Upon further thought – rule #1 is now DON’T DIE.
This foundational principal is loosely based on “if you want to help others, you have to help yourself first.”
Achieving an extraordinary life requires longevity. You have to stick around to support those that rely on you. And like me, if your mission is to help people, having a healthy body and mind are critical.
What I explain below is my current set of Life “Apps” curated throughout the last few years. I keep what works for me and discard the rest.
The first book that really set me on this path was Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani. This helped me to understand the power of reprogramming my mind as well as downloading “Apps” to use for various purposes. It was in this book that I picked up the “6 Phase Guided Meditation” that I still use to this day. I also came to realize that if I wanted to change something about myself that the best thing I could do was to take action every single day.
Next came The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. For those of you that have read the book, he talks about the “SAVERS” routine which is an acronym for:
Silence (meditation)
Affirmations
Visualization
Exercise
Reading
Scribing (Journaling)
This got me in the habit of a morning ritual. I still used Vishen’s 6 Phase Guided Meditation for the meditation portion, but I started adding the other elements including a morning run for my exercise portion which I actually did first thing in the morning. I also substituted listening to a podcast during my run instead of reading. It helped me to make the most out of my morning ritual. I adopted this routine and it became a part of my daily habit over the next 18 months. I didn’t always do every step in SAVERS. And there were days I didn’t do the routine at all, but it helped me in my journey of personal development.
In February 2020 my sister-in-law Wanda let me borrow a book she had just gotten called the 5am Club by Robin Sharma. I was leaving on a short business trip and she knew I would likely be done with the book by the time I returned.
Personally, I thought the book got off to a very slow start. Some might like it because it was written a story format. I just thought it took forever to get to the “meat” of it. The good stuff that I could apply to my own life.
When I finally did get there I picked up on the very simple 20/20/20 formula. When combined, I call this my “hour of power” that I execute every morning during the workweek. However, I must admit, didn’t adopt the “5am” part of it all. Yet since March, I have consistently been doing the routine at least five days a week and in many cases on Saturdays and Sundays as well. COVID-19 certainly helped me to cement the habit, but I found that even when I go into the office that it is easy to stick to.
In the remainder of this post, I’ll focus on what I do in the first 20-minute block which is exercise.
I haven’t been too good about my morning runs but I have found during this COVID-19 pandemic something that has worked well for me: YouTube videos. For me, this is a steady rotation of 20 to 30-minute Kettlebell, High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), yoga and a basic push-up/pull-up routine. I tend to look for routines I can do within the 15 to 25-minute window. On weekends or days, I work from home I will pick a longer or more intense workout.
I’ve included the links to the ones I use the most below:
Besides the YouTube videos I also do a simple push-up and pull-up routine. All that is needed is a mat for the push-ups and a pull-up bar that you can put over your door.
Here is the routine which is essentially four sets of each:
30 Push-Ups
10 to 12 Classic (Shoulder Width) Pull-Ups
30 Push-Ups
10 to 12 Chin-up Pull-Ups
30 Push-Ups
10 to 12 Classic (Shoulder Width) Pull-Ups
30 Push-Ups
10 to 12 Chin-up Pull-Ups
Besides the working out I’ve also adopted a 16 hour fast twice a week. Now that the weather is getting nicer where we live, I am trying to take a walk with my family two or three times a week.
As far as eating, I have found Paleo/Primal Diet to be the most effective but I haven’t quite found the consistency as yet. I’ve done one round of the Keto diet. While it helped to quickly burn off some fat and get me to my target weight range, I found it wasn’t something I could sustain.
That’s my DailyStack habit for health. In the next post, I’ll dive more into the second 20-minute section which is meditation and journal time.