Okay, welcome back to my Monday blog. One thing I want to share with you is a series of five routines A players adopt, which I call the routines of the masters. The first in this series, the one I’ll talk about today, is the five a.m. club.

What makes someone world class is less about genetics and more about his or her habits. That’s why you really want to lock yours in. If you look at any of the A players, you’ll see that they haven’t necessarily been lucky or born into the right family or had the right opportunities, even though these may be qualities society tells us are necessary, and many have believed this to be true—but it’s completely false. All those A players are no different from you and me. Everyone has what it takes to become one, and how to get there is about installing the right routines, the right daily rituals. Once you get those routines to where they’re automatic, and remember that doing so takes 66 days, according to research, you’ll be able to run the right plays and get the right results.

Remember, no idea ever works unless you do the work! Visualization alone is a great habit, allowing you to develop a vision of whatever you want to accomplish, but now you have to actually do the work. All change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous in the end. After you install one routine or habit and master it, move on to the next. Never stop learning. Over time, these routines become a way of being. All change is meant to be hard at first, or it wouldn’t be valuable.

When I bring up the five a.m. club, you all might roll your eyes and be ready to stop reading, because you’re like, “I’m not getting up at five a.m.,” or “I need my sleep,” or “I’m not made that way,” or “My parents couldn’t even get up at five,” or… Do you see yourself in all those excuses? Although I’ve always been an early riser, the routine of the five a.m. club was one I implemented only back in April. Please remember this: Winning the battle of the bed, putting your mind over the mattress, and getting your two feet up and out is a true victory. I’m telling you that it’s hard at first but truly worth it as we dive deep into the routines.

Robin Sharma told me about the idea of a distraction nation. If you live in the city and are driving and stop at a red light, how many people do you see reaching down and picking up their cell phones to check their texts? In a coffeeshop or walking downtown, how many people do you see walking around while checking their notifications? These people are addicted to distraction, and an addiction to distraction is the death of your creativity.

If you win the battle of the bed and get up at five a.m., you’re giving yourself three pristine hours while the rest of the world is sleeping or distracted to dial in your mindset, your heartset, your physical life. Because how you begin your day is how you live your day. If you can start your day well, forget about the year, the month, the week: Just focus on living the best day you can. Why do you want to get up at five a.m. and not six or seven? Because it’s the pristine part of the day, when you can give yourself that first hour to replenish your mind, your body, your self. Call it your holy time or whatever you want.

As I get into the rest of the routines of the five a.m. club over the next few weeks, just remember that most people live their lives reactively, as though they’re in a five-alarm fire. They reach for their phones as soon as they wake to check messages and emails instead of what they’re supposed to be doing, which is looking after themselves. You know when you’re on a plane and the flight attendant runs through the safety protocol at takeoff, saying, “In the event of cabin depressurization, the oxygen masks fall. Put your mask on first, then your child’s”? Same thing applies in life and with the five a.m. club. How you begin your day is how you live your day.

Next in the routines of the masters is what you’re meant to be doing in the five a.m. club, and this one was a game changer for me.