I read the 5 AM club on a whim after having it on my bookshelf for a while. Funnily enough, I actually read it on my Kindle despite having a physical copy. The book was available on Kindle Unlimited and luckily enough, I was actually in the right mindset to read it.
The 5 AM Club is a book by Robin Sharma. Robin Sharma has actually authored several books, including the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, The Leader Who Had No Title, and The Greatness Guide. He’s known as a leadership expert and mentor. I haven’t heard of him previously, which is surprising given that I have been reading books within his area of expertise for almost a decade.
The 5 AM Club was an unexpected book on creating a morning routine told through the lens of a storyline.
The 5 AM Club
The 5 AM Club Summary
The book primarily touches on the importance of setting a morning routine through the lens of an entrepreneur and an artist learning from their mentor, Riley Stone. Riley Stone is a millionaire that the duo met at a conference held by The Spellbinder. Riley Stone invited the entrepreneur and the artist to learn about the 5 AM Club by going on a journey with him. The concepts that the duo learned were passed on to Stone by the Spellbinder.
The book is much more than a focus on building a morning routine. It clearly describes what an ideal morning routine would look like (including even an example of a perfectly set up morning). One important concept discussed was the 20/20/20 rule. The 20/20/20 rule divides up the hour between 5 am and 6 am. This hour is called the Victory Hour.
The Victory Hour includes 20 minutes of exercise or movement, 20 minutes of reflection, and 20 minutes of growth. Completion of the Victory Hour allows for a sense of accomplishment for the day, setting the tone for how the rest of the day, and essentially the rest of your life.
The book also dives into the rationale surrounding morning routines and habits and values to focus on in an individual’s personal development journey.
It also includes a love story.
Available on Amazon.
The importance of 5 AM
Robin Sharma describes 5 am to 6 am as Victory Hour. This is usually the time before the sun rises and before the kids and loved ones are out of bed. It allows you to focus on the 20/20/20 Rule without distractions, or at least the minimal amount of distractions.
In the book, the 5 am club started out hesitant about waking up at 5 AM. They weren’t used to waking up before the sun comes up. Pretty early on in their journey, they came to the realization that waking up during that time helped their mental health significantly, allowing them to optimize their patterns and routines for success.
The main reason for waking up at 5 am is to start the day on the right foot without distractions. It also allowed more hours in the day to be productive and to achieve the goals ahead.
Riley Stone credits a lot of his success to the concepts taught to him by The Spellbinder, with the 5 am wake up as a pivotal start into shifting perspective.
5 AM CLUB QUOTES
There were a couple quotes that stood out to me when it came to this book, I wanted to highlight these in order to provide a glimpse into Riley Stone’s teachings. By the way, if you’re ever highlighting on your Kindle, you’re able to see a list of your quotes, arranged by book on Goodreads.
- Limitation is nothing more than a mentality that too many good people practice daily until they believe it’s reality.
- 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.
- Anyway, let me simply say that the place where your greatest discomfort lies is also the spot where your largest opportunity lives.
- Her former way of existing no longer served her. It was time for a change.
- 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.
- Your surroundings really do shape your perceptions, your inspirations and your implementations.
- Then, as you grew up, you forgot how to be human. You forgot how to be bold and enthusiastic and loving and wildly alive.
- You get to grow. And ascending as a person is one of the smartest ways to spend the rest of your life.
- So, they can never be alone. And silent. They need to constantly be with other people to escape their feelings of self-hatred over all their wasted potential, missing the wonders and wisdom that solitude and quiet bring. Or they watch TV endlessly, not realizing it’s eroding their imagination as well as bankrupting their bank account.
- And never work only for the income. Labor for the impact. Make your dominant pursuit the heartfelt release of value that represents an uncommon magic that borders on the poetic.
- “I am grateful. And I am forgiving. I am giving. My life is beautiful, creative, productive, prosperous and magical.”
- Every time you become aware of yourself dropping into victim mode and make a more courageous choice, you rewrite the narrative. You raise your self-identity, elevate your self-respect and enrich your self-confidence.
- The primary purpose of life is growth: to be continuously pushing yourself to materialize more of your potential.
- To lead is to inspire others by the way that you live. To lead is to walk through the fires of your hardest times to step up into forgiveness. To lead is to remove any form of mediocrity from infiltrating the quarters of your life in a dazzling celebration of the majesty that is your birthright.
Those are just a few quotes that I loved from the 5 AM Club.
REFLECTIONS ON THE 5 AM CLUB
I think that we sometimes read the right things at the right time. I’m currently on my healing and personal development journey. Just a month ago, I was obsessed with mindless social media and politics. I was entrenched in things that don’t concern me as a way to dissociate from my own anxiety and stress.
At one point two months ago, I stayed up until 2 am watching Tiktoks. Mind you, these Tiktoks did not concern me in the slightest. I got sucked into some drama that was fascinating. Yes, it was intriguing. Was it worth spending at least 8 hours on? Not in the slightest.
I’ve always wanted to become a morning person, I’ve always wanted to be a member of the 5 am club. When I was in the Navy, I hated the idea of waking up early. I hated having to go into work. On the other hand, when I retired from the Navy, I kept wanting to get back into the early mornings. I found out that when I did wake up early, before my children woke up, I was able to do my morning workout, my journaling, my meditation, my morning planning.
I’m still in the process of shifting into waking up at 5 am. I use multiple alarms in order to ensure that I actually wake up. Lately, it has been working, but it is truly something that I have to consistently work on. I want to be a part of the 5 am club. I want to be able to follow the book’s advice.
Honestly, I think that I need to reread the book again. I feel like there were so many concepts that I missed that could help supplement the 5 am club and the 20/20/20 habit.
Overall, the 5 am club is a book that surprised me in more than one way. I wasn’t sure at first about the storytelling. I wasn’t used to personal development books teaching their reader about topics through the form of a fictional story. I recommend the book to anyone who wants to develop a morning routine, especially to anyone who has struggled with waking up early.
Available on Amazon.
