Why That Worked #15: Morning Routines—The NEW Way To Create A Morning Routine In 2025

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Why That Worked #15: Morning Routines—The NEW Way To Create A Morning Routine In 2025"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Marketing Made Simple
• Host/Author: Powered by StoryBrand
• Episode: Why That Worked #15: Morning Routines—The NEW Way To Create A Morning Routine In 2025
• Release Date: April 16, 2025

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1. Introduction to Morning Routines and Productivity

In this episode of Why That Worked, hosts Donald Miller and Kyle Reed delve into the transformative power of morning routines. Donald shares his personal journey of how establishing a structured morning routine significantly boosted his productivity, especially after major life changes such as marriage and becoming a father.

Notable Quote:

“When two-thirds of your time is taken away, you figure out how to focus... I became twice as productive as I had before with probably... a third of the free time.”
— Donald Miller [03:14]

2. The Structure of Donald Miller's Morning Routine

Donald outlines his comprehensive morning routine, emphasizing both mental and physical components. His routine begins with:

• Family Time: Spending initial minutes with his daughter and partner, ensuring family connections are prioritized.
• Cold Plunge: Engaging in a three-minute cold plunge at 45 degrees to invigorate the body.
• Workout: A 15-minute exercise regimen including pull-ups, push-ups, bodyweight squats, and dips, progressively increasing in intensity.
• Nutrition: Preparing a protein shake loaded with essential nutrients, which he transfers to a Nalgene bottle to ensure consistent intake.

Notable Quote:

“If you can take good for you behaviors... and turn those into habits, all of life gets better.”
— Donald Miller [09:15]

3. Systematizing Health and Fitness to Reduce Decision Fatigue

Donald emphasizes the importance of turning health and fitness activities into habitualized processes. By doing so, he minimizes cognitive load, allowing him to maintain focus on more significant tasks without constantly making decisions about his health regimen.

Notable Quote:

“The morning routine has done that. It's what it's literally when I walk down those stairs and get to that cold plunge, it's what my body is going to do.”
— Donald Miller [10:15]

4. Transitioning from Amateur to Professional

The discussion shifts to the concept of "going pro," inspired by ideas from Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art and Jerry Seinfeld’s disciplined approach to comedy. Donald explains that the difference between an amateur and a professional lies in creating structured rules and adhering to a consistent schedule.

Notable Quote:

“The difference between an amateur and a pro is an amateur does it when they want or when they feel like it. And a pro does it on a schedule.”
— Donald Miller [16:25]

Kyle reinforces this by highlighting the importance of professionalizing one's approach to personal development, akin to how athletes train rigorously to enhance their performance.

5. Framework for Intentional Living

Donald presents a four-step framework to transition from an amateur to a professional mindset:

1. Life Vision: Crafting a clear vision of one’s desired legacy, often encapsulated in a personal eulogy.
2. Values: Defining broad values such as being a good parent, spouse, and professional.
3. Rules: Establishing specific rules to uphold these values, like daily workouts or dedicated family time.
4. Schedule: Integrating these rules into a daily calendar to ensure consistency.

Notable Quote:

“Understand your values, turn them into rules, put them on a calendar. That's it.”
— Donald Miller [30:02]

6. Maintaining Routines Amid Disruptions

Addressing potential disruptions like travel, Donald shares strategies to maintain his routines. Upon returning from trips, he swiftly reintegrates into his established habits to regain his productivity baseline. The key is minimizing disruptions and having a robust system that can withstand occasional breaks.

Notable Quote:

“As soon as I get back, I get back into the process... my body walks down the stairs and gets in the cold plunge. It just immediately starts over and it makes me so happy to go back into that comforting routine.”
— Donald Miller [14:33]

7. Emphasizing Balance and Relationships Over Pure Productivity

In his concluding remarks, Donald underscores the importance of balancing productivity with meaningful relationships. He cautions against overemphasizing success at the expense of personal connections, using Elon Musk as an example of someone who, despite immense productivity, may face relational shortcomings.

Notable Quote:

“Keep it in balance. That your relationship with your spouse and your close friends and your kids are why you are working.”
— Donald Miller [31:32]

He encourages listeners to establish routines across various life domains—health, family, finances, and friendships—to cultivate a life rich in meaning and fulfillment.

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Final Takeaways

• Intentionality: Living with purpose ensures routines are aligned with personal values and life goals.
• Habits Over Decisions: Automating beneficial behaviors reduces mental fatigue and enhances consistency.
• Balanced Success: Achieving productivity should not come at the cost of nurturing vital relationships.
• Adaptable Systems: Structuring routines allows for easier reintegration after disruptions, maintaining overall stability.

By following Donald Miller's structured approach to morning routines and intentional living, listeners can enhance their productivity while maintaining a balanced and meaningful life.

Transcript

[Bobby Richards]

Hey, hero makers, it's podcast producer Bobby Richards. I'm jumping in to share with you a new episode of our brand new podcast, why that worked, presented by StoryBrand AI with Donald Miller back in the host seat. Now, since we launched Marketing Made simple, we've been so grateful to have everybody tune in each week to learn how to make your marketing easy and make it work. Which is exactly why we're sharing new episodes of the why that Worked podcast here. In the old Marketing Made simple feedback, but only for a limited time. Each episode of the new show is gonna deliver actionable insights and key takeaways that are all designed so you can implement them to help make whatever you're working on work. Now, here's the deal. Like I said, this is only for a limited time. If you wanna catch new episodes early, you can watch or listen every Monday. To watch the show, just go subscribe to the StoryBrand YouTube channel. And to listen, go follow why that worked, presented by StoryBrand AI wherever you enjoy your podcasts. All right, that's it for me. So grateful you're here. And enjoy this week's episode of why that worked, presented by StoryBrand AI. You're listening to the why that Work podcast, presented by StoryBrand AI. If you've ever wondered why certain brands, trends, or cultural phenomena find success while others don't, you're in the right place. Every week we unpack why something worked, then give you actionable insights that you can use in your own life. Now let's dive in with your hosts, Donald Miller and Kyle Reed, jumping right into it.

[Kyle Reed]

Don, you know, you're someone who has been known inside the spotlight for a while. You've gotten a lot done. But over the last couple years, you've had some shifts in your life, and that is having a kid. And everybody here who is watching this video knows what that's like if you have a kid in your morning routines. But I know this about you. You have a very specific, specific morning routine. Yeah, walk me through your process of having a morning routine. This seems like a buzzword. A lot of people talk about morning routines. I know you've got one. We've talked about it. What's yours?

[Donald Miller]

Well, let me go back. I got married at 42, and I was able to write a lot of books and start a company and all that kind of stuff. And I just had nothing but freedom until I was 42. And one of the reasons I probably didn't get married till I was 42, because I. I kind of felt like I needed that Freedom in order to write books and be a creative. And I was absolutely convinced, Kyle, that my marriage was going to kill my career. And I was all. I was all for it. I was willing to make the sacrifice. Love, Betsy. Go get a job. Whatever you need to do.

[Kyle Reed]

Just. You didn't feel like you could be productive or, like, have the time.

[Donald Miller]

I mean, I define productivity as the system I've been using, which was largely make it up as you go. What does your gut say that you need to work on today? You know, I'd gotten a little bit into the productivity stuff and the morning routine stuff, but I was still an artist, and I'm always going to be an artist. And what I discovered was that after getting married and after getting married, I became twice as productive as I had before with probably, I don't know, a third of the free time.

[Kyle Reed]

Wow. And after getting married, before kid.

[Donald Miller]

Before. Before having a kid. And so that was amazing. But really. And the reason was, is because when two thirds of your time is taken away, you. You figure out how to focus, you know, because the ambition is never going to go away. Everybody listen, this podcast is really ambitious. You know, you are going to get a lot done no matter what. But when, you know, at 42, you know, not to wreck a marriage, by the way, at 25, I'm. I'm confident I would end up divorced. I really am, because I just didn't know the importance of the meaning of life, which I think is all relationships. So, you know, I think that, that, that was really surprising to me. But the way I did it was I began to emphasize more the morning routine. And I actually have. If you go to Hero on a mission dot com, you can look at my morning routine as a piece of interactive software that's free. And we have, I don't know, we have like a dozen people sign up every day. We never bill you. People just do it. I don't even think we. I don't even think we sell you anything. We might, but just ignore those five or six emails if you don't like that. And, you know, it's a morning routine, and there's a mental component to it, is really sort of how it starts. And basically it asks you to read your vision for your life so that you're always reminding yourself what your story is about. And then you break it down into the priorities for that day. And I only give you three. And then all the to do lists, like, today I need to go to the dry cleaner, but that's not one of my Priorities. But in order to get it out of my head, I need to write it down so that I don't have to remember it, which causes mental calories to be used and causes some mental fatigue when you're having to manage so many little things on your task list. So that exercise, by the way, there's other things. There's what are you grateful for today? There's questions that it asks you every day. And it ends up becoming the sort of meditative productivity exercise that I've been using for 15 years. Yeah, more than 10 years. And I would consider myself relatively productive. I bet you I'm in the top 30% of people listening to this podcast. There's people I meet that I just can't compete with, and they listen to this podcast. But I bet you I'm in the top 30% of leaders in terms of how much I can get done. And so, you know, that's been extremely, extremely effective. Then the other thing is when I factor in sort of health and fitness, work, life balance, those kinds of things, there's things I now do before that morning, that mental morning routine. And there are things I just knock out. And so I wake up in the morning, I go down to the garage pretty quickly, either within 10 minutes if I can do it before my daughter wakes up, because I'm usually the one who wakes her up. So if I'm up early, I go down. I do not have a fixed time when I wake up, but I wake up early regardless. If it's too late and she wakes up before me, I spend the first 30 to 40 minutes with her. And then as Betsy's kind of, Betsy takes her time getting up in the morning because I'm up with Emmaline. And when Betsy comes to the kitchen, starts making breakfast, I usually do about 10 minutes with them. I don't eat breakfast. And so I then disappear and go into my. Go down to the garage. When I get to the garage, I do three minutes in cold water, so it's 45 degrees for three minutes. I come out of that with energy and in a good mood, ready to work out. My workout takes 15 minutes. I say that because people are like, yeah, whatever, that's not a workout, that's a warmup. But I do three sets of pull ups, three sets of push ups, three sets of body weight squats, and I'm adding dips to that. And that is a system, too, because I started with five. Three sets of five in January, three sets of six in March, three sets of seven, or in February, three sets of seven in March and three sets of eight in April. That will go all the way to 23 sets of 20 in April of next year. So even that is very systematized. And I'm getting to why there's these systems here. In a second, I'm building up to something that is groundbreaking. I do stretches that my trainer taught me so that as I get older, I still have some flexibility, because that's a serious problem with me. Then I go upstairs and I make a protein shake that I do not eat. I pour it into a Nalgene and I take it with me to make sure I'm getting my 60, 70 grams of protein out of the shake on top of whatever I'm eating that day, because I need to end up at about 150. And that's it. That's the morning routine. But think about. And then I. Oh, and then I go to where I'm going to write. It's been in a coffee shop in the past, but now it's at my home office. And that's when I do my morning mental routine as a way of starting my intellectual day. And that's usually not. It's before 9am and that starts every single day, every working day. I don't do my morning routine on Saturday or Sunday. I do the workout part on Saturday in the cold plunge. I rest on Sunday. So what's happened here is an artist who lived for, gosh, 30 years doing whatever he felt like doing. I turned things into processes that I repeat over and over. And what that really saves me is it minimizes cognitive load so I stay fit without thinking about it. I stay focused without thinking about it. And I invest in my family without thinking about it because it's become a habit. Those habits have allowed me, you know, if it takes 800 calories, mental calories, to get through the day, a lot of us, if we're making it up as we go, 300 of those calories are fitness, work, life, balance, figuring out what the priority is. Those are gone for me. It cost me zero. Because they're just habits. It's what it's literally when I walk down that stairs and get to that cold plunge, it's what my body is going to do. And I don't have to think about it or decide whether or not to do it. I also, like a little kid in elementary school, I lay out my clothes for the next day. They're sitting on the chair so I don't have to use those calories. I'm trying to conserve as many calories as I can as far as mental calories go. And the morning routine has done that. The other thing is compound interest on your morning routine is un freaking believable. It's unbelievable. If you just do it five days a week, what you can get done in a year is incredible. So I went from 2 years, 18 months to 2 years to writing a book for writing a book, to nine months to 12 months. Adding a wife now the kid, Emmeline, has slightly slowed that. A lot of people thought I would say, well, when I got a kid, it got even more productive. It's not true. I lost a lot of time when Emmeline was born because I come home between 4 and 5pm, I don't look at my phone and I'm with them every weekend. And I only travel once to twice a month. So that was a severe blow to my ability to get things done. However, I'm still faster than I used to be back when I was single. And I credit the morning routine or routines period with that.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah, I hear you talking a little. What I hear you talking about is sometimes boundaries force you to do things.

[Donald Miller]

Yeah. When people take something away, you fight for it.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah. I always listen to people online, whether it be Huberman, which is he's awesome. Andrew Huberman, or other business owners who talk about their morning routines. And I always laugh because I'm like, yeah, easy for you to say. You, oh, don't have kids. And so that's always my first reaction.

[Donald Miller]

But listen how Elrod wrote Real Miracle Morning. This is the whole concept of his book. He's got kids, man. And that dude is. That dude is serious.

[Kyle Reed]

It's that side of it. It's like, you know, there's, you're just. There's a force constraints that actually make your mornings more productive. And kind of the, the moment for me where I kind of had to look myself in the mirror was good. Do I want to keep making excuses as to why I don't get things done or do I want to do something about that? And so that forced me to go, well, guess what, You've got to get up at 5am and guess what? At night, you've got to be disciplined to not sit there and look at YouTube until 10:30. At 9:30, you've got to stop, you know, paying attention to that. But that structure forced me because I wanted something bigger than just kind of walking through my day. I wanted to. That compound interest thing you were talking about was, was really strong. I think there's a lot of people listening to this who probably have some sort of a morning routine. One of the things I was thinking about, for someone like yourself, you have reduced some travel, but you still travel. What are some tips that you have as you travel and your, your pattern is disrupted? How do you still stay in that process?

[Donald Miller]

As soon as I get back, I get back into the process. But there's no question pattern or travel free is a pattern disruption. And I don't like it. I have become, you know, the guy who used to work when he wanted to and when he felt like it. I would go from coffee shop to coffee shop just feeling the vibe. And if it didn't work here, I'd go somewhere. It was just ridiculous, right? So that guy now has very, very strong routines that I really like. And you could say to me, don't. You're going to be allowed to leave your home. And my home is, you know, it's, it's got a little office in the backyard, so it's a nice place. But you're going to be allowed to leave your home five days a year and every day that your home is going to look exactly the same. And I would be happy, I swear. Really, I would be so happy because I don't have to think everything is predictable. But that is not the life I live. I mean, it's just not the life I live. So, you know, when I travel, it is a major disruption. And we're trying, we try to limit that as much as we can. But you know, that I would say it's not helpful. What's helpful is if I get in at midnight, my plane lands at midnight, I'm walking in the door at 1am Adrenaline is up, I'm in bed by 2, and I'm asleep by 2. Betsy will usually wake up with Emmaline the next morning as a gift to me. So I get to sleep until maybe eight. So that's six hours of sleep. I get up, say hi to everybody, and my body walks down the stairs and gets in the cold plunge.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah, that's good.

[Donald Miller]

It just immediately starts over and it makes me so happy to go back into that comforting routine. I just love it.

[Kyle Reed]

Something I, I hear you saying, I think I admire about you is you're. You're a pro. And what I mean by that is you have your routine, but you show up to work as a pro does where it's like, this is what I do. This is my job. There's no.

[Donald Miller]

And I love it. I never ever thought I would love it, but I love It.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah, yeah. And I, I think that's so valuable to kind of treat yourself that way of going. I'm. I'm a pro. This is my profession. And so I'm going to show up to the best, you know, of my abilities. We see all those documentaries on ESPN or Netflix of athletes, and I always admire them, and I always kind of get a little jealous and go, well, yeah, easy for them. They're training in the off season. They have trainers, they're working muscles to try to get better, to increase hand, eye, coordinate, all those things that'd be great if I had that clarity. But it, it hit me not too long ago where it's like, no, they're. They're just pros showing up to do their job. Where are those areas for me in my life, whatever that is I'm working on or trying to get better at of just being a pro? I think for you, you know, you're really great at. I mean, almost every day you are writing for at least an hour to not two hours, and you're walking in and showing me, hey, check out this progress I just made on this. Check out this, you know, pamphlet I just wrote. It's 25 pages. Wrote that, you know, this morning. And. But you're a pro. And I think for a lot of people, it feels like there's this pool to, okay, I want to be productive. Everybody's talking about productivity, everybody's talking about morning routines. And it can almost be overwhelming to all the things you're supposed to do. Get sunlight, you know, walk outside, cold plunge, do all these things. But there's some through line, I think, and that is just professionalizing what you do with process and morning routine is one of those things.

[Donald Miller]

Yeah, and I love that. I love that idea of going pro. Steven Pressfield talks about it in the War of Art when he talks about an artist actually going pro. Jerry Seinfeld talks about this. There was a point in his career where he professionalized his process, and he is the greatest comedian arguably in the world. When you factor in how long he's been doing it and how much of a draw he is kind of at the box office. I think that though you hit on a really important point, and that is the difference. What is the difference between an amateur and a pro and an amateur? And the difference between an amateur and a pro is an amateur does it when they want or when they feel like it's. And a pro does it on a schedule. And if you think about how easy that is, then to go pro, because people are wondering, well, how do I go pro? Because here's the mistake. You can think of yourself as an amateur or you can think of yourself as a professional, but it really has nothing to do with identity. It has everything to do with whether or not you have created rules and put them on a timeline. That's it. And here's the other thing. Let me make it even easier for you to go probably I started really small. My workout is 15 minutes. It's 15 minutes. And my wife would say, and I'm in the best shape of my Life and it's 15 minutes. What I'm not doing is deadlifts and squats and shoulder rotations. You know, stop it. It's very hard to go pro when you have that many rules, right? But how do you be a good dad? Well, show up at between 4 and 5 and leave your phone at the door. How hard is that? And everything else sort of takes care of itself.

[Bobby Richards]

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[Donald Miller]

So how do we actually help all our listeners go from where they are, which may be amateur, or somewhere on the scale between amateur and pro, to pro? And I've got sort of four steps to do that.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah, I'd love to hear. Yeah.

[Donald Miller]

The first is life vision. You know, what is your life vision? And the way I did this personally, I talk about in Hero on a Mission is I wrote out my eulogy, basically who I wanted to have become by the time I die, which hopefully is post 90 years old. I'm 53, so long way to go. But who will I have wanted to become? And I wrote that out and I've edited that no less than 100 times to really sharpen it. I read it at least once a week, often four to Five days a week. And it keeps reminding me of what my story is about. Then I would actually break that down into values. And these are broad values. And what I mean by that is I value the idea of being a good father. I value the idea of being a great husband, and I value the idea of being a good boss. And I value the idea of having an impact the world through my words, through what I write. Okay, now we've got vision, values. And now is the fun part, rules. So in order to do that and also be healthy and live till I'm 90, the rules are work out every day. The rules are there's no way to be a good dad unless you're spending time with your kids. It's not going to happen. So now we got to put time on the schedule. You know, the rules are that when I'm with my wife, I'm present and I'm not thinking about other things. And I'm asking and I'm curious about her, you know, So a rule might be. Every day I'm going to ask my wife a specific question that is not, how was your day? Right. I'm going to ask, hey, I noticed you're doing tennis lessons with these three other ladies. How are those friendships going? That's a total. You see what I'm saying? So that's a rule.

[Kyle Reed]

Yep, it's a good rule.

[Donald Miller]

And then when you actually, then the fourth step is to take those rules and put them on a calendar, you know, so this is the morning. This is. I'm going to ask one question, one second or third level question to my spouse every night at dinner. And it's just so easy, you know, it's so easy to sort of do that stuff. But the life change that it manifests is unbelievable.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah, that's good. I think, you know, those are really good. That's a really great framework to follow for people. I think some people might show up, it's 5:30, they're rubbing sleep out of their eye. They're like, all right, Donald Miller, I'm here. What do I do? I think that if you haven't done those things first, that's a great place to start.

[Donald Miller]

Yeah. Life, vision, values, rules, and then schedule.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah. And it's just a great outline. And that's going to set you up for the rest of the time. We can talk. We can sit here and talk about. You should, you know, get directs on that. We could talk through.

[Donald Miller]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you'll slowly add things, you.

[Kyle Reed]

Know, but it's really back to what you said, I think that rules things so good about. This is who I am, this is what I want to be known for and this is how I want to live. And these are the things I'm going to do to get me there. And that I think for me, that's when I've done that, that has set me up to just show up at my desk, which is right behind me here every morning and have something to do.

[Donald Miller]

Yeah.

[Kyle Reed]

Because I've already established that front work.

[Donald Miller]

Let me ask you this. You know, you're, you're, you're, you're a fit guy. Let's just micro, let's just, let's just zero in on, on that. Like, you know, like me, you're, you're messing around on YouTube, seeing, you know, this new, you know, we all need more vitamin D or whatever. How have you sort of systematized that part of your life, the sort of health part of your life? And what I mean by that is one thing that we're trying to do on this episode is help people reduce decision fatigue. Right. So every day I make a protein shake. That protein shake has taurine, which by the way, when I started adding taurine to my protein shake about a month later, I could remember people's names. And I've never been able to do that my entire life. It prevents dementia. So taurine, creatine, biotene, L, arginine, an egg, all that stuff is in my protein shake. So I systematized the nutrients that I need and now I don't have to think about it. I don't have to wonder when I'm going to take my vitamin D or did I take it? It's been habitualized and I'm wondering about you. Have you had. And maybe, maybe health business, maybe something else, but have you taken something to. Okay, I need to just turn this into a daily habit.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah, 100%. You know, I am a, I'm a big. Sometimes I wonder If I'm an enneagram5, by the way. I like deep dive into things. I don't think I am, but I find myself diving and getting overwhelmed by all the things I should do and, and, and what, what those things are. What I have discovered is if I can outsource that to an expert and remove the thinking because that's really what I'm looking for. I'm looking for someone to tell me what to do. And so I actually found a guy here who's a physical therapist and he has been awesome for me. He'll come I'll go to him every other week. He'll check me. And he has identified a couple things in me. Like, magnesium is really low in me. Right. So I kind of got on a routine with him where some supplements I take in the morning, but to your point, removing the thinking. So it's a habit. So right away, I walked downstairs, I drink an immediate full glass of water. I then take my greens. I put my vitamin C into that. A lot of vitamin C, Drink that. Then I go right over, take my magnesium, take my vitamin D, take my, you know, all the things that I'm. I'm doing. But the thing for me was I was paralyzed by all the options of what I should do. And I'm also like, I don't know, it's probably some trauma from my childhood. I'm afraid to spend money. And so when I finally like my wife, my wife's like, hey, go see this guy. You know? And so I did. And he. It's been so life giving to me just to have someone just say, here's what I notice in your body. Here's what you need to do. And then he gave me exercises to work on for some. Just some inflammation in my body. And so that's been super valuable for me sometimes just even consulting someone on those processes. The other side for me is what I'm trying to do is just be more mindful of food, caffeine, sleep. Sleep is the greatest thing in the world. You know, I think over the last five years, we've known that, but people are really up on sleep, so that's been awesome. But, man, you know what? For me, I heard his quote the other day. I'd be curious to see what you think about it. Hermosi said this, Alex Hermosi. He said the best skill to develop in anyone is resiliency, and that the faster you can get back to your baseline, the more resilient and the better your routine will be.

[Donald Miller]

Yeah. And you're not gonna do it without a baseline.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah. And that was so true for me because I noticed I get in a really good habit of whether it be eating, eating healthy, waking up on time, all those things, and there's some kind of event that can throw me. And I really struggle to get back to my baseline because it'sit's that fighting through you. You know, we went to the lake a couple weeks ago. That's messed my whole routine up. Yeah. You know, again, back to kind of your side. How do you. How do you keep showing up back to your baseline? Is It. Because you have a baseline. What. When I said that quote, what hits you in that moment when you're.

[Donald Miller]

It's been habitualized. It's, you know, I make a protein shake every day, which makes sure I get at least 60 grams of protein. Make sure I get. Make sure I get all those. Those amino acids that I need. I have a box of, you know, weekly pills that I take that have. You know, I take those before bed. And once a month I fill out. I fill up seven of those, and then I only have to do that every month, and then I'm taking that before bed. I have another thing that I take first thing in the morning with some Omega stuff, you know, that sort of thing. You know, if you can. The whole point of this, I think this episode is that if you can take good for you behaviors, for your career, for your health and for your relationships, then turn those into habits, all of life gets better if you can do that. Now let's talk about other categories that I don't do this in, that I need improvement on friends. Okay? So let's just dream up how we would do this with our community. Now, once a year, I go fly fishing with the same group of friends. We constantly text each other really stupid, immature junior high jokes, you know, one third pastors, one third business guys, one third artists, and we just love each other. We love each other. The Lions, we're called. But one thing that I could do is about five, six times a year, I invite the Lions who live in Nashville. There's only. There's like four or five of them over to my house. We sit up in. In this listening parlor where I've got a decent stereo system, and we just listen to music and talk to each other and smoke cigars for a few hours. And we do that, you know, that should be once a month. So if I was going to habitualize that, that should be the last Friday of the month. The last Friday of the month, we get together and we listen to music with friends. Once, you know, the first Monday of the month, I take one person to breakfast. You know, that's the stuff that I haven't. And because of that, I would say my community in terms of friends, it's not that it's. It's suffering. It just feels chaotic. And it also costs. It causes me stress. I haven't seen that in a long time. I haven't seen, you know, these guys in a long time. And I wonder what's going on. I didn't follow up with those guys. Because it's back in artist mode. It has not been turned into rules and put on a schedule. And then I would say with the same thing with finances, Betsy and I live off a percentage of what we could live off of. So we do have a number every month that we send to investments, and then we kind of, like, live off the rest. That could be improved, right? That could be improved. And everybody needs a budget. And, you know, so there's. What's fun is I've got my health habits down, I've got my career habits down, I've got my family habits down. Let's add finance or let's add friendship, you know, to that. And I think that's the point is you're slowly taking ground in your life and turning things over to habits.

[Kyle Reed]

Yeah, that's. And I, I what I hear you saying, I think that to just kind of wrap this episode not in a bow, but just to kind of the through line of a lot of this episode is intentionality. You know, we're talking about living an intentional life so that you can have clarity in what you're doing. You know, you talked a lot in the beginning of the podcast about removing decisions, having habits that you can follow through. But those all come from being intentional about where you want to go. That fits back to the hero on a mission framework. You know, having your eulogy, knowing who do you want to be known for, and then the reality is kind of coming back into all the key areas of life, whether it be finances, friends, relationships, being intentional about those things, and getting a routine to that. I love that. I think that's. That's. That. It sounds almost oversimplified. We kind of love the wonder to the coffee shops and, you know, kind of.

[Donald Miller]

I. Yeah, we love like the studying the brain science, and then we don't do anything with it. Yeah, it's like brain signs of this and you don't do anything with. Listen, understand your values, turn them into rules, put them on a calendar. That's it.

[Kyle Reed]

Yep. And, you know, the great thing about this is we have a. An awesome tool here on a mission, you mentioned that is free here on a mission dot com.

[Donald Miller]

Yeah, we're not selling it.

[Kyle Reed]

If you have not used that, go check it out. I've written my eulogy. I look at it as well. So that's a great one, Don. You know, just as we were wrapping up this episode about why do morning routines work? Why does routine work? What's something else? Just the last thing I'll give you kind of the the mic here at the end. What. What's something you want to leave people with?

[Donald Miller]

Well, let me leave. It's. It's a little adjacent.

[Kyle Reed]

Okay.

[Donald Miller]

What we've talked about. I'm 53. I did. I had the luxury and the privilege of having a health scare one year ago, like 51 weeks ago. And it made me realize that the point of life is relational more than anything else. Work is really important. God gives us work. I would say also, as you create these routines, people who listen to a podcast like this are interested in success. And I would actually say to you, don't over index on productivity and success. Keep it in balance. That your relationship with your spouse and your close friends and your kids are why you are working. And I see this all the time now that I'm older, because I was that guy. I see these people who, look, I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but I see somebody like Elon Musk, who is the most productive person perhaps alive today on the biggest, grandest scale he can get. You know, I saw something the day where he got something done with a team in 19 days that should have taken four years. I mean, the guy's just. You can't like him or not, right? I'm not saying there's not some issues with him. He's got 14 kids with several different women. He's constantly working, and he's probably heading toward a latter half of life where it is too late. It's too late to build those relationships. He's going to have to depend on some grace, because at some point, he's a young man, he's going to figure out that that's not what life was about. Or he won't. But if he does, you know, so why not get started early? Just going, hey, I know. You know, that's why you write the eulogy. Because if you write the eulogy, the first time you read it, if you're a really, really ambitious high D on this test person, that first eulogy is going to be about everything you accomplished and how impressive you were. And then you're going to read it and you go, that's sad. That's sad. I got to get some family stuff in here. And so you're going to stick some family stuff in there that you don't even mean. You're just kind of like, it's got to be in there. Because if anybody leaves this, anybody reads this, they're gonna think I'm a selfish person. And then you're gonna slowly start living into that family stuff and that friendship stuff. So I think the thing that I would leave everybody is like, yeah, establish routines, but establish routines in the different quadrants of your life that lead to a life of meaning.

[Bobby Richards]

Thanks for listening to the why that Worked podcast presented by StoryBrand AI. If you like the show, follow wherever you get your podcasts. And and if you're Enjoying this on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and leave a comment letting us know what you think and what you want the guys to talk about in a future episode. Curious about how StoryBrand AI can help you create clear, effective messaging? Well, you can try it out right now and create a free customized tagline for your business. Just go to storybrand AI. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

[Kyle Reed]

SA.