-OK, so we’re moving on here in this business coach training to step six here– be early for life. Tim, the legendary Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, a leading author– I’m going to read them off here– printer, political theorist– what? Politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. This dude was not sloughing off. He had some stuff he was doing. He says “early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Tim, I rarely meet top level entrepreneurs who are late night party animals or who are consistently just late for life. There are some exceptions, but as a general rule, they’re early to meetings, they’re early up in the morning, or they’re early– talk to me about this idea of being early and proactive versus being late and reactive in this business coach video.
-Well, look at where your brain is most alive. When you wake up and you’ve got some level of sleep, it’s fresh and it’s ready for the doing the heavy duty lifting. And a lot of folks here– it’s like, well, I just can’t get up early. I recommend a very practical thing is you literally set a date with your destiny. If it’s 5 o’clock in the morning– and well, I usually like to sleep in until 9:00. 9 o’clock is going to– your life is going to pass before you, and you’re going to stay struggling. So set a date with your destiny and get up, and even if you have to– sometimes I’ll get up to walk, or I’ll do a couple crunches, or from wrestling days I still do these sets of 51 push ups. I do 51 push ups. I do one set in a row, by the way, consistently.
Even if you have to move around, set a date and show up at that morning date for your planning as if you’re going to meet your number one client you want to land, or you want to meet the most influential person in town. Set a date with your destiny to meet at that time to show up fully alive, fully awake, doing you’re jumping jacks, whatever you do to get your blood flowing and get ready to play on.
-I want to share this. If you’re watching this and you are a lazy person, I highly recommend that you would cancel your subscription and that you would not try to thrive, because you won’t be successful. Don’t get a business coach either. And I will tell you, every entrepreneur–
-Did you just say what I just thought you said.
-Yeah, I think we probably lose about half the people right there, but we should do it because there’s a thing called a job.
-What if they’re too lazy to quit it?
-The thing is, it’s OK to have a job and to work for somebody else who is super ambitious, but I have yet to meet an entrepreneur who’s not super motivated and super diligent in their work ethic, but you have to decide to do it. I know I didn’t have an intense work ethic, but once I realized what it took to keep up in that race of business, I’ve had to develop that. A business coach can help you develop that.
-Really, really important, though, on that, Clay. Some people are like– you produce your own caffeine in your bloodstream. You’re like that, and so you think, well gosh, I’m not I’m not like that. It just takes a while– think of motivation like a muscle that you’ve got to actually get it in shape and lean into it, plan the work, work the plan, whatever process– taking a walk– get something– a set time, a set pattern, a set place that you do the same thing every day to plan the work and work the plan and allow it to be a muscle you grow into. Don’t condemn yourself. Don’t talk about how bad you are with it. Just start taking action now with that.
-Well, I’m going to ahead and read a couple notable quotables and then get your ideas for some action steps on this. Thomas Jefferson, one of the American founding fathers, who’s widely considered to be the guy who is the principal author behind the Declaration of Independence. He says “the sun has not caught me in bed for 50 years.” So he’s talking about that he gets up early all the time.
TIM REDMOND: Before the sun rises.
-Do you believe that it’s essential to get up early or can somebody be a night owl? Is the point just to put that extra work in. Is that what we’re saying.
-You can be a night owl if you’ve inherited $53 million and you didn’t have to work for it.
-I mean, I can think of maybe an exception so far that I’ve met.
-There’s very few. Here’s the thing– is the motion of getting up early and pursuing your purpose– the motion of that is the skill. Well, I need to do that in order to do this. No, the skill is being able to get up and push yourself, get yourself in fourth gear within three minutes of getting up. That’s the skill, and that’s what people– when people make a difference, when people give birth to that baby, when people really move out of that averageness, they’ve got that fly wheel moving as Jim Collins talks about. They got momentum behind them. They get in that habit of just doing that no matter how they feel. This is what a business coach can help you with.