Wake up! 8 reasons to wake up earlier
Sarah Jons 
WAKE UP! Somewhere, right now, someone is training while you are not. When you race him, he will win.
WAKE UP! Somewhere, right now, someone is training while you are not. When you race him, he will win. I am an early riser and you should consider this change to your schedule, right now. Many successful CEO’s and entrepreneurs seem to follow this pattern and it is in the DNA of leaders. So here is the clue – if you want to be successful, you need to be working when others are not. So I get up early because I believe it’s worth it. Here are some benefits you can get from doing it, and 5 key ways to actually do it.
It's time to wake up and smell the coffee…
1. Be Better Informed. You can browse 9 websites in a row (I have open at 6am: BBC news, Linkedin, The Telegraph, The FT, My Website, Sports, weather) without being interrupted by a single e-mail. Read some poetry. Read your Rules for Being Amazing Every Day.You are now ‘smarter’ and better informed for your entire day.
2. Be Always Early. Getting up even a half-hour early eliminates the rush that comes with leaving the house in the morning. Get up earlier and you’re calmer. You remember everything you need to take. You walk out without being stressed (lots of DHEA).This leads to a calmer day. Also, studies have shown that being on time is one thing that good leaders master, as well as demand. Want to be on time? Get up earlier.
3. Be Ready: Take on Fuel. Getting up early lets you have breakfast, which, as trite as it sounds, really is the most important meal of the day. Have some porridge, some muesli, some nuts and some caffeine if you must. But eat it.
4. Be Fitter: (see also House of Cards) Getting up early and exercising, whether at the gym or by yourself, puts you in a very small, yet very powerful group of people. Your brain gets smarter with a dose of BDNF. Get up, get it done, and get on with your day. You know you’re not going to the gym after work, and now you don’t have to. Learn how to breath properly. It will make you AMAZING!
5. Be There. I don’t have a commute, but for years, I did. Get up early, get to the office, and your commute is done before traffic goes to hell. Easiest commute ever.
6. Be a Power Player. Be a market maker. Want to know who the real power players are in the business world? Try scheduling 7 a.m. breakfasts with them. I’ve been at 7 a.m. breakfasts with some of the most powerful people in London. Why? Because they know that the demanding schedule they have won’t allow for lunches. What did Gordon Gekko say? “Lunch? Aw, come on, Marty. Lunch is for wimps!” He was right. Want to meet with the power players? Breakfast it!
7. Be In Charge. Time is precious. When do you think I write a lot of these posts? When do you think I answer e-mails? Review new research? Scan websites? Improve my memory? Write my books? While you are still sleeping.
8. Be Amazing Every Day. Thirty minutes can change the world. Getting up early each day can truly make all the difference in your life. Imagine getting up early and just doing a few of the things listed above. Would you be more productive? Make more money? Reach more people? Get more deals done? I know you would.
That was the why. Here are my top 5 ways to get up and make money…
1. Drink Water. Keep a giant (pint) glass of water (tap water is fine) by the bed. As soon as the alarm goes off, before you shut it off, drink the entire glass of water. Water is the most awesome wake-up tool for your body ever. Drink the water, it opens up your homeostatic system, rejuvenates your eyes, allows you to come out of sleep. Drink water!
2. Move It. Set the alarm clock somewhere you can’t reach it. Get out of bed to shut it off (after you’ve drunk your water), and you’re up and mobile.
3. There is no try. Don’t think, just do. It’s amazing what we can rationalise at 5 a.m. Oh, I’ll just sleep for an extra hour, then do the treadmill at double the speed for half the time so I can still make it into the office. Don’t think. Just get your body out of bed. Think later.
4. Get Out of There. The bedroom is for sleeping and sex. Once you’re awake, get out of it. Go to the kitchen for your coffee. Go to the living room or your home office for your computer. Exercise. Read. Take on the world. You’ve slept. Now get out of the bedroom.
5. Sleep. The No.1 way to get up earlier? Get to sleep earlier. I know, I’m blaspheming here. How dare I waste a perfectly good night when I could go out and be a drunken idiot, or go to a boring party? I like going to sleep earlier, because I know what it’s going to do for me on the flip side. I still go out, but I limit it. Remember when you were young and your parents made you go to sleep early on a school night? There’s a reason for that. Go to sleep earlier. Countless studies have been conducted showing that lack of sleep is hurting us, causing us to lose money, even making us ugly!
6. Learn to power nap (ask me how):
1) “Lose an hour in the morning, and you will be all day hunting for it.”
Richard Whately
2) “One key to success is to have lunch at the time of day most people have breakfast.“
Robert Brault
3) “Life is too short,” she panicked, “I want more.” He nodded slowly, “Wake up earlier.”
Dr. SunWolf
4) “The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years.”
Thomas Jefferson
5) “Every morning is a beautiful morning.”
Terri Guillemets
6) “The time just before dawn contains the most energy of all hours of the day. This has helped me become an early riser and an early doer…. When I wake to see that it’s light out already, I feel the world has started without me.”
Terri Guillemets
7) “It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.”
Aristotle
8) “I would have it inscribed on the curtains of your bed and the walls of your chamber: “If you do not rise early you can make progress in nothing.” William Pitt Chatham
9) “The difference between rising at five and seven o’clock in the morning, for forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to a man’s life.”
Philip Doddridge
10) “The early morning has gold in its mouth.”
Benjamin Franklin
11) “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
Benjamin Franklin
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