I had listened to this on audio first and then read it. Since this is a self-help book, i thought of initially noting down points to follow, but as i started to listen, the narative is in such a way that each point is backed by a story and some science and noting down just the points, it will be lifeless and science is like General Knowledge could be useful if i'd note it down. Book is about 5AM club, its just not about getting up at 5AM, it draws up a blueprint of what you need to do in that day to improve yourself and overtime it stacks up and leads to Gargantuan Competitive Advantage(GCA).

You remember the story you remember the lesson --SBL

There are only few characters in the book and only one has a Name. I'm sure that’s intentional as everybody would relate the character to themselves more by profession.

Here i have noted down some points and science which i felt interesting.

Chapter 1 -- The Dangerous Deed

A gun would be too violent. A noose would be too ancient. And a knife blade to the wrist would be too silent. So, the question became, How could a onceglorious life be ended swiftly and precisely, with minimum mess yet maximum impact?

Chapter 2 -- A Daily Philosophy on Becoming Legendary

“Do not allow your fire to go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not at all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists. It is real. It is possible. It is yours.” —Ayn Rand

“Life’s too short to play small with your talents,” The Spellbinder spoke to the room of thousands. “You were born into the opportunity as well as the responsibility to become legendary. You’ve been built to achieve masterwork level projects, designed to realize unusually important pursuits and constructed to be a force for good on this tiny planet

“Each of you has a call on your lives. Every one of you carries an instinct for excellence within your spirits. No one in this room needs to stay frozen in average and succumb to the mass mediocratization of behavior evident in society along with the collective de-professionalization of business so apparent in industry. Limitation is nothing more than a mentality that too many good people practice daily until they believe it’s reality. It breaks my heart to see so many potentially powerful human beings stuck in a story about why they can’t be extraordinary, professionally and personally. You need to remember that your excuses are seducers, your fears are liars and your doubts are thieves.”

World-class begins where your comfort zone ends is a rule the successful, the influential and the happiest always remember.

From a young age, we are programmed into thinking that moving through life loyal to the values of mastery, ingenuity and decency should need little effort. And so, if the road gets tough and requires some patience, we think we’re on the wrong path

A major key to happiness—and internal peace—is knowing you’ve done whatever it took to earn your rewards and passionately invested the effortful audacity to become your best.

• Jazz legend Miles Davis stretched himself ferociously past the normal his field knew to fully exploit his magnificent potential.
• Michelangelo sacrificed enormously mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually as he produced his awesome art.
• Rosa Parks, a simple seamstress with outstanding courage, endured blunt humiliation when she was arrested for not giving up her seat on a segregated bus, igniting the civil rights movement.
• Charles Darwin demonstrated the kind of resolve that virtuosity demands by studying barnacles—yes, barnacles—for eight long years as he formulated his famed Theory of Evolution.
• Stephen King worked as a high school writing teacher and in an industrial laundry before selling Carrie, King was so discouraged by the rejections and denials that he threw the manuscript he wrote. It was only when his wife, Tabitha, discovered the work while her husband was away, wiped off his cigarette ashes, read the book and then told its author that it was brilliant that King submitted it for publication. Even then, his advance for hardcover rights was a paltry twenty-five hundred dollars.
• Vincent van Gogh created nine hundred paintings and over one thousand drawings in his lifetime, his celebrity started after his death. His drive to produce wasn’t inspired by the ego fuel of popular applause but by a wiser instinct that enticed him to see just how much of his creative power he could unlock, no matter how much hardship he had to endure.

Becoming legendary is never easy. This kind of dedication to the optimization of expertise would now be labeled as ‘crazy’ by the majority in our modern world

Anyway, let me simply say that the place where your greatest discomfort lies is also the spot where your largest opportunity lives. The beliefs that disturb you, the feelings that threaten you, the projects that unnerve you and the unfoldments of your talents that the insecure part of you is resisting are precisely where you need to go to. Lean deeply toward these doorways into your bigness as a creative producer, seeker of personal freedom and possibilitarian. And then embrace these beliefs, feelings and projects quickly instead of structuring your life in a way that’s designed to dismiss them. Walking into the very things that scare you is how you reclaim your forgotten power. And how you get back the innocence and awe you lost after childhood.

Chapter 3 -- An Unexpected Encounter with a Surprising Stranger

“Do not live as if you have ten thousand years left. Your fate hangs over you. While you are still living, while you still exist on this Earth, strive to become a genuinely great person.” —Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor

Time is one of the most precious commodities. Warren Buffett, the brilliant investor, said the rich invest in time. The poor invest in money.

When your former way of existing no longer serves you. It was time for a change.

“It’s not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” —Theodore Roosevelt

The moment when you most feel like giving up is the instant when you must find it in you to press ahead

Chapter 4 -- Letting Go of Mediocrity and All That’s Ordinary

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I’ve learned the importance of being around only the highest quality, wherever I go. That’s one of the best winning moves I’ve made to create the life I’ve crafted. In my businesses, I only allow in top players, because you can’t have an A-level company with C-level performers.

My enterprises only offer services that ethically enrich our clients, deliver a breathtaking user experience and breed fanatical followers who couldn’t imagine doing business with anyone else. And in my personal life, it’s the same thing: I only eat the best food, though I don’t eat a lot of it. I only read the most original and thoughtful books, spend my time in the most lightfilled and inspiring of spaces and visit the most enchanting of places. And when it comes to relationships, I only surround myself with human beings who fuel my joy, stoke my peace and excite me to become a better man. Life’s way too valuable to hang with people who don’t get you. Who you just don’t vibe with. Who have different values and lower standards than you do. Who have different Mindsets, Heartsets, Healthsets and Soulsets.

Done Is Better Than Perfect

Your surroundings really do shape your perceptions, your inspirations and your implementations. Art feeds my soul. Great books battleproof my hope. Rich conversations magnify my creativity. Wonderful music uplifts my heart. Beautiful sights fortify my spirit. And all it takes is a single morning filled with positivity to deliver a monumental download of inventive ideas that elevate an entire generation, you know. And I need to say that uplifting humankind is the master sport of business that The Top 5% play.

Own your morning. Elevate your life.

"If my gal cheated on me and my dog died, I’d have a hit single" —The homeless man, 5AC

Pain is the doorway into deep. Know what I mean? And tragedy is nature’s great purifier. It burns away the fakeness, fear and arrogance that is of the ego. Returns us to our brilliance and genius, if you have the courage to go into that which wounds you. Suffering yields many rewards, including empathy, originality, relatability and authenticity.

‘one who sweats more in training bleeds less in war.’ —Spartan warrior credo

High victory is made in those early morning hours when no one’s watching and while everyone else is sleeping. We only hear what we’re ready to hear. All learning meets us exactly where we’re at. And as we grow greater, we understand better.

In a culture of cyber-zombies, addicted to distraction and afflicted with interruption, the wisest way to guarantee that you consistently produce mastery-level results in the most important areas of your professional and personal life is to install a world-class morning routine. Winning starts at your beginning. And your first hours are when heroes are made. Wage a war against weakness and launch a campaign against fearfulness. You truly can get up early. And doing so is a necessity in your awesome pursuit toward legendary. Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of your day will pretty much take care of itself. Own your morning. Elevate your life.

Here’s the precious little secret that the titans of industry, the standout performers of artistry and the ultra-achievers of humanity will never share with you: gargantuan results are much less about your inherited genetics and far more about your daily habits. And your morning ritual is by far the most essential one to calibrate. And then automate.

When we see the icons in action, the forceful seduction sold to us by our civilization is to believe they were always that great. That they were born into their exceptionalism. That they won the fortunate DNA lottery. That their genius was inherited. Yet the truth is that we are watching them in their full blazing glory after years of following a process, one that involved ceaseless hours of practice. When we observe magnificent players in business, sport, science and the arts we are observing the earned results of a monomaniacal concentration around a single pursuit, astronomical focus on one skill, intensity of sacrifice applied to one aim, unusual levels of deep preparation and extreme amounts of solid patience. Remember, every professional was once an amateur, and every master started as a beginner. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary feats, once they’ve routinized the right habits.

Please remember that the job of the leader is to help disbelievers embrace your vision, the powerless to overcome their weaknesses and the hopeless to develop faith. And what you said on letting go of employees you liked but who no longer fit where your business is now at—that’s a normal part of growing a business. And it happened because they failed to grow as your enterprise rose. They started coasting. They stopped learning, inventing and making everything they touched better than they found it. And as a result they stopped being awesome value incubators for your venture. They likely blamed you. But they did it to themselves

F1 racer Mario Andretti said: ‘If everything seems under control you’re not going fast enough.’ That’s how I seem to feel most days. We’re blowing past our key performance indicators so quickly it makes my head spin. New teammates to mentor, new brands to manage, new markets to penetrate, new suppliers to watch, new products to refine, new investors and shareholders to impress and a thousand new responsibilities to handle. It really does feel like it’s a lot. I have a huge capacity to get big things done. But there’s a lot on my shoulders.

Technology, when intelligently used, it advances human progress. When misused, ruin's people’s minds, damaging their productivity and destroying the very fabric of our society.

Pressure is a privilege —Billie Jean King, Tennis Legend

With every challenge comes the gorgeous opportunity to rise into your next level as a leader, performer and human being. Obstacles are nothing more than tests designed to measure how seriously you want the rewards that your ambitions seek. They show up to determine how willing you are to improve into the kind of person who can hold that amount of success. Failure’s just growth in wolf’s clothing. And pretty much nothing else is as important in life as personal expansion, the unfoldment of your potential.

To find your best self you must lose your weak self.’ And that only happens through relentless improvement, continuous reflection and ongoing self-excavation. If you don’t keep rising daily you’ll get stuck in your life, for the rest of your life.

Everything will be okay in the end. And if it’s not okay, it’s not the end —John Lennon

First fifty years of our lives, we are Hungry to prove myself. Amped to dominate the Game and lot about seeking legitimacy. We crave social approval. We want our peers to respect us. We hope our neighbors will like us. We buy all sorts of things we really don’t need and obsess about making money we really don’t enjoy.

We realize we are going to die. What’s truly important comes into much sharper focus. We become more contemplative. We start to wonder if we’ve been true toour talents, loyal to our values and successful on the terms that feel right to us. That’s when many of us make a giant shift: from seeking legitimacy in society to constructing a meaningful legacy.

All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. —Homeless man aka Robin Sharma

Never be a drama mama. People need to build antibodies against the virus of victimitis excusitis.

Khalil Gibran carried the manuscript of 'The Prophet' around with him for four long years and refined it constantly before giving it to his publisher. When a journalist interviewed about his creative process he said, " I wanted to be sure, very sure, that every word of it was the very best I had to offer."

Anyone can become an everyday leader by showing up as I’m encouraging. When it’s easy and especially when it’s difficult. Starting today. And if you do so, a guaranteed victory is in your future.

Rising at 5 AM truly is The Mother of All Routines. Joining The 5 AM Club is the one behavior that raises every other human behavior.

Chapter 5 -- A Bizarre Adventure into Morning Mastery

“Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. . . . The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A society of adults behaving like spoiled little children is how I sometimes see our world right now. Not judging, just saying. Not complaining, just reporting.

Victims love entertainment. Victors adore education

The 5 AM Club teaches to rise early, regularly—so you’ll get more done by noon than most people get done in a week, and so you’ll optimize your health, happiness and peacefulness.

Magic will show up for you the more you start exploiting the terrific opportunities that appear along your path, seemingly by accident. You can’t win a game you don’t play, right? The reality is that life has got your back, even when it doesn’t look like it does. But you need to do your part and go all in when windows of opportunity appear.

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. —Charles Bukowski

The Spellbinder did encourage us to leave the boundaries of our normal lives so we grow into our gifts, talents and strengths.

Mindset is an enormously potent tool for private greatness, prodigious productivity and creative victory—along with your Heartset, Healthset and Soulset.

Chapter 6 -- A Flight to Peak Productivity, Virtuosity and Undefeatability

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” —Steve Jobs

Fives from the Golden Tablet lets call it Golden Rules

RULE #1: An addiction to distraction is the end of your creative production. Empiremakers and history-creators take one hour for themselves before dawn, in the serenity that lies beyond the clutches of complexity, to prepare themselves for a world-class day.

RULE #2: Excuses breed no genius. Just because you haven’t installed the early-rising habit before doesn’t mean you can’t do it now. Release your rationalizations and remember that small daily improvements, when done consistently over time, lead to stunning results.

RULE #3: All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. Everything you now find easy you first found difficult. With consistent practice, getting up with the sun will become your new normal. And automatic.

RULE #4: To have the results The Top 5% of producers have, you must start doing what 95% of people are unwilling to do. As you start to live like this, the majority will call you crazy. Remember that being labeled a freak is the price of greatness.

RULE #5: When you feel like surrendering, continue. Triumph loves the relentless.

Chapter 7 -- Preparation for a Transformation Begins in Paradise

A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. —Steven Pressfield

The old ‘you’ must die before the best ‘you’ can be born. You’re so smart not to wait until you have ideal conditions to step up to a work world and private life of stainless excellence. Great power is unleashed with a simple start. When you begin to close the loop opened by your utmost aspirations by making them real, a secret heroic force within you makes itself known. Nature notices your effortful actions and then goes ahead and replies to your faithful commitment with a series of unanticipated wins. Your willpower heightens. Your confidence climbs. And your brilliance soars. A year from now, you’ll be so happy you began today.”

Growth is the real sport that the best play, every day.

The 2x3x Mindset : to double your income and impact, triple your investment in two core areas—your personal mastery and your professional capability.”

Rest and recovery isn’t a luxury for anyone committed to mastery—it’s a necessity.

Chapter 8 -- The 5 AM Method: The Morning Routine of World-Builders

“It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth and wisdom.” —Aristotle

5 AM Method was the one practice that changed—and elevated—every other practice.

Getting up at 5 AM is a keystone habit, once you become a regular, your days will grow consistently—and vastly—better than anything I’ve ever experienced.

Protection from distraction is precisely how you need to work if you’re serious about dominating your field and winning at your craft. Neuroscientists call this peak mental state we’re speaking of, where our perception becomes heightened and our availability to original ideas rises and we access an all-new level of processing power, ‘Flow.’ And rising at 5 AM promotes The Flow State gorgeously. Oh—and by getting up at before daybreak, while almost everyone around you is asleep—my creativity also soared, my energy definitely doubled, my productivity surely tripled

Chapter 9 -- A Framework for the Expression of Greatness

“The men who are great live with that which is substantial, they do not stay with that which is superficial; they abide with realities, they remain not with what is showy. The one they discard, the other they hold.” —Lao Tzu

The beginning of transformation is the increase of perception. As you see more you can materialize more. And once you know better you can achieve bigger. Great people started by reengineering their thinking and reinventing their awareness. In so doing, they entered a secret universe that the majority could not perceive. And this, in turn, allowed them to make the daily choices few choose to make. Which, automatically, delivered the daily results few get to experience.

Creative achievers apply a mentality of granularity instead of a mindset of superficiality. They have encoded depth as a lifetime value and exist under a profound insistence on greatness in all that they do. Exceptionalists fully understand that their creative output—no matter if they are bricklayers or bakers, chief executive officers or dairy farmers, astronauts or cashiers—represents their reputation. The best, in any endeavor, appreciate the fact that your good name is branded onto every piece of work that you release.

Remarkable ones, the society called them kooks. Misfits. Weirdos. But they just played at a much higher level—in rare-air. They brought rigor to what they did. They’d spend weeks, months, sometimes years getting the finishing touches perfect. They forced themselves to stay with the work when they felt alone or scared or bored. They persisted in the translation of their heroic visions into everyday reality when they were misunderstood, ridiculed and even attacked. God, I admire the great geniuses of the world. I really do.

Legendary achievers are vastly different. They get that amateur levels of awareness will never lead to the highest grade of professional results. Small things matter when it comes to mastery.

Many of these legends of creativity, productivity and world-class performance were out of balance. The very things that make you amazing at your craft can devastate your home life.

Philip of Macedonia in a message to Sparta: “You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people and raze your city.”

Sparta’s reply: “If.”

The trick is to develop awareness around where they can lead you into trouble in your personal life and then manage those traps.

The 3 Step Success Formula

1. With better awareness of your natural ability to achieve great things
2. Heightened level of insight and consciousness will then optimize your daily decisions. And, logically, once you get your daily choices right, you’ll accelerate your leadership, accomplishment and impact dramatically.
3. It’s your decisions that make your results.

The 3 Step Success Formula helps to develop better daily awareness around yourself and why it is that I do what I do, I’ll make the better daily choices that will give me better daily results.

Real rigor in terms of your approach to not only what you do at work but how you operate in your private life. True depth as it relates to how you think, behave and deliver. Healthy perfectionism—and an unyielding quest to be the best that you are capable of becoming is what I’m suggesting. This will give you Gargantuan Competitive Advantage(GCA).

GCA is all about going all granular on important projects, around essential skills and during meaningful activities.

It’s never been so easy to own the sport in business today because so few performers are doing the things required to reach industry dominance. Mastery is a rarity, and people who play at a brilliant level are a scarcity. So, the field is yours! If you show up the way I’m encouraging you to show up. Here’s the powerful insight: There’s a ton of competition at ordinary, but there’s almost none at extraordinary. There’s never been such a glamorous opportunity to become peerless because so few people are dedicated to world-class in this age of such scattered focus, eroded values and deteriorated faith in ourselves along with the inherent primal power we hold. How often do you meet someone at a store or in a restaurant who is fully present, astoundingly polite, unusually knowledgeable, full of enthusiasm, incredibly hardworking, intensely imaginative, noticeably inventive and gasp worthily great at what they do? Almost never, right?”

Step up your standards. And then get busy on hardwiring in this way of being as your default. And that’s really important: you have to optimize daily. Consistency really is the DNA of mastery. And small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements when done consistently over time yield staggering results.

To tighten up ones A-games, they need elevate performance and accelerate contribution to the world: calibration. Dialing in the finest of attitudes and refining the littlest of details is what granularity and ascension into the orbit of your inherent genius—and a life magically lived—is all about.

Chapter 10 -- The 4 Focuses of History-Makers

“The life given us, by nature is short, but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.” —Cicero

Most of us today wish we had more time. Yet we waste the time we have. Thinking about dying brings what matters most into much sharper focus.

1.History-Maker Focus #1: Capitalization IQ

The valuable insight he conceived is that what makes a legendary performer so good isn’t the amount of natural talent they are born into but the extent of that potential they actualize—and capitalize.

From observation, Mr. Riley found that, many of the finest athletes in the world had less innate skill than their competition. But it was their exceptional dedication, commitment and drive to maximize whatever strengths they had that made them iconic.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog

Dedication and discipline beats brilliance and giftedness every day of the week. And A-Players don’t get lucky. They make lucky. Each time you resist a temptation and pursue an optimization you invigorate your heroism. Every instant you do that which you know to be right over the thing that you feel would be easy, you facilitate your entry into the hall of fame of epic achievers.

You will have run a winning mental narrative in your head. Being world-class is a process not an event. Put in the practice hours and prioritize your days around your heartfelt desires.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion. —Alexander the Great

Life really is super-fragile. You may be spending many days chasing the wrong things. Stuck in the noise of complexity instead of hearing the signal of those top-value pursuits in career and in my private life that would really make a difference.

So, The knowledge to know that I’ve got enough is a brilliant thought.

My mother said to me, if you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the pope. Instead, I was a painter. And became Picasso. —Pablo Picasso

2.History-Maker Focus #2: Freedom from Distraction

Remember that important brain tattoo of successful people? ‘An addiction to distraction is the death of your creative production.

In some ways, the new technologies and social media are not only eroding the Everests of our glorious productive potential, they are also training us to be less human. We have fewer real conversations, fewer true connections and fewer meaningful interactions.

Intellectually we know we shouldn’t be wasting time on zero-value activities, but emotionally we just can’t beat the temptation.

Precious concentration hours are being hijacked by a foolish use of technology and their priceless focus has been kidnapped, costing them their chance to create their best work and calibrate their finest lives. This is called broken focus syndrome.

If you’re in the sport of winning, please model all of the great masters of history and strip away all the layers of complexity from your days. Simplify. Streamline everything. Become a purist. Less really is more.

• Concentrate on just a few work projects so you make them amazing versus diluting your attention on too many.
• Socially, have fewer friends but go deep with them so the relationship is rich.
• Accept fewer invitations, major in fewer leisure activities and study, then master, a smaller number of books versus skimming many.
• An intense concentration only on what matters most is how the pros realize victory.

Stop managing your time and start managing your focus

Don’t trade your super-creative hours with online recreation

Our brain by default hunts for danger. So back when life was much more brutal, we could respond swiftly and stay alive. That mechanism served our ancestors exceedingly well. But in today’s world, most of us don’t face death daily. The reality is that the ordinary person lives a higher quality life than most members of royalty did even just a few hundred years ago. This is a blessing.

This built-in negativity bias within our ancient brains, we are always in hypervigilance mode, mostly anxious and uptight, even when everything’s going great. This is one of the reason why you always feel that you don't have enough or achieved enough or focus on what your are missing. Comparison is a thief of joy. Someone will always have more fortune, fame and stuff than you do. Think about my earlier point about detachment and embracing the wisdom of knowing when enough is enough. All this prevents you from having the good you have.

If you plan on being anything less than who you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life. —Abraham Maslow

Scientifically, what happens is ? Amygdala kicks into high gear as we exit what’s familiar and try something new. The vagus nerve gets provoked, the fear hormone cortisol gets released. And we begin to destroy the very intentions and implementations that our mastery brain so intelligently wants us to realize.

Then cortisol is released, our perception narrows, our breathing grows shallow and we drop into fight-or-flight mode without any sabretooth or TRex.

Most of us have trouble concentrating on important tasks by noon. So, work on one high-value activity at a time in morning instead of relentlessly multitasking—and do so in a quiet environment. Albert Einstein made the point exquisitely when he wrote :

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person.

They don’t dilute their creative gifts chasing every shiny diversion and every attractive opportunity that comes their way. No, instead they exercise the fierce discipline required to do only a few things—but at an absolutely world-class level. It’s like I said before: the great ones understand that it’s far smarter to create one piece of art—a genuine masterpiece—that endures for generations rather than thousands of projects that express no genius. And please also remember: the hours that The 95% waste The Top 5% treasure. 5 AM is the time of least distraction

Transient hypofrontality -- When you are up early, you are away from overstimulation and noise, you attention isn't fragmented. The prefrontal cortex, that part of your brain responsible for rational thinking—as well as constant worrying—actually shuts off for a short time. That’s the ‘transient’ part of transient hypofrontality. It happens only temporarily. Your nonstop analyzing, ruminating and stressful overthinking stops. You pause from trying to figure everything out and being so concerned about things that will probably never happen. Your brain waves actually shift from their usual beta to alpha, and sometimes even down into theta state. The solitude, silence and stillness of daybreak also triggers the production of neurotransmitters like dopamine, the inspirational fuel that serves super producers so well, and serotonin, the beautiful pleasure drug of the brain. Automatically and naturally, you enter what I described earlier as ‘The Flow State.’

3.History-Maker Focus #3: Personal Mastery Practice

Its just about training the best parts of you. Remember the spartan credo, 'Sweat more in practice, bleed less in war.' Well, the quality of your morning practice determines the caliber of your daily performance.

You need to put in enormous amounts of practice time to advance your expertise. Specifically, a performer must invest at least two hours and forty-four minutes of daily improvement on their chosen skill for ten years, as preeminent psychologist Anders Ericsson of Florida State University has taught us through his groundbreaking research. This is the minimum viable amount of practice required for the first signs of genius to appear within any domain.

Fortify and bulletproof and nourish the core dimensions of your inner life and, trust me, you’ll x100 your life. Everything you do in your outer world is an absolute consequence of what’s happening within you.

The 4 Interior Empires

Mindset(Psychology): Think optimistic thoughts throughout the day

Heartset(Emotionality): Remove negative emotions that have built up from life’s frustrations, disappointments and burdens. It’s also about amplifying the healthy ones. That’s why part of your morning routine needs to have a gratitude practice as part of it. Negative emotions are anger, sadness, disappointment, resentment and fear.

Healthset(Physicality): Quick tip if you want to lead your field and experience continuous escalations of your eminence: do not die. You’ll never become a titan of your industry and an icon who makes history if you’re dead. Just imagine living an extra few decades—and staying ultra-healthy as you do so. That’s another few decades to refine your craft, to grow into an even more influential leader, to produce work that’s radical artistry, to compound your prosperity and to build a luminous legacy that will enrich all of humanity.

Soulset is about Spirituality. Nothing mystical, really. Nothing religious. Nothing voodoo or freaky. Spend some time in silence, do meditation

“A quiet secluded life in the country with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor—such is my idea of happiness.” —Tolstoy

4.History-Maker Focus #4: Day Stacking

As you live each day, so you craft your life. We all are so focused on pursuing our futures that we generally ignore the exceedingly important value of a single day. And yet what we are doing today is creating our future. Do a few navigational shifts, seemingly irrelevant and infinitesimal, when done consistently over a long voyage, make the difference between ending up in breathtaking Brazil or fantastic Japan.

Make those 1% course corrections and improvements over each twenty-four hour allotment you receive, and these days will slip into weeks and your weeks into months and your months will slip into your years. Enhancing anything in your day, ranging from your morning routine to a thought pattern to a business skill to a personal relationship, by only 1% delivers at least a 30% —yes, 30%—elevation only a month from starting.

Chapter 11 -- Navigating the Tides of Life

“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.” —Helen Keller

Chapter 12 -- The 5 AM Club Discovers The Habit Installation Protocol

“I hated every minute of training. But I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” —Muhammad Ali

Grit -- a term popularized by social psychologist Angela Duckworth, who studied elite performers in the fields of business, education, the military and sports. She found that what makes the most successful achievers so great isn’t their inherent talent but their levels of commitment, discipline, resilience and perseverance. ‘Grit’ is her word to describe these traits.

‘Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.’ —Albert Einstein

The hero does not become great during periods of comfort. The illustrious and noble souls of our world became strong, brave and moral whilst standing resolutely in the storms of adversity, difficulty and doubt. It is in the moment that you face your deepest weakness that you receive the chance to forge your greatest strengths. Real power, then, comes not from a life of ease but one of intense effort, devoted discipline and demanding action in the direction of what your supreme self knows to be right. To continue at a time when you ache to stop. To advance when you long to quit. To persist in the instant when you feel like giving up is to claim your membership among the great warriors and honorable characters who led humanity to a better place through their earned invincibility. —Stone Riley aka Robin Sharma

The 5-3-1 Creed of The Willpower Warrior

The 5 Scientific Truths Behind Excellent Habits

Truth #1: World-class willpower isn’t an inborn strength, but a skill developed through relentless practice. Getting up at dawn is perfect self-control training.

Truth #2: Personal discipline is a muscle. The more you stretch it, the stronger it grows. Therefore, the samurais of self-regulation actively create conditions of hardship to build their natural power.

Truth #3: Like other muscles, willpower weakens when tired. Recovery is, therefore, absolutely necessary for the expression of mastery. And to manage decision fatigue.

Truth #4: Installing any great habit successfully follows a distinct four-part pattern for automation of the routine. Follow it explicitly for lasting results.

Truth #5: Increasing self-control in one area of your life elevates self-control in all areas of your life. This is why joining The 5 AM Club is the game-changing habit that will lift everything else that you do.

The 3 Values of Heroic Habit-Makers

Value #1: Victory demands consistency and persistency.

Value #2: Following through on what is started determines the size of the personal respect that will be generated.

Value #3: The way you practice in private is precisely the way you’ll perform once you’re in public.

The 1 General Theory of Self-Discipline Spartans

To regularly do that which is hard but important when it feels most uncomfortable is how warriors are born.

Taj Mahal isn’t just an excursion of the intellect. It’s also a resurrection of the spirit. It wakes even the numbest person up to what we, as human creatures, are capable of producing. But to continue, once the maharaja set his bold intention, his workers started the process of translating that lofty vision into a definite reality. Because, as you both now know, ambition without implementation is a ridiculous delusion. You two are now much more fluent in the insight that anything legendary requires generous amounts of industry, artistry and persistency. Mastery isn’t a sudden event. It really is a ceaseless process that may take years of painstaking craftsmanship, practice, sacrifice and suffering before the finished project intensifies to a level that moves the world.

The common denominator of success—the secret of success of every man and woman who has ever been successful—lies in the fact that they formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. —Albert Gray

Its simple and profound, top producers make it a habit to do the high-value activities that average ones don’t feel like doing—even when they, too, don’t feel like doing them

For twenty-two years—not twenty-two days and not twenty-two months—twenty-two years, over twenty thousand workers toiled in the scorching Indian sun. Block of marble by block of marble carried from immense distances by over one thousand elephants, the army of craftsmen steadily erected the structure you’re seeing. They faced architectural roadblocks, environmental extremes and unexpected tragedies along the journey. Yet, they were focused, fearless and relentless, dazzlingly committed to doing whatever it took to get the emperor’s gorgeous dream done.

Neurons that fire together, wire together

The brains of London taxi drivers were studied and the area responsible for spatial reasoning, the hippocampus, was found to be significantly larger in them compared to the brains of ordinary people. The cabbies in London flexed their hippocampi as they drove each day. The brain can be strengthened, sculpted and optimized—if we choose to make it so.

Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became “geniuses” (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole. —Friedrich Nietzsche

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

Small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements, when done consistently over time, yield staggering results

The Lifetime habit Arc

1.The Trigger: It could be a alarm clock, get out of bed before prefrontal cortex—can give you a bunch of excuses about why you should go back to sleep. Its that simple 2.The Ritual: Ritual is to make sure you have a preset reward in place. 3.The Reward: The reward could be a chocolate to a thought of a long term goal. 4.The Repetition: Be absolutely dedicated and excuseless

As you go through your day, going to meetings, checking messages and performing tasks and making lots of decisions. You get into a state called 'Decision Fatigue'. Its best to identify when you get it and not make decision afterwards as basically it says you are tired. Key is to rest and recover and Never allow yourself to get too tired. Your willpower really is weakest when you are most tired.

Each day we wake up with limited amount of willpower and mental focus. So, rather than wasting these valuable gifts by spreading them over many trivial choices like what to wear and what to eat, some automate as many basic things as possible, so they can concentrate their highest powers on just a few important activities. They are called Minimalists in todays world, but they are preventing themselves from getting decision fatigue.

“On the coding of any new habit, you’ll move through an initial period of destruction,” said Mr. Riley as he pointed to the first phase on the diagram. “Keep at it and you’ll definitely move ahead into the second stage of the process, where new neural pathways are formed and the real installation begins. This is the messy middle. Finally, as you stick with your practice of making any fresh routine your normal way of being, you’ll arrive at the final—and wonderful— stage: integration. The whole exercise takes approximately sixty-six days, according to the research data of University College London.

Stick to the framework for 66 days. No Matter What.

Stage 1 -- Destruction : If it wasn’t difficult at the start, it wouldn’t be real change. It’s supposed to be hard because you’re rewriting the past patterns of your mind, heart, emotions and destroying old ways of operating. Like a rocket, it takes large amount of fuel for the initial take-off. So, push till the momentum kicks in.

Stage 2 -- Installation : This stage is like interior renovation. Former foundations need to be torn down so that much better ones can be put up. This stage will make you feel confused, stressed out and frustrated. You’ll feel like quitting even more. In this stage you may feel like everything’s falling apart. But actually, all is coming together—even better.

For the A-Player, the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next. Its all about getting to the 'The Automaticity Point'. This is the point where no longer need to try or need any willpower say to get up at 5AM

Stage 3 -- Integration : Over time, their winning behaviors became automated. Systematized. Institutionalized. Absolutely no effort was required to run them once they got hardwired.

Three ultra-practical tactics

1. To make a habit last, never install it alone.

• Rituals run deepest when performed in a group

2. The teacher learns the most.

• When you teach, your own understanding of the material will deepen

3. When you most feel like quitting is the time you must continue advancing.

• Persistency is necessary for all forms of mastery

Chapter 13 -- The 5 AM Club Learns The 20/20/20 Formula

“Early in the morning, when you are reluctant in your laziness to get up, let this thought be at hand: ‘I am rising to do the work of a human being.’” —Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor

The 20/20/20 Formula

As we create each day, we craft our life as well. That’s The Day Stacking Foundation, The 4 Focuses of History-Makers. Beginning your day intelligently, healthily and peacefully isn’t only about optimizing your public and private success. It’s also about protecting it.

Breakdown of the 20/20/20 rule are given in the below picture, perfectly.

First thing you should do in the morning is exercise and sweat. Why ? As you know now, cortisol is the hormone of fear. It’s made in the cortex of the adrenal glands and is then released into the blood. Cortisol is one of the main materials that stunts your genius and devastates your implicit opportunity to make history. Very good scientific data confirms that your cortisol levels are highest in the morning. So, exercising from 5 to 5:20 AM—for just twenty minutes—will significantly lower your cortisol and, therefore, dial you into your top performance. The sweating from a powerful workout releases BDNF—brain-derived neurotrophic factor—which supercharges that organ for a winning day. And by exercising intensely you’ll also release dopamine, which you well know is the neurotransmitter of drive, along with elevating your amounts of serotonin, the wonderful chemical that regulates happiness.

The second twenty-minute pocket of The 20/20/20 Formula the time between 5:20 and 5:40 AM is when you ‘Reflect.’ During this segment contemplate how you’re living and on who you hope to become. Be thoughtful and intentional on the values you want to be loyal to over the hours ahead of you. And how you wish to behave. Consider what needs to happen for this to be a great day amid the construction of a legendary life. During the reflection pocket you can do journaling. The key when you do this is just to write. Don’t think too much. Simply download your commitments for the hours ahead, record your precious ambitions and activate your gratitude by listing what’s good in your life right now. Please also use your journal as a place to process through any frustrations, disappointments and resentments in your heart so you let them go.

Calm performers are the highest achievers. It’s simply one of the world’s best ways to strengthen your focus, preserve your natural power and insulate your inner peace.

The Final Pocket three of The 20/20/20 Formula is designed to help you ‘Grow’ daily. Remember The 2x3x Mindset : to double your income and impact, triple your investment in two primary areas, your personal mastery and your professional capability. So, 5:40 to 6:00 AM, the final segment of The Victory Hour, is when you deepen your base of knowledge, increase your acumen, improve your expertise and outlearn your competition.

Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts select one to be thoroughly digested that day. —Seneca

Chapter 14 -- The 5 AM Club Grasps the Essentialness of Sleep

“You cannot imagine the craving for rest I feel—a hunger and thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts leading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady.” —H.G. Wells

When you don't sleep enough, its not only difficult to get up early, it will damage your productivity, minimize your creativity thereby reducing your happiness and eroding your health. The key here is not only the quantity of sleep but the quality of your sleep matters.

HGH, human growth hormone, is produced in the pituitary gland of the brain and is important for healthy tissues in your body, a strong functioning metabolism and a long lifespan. Increased levels of HGH raise your moods, cognition, energy levels and lean muscle mass, while reducing your cravings through the regulation of leptin and ghrelin. Here’s the main point: while HGH is released through exercise, which is part of the reason pocket number one of The 20/20/20 Formula is such a game-changer, 75% of HGH production happens when you sleep! And here’s the real key: to maximize the process of the brain being washed properly and HGH being produced excellently so you expand your creativity, productivity, vitality and longevity, you need five complete ninety-minute sleep cycles. That’s what the scientific studies are now confirming. That’s seven and a half hours of sleep each night. You also should know that research proves that it’s not only sleep-deprivation that kills. Oversleep, nine or more hours, also has been shown to shorten life.

Chapter 15 -- The 5 AM Club Is Mentored on The 10 Tactics of Lifelong Genius

“If you knew how much work went into it, you would not call it genius.” —Michelangelo

The 10 Tactics of Lifelong Genius

Tactic #1 -- The Tight Bubble of Total Focus (TBTF)

The Insight: An addiction to distraction is the death of your creative production. Your attraction to digital interruption is costing you your fortune—financially, cognitively, energetically, physically and spiritually. The Tight Bubble of Total Focus is a metaphorical moat that you build around your assets of genius, so they not only stay strong— they increase. The five primary assets that all super producers defend are mental focus, physical energy, personal willpower, original talent and daily time. Your bubble has a porous membrane that encircles it so that you decide what information, which people and the nature of the activities that enter your orbit. Anything negative, toxic and impure gets blocked at the gate. Essentially, this way of being in the world is your bulletproof defense system to reject any stimuli that would decry your greatness.

The Implementation: The Tight Bubble of Total Focus strategy preserves your focus as well as your primal brilliance by giving you long stretches of time free from trivial fascinations and any influences that dissolve your inspiration—and deteriorate your A-game.

Tactic #2 -- The 90/90/1 Rule

The Insight: Legendary achievers concentrate all their attention and effort on one core project at a time so they harness the fullness of their cognitive capacity and their precious energy on releasing glorious products that turn their industry on their head. To work like this, you need to install the daily habit of exploiting your best professional hours to offer your finest productive results. When you show up for work, it’s not the time to shop online, to gossip or to check messages. It’s showtime.

The Implementation: For the next ninety days, schedule yourself to invest the first ninety minutes of your workday on the one activity that, when completed at world-class, will cause you to own your field. This ninety-minute period must be completely free of any noise and interruptions.

Tactic #3 -- The 60/10 Method

The Insight: Research supports that the greatest performers don’t work in a linear way—working harder and longer with the hope of arriving at stronger and better results. Instead, the way elite creatives do what they do is by understanding the power of oscillation. They structure their work cycles so that they alternate bursts of deep focus and ferocious intensity of performance with periods of real rest and full recovery.

The Implementation: After you’ve run the 90/90/1 segment of your workday, use a timer and work at your best for sixty minutes straight while sitting or standing quietly, in your Tight Bubble of Total Focus. Train yourself not to move. Just concentrate. And create the highest results you can possibly make. After your sixty-minute productivity sprint is done, refuel for ten minutes. In recovery cycle, you can talk a walk and get fresh air, meditate, listen music.

Tactic #4 -- The Daily 5 Concept

One of the great keys to terrific performance, then, is to train your attention on making consistent 1% wins and micro-achievements throughout each hour of your workday. Small daily achievements, when done consistently over time, definitely do lead to stunning results. And by deliberately reflecting on the areas where you are moving ahead.

The Implementation: During the second pocket of your Victory Hour, list the five tiny targets you wish to accomplish over the day ahead for you to feel it was one well-spent. After just thirty days, you’ll have accomplished 150 valuable victories. And after a year, this strategy alone will be responsible for you achieving 1,825 high-value targets, guaranteeing that the next twelve months are the single most productive twelve months you’ve had yet.

Tactic #5 -- The 2nd Wind Workout (2WW)

The Insight: You’ve now discovered the beautiful neuroscience behind daily exercise. Moving the body regularly lifts your concentration, speeds up the processing potency of your brain as well as accelerating its learning capacity, raises your energy, elevates your optimism, helps you sleep better via the production of more melatonin and promotes longevity through the release of human growth hormone (HGH), along with the lengthening of your telomeres. Telomeres keep the ends of our chromosomes from fraying—they’re like plastic caps at the tips of shoelaces.

The Implementation: To execute The 2WW practice, schedule a second workout at the end of your workday to give you a second wind for a great evening. You’ll beat the exhaustion most people feel after work, re-energize your willpower batteries so you improve your evening choices and even find your cravings for sugar in the nighttime are significantly lower. You can do one-hour walk with nature, mountain bike ride, having a long swim or attending a yoga class

Tactic #6 -- The 2 Massage Protocol (2MP)

The Insight: Studies have demonstrated that massage therapy is a modality that generates significant improvements in brain performance, mood, your ability to fight stress, and in terms of your general wellness. The benefits of a massage include a 31% reduction of cortisol (the fear hormone) levels; a 31% increase in dopamine (the neurotransmitter of motivation); a 28% elevation of serotonin (the neurochemical responsible for regulating anxiety and raising happiness); reduced muscle tension; improved pain relief via the sending of anti-inflammation messaging to muscle cells; and elevations in the signaling of those cells to make more mitochondria. The key here is to have a deep-tissue massage versus simple relaxation bodywork.

The Implementation: To apply The 2MP, lock two ninety-minute massages onto your weekly schedule.

Tactic #7 -- Traffic University

The Insight: People who commute a total of sixty minutes to and from work each day spend approximately twelve hundred days of their lives doing so—if they live an average human lifetime. Shifting near to office locality saves time ton of time.

The Implementation: During commute, listen to audiobooks and consuming valuable podcasts.

Tactic #8 -- The Dream Team Technique

Super producers outsource and then automate all activities except those within the realm of their mastery, allowing for purity of focus and freeing up huge amounts of time.

The Implementation: Delegate tasks that not only are a poor use of your hours but also diminish your happiness. Ideally, restructure your entire life so you’re doing only the things you’re great at—and love to do. With such a setup, you’ll not only escalate in your performance because you’re prioritized around just a few things, but you’ll enjoy significantly more personal freedom.

Tactic #9 -- The Weekly Design System (WDS)

The Insight: You now know that things that get scheduled are the things that get done. Designing a week without a granulated game plan for the seven days ahead of you is like attempting to summit Mont Blanc without a climb strategy or hiking into the deep woods without a compass.

The Implementation: Carve out and then ritualize thirty minutes early each Sunday morning to create your “Blueprint for a Beautiful Week.” Start the process by writing a story in your journal about the highlights from the seven days you just lived. Then record your lessons learned and optimizations for making the coming week even better. Next, on a large piece of paper that has each day running from 5 AM to 11 PM on it, note down all your commitments. The key here is to list more than your business meetings and work projects. Set clear periods for your Victory Hour, your 90/90/1 sessions, your 60/10 cycles and your 2nd Wind Workouts, as well as time for your loved ones, blocks for your portfolio of passions and segments for your errands.

Tactic #10 -- The 60 Minute Student

The Insight: The more you know, the better you will do. Legendary leaders all have boundless curiosity and a limitless appetite to grow into their greatest selves. And education truly is inoculation against disruption. Peak producers are lifetime learners.

The Implementation: For at least sixty minutes a day, study. Do whatever it takes to fireproof your commitment to relentless growth. Learning daily will raise your acumen, deepen your wisdom and incite a blazing fire that stokes your grandeur. You’ll become a weighty thinker and an outright superstar. Specific tactics for your sixty minutes include reading every good book you can get your hands on, reviewing your journal notes, working through an online program, talking with a mentor and watching skill-building videos. As you capitalize on your brightest gifts and highest powers, you’ll become not only a bigger person but an even more indispensable one.

Chapter 16 -- The 5 AM Club Embraces The Twin Cycles of Elite Performance

“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?” —Oscar Wilde

Becoming legendary in your industry is all about sustainability

The real sport of the captains of commerce, the great masters of the arts, the visionaries of the sciences, the heroes of the humanities and the giants of athletics is preserving your A-game over a lifetime.

Longevity really is a key to legendary

You really must learn how to balance working intensely and brilliantly with deep rest and recovery so you can remain fresh and strong over a long career. As you do this, you won’t blow out your gifts by hyperextending them, in the same way that some pro athletes blow out their knees—preventing them from ever playing again. The geniuses all know and apply this remarkably important principle.

Just as a muscle tears when you stress it to the edge of its capacity and then actually grows during the pause of recovery, your five assets of genius surge when you actively push them past their usual limits and then allow for a period of regeneration.

The mainstream thinking tells us that to get more done, we must put in more hours. To achieve more, we need to do more. But solid research now confirms that that kind of linear approach—‘work harder to produce better’—is seriously flawed. It isn’t sustainable. It just leads to burnout. Exhaustion.

5 Assets of Genius are your mental focus, your physical energy, your personal willpower, your original talent and your daily time. These primary assets are at their highest early in the morning. That’s why you want to start your day well and perform your most important pursuits during your most valuable hours instead of wasting this precious opportunity fooling around with your technology, watching the news or oversleeping.

Top performance truly isn’t a linear game. Elite accomplishment is much more like a heartbeat, more like a rhythm, more like a pulse. If you want to show up as a great master—over decades so you literally dominate your domain for an entire career and lead a life you love well into old age—you absolutely need to alternate High Excellence Cycles, those periods of intense and fantastic output, with times of meaningful recovery, Deep Refueling Cycles.

Growth does happen in the resting phase. That’s counterintuitive. Right? We’ve been programmed to think that if we’re not creating and producing, we’re wasting our time. We feel guilty if we’re not doing.

Copycopy code to clipboard
1THE LEGENDARY PERFORMANCE EQUATION:
2PRESSURE × REFUELING = GROWTH + ENDURANCE

Pressure is a privilege Billie Jean King, Great Tennis Player

See, pressure and stress aren’t bad. They’re actually absolutely necessary for the expansion of your capacity. You must push your talents hard. Even when you don’t want to. Past your comfort zone. Only then will they grow. Always remember this: The time you least feel like doing something is the best time to do it. When you enlarge your willpower muscle in one important area, your self-discipline in every other area rises with you.

You have to take things to the next level like if you want abs, you must do situps, if you are regularly doing 100, starting doing 200 then do 300. This actually causes the muscle to rip apart. The exercise physiologists call the phenomenon ‘micro-tearing.’ Yet, if you want the muscle to grow, you can’t keep exercising it relentlessly or you’ll experience injury. You need to rest the muscles for a day or two.”

Take at least two full days off each week. No technology. ‘Zero Device Days’ Every quarter, take off even more time. For decades I’ve taken June, July and August to vacation.

Follow your joy

• Only be around those people who fuel your joy.
• Only perform those pursuits that feed your bliss.
• Only be in those places that make you feel most alive.

Look, I know it’s hard to live this model perfectly. So please see this framework as an ideal to move toward. And like everything else I’ve taught you, it’s a process—not an event. It’ll take time.

Box with 11 Magic Charms

The Billionaire’s Maxim #1 – Mirror

'To Create Magic in the World, Own the Magic within Yourself.'

Look in the mirror. Your relationship with you predicts your relationship with the world.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” —Blaise Pascal, French mathematician

The Billionaire’s Maxim #2 – Flower

'Collect Miraculous Experiences over Material Things.'

The world has burdened and hardened you. As a child, your instinct showed you how to spot the miraculousness of a snowflake, find fortune in a spider’s web and adore the splendor of falling leaves on a colorful autumn morning. The pursuit wasn’t about acquiring things. It was about exploring life. To switch the lens through which you see life from one that views what’s ordinary to one that perceives the extraordinary is to multiply your ability to create miracles. And to re-engage with the lost purity you knew in your youth before a broken society trained you to value objects and cash over joys and delights. Laugh more often, dance more regularly and play more frequently.

The Billionaire’s Maxim #3 – Door

'Failure Inflates Fearlessness'

“Every ending marks a new beginning. All we experience happens for a helpful reason. And when one door closes, another will always open for you,” noted the billionaire. “Trust—always—that life has your back—even if what’s unfolding makes no sense.”

The Billionaire’s Maxim #4 – A Wooden Paintbrush :

‘Proper Use of Your Primal Power Creates Your Personal Care’

Do not ever neglect your human treasures. What is mean by ‘human treasures’ is the talents you have. Never forget them and be creative, be innovative, and put your human treasures into good use. In this process, your thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds would come in handy.

The Billionaire’s Maxim #5 – A ‘Nazar’ – An Eye Like Amulet

‘Avoid Bad People’

The people you associate with have a great impact on you. If you associate with optimistic people, you would be full of energy, courage, and faith to do things. If you associate with pessimistic people, you would always back down if an adventure comes your way. Choose wisely and reach world-class.

The Billionaire’s Maxim #6 – A Metal Safe Box

‘Money Is the Fruit of Generosity, Not Scarcity’

Money is a currency. Let it flow. Keeping it safe and sound is not going to solve any of your problems. Be generous with the less fortunate people. Treat them well and it would return to you in good terms.

The Billionaire’s Maxim #7 – A Token of a Miniature Running Shoe

‘Optimal Health Maximizes Your Power to Produce Magic’

Health is wealth that you do not want to miss. Engage in some sort of physical fitness routine daily. After all, good physicality leads to a good mentality.

The Billionaire’s Maim #8 – A Tiny Mountain Climber ‘Continue Raising Your Life Standards Toward Absolute World-Class’

World-class is the final destination of your journey. To reach there, treat yourself amazingly, take care of your relationships, your work, and life. Never give up, never stop. Consistency is the key to your world-class.

The Billionaire’s Maxim #9 – A Heart

‘Deep Love Yields Unconquerable Joy’

Show your love to people. Always, treat them well. If you are proud of them, tell them. if you appreciate their presence in your life, appreciate them. Do not hesitate and hold it back. Let the love spread. After all, we all crave for love.

The Billionaire’s Maxim #10 – An Angel

‘Heaven on Earth Is a State. Not a Place’

The concept, “Heaven on Earth’ is not a tangible thing. When you improve your mind, heart, soul, and physic, you would witness this state, ‘Heaven on Earth’. You need to take care of you in these 4 areas to witness this.

The Billionaire’s Maxim #11 – A Miniature Coffin

‘Tomorrow Is a Bonus, Not a Right’

Never postpone anything in life. Live your life like this is your last day. Enjoy, do not delay your joy. You would face with betrayal, heartbreaks, and trials along the way but never postpone anything because you feel like postponing. You might regret your decision later. Take adequate rest along the way and continue with your life but never postpone.

Chapter 17 -- The 5 AM Club Members Become Heroes of Their Lives

“Live like a hero. That’s what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?” — J.M. Coetzee

These are the virtues each of us must aspire to, to become world-changers and heroes for the benefit of a better society.

No matter what struggles we face and what adversities we will endure. No matter what attacks, humiliation and violence are visited on us. We must persist. We must continue. We must stay strong. We must live our luminous nature. And magnify our sovereign selves. Even if it feels the whole world is against us. This is truly what makes us human beings. Even if it seems the light will never transcend the darkness, keep making your walk to freedom. Model what’s highest for the rest of us. Exemplify grace, for the majority of us. Demonstrate actual love, for all of us.

Learnings

• Two words, I started to like while listening to the audio is "cats" and "Anyhoo".
• Phoenix, that’s Mauritian beer.

Auriga

Auriga, a type of slave in ancient Rome, who would transport important Roman leaders and was chosen for his trustworthiness. Here’s the neat thing: another key job of the Auriga was to stand behind the military general known as the ‘Dux’ and whisper the words ‘Memento, homo’ carefully into his ear as he placed the laurel crown on his head. ‘Memento homo’ is Latin for ‘remember you are only a man,’

The Auriga did this to keep the leader’s arrogance in check and to help the leader manage the inevitable invitation to egotism that all great success inescapably brings. The ritual was a profound discipline to ensure the Dux remained monomaniacally focused on his true mission of making himself, and the empire he ruled, even better—and not diluting all his energies on the amusements and excess that cause dynasties to fall.

This is deep

Life is too short to take things too seriously. And at the end of her life, what would matter most would not be whether those venture capitalists had ownership of her enterprise, but who she became as a human being. And the quality of the craft she produced. And how many people she helped. And how much she laughed. And how well she lived.

The billionaire was right: every human being does the best they can do based on the level of consciousness they are currently at and on the grade of true power they can command. And if her investors had known better, they would have done better. These people generated pain and suffering for her because, at a deep and subconscious level, they are in pain. And because they are suffering. Those who hurt others silently loathe themselves.

# References

• Working the Djinn