokes on the press for thinking that was a, a, a ridiculing that reason for dropping out of the tournament anyway.

Brad (00:53:16):
So you’re going to pick and choose the exercises that are of most interest and applicability to you and your fitness goals and your injury concerns. And I provide you with a ton of suggestions. So you don’t have to do the hard work of starting from scratch. So when you’re going through the course, I encourage you to watch everything, look at the descriptions, but pick and choose what seems relevant to you. And again, dial in that degree of difficulty to be medium to you, even as it gets more elaborate over time. But your fitness level is also escalating. Your competency is escalating, so you can handle more and still have it be a medium.

Brad (00:53:56):
So let’s kind of summarize the aspects of a well designed customized morning routine. Number one that it’s enjoyable to you. Number two is applicable to your athletic fitness and lifestyle goals like injury concerns, weak spots, things like that. Number three, remember that we’re starting first thing in the morning. This is not the ideal time for fitness, athletic, physical performance. Your hormones, your body temperature, your muscle flexibility and resiliency is going to be vastly better at other times of day. Perhaps you’re a morning person and you like to morning exercise, but we all have to recognize that. it’s requires a, a sufficient amount of warmup to do anything of significance. First thing in the morning because you’ve been supine in bed and without blood and oxygen circulating for many, many hours. So, uh, especially with the morning routine, we wanna start with something that is minimally challenging and extremely safe. That’s why I have you on the ground laying on your back for the first sequence of exercises, because it puts your body, stabilizing your body weight in that very safe position.

Brad (00:55:13):
And again, my hamstring raises leg kick outs might be considered advanced degree of difficulty for many people if they have poor flexibility. So you’re gonna want to even modify that one it’s easy and a great wake up call for me, but it might not be the same for you. And that’s why in the online course, we have vastly easier routines, uh, that are more, uh, focused on, let’s say the yoga sun salute, for example, where you just reach for the sky and you sweep down, it’s very gentle and it’s within reach of anybody, even those who wake up stiff and sore and cranky in the morning. I also have another one called the gentle skeleton setting routine, which is one I learned long ago when I was an athlete. And it’s a great way to kind of get your muscles joints, connective tissue tuned up and ready for any other action.

Brad (00:56:03):
But you do this first thing in the morning. As soon as you get outta bed, as soon as you’re supporting your body weight again. Sprinkling in another tidbit about the benefits. And I have some links in the online course in the PDF. I have a beautiful 50 page PDF talking about everything and describing everything in written format, along with all the videos. But studies have discovered that morning movement improves your capacity for concentration, visual learning, and decision making. And there’s also a link between morning exercise and being more inclined to move in general throughout the day, which is that huge, uh, health and fitness, uh, goal, uh, obligation that we need to really focus on these days when we sit for prolonged periods of time, people who exercise in the morning are more physically active for the following 24 hours. And there’s also research showing that participants slept better at study participants slept better after a 7:00 AM workout on the following night.

Brad (00:57:03):
Okay. So, uh, if you’re struggling and it’s not clicking for you, you’ve made a good effort. Stuff’s getting in the way, maybe it’s your mindset. Maybe it’s the actual logistics and time and things coming up. Here are a list of things to stop doing, to get out of your own way and set yourself up for more success. And the first one would be to roll back the clock and look at your evening behavior patterns so that you can get a more restful night of sleep, perhaps more sleep, more quantity of sleep, and be able to wake up in the morning, feeling a little more alert and energized than perhaps your baseline, where if you’re really dragging, it’s gonna be hard to do anything in the morning except for reach for the phone. Definitely already discussed. Don’t be setting your alarm and trying to be a pre-one hero on this because we want this thing to feel natural, comfortable, easy to sustain, not something that requires squeezing in to your super busy schedule, which can be further scrutinized with how you’re spending your evening time when you’re, uh, discipline and your willpower has eroded and you stay up later than you thought. Later than you planned, um, consume foods and engage in behaviors that aren’t aligned with either peak performance goals the next day, but you’re just too, uh, you’re you’re too, um, too fried to put a lid on it.

Brad (00:58:27):
So just getting to sleep earlier can really set you up for success in the morning. The next thing you can do is make it inconvenient to depart from your commitment. So I mentioned, uh, my rules of no phone and no water until I finish the morning routine. Now, whatever percentage of the time, 85% of the time, I truly do get out of bed and hit the deck or immediately take my dog to the park to start the routine. So I wake up, grab the dog in the car and really no delay, but other days, yes, indeed. I might putts around a little bit and do some household chore, maybe bust out the vacuum who knows what I might get distracted is what I’m saying for a, a short period of time. And then guess what? I start running out of options and the, uh, the energy, the momentum builds up pretty soon where I’m like, I better get my butt in gear.

Brad (00:59:22):
And I don’t recommend even dabbling in those distraction exercises. But I’m just saying that it happens naturally to me sometimes, and I can easily correct course, thanks to the momentum that I’ve built with a five year streak. It’s very, very difficult to, blow it off once you’ve build up the proper momentum.

Brad (00:59:45):
And so that brings us to the next bullet is, the rules and repercussions for screwing around and breaking your commitment. And I talked about the makeup exercises that I have to do on those days that I skip stuff. If I have an early morning airplane flight, you can look on my Instagram. I have pictures of me doing my mini bands in the gate, in the waiting area in Hawaii, amidst all the looks from the other passengers. I don’t care. If anyone wanted to come up and ask me what the heck you’re doing, I’d say I’m doing my morning routine.

Brad (01:00:13):
Sorry. you know, don’t mind me, uh, as I flip my legs around in the corner of the gate, just finding some spare carpet to get stuff done. Another item on the list here is to make sure celebrate your success with the streak. And I don’t know what that means to you. I’m not big on giving myself a permission to go by myself, an ice cream, because I just made it for a year long streak or a new sweater for that matter. But whatever celebration means to you, um, I definitely wanna give yourself a pat on the back and a smiley sticker or a, perhaps a consumer purchase, whatever you wanna do. It’s really fantastic that you’re breaking free from that 79% statistic of people who are addicted to instant simulation in the morning. Another one on the bullet list.

Brad (01:01:06):
And I love when people talk about this, I’ve heard it on podcasts and, and books, uh, the idea of injecting emotion into your quest to create winning habits. And so I make sure that I smile and punch the sky or do a nice namaste gesture at the end of my morning routine every day. And I quietly celebrate another day in the books. And I think you have to generate this excitement. And if you merely smile and jump up in the air this will happen automatically. That’s kind of Tony Robb’s stuff, where he says, if you yell and scream and pound your chest, you’re gonna change your body chemistry instantly into that, uh, power position. He calls it priming, and he has even instructions of how to prime in the morning where you take a bunch of breaths and stand tall with a powerful posture and say positive affirmation.

Brad (01:01:59):
So when you finish this routine, you can pick whatever mantra you like, like another day down, kick and butt. And here we go with the rest of the day, whatever you wanna do, inject a little emotion into the experience. Also important is to constantly continually assess and refine and feel free to subtract stuff that doesn’t work, or maybe it’s too strenuous. You’re gonna ease into it. You’re gonna back down from 20 to 10. And so you’re optimizing the count of each thing that you’re doing. Maybe you’re, uh, adding in new stuff where you discovered that’s an area of weakness or an area of potential improvement for your fitness athletic goals. And that’s a really fun part is to, uh, just continually to craft your routine. And so mine is written down in detail. Now it’s in the ebook, but all along, I’ve had it written and, you know, very precisely talking about how many reverse frog legs I’m doing.

Brad (01:02:53):
I started at 15, I moved to 20 in whatever year, it’s still at 20. But again, there is a, uh, there’s an end point to this escalation in the level of your commitment and the degree of difficulty, because at a certain point it’s gonna be what you declare to be optimal. And I highly highly doubt that anytime soon, I’m going to be reporting that my wonderful exciting morning routine has gone from 40 minutes, which is what the time clock says right now. When I actually timed it, it came out 39 minutes and 54 seconds. I predicted it was around 40 minutes. I was pretty close, but I highly doubt that I’m going to report back and say, Hey, guess what? Now it’s up to 60 minutes and next year it’ll be 75, not a chance. Why? Because that will tip me over that beautiful balance point and into the realm of seemingly inconvenient, too difficult, potentially affecting my desire to go out there and adhere to my formal workout schedule and so forth.

Brad (01:03:55):
So we wanna find that sweet spot. And at some point you’re gonna rise up to a pretty badass routine, and that’s gonna be fine for years to come. Again, locking into consistency instead of constantly confusing and adding degree of difficulty as many fitness experts argue that you must do is a bunch of nonsense. I mean, come on. What about Jack LaLanne? He famously did his thousand pushups and 500 pullups and a thousand sit ups every morning, uh, from 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM or whatever his amazing fitness routine was. Do you really think that he needed to go up to 1500 because a thousand, all of a sudden got too easy for him? Nonsense nonsense.

Brad (01:04:39):
And then finally on the bulletin list, use your morning routine as a piggyback, a launchpad for other desired habits. So for example, maybe you’re gonna finish the morning routine and go right into dedicated peak cognitive task screen time for an hour, because you’ve been struggling to set aside time and you get distracted by emails, whatever, whatever. so because you’re in that powerful mindset and behavior pattern, you can leverage that into other areas of life. And I’m trying very hard to report that this has been a smashing success for me with my focus and disciplined use of time in front of the screen. And I can’t say I’m all the way there yet, but I do feel like a more disciplined, focused person and more resilient against all other forms of stress and distraction. Because at least I know what I have going for me is I’m reliable, uh, to myself, uh, every single morning. All right. So, Hey, go out there and get started now, um, participate in the course, get some good ideas and remember that two minute rule. And if you wanna start it with two minutes, that’s great. Hey, then you can take it up to five.

Brad (01:05:57):
You can celebrate your success going at two minutes for a month and then go up to five, celebrate some more success and nice gentle baby steps forward in the name of your health focus, peak performance progress. And I don’t know if you have a dog and you already have a morning routine of getting the dog out and walking around the block. Why don’t you take that opportunity to introduce some exercises along the way, or as soon as you arrive home and go straight into the backyard and do a set of squats, or do the sun salute as described in the course? I love visiting the park in Los Angeles where my mom takes her dog and we go out there and there’s so many lauditory dog owners that are out there every single day, making sure their dog gets a wonderful start, fresh air exercise, chasing the squirrels, the gophers, whatever.

Brad (01:06:45):
But I don’t see a lot of people piggybacking that, uh, with their own fitness experience. In fact, I’m the outlier because I’m the one jumping up and down off the tables or doing Spider-Man pushups off the benches. But it seems like a good opportunity to multitask if you will, where you’re getting your dog out and you’re doing some exercise and that becomes your habit since you have this wonderful habit, uh, cemented in right now. Okay. Best of luck to you. I would love to engage and hear how things are going for you. And we can always communicate, at podcast@bradventures.com. Thanks so much for listening and good luck getting started your day, the right way.

Brad (01:07:25):
Thank you for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support. Please. Email podcast, Brad ventures.com with feedback, suggestions, and questions for the Q and A shows. Subscribe to our email list at bradkearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful bimonthly newsletter edition with informative articles and practical tips for all aspects of healthy living. You can also download several awesome free eBooks when you subscribe to the email list. And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with apple podcasts or wherever else, you listen to the shows that would be super, incredibly awesome. It helps raise the profile of the B.rad podcast and attract new listeners. And did you know that you can share a show with a friend or loved one by just hitting a few buttons in your player and firing off a text message? My awesome podcast player called Overcast allows you to actually record a sound bite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember B.rad.

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