Sucker Punch Your Day by Getting Up Early with Andy Traub

On today’s episode of Second Half Comeback, I interview author, blogger and speaker, Andy Traub from takepermission.com and author of The Early to Rise Experience (learn to rise early in 30 days).

I’ve been a fan of Andy’s work ever since I watched an interview with him from Deacon Bradley’s Life Stoked. I totally relate to Andy’s blunt style and to how he seems to focus on taking care of his family first.

I’m a huge fan of The Early to Rise Experience and have successfully implemented a number of his strategies to help take charge of my life by getting up early.

Here are some of the key points and lessons from the Interview:

• Andy talks about how the book was inspired by one of his favorite books called “The Traveler’s Gift” by Andy Andrews and by his participation in Jeff Goins’ Tribe Writers course.

• Andy and I discuss how he actually hates getting up early but loves “being up early”.

• Andy emphasizes the key point that “victory begins at night”. He’s not telling us to get less sleep. He’s saying that the time you spend at night is not productive time versus the morning when we are fresh and full of energy. He points out that no one ever gets up early to waste time watching reality t.v. but that is often what we do at night when we are tired.

 

• “Your ideas are up at 5 a.m. but until now you’ve been asleep so you’ve missed them!”
  

• How getting up early allows us to “start our day with a victory”.

• “Life is not complicated. It’s what you do with your time.” Andy talks about how when his life sucks, it’s because he sucks. In other words, when he’s not being disciplined and getting up early to work on the important things in his life, his life sucks but when he starts his day early by doing his most important work... his life is better.

 

• “We think that life is this big thing. No it’s not...It’s what we do tomorrow morning!”
  

 

• I mention how one of my favorite tips is that when the alarm goes off, “get in the habit of putting your feet on the floor and pushing (otherwise known as standing)”...in other words, focus on the habit of just standing up as soon as the alarm goes off. It’s much harder to go back to bed once you’ve overcome the hurdle of just getting out of the warm bed.

• Andy talks about the idea of planning incentives for getting up early: Coffee ready to go when you get up, lay out favorite book to read, lay out clothes to go for a beautiful walk, etc. He mentions the tip that he invested in super comfortable $70 slippers!

• Early morning is magic time, use it to accomplish something important.
• "Stress isn’t up at 5 am. Stress doesn’t get up till like 8am so get up before stress.”
  
• Build in some accountability or a way to “put some skin in the game”. Make it a challenge, make it public, put something on the line like have a bet with a friend.

• “Smirk, because you just sucker punched the day”.

• “I’ve never met a man that I respected who was the last person up in his house.”

 

Andy finishes up by praising YOU with this final quote…

“I appreciate you for being intentional about your life….If you want to win at life you need to be intentional. Anybody who listened to the last 30 minutes is intentional about their lives...Well done! You care about your life...Bravo! This has been an investment in your life so keep listening to the show.”

Links and Mentions

You can find Andy at http://www.takepermission.com/

Get his book The Early to Rise Experience: learn to rise early in 30 days at http://www.amazon.com/The-Early-To-Rise-Experience-ebook/dp/B00B67PHOU

Deacon Bradley's Life Stoked http://lifestoked.com 

Andy Andrews: The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success http://www.amazon.com/Travelers-Gift-Decisions-Determine-Personal-ebook/dp/B00ETK822K/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418327123&sr=1-1&keywords=the+travelers+gift

 

Jeff Goins, Tribe Writers: http://goinswriter.com/tribewriters/