Book Review: "The 5 AM Club" by Robin Sharma

The author tells a story of the chance meeting of 3 individuals - an artist, an entrepreneur, and a billionaire who would become their mentor, just as he had been mentored by another. The billionaire would mentor the two individuals and bring them into what is called “The 5 AM Club” with the slogan “Own your morning, elevate your life”.

The basic premise behind this is that the period between 5 and 6 AM is the time of least distraction and greatest insight. Robin Sharma calls this the “Victory Hour” because of the relative isolation, peace, and silence during this time that allows you to do deep inner work and attain clarity, confidence, and calm for the rest of the day. The author provides a 60‐minute morning blueprint to accelerate personal development. It is called the 20/20/20 formula. Of that 1 hour, spend the first 20 minutes sweating, the second 20 minutes reflecting, and the last 20 minutes growing.

The 20/20/20 Model

5:00 - 5:20 AM “Move”

When you exercise for 20 minutes by pedaling on a spin bike, doing burpees in your bedroom, skipping rope in your living room, or going for a run outside, you open your internal pharmacy and flood your brain with a powerful smart drug. This smart drug contains brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a natural protein that builds new brain cells and forms stronger connections between brain cells so you can think sharper and learn faster. This smart drug also contains feel‐good neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, which help you focus and resist distraction.

To help you get up, exercise and sweat:

1. Go to sleep with your workout clothes on, and workout shoes next to your bed.
2. Have a workout playlist ready to go and your exercise planned.
3. When your alarm strikes 5 AM, roll out of bed and start exercising immediately before you allow yourself to make excuses.

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5:20 - 5:40 AM “Reflect”

If you don’t reflect in the morning, you will drift through your day like a boat lost at sea. Life will push you in a random direction, and you’ll wake up one day wishing you had taken control. With 20 minutes of daily reflection, you can take control of your day and counteract life’s current. In effect, you can put a motor on your boat and propel yourself to where you want to be in one, five, or ten years from now. Reflect upon your desired direction by opening a notebook or journal and putting your gratitude, strengths, desires and even discomforts on paper. Nathan Lozeron (an avid reader) outside of this book, suggests that we can draw a line down the middle of a page and through the middle to create four sections. Then write the following questions in each section (one per section):

1. “What is great in my life?” Fuel your metaphorical motor with the premium fuel of gratitude.
2. “What am I great at?” Fire up your motor by reflecting on your strengths and how you can provide value to others.
3. “What do I want to be great at?” Create an inspiring vision for your life that propels you forward.
4. “What would make today great?” Adjust the boat and steer yourself towards the people and projects you want to spend time on today.

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5:40 - 6:00 AM “Grow”

In the last 20 minutes of your “Victory Hour,” you grow into the person you aspire to be by studying people who inspire you. If you want to be a successful investor, you could read books and literature from investors you aspire to be like. Spend the last 20 minutes of your “Victory Hour” getting in their head and understanding how they think, as well as understanding what they do or don’t do to be effective. Walk away from your 20‐minute morning growth sessions with at least one new mindset or behavior you can try that day.

The Pre-Sleep Ritual

If you rise at 5 AM and execute the 20/20/20 formula, you will go into your day with incredible momentum and energy. However, this energy may quickly wear off if you did not execute the pre-sleep ritual. This is simply an evening routine preparing you to get enough rest.

You need five sleep cycles each night to perform your best. The average sleep cycle is 90 minutes. Therefore, if you fall asleep at 9:30 PM, you will complete your fifth sleep cycle by 5 AM and wake up fully refreshed. If you routinely stay up late and find it hard to go to sleep at 9:30 PM, simply force yourself to get up at 5 AM and you will crave sleep at 9:30 PM. Increase your chances of falling asleep at 9:30 PM by turning off your devices and screens around 8 PM and doing a wind down activity like reading, walking outside, or meditating before going to bed.

Lessons to be learnt:

• Exercise: instead of over/under sleeping, looking at newsfeeds, social media and other distractions first thing in the morning upon waking up, engage in vigorous exercise that will not only give you a boost of chemical releases from your brain for better focus and concentration to kick start your day, it will also help you live a healthier and longer life.
• Recovery: is vital for productivity. All work and no rest simply leads to burnout and fatigue. Sleep is a key ingredient for recovery and so is taking time away from work by going on vacations for example.
• Planning: be purposeful about how you want your day and your life to go by reflecting or meditating upon it. Success does not happen by accident. We have to make it happen.
• Invest in yourself: making it happen happens when you invest in yourself. Leonardo da Vinci said “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself”. Learn something, improve a skill, empower yourself in that morning routine every day. Small gains lead to incremental ones that lead to success over time.
• 66-day habit installation: studies have shown that installing a new habit takes a minimum of 66 days for it to become an automatic reflex. Those 66 days can be broken down into 3 phases: destruction (day 1 – 22), installation (day 23 – 44) and integration (day 45 – 66). Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end when it becomes like a reflex. This can be used to install your morning and evening routines.
• The 4 focuses of history makers:

1. Capitalisation IQ: capitalize on your potential, your skill or lack of skill by applying yourself instead of simply wishing to. We are not all born with great talent but what we all can do is put in the effort to surpass the ceiling and limitations of what we are born with.
2. Freedom from distraction: this day and age comes with many distractions that leave people spending countless hours on social media, fishing for likes, watching hours of content that makes us wish for the fake lives of others and arguing online about things that do not add any value to our lives. We wake up with a limited amount of mental capacity that we can use throughout the day. The more you waste it on trivial things, the less you can use it on what matters the most. Guard your focus. Guard your time. Have some quiet time away from people, technology and distractions. Appreciate nature, have real conversations with real people who matter the most, and give your focus to your personal development and fulfilment.
3. Personal mastery practice: sweat more in practice to bleed less in war. Improve your 4 internal empires: mindset, heartset, healthset and soulset. Mindset (your way of thinking, mentality and beliefs). Heartset (your emotions like anger, joy, sadness, courage, fear, resentment, optimism). Healthset (your physical state - dependent on exercise, diet and rest). Soulset (your core beliefs about a higher power and spirituality).
4. Day stacking: what we do each day stacks up to create our futures over time. Improve something about yourself each day, even if it is by only 1% a day and by a month you would have 30%. After a year you could be 365% better.

Robin Sharma shares many more lessons and models for personal mastery in this book, but the basic building block is rising early and implementing a morning routine that sets you up for a more productive day. The specific times and routines may be adjusted to suit your individual needs and lifestyle but the basic premise remains. I highly recommend this book and its techniques to anyone who wants to improve their life and productivity.

How will you … own your morning and elevate your life?