So you’ve learned about the 5 a.m. Club and the 20/20/20 Formula. What’s next? A very simple but important idea that Robin Sharma calls the 90/90/1 Rule. The concept behind this is that you don’t want to use the best hours of your day for your lowest-energy activities, yet this is what just about everyone does.

What I mean by this is that whether you work from home or at the office, when you first get to work, it should be showtime. Your first few hours are not the time to gather around the water cooler for gossip and talk about your evening, your kids, your weekend… You get the idea. It’s not even the right time to check your emails and notifications or let yourself get distracted. Rather, during the first few hours of the day, you need to go into your office, shut your door, and focus on the single biggest opportunity that will set you apart from everyone else in your industry.

First thing in the morning is when you have your highest level of focus, your highest level of energy, your highest level of willpower. I’ll give you an example: During my first ninety minutes every morning, after I finish the 20/20/20 Formula, I sit my butt in my chair and dive deep into marketing so that I can nail down ads and always stay current on changes in the publishing industry. For authors, marketing is a daunting affair. You may be surprised to learn that very few authors are able to quit their day jobs, because they have never been able to make a survivable living selling books. I’ve been doing so successfully since 2012 even with all the massive changes in the publishing industry, and you want to know why? As others have pointed out to me, the obstacles I’ve faced as a single mother of a child with autism are likely the reason I have enough drive and ambition and sheer determination to have said, “No fricking way is this not going to happen!” Yet I’ve listened to so many authors around me who continually recite the excuses for why they can’t make it. Remember, excuses are part of the victim mentality.

What I want you to do is imagine this: Your mental focus is more valuable than your intelligence right now. Willpower is another one, because you may have big dreams and goals, but if you can’t execute them via willpower, you’re not going to get anything done. Then there’s your physical energy. You can have great ideas, but if you don’t have the energy to get them done, well, then you’re just not going to do them. When are these three elements highest for you? First thing in the morning. What I’m saying is that what most people do first thing in the morning when they get to work is check their emails, chit chat, and get distracted—and when you get distracted, it sucks your energy away.

So, for the next ninety days, join me in focusing on your single biggest opportunity, whatever your industry is. Focus on that opportunity every morning for ninety minutes, and shut out the rest of the world, the distractions. Really move yourself so you rise in your industry to a level you never thought possible. You can do it. Everyone can do this.

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Okay, I’m back, and this Monday we’re going to dive deep and deconstruct the 20/20/20 Formula.

That is a term everyone needs to understand, because it’s well and good to learn something new and understand a new model for doing things, and it’s even better to understand a new routine, but—and this is a big “but”—what separates the legends and the big A players, as I like to call them, from the ordinary people who never gain traction or get their ideas or plans off the ground is the level of depth and rigor of their knowledge.

Deconstruction is taking, for example, this 20/20/20 Formula, which you learned last week, and going deeper into it. When you do this, you gain an awareness few have. This deep study is so rare in this world, because most things are taught at a level that just skims the surface. What you want to do is play at the level of genius, because A players go deep when the rest of the world goes wide. Let me put it another way: Is it better to know a few things really, really well, so deep that you can deconstruct all the layers and intricacies and become an expert in your field, or is it better to know many things without understanding and knowing them at a level of deep intricacy? Understand? Good, because no idea will work unless you do the work and deconstruct it.

So let’s start with the deconstruction of the 5 a.m. club:

From 5:00 to 5:20 a.m., what do you do? Intense exercise. You sweat. Why? Because it releases BDNF. Then you hydrate, and remember to drink while you work out. When you wake up in the morning, you’re dehydrated, and one of the keys to getting your brain optimized is to drink tons of water. You also need to breathe. Why? Because it cleanses cortisol. You wake up in the morning with a brain full of cortisol, your levels of which are highest in the morning, so what you’re doing by moving first thing, as soon as you get out of bed, is releasing that fear hormone. You need to clear out that fear hormone before you achieve whatever big dream you’re working on.

When you exercise, BDNF is like Miracle-Gro for the brain in that it repairs brain cells damaged by stress. It’s a myth that you can’t grow more brain cells that promote more connections and accelerate your learning. What else? Exercise gives you a dopamine rush, which helps you feel inspired and on fire. You know that fire and excitement in your belly that makes you feel you can accomplish anything? Now how helpful would it be to start your day with that? Exercise also increases your metabolic rate, your fat-burning engine. I bet just about everyone likes that. And when you increase your metabolic rate, you have more energy. Just remember it like this: You can have an amazing idea, the inspiration for a new project or career or to start something at a groundbreaking level, but if you have no energy, it’s not going to get off the ground. Here’s something else you can do: Deconstruct those days where you had the greatest energy, and ask yourself, what was I doing? Who was I around? What was I thinking?

So what are the benefits of all this? You have less fear, you beat stress, you have more focus, you have more game, and you increase your longevity. Clear? Do you need to run out and buy a bike, a treadmill, or whatever expensive exercise equipment you think you need? No, you do not. This is the number one excuse I hear from people, that they don’t have a bike, or they’ll start the 5 a.m. routine when they have more time, more money, more… You get the picture, the victim mentality excuses. You can do leg lifts, jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, planks, squats, anything. You can even run in place if you have a tiny boxlike apartment. You just need to move. Just find a way to do it. Great. Let’s move on to the next one.

From 5:20 to 5:40 a.m. is for reflection. What do you do in this pocket? Well, this where I grab my coffee and journal and pen, because now you journal, meditate, and do the “I am” 25 tool. You don’t have to do them all, you can pick one or two, but this gives you the idea. Everyone knows what the “I am” 25 is, right? You know, where you write out your “I ams.” Here is an example: “I am happy, I am healthy, I am brave, I am confident, I am loving, I am successful, I am a great mom…” Keep going and fill it in for yourself.

Then there is the Gratitude 20 tool, and everyone knows this. “I am grateful for…” Fill in 20 times what you’re grateful for. I’ve written a blog already about the outdoor program my son attended, because for two years I couldn’t get the public school onboard with his autism program and consultant. Yes, you heard me! But it was a good thing, because the skills taught were valuable, and the first one was gratitude. It was how the outdoor program started each day. The kids sat in a circle and went around, and everyone had to say one thing he or she was grateful for, because when you’re grateful, the brain doesn’t allow room for criticism and the automatic negative thoughts that plague us all. Gratitude grows joy. I’ve strayed off topic a bit, but you get the idea.

Ask yourself, do you want to have more joy in your life? The dopamine release from your earlier exercise is now giving you more energy and less reactivity. Remember the reactive vs. strategic mindset. Think back and ask yourself, how many times did you react to a situation and then wish you could go back and have a redo, maybe take a step back and be strategic instead? Not sure about you, but my list is pages long. LOL! Then there are affirmations and prayers, if you subscribe to that. All the above falls within your pocket of 5:20 to 5:40. Pick one or all, but these are techniques you can deconstruct further to really dial in on your best. So what are the benefits? You will be happier, have better performance, be better at and more aligned with your craft or passion, and be more positive. Does everyone like this one? Okay, now deconstruct, and you’ll start to see this for yourself.

Now comes the final pocket, 5:40 to 6:00 a.m., where you learn! Listen to audiobooks or a podcast, watch documentaries or online video courses (I love these, and this is where I spend my 20-minute learning pocket every morning), or review study notes from a recent course or conference. Some people even read fiction. You want a form of learning that resonates with you. So let’s get into this. For example, with your study notes, keeping in mind the 20/20/20 Formula, take them and actually deconstruct them. Dial them in, make plans around them, visualize them, meditate on them… You get the picture. Do this fifty times, a hundred times, so that it becomes second nature and you really hone in on it. How many times have you read something or taken notes at a conference, and when you go back through your notes, each time you learn something new? Or maybe you’re like me and always end up saying, “Oh, yeah, I missed that part!”

Maybe you don’t want to be a student in a world that celebrates superficiality. You know that thing people do, or maybe you recognize this as something you do or have done, when they say, “Just give it to me now,” “I don’t want to study,” “I don’t want to put in the work,” or “I don’t want to train”? That’s why so few people are in the top 0.0001 percent. So now that you’ve been walked through this process and can see what your true nature is, you can see where you are now despite what you were born into, what you were brainwashed to believe by well-intentioned people. You can see the journey and what it has taken. Unfortunately, though, most people don’t know this. Now that you do, you’ve developed insight and increased your opportunities.

Then there’s the ×20 value you can deliver, making you more valuable to the marketplace. Why spend all this time learning? Because it increases your inspiration. Look at Steve Jobs. Genius? No, but he focused on one skill for a lifetime! So what are the benefits? You can be legendary, a market icon. How many of you would like to be so good at what you do that your marketplace simply beats a path to your door? How many of you would like to create your own personal economy and be so good at what you do that when you walk into work on Monday morning, your team and people in the marketplace rise to their feet for you? Just kidding…but I’m not! You get the point, because people, especially kids out there, are looking for that kind of inspiration. So be it.

What’s next? Learn this at such a level that it becomes second nature. Share this and teach it to others. Make it your daily habit. Remember the 66 days—hard at first, messy in the middle, but absolutely beautiful in the end, because you’ve got it.

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The Habit Installation Protocol

Remember that genius is not about natural talent and genetics. Rather, it’s about your rituals, your habits and routines. I’ve outlined this several times in past blogs, and this is probably the most important thing to rewire in your brain, especially because many were taught the opposite while growing up. This is the one thing I wish all schools would actually focus on when teaching our kids. Can you imagine? But then, this kind of change has to start with the leaders, those who are molding young minds.

So here we go with the nitty gritty, deconstructing the habit installation protocol. Did you know there’s actually a science behind installing habits? One finding concerns the 66-day protocol, because it takes 66 days of practice to hardwire your brain with a new habit so it becomes automatic. This is why so many don’t gain traction, because they give in and give up when it gets too hard. Remember that every new habit, skill, or idea you’re trying to learn is hard in the beginning, messy in the middle, and beautiful in the end. You need only grit and determination to start that new habit and push through the inner critic that tells you to give up and go back to being mediocre, to lying on that sofa and vegging out, to sleeping the day away, to staying in that dead-end job, to giving up that weight-loss routine because you tell yourself it’s easier and that bag of potato chips is going to fix everything. I’m here to tell you, don’t listen to that inner critic and that frustration that has you wanting to throw your hands in the air and go back to how it’s always been. Stick with it for 66 days, because then your new habit will be hardwired into your routine.

So what are the three stages of habit installation?

1.  The first one, which happens over the first 20 days, is destruction. Here is your starting point. Pick a new habit you want to wire in, and remember, if it wasn’t difficult, it wouldn’t be real change. After 66 days, it will be easier to do the new thing, the new ritual, than it will be not to. What you’re doing is recoding the emotional pathways of your brain. You’re reinventing your way of being you, a better you, a happier you. It’s destruction. The whole process of getting to your best self is like a series of deaths. Ask yourself this: When you were going through a dramatic change in your life, did it feel like death? The old part of you is dying—the death of your limitation, of your old way of thinking, of your old way of settling for mediocrity, of that depressing feeling and victim mentality of “This is as good as it gets.” This feeling that happens when you take on a new habit and step into that change, which feels like the death of the old you, is actually a really good thing. It will not be easy, but let me tell you, it is so worth it in the end.

2.  The next 20 days is confusion. Most out there, if they haven’t already quit and given up in the first 20 days because it was so hard, do it now. It’s so messy in the middle, and society often says that if you’re confused, something is wrong, but in real change, if you’re confused, you’re growing. Chaos is nothing more than your next level of world class and your A game coming to get you. Keep going and push through it. Embrace the messiness, for there your expansion lives. Now, with that awareness, you will make better choices. With better choices, you will have better results. How can you renovate a house without it being really messy? When you’re dismantling the old foundation and structures, there will be mess, confusion, chaos, maybe a lot of F bombs dropped, but what do you get in the end, when you keep on going? You all know this. The same thing applies to you.

3.  The next 20 days is integration. You’re now integrating the new rhythms and recoding your brain, and that’s why it now doesn’t seem like such a frickin’ struggle. New brain cells and neuropathways that fire together are wired together. It’s all being integrated together in you. It’s now getting easier. You have now reached the point where the new habit becomes automatic. That’s the way it works. It becomes easier at this point to do the new routine than to not do it. Everyone has the grit, the capability, to wire in a new habit. I don’t care what anyone tells you; everyone can do it. The problem is that society has taught us it’s okay to give up, or maybe you have family and friends who aren’t supportive and are of the opinion that there was nothing wrong with the way you were just getting by. They remind you that it’s life, and life is hard. Remember, surround yourself with likeminded people who are going where you’re going, and disregard the naysayers. Here’s another way to look at it: willpower! You need only willpower to start that new habit and stick with it until it becomes automatic, and then your willpower will be freed up for the next habit you want to install. This is the secret to all those A players and game changers in the world. Easy? Actually, it is, once you know what to do.

Someone was telling me just last week about a Hawaiian team of outriggers. (Outrigging is an endurance sport, for those not familiar with it.) This team are built like refrigerators, but the entire team works with well-timed precision—their reach, their stroke changes, their calls, their wave riding, their seat changes. It all looks like a choreographed ballet. But for that team to get to that level of greatness, they worked at it a hundred times, a thousand times, honing their precision, working through the routine until it became automatic. That kind of precision and greatness doesn’t come from “Oh, it’s too hard. I’ll just give up and go back to how I’ve always done it” or “Slow down! You’re going too fast!” No, they worked at it, just like you can, like we all can, and remember, there is no reason not to go after the change you want in your life.