If you ask any successful entrepreneur or leader that is in the top of his field, he will tell you the secret is early mornings. They start before their competitors do. The competition is still snoring and dreaming of parties and gold while the winner is up and creating opportunities for himself and his people. Getting a head start is important in any field and industry.
Unfortunately, waking up early in the morning is torture for the vast majority of people. So how is it that some people seem to love getting up early and getting their day started? What have they done to have a mental shift in their morning attitude? How is it that so many people are totally sold on the #5amClub movement?
I will admit that when I first started getting up at 5 am, I did it out of necessity and not out of desire. I was 14 years old living in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn New York. Williamsburg Brooklyn is now one of the most desirable NYC hotspots to live in. It’s trendy, artsy, young, vibrant, full of great restaurants and great venues. NOT SO when George L. Rosario was a 14 year old!
Williamsburg Brooklyn back in the 80’s and even for most of the 90’s was a tough spot to be in. Historically, it was a Brooklyn gang hub. I caught the tail end of the rough years in Williamsburg. I had to learn to fight very early in my life because the streets were rough. I was blessed though because at one point the Rosario family cousins had more members living in a 4 block radius than any gang had in a one mile radius. We didn’t need a gang. We were the Rosarios.
My parents were very overprotective of their 3 sons. So, when it came time for me (the oldest son) to go to High School, they chose the closest school to the house to make sure I could get there and back without hassle or harassment. So straight A honor student George L. Rosario ended up in Eastern District High School. It was not a great school but it was close to home so I would not have to take the train (MTA public transportation) to get to it. Mom and Dad thought I would be safer that way. HUGE MISTAKE!
I lasted less than a week at this school because a couple of days into the school year, a kid tried to steal my sneakers right off my feet. Mind you, these weren’t like the $300 sneakers kids wear today. These were $30 sneakers. But like I said, I learned how to fight very early in life. So I fought back, not knowing that this boy had like 100 cousins who were all trouble making super seniors (kids who spent 6+ years in high school). Long story short, my elbow hit his jaw, he hit the floor, and he called out for his guys. I was chased right out of the school and half way back home.
That was on a Friday. On Monday I went back to school and saw the guys waiting for me at the entrance of the school. I was one of the older cousins and none that were already high school aged went to Eastern. I was alone. I managed to sneak into the school through a side door but as soon as those guys saw me, the chase was in, and this time they had weapons on them. I was a good runner and the fear adrenaline flowing through my veins made me even faster. I got home in minutes and demanded that mom transfer me from that hell hole!
A week later I was enrolled in Lafayette High School, on the border of Bensonhurst & Coney Island Brooklyn. That was a GREAT school with high reviews, a great sports program, every extra curricular activity one could ever wish for, high performing students, a great staff and a positivity driven learning environment. The school was a blessing but getting to it was not! The school was at the other side of Brooklyn, all the way by Coney Island. It took 3 trains to get there. That was an hour and a half ride every morning. So I had to be on the first train (the J or M train) by 5:45 am to get to school on time for 1st period. That’s how I started getting up at 5 am back in 1986, and I haven’t stopped since.
I know I gave you a lot of background before jumping into my introduction to the 5 am Club, but I wanted you to have the backstory. I would love for you to share your backstory to your introduction to early mornings.
I happen to love getting up at 5 am. Yes, I’m one of those people. I upset lots of people with my level of energy in the morning. After 48 years of life and 2 failed marriages to 2 non-morning ladies, God blessed me with the right partner to travel the second half of my life with.
My Claudia is a Godly woman who loves God and loves Jesus and loves The Word of God (My Kingdom Queen Claudia), loves fellowship in church (as much as I do), is a fellow beach bum (once a week, weather permitting), loves my kids and lets me love her kids (NINE TOTAL), loves Gunner the Runner (our pitbull), loves to exercise, is methodical about keeping a schedule (we’re almost but not quite OCD about it), let’s me have control of the kitchen (I love to cook), and my little spicy caramel colored lady is a total hottie (#TheFeistyColombian)!
All of these things are awesome but there’s one thing that has always made me annoying to people. I am high energy in the morning and my mornings start at 5 am! I want to have conversations in the morning. I want to start the day off running. I want to get things done early in the morning. I like to dance, worship, praise my Jesus, listen to a message, talk about life, and laugh all before 7 am! I want to exercise in between there as well. AND SO DOES MY KIGNDOM QUEEN CLAUDIA! She is as much a morning person as I am. I don’t annoy her and she doesn’t annoy me because we BOTH love mornings! We love them so much that we now get up at 4:45 am to add couples prayer time together. Yes, we pray together early in the mornings before we do anything else (after a quick run to the restroom… wouldn’t want to have to rush prayer… lol).
So what are my 8 steps to loving mornings?
As you may have guessed, one of the steps is to be with someone who loves mornings and to make a commitment to love your mornings together. I mean, if you love mornings, marry a morning person. If you don’t quite love mornings yet but you want to love mornings, marry a morning person you love more than you love your own sleep and you will then love mornings.
Here are the 8 steps:
- Make time for God early in the morning. We can’t do it alone.
I know I wrote a whole bunch about finding the right person, a morning person before revealing the first point. The truth of the matter is that I would have never met my Kingdom Queen Claudia if I didn’t make God first in my life. See, after years of struggles in relationships with women that simply didn’t share the same love for God that I did, I felt unworthy, undeserving of love. In 2016, after my wife of 11 & 1/2 years left, I decided to spend the rest of my life alone. I didn’t even date in the years that followed.
One relationship I did not say no to was my relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I continued praying, and actually went into The Word deeper, letting it penetrate my heart and renew my mind. I decided to fall in love with God before moving forward into any other relationship. Then one day, after almost 4 years of not welcoming anyone new into my life, I surrendered to the Genesis 2:18 idea that it is NOT ok for us to do life alone. But I gave God a HUGE requirement. If God wanted me to be married, He would have to bring me a woman that loves GOD more than she loves herself or me.
God didn’t just meet this challenge, but He brought me the perfect woman for my life. God brought me, or actually brought me to a Godly woman. He made her such a perfectly yoked wife for me that he made her a morning person. Believe me, it may sound ridiculously simple but being a morning person married to someone who was not quite the cheerful & energetic morning person was a wedge in the marriage. I didn’t know how important that was until I met my equal. We now get up at 4:45 am and do it joyfully, gratefully and cheerfully.
2. Marry a morning person who you love more than you love sleeping in.
Talked about this one enough!
3. Develop a morning routine that sets you up for a positivity driven day.
One sure way to ruin your morning is to wake up with no plan of action in mind. Some people wake up early and work out. Others read a few pages of a good book. Others walk the dog. Others do a morning Bible devotional. Others throw some music on and dance. There is absolutely no wrong way to do your early mornings unless you just try to wing it.
I realized that when I graduated High School, I no longer had a reason to wake up at 5 am. So I found a reason. I joined the gym with some friends and we met at 6 am (when it opened). They were my accountability partners and believe me when I tell you they would have let me know I messed up if I didn’t show up. When that season was done with (people’s schedules changed & others moved), I started grabbing my cup of hot, freshly brewed coffee, doing a Bible study early in the mornings and keeping a morning journal (study notes). It eventually became a time for me to spend half an hour in prayer, then half an hour on my Bible study, then half an hour exercising, and by 7 am, while my competitors in business were still sleeping, I was already on my laptop answering emails and creating valuable content for my work day. That’s been my routine for almost 30 years now.
4. Get enough rest (7+ hrs). 1 am nights make 5 am mornings difficult.
I will admit that I’ve been very guilty of not sticking to this one. From the age of 14 until I was 48, I slept an average of 5 hours a night. I would go to sleep at midnight and wake up at 5 am. This was perfectly normal for me. I had convinced myself that this was optimal to the point that if I slept more than 5 hours a night, I would wake up tired, groggy and not in the best mood.
So what changed in 2020? I met Claudia. She is very much a schedule driven person. She loves her routine. And one of the things she’s done her entire adult life is to go to bed no later than 9 pm. I thought this was crazy when I first met her, and then I found peace. Now I am usually yawning before she is, and ready for bed by 9. Interesting enough, I’ve been more focused and productive since starting to get this level of rest than I’d been ever before. I now sleep an average of 7 hours a night and feeling better than ever.
5. Eat right! A well balanced diet helps you sleep better. Cut sugar out!
Cut sugar out! That’s so important that it needed to be mentioned twice. People please understand that sugar is a poison that does not belong in your body. Now I assure you, I’m not going to be a hypocrite. I have a sweet tooth. Put a piece of cheesecake in front of me and I will devour it. I like rice pudding. I like my mom’s homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. Apple pie is delicious. Cherry pie is delicious. Blueberry pie is delicious. Chocolate? Yes please. But, as an adult I learned the value of doing things in moderation. So, I allow myself to enjoy dessert. (Want to make my Queen happy? Get her a great slice of Tiramisu). All things in moderation.
I love meat! I know that probably offended some readers out there. That’s OK. These days everything except breathing is offensive to someone. Wait! Breathing while suffering with bad breath is definitely offensive so there, even breathing is offensive. I love meat! I love meat more than I like sweets. Set a piece of the best dessert ever & a nice 10 ounce medium rare steak in front of me and make me choose between the two. That steak will not have a chance. But I would be a fool to eat steak every day, especially since I like it medium rare. All things in moderation.
Eat your veggies! I was like almost every other kid out there. I was not a big fan of veggies. I say almost every other kid because 4 out of our 9 kids are huge veggie fans. They don’t fall into the norm when it comes to American kids. I was not in the veggie-loving group when I was a kid. As an adult I’ve learned the value of a good, balanced diet. So I eat just as much if not more veggies with my meal than meat. But did you know that if you overeat veggies too late in the day, you may not be sleeping and resting as well as if you ate them much earlier in the day? Don’t overeat anything, not even veggies before bed. All things in moderation.
Do NOT overeat and definitely do NOT eat late! Lazy over-eater sleep is not great rest. Ever gone to sleep after eating way too much for Thanksgiving or Christmas and then trying to get up happy and energetic the next morning? I don’t know about you, but I rarely have a great morning the night after I binge on 5 slices of pizza and an order of garlic knots. All things in moderation, and in it’s right time.
6. Drink more water! Drink 8 ounces of water as soon as you wake up.
Do I really have to go too much into detail about this one? Listen, coffee, soda, sweat tea, unsweetened tea, beer, alcohol, etc. all require water as one of the ingredients, but they do not represent water. Drink more WATER, H2O, that clear stuff that comes out of your faucet (I hope it comes out clear in your home).
I was doing research for this and came up on a great article. You can find it by clicking here. Below is part of it that reveals how important water is to the human body.
“Up to 60% of the human adult body is water. According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%.” (The Water in You: Water and the Human Body COMPLETED By Water Science School).
7. Write 10 things you’re grateful for at night and read it in the morning.
I started doing this years ago and it’s definitely changed my attitude about nights, mornings and life. Having an Attitude of Gratitude is a sure way to experience wins in any business and life endeavor. Give thanks, always. If you agree with this point, share this article with someone, tell them to read point 7 first and add the hashtag #AttitudeOfGratitude to the message. Watch what happens to your friend.
If you don’t think this works, let’s talk about it.
I’ve been a leader in business for years. At one point I was leading a team of 198 people. I wanted to see them all win. So I did a lesson on success and growth and I started that lesson off with, “I need everyone in this room today to develop an attitude of gratitude.” I asked them all to write down 10 things they liked about the business we were in, 10 things about the people they came across, 10 things that made them feel good about working for our company and 10 things they liked about their coworkers. I then told them to email me their lists of TENS, and I promised I would email it back to each one of them every Monday morning. I also made it perfectly clear that this was not mandatory, but highly recommended.
That was in our last quarter in 2006. In the last quarter of 2007, I stood in front of a room full of people and asked how many of them were on the team the previous year. 48 raised their hands. I asked the 48 how their 2007 was going so far. All of them had a phenomenal year.
When I looked up their names, all of them had emailed me their list of TENS the year before. You know how many people out of the original 198 people had done the exercise? Exactly 58 people. That means that 140 members of the original 198 didn’t do the exercise and none of the 140 were still on the team. I didn’t fire them. They fired themselves. They refused to do anything that would make them more positive and grateful.
You don’t have to do this exercise. I’m not asking you to make long lists of tens. But I am saying that if you want to try it, write down a list of 10 things you are grateful and thankful for in your business life, and 10 things you are grateful and thankful for in your personal life, and email me the list along with your full name, email address and your biggest goal is for this upcoming year. Make it a BIG goal. Then email me the lists and the information to GCRosarioGroup@gmail.com. I promise to email this list back to you, with zero changes and zero business pitches and zero added, every Monday for an entire year. Watch what happens in your life.
8. Detox the brain. Don’t watch the news or scroll social media in bed.
In point 7 I assigned you an activity that will put you in a positive, grateful state of mind. Don’t ruin it by adding negativity into your mind just before you go to bed. Remove negative thoughts, information and people from your life.
In 2016, I was faced with what felt like the worst moments of my life. My wife of 11 & 1/2 years walked out on me with our 3 children. I would like to say it was all her fault, that she was an evil person or that I was a poor, innocent victim in the whole thing. I would like to say that but it simply is not true. I was guilty as well. You see, as the head of the household, I made the grave error of allowing negativity into my mind, my home and my family. We watched the late news every single night, sometimes on two TV’s simultaneously. By the time I tried to stop the behavior, it was too late. It led to arguments and made the space even more negative.
When my ex-wife walked out, I disconnected the TVs and gave them away and deleted all news apps from my phone. I replaced the hour I was wasting on negative world news with an hour of positive Bible study. Did this bring the ex-wife back? No. But it set me up for blessings, for a positivity driven life, and for the wife God had intended me to have in my life.
I had to change myself in order to attract the God-centered Kingdom wife, the God-given provisions and the God-driven prosperity I am now living. I would not be experiencing the success I am experiencing in my business. I would not be where I am with God. I can also guarantee that I would not be sleeping with the peace that I do, or waking up at 4:45 am with the energy and mindset I’m waking up with. Want to wake up feeling better. Fill your brain up with better!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
George L. Rosario is a Brooklyn NY born & raised businessman & entrepreneur turned consultant. He started GC Rosario Group with his lovely wife Claudia. With over 30 years of service to the marketplace in NYC, George has relocated and been graciously adopted by the business community of South Florida. He now travels the country helping businesses and organizations thrive in today’s noisy environment. The post-Covid era forced many to close their doors, but also opened new doors of opportunity, growth and prosperity for innovative thinkers. George & Claudia Rosario help companies, businesses, organizations and teams develop the necessary skillset and plan of action to not just survive, but thrive in this new world. GC Rosario Group helps both secular and Christian based institutions meet their goals.
Comments
Post a Comment