Jocko Willink made me do it

I'm now 2 weeks into my new 4:30 am workout schedule and to be honest, I feel fantastic. Before I started I was worried that I would burn myself out, be sore all the time and fall asleep at random places/times but so far that's not the case.

Sometime last year I stumbled across a guy named Jocko Willink. I'll probably mess up the exact details of his backstory but the gist is this: he was a Navy Seal, then moved up through the ranks as a leader until he was the head of training for all west coast Navy Seals. That's impressive enough, but after he retired he started a consulting company with one of his Lieutenant's   Leif Babin. These two have now built a successful leadership training and consulting company along with writing two fantastic books: EXTREME OWNERSHIP & THE DICHOTOMY OF LEADERSHIP.

I assumed because he was a Navy Seal and the fact that he became head of training that there was something I could learn from him, so I read the first book. I was right, there were definitely a lot of things that helped me as a leader and in my personal life.

A few days after I finished his book I decided that rather than trying to do things my own way all of the time I would instead find successful people and do what they do just to see if it would work. Not following them blindly but trying to emulate those things that they do differently from the rest of us.

Not surprisingly it worked. So I kept trying different things from different people and 98% of the time when I implement what they are doing it helps me too. One great example I picked up from Grant Cardone is to lead with Yes. Basically, say yes and then force yourself to figure out how to get it done. You would be amazed how much more you can get done this way instead of always thinking about all of the reasons you can't/shouldn't do something.

Now back to Jocko. If you go to his Instagram account, every 2nd or 3rd picture will a black and white picture of his watch and the time will be somewhere around 4:30am. He gets up at 4:30 every morning to work out. He talks about it during his podcast and others like Joe Rogan talk about it too. 

Some people (including me initially) will say that Jocko's page is boring because all he posts is pictures of his watch. I guess, but what he's really trying to do is motivate others and hold himself accountable. He's not the only one that talks about the benefits of waking up early, many business leaders and athletes do as well.

So after a while, his motivation worked and I decided to start working out at 4:30a every day. I've now been doing this for 2 weeks and so far here's what I've found.

• I'm not tired at all during the day 
• I sleep better 
• It hasn't hurt my performance at Jiu-Jitsu 
• I'm mentally sharper and more focused 
• I'm getting more done at work
• It's not that hard to get up early 

There may be some that read this and say "yeah, but you're only 2 weeks in". True it may get harder to keep waking up at 4:30a everyday, but that is also part of the fun/challenge. You have to keep pushing yourself to grow and those times when you get up even though you don't want to, those are the times that will help you grow the most.

I'm going to keep with my 4:30a workouts, who's joining me?