How Waking Up At 430am For 3 Months (and counting) Is Changing My Life

Hey Guys, It’s now 6.02 am

(Hello!) I’ve been awake now for 1.5 hours pretty much! (How else do you think I find time to write these things :p). As I mentioned, today I wanted to talk to you about how waking up at 430am has changed my life. And not just waking up at 430am :P It’s waking up at 430am, posting a picture of the time on your watch at 430am, and (for me at least) recording 3 videos. The first is a video of me cold showering. The 2nd is a video of me doing exercise (I normally do anything from 20/20/20 to 60/60/60 (pushups, squats and situps using my body weight). The final one is a video of your cup of tea and your commitment to some kind of self-improvement activity. This is all shared in a Whatsapp group:

With 40 participants at the moment (if you’d like to be number 41 then just email/message me)

And this group has given me the accountability I need (as the founder of the group I guess) - to keep this up. Now - I’ve already written about 430am here. And if you personally know me - you’ll know I mention waking up at this time fairly often LOL... So - the whole idea came from Jocko Willink (do a Google image search OR add the words ‘430’ next to his name). Scott Henderson (my business partner at 1 More Rep) and I had the idea just when we were setting up our Fitness Bootcamp together. We both like Jocko Willink and his message of ‘discipline = freedom’. The other thing Jocko does is wake up at 430am (and post his watch on Twitter for accountability).

And so began a journey that I’m not even three months into and here I am aiming to write AT LEAST 52k words It took me a long time (years) of flirting with the idea of waking up early before I was ever really able to crack it. Then weirdly enough on September 25th 2019 Scott and I said let’s do it - and Scott being an ex-squaddie (army man) of 22+ years...was definitely going to do it.

That was a couple of months back, and we’ve been doing it pretty much ever since for around 5/6-days a week on average Here’s Scott and me:

(sometimes I’m still in the 430am awake club on a night out lol). So ‘WTF has it given you though Deepak’ I hear you (not) ask…. Well - here’s what it did for me in the first month:

(Bad) Headaches during the day
Feeling massively irritable
Waking up and feeling somewhat useless for the first 1-2 hours
Arguments with Daniela (my partner, because of the headaches and feeling irritable and her generally thinking it was a terrible idea lol)
Needing to nap between 12-3 pm whenever I could or else I’d just get those headaches

I think some variation of this has been the case for 85 - 90% of the group’s participants because whilst there are 40 in the group there are truly only a few who have stuck with it consistently. Making a shift of this size in your actual life is damn hard, so I totally get that. But - Here’s how those troubling results changed as Scott and I determined to stick with it: Well the first thing that I did, was ultimately stick with it. As I stuck with it (and stayed awake during the day) - I naturally began going to be slightly earlier with each day. Midnight, 11.45, 11.22, 10.50, 11.01, 10.34, 950. This ultimately meant I was getting more sleep - at the right time of the day. And now I’m consistently getting into bed at 930pm :P Check! Furthermore, just sticking with it finally told my body (and Daniela's) that ‘hey - you’re clearly committed so we’re going to stop standing in front of you, and start standing behind you. Having the support of people around you is critical! The headaches were still there though - and so simply by looking at what Scott was doing (adding a teabag to water overnight and then drinking it first thing in the morning).. I then upped my morning <10 am water intake to 1.5 litres (as that’s just the size of the bottle we buy at the supermarket). Ironically this was a move unrelated to headaches - but something I copied from Scott. But boy did it help because - Boof. Absolute game-changer (as I’ve never drunk enough water anyway) Not only have the headaches disappeared - I actually (in general) have greater mental clarity and feel that I’m sharper. God bless you with cold water with black tea or rooibos It’s in front me of now hang on:

(That’s since changed to simply water as I keep cutting down on caffeine and found that all this tea was staining my teeth) As I’ve begun building this disciplined routine - My routines in the evenings began to shift: Eating dinner between 630-8 pm instead of 730 - 9 pm Week-day nights out now do not last beyond 9 pm (and are rare anyway) And Daniela being health-conscious (she’s training to become an Osteopath) meant that she also supported all of this ultimately All of this meant it was starting to actually become routine. Many would absolutely consider these all to be sacrifices. And they are. So why do it? Because now I have the time to do things outside my day job. (Running a digital marketing agency).

I can...write 1k+ words per day without it having an impact on my day job (I’m close to 15k words now and only started this whole journey around 6 days ago)
I can...learn all about property investing (listened to three books, watched five short courses, and read ten blogs) and then move aggressively into the buy-to-let market
I can read 78 blogs on SaaShacker, 80 interviews on Indie Hacker, a 300+ page ebook all about launching SaaS products
I can watch a course on buying businesses called MicroAcquisitions, a course on Flippa, another couple of books and then buy two businesses...

The list could continue. But I have more ‘good hours’ now. A time of the day when I go without being disturbed to work on things like this. And as a result, I am achieving way more than I have ever done and now that the headaches, the irritability, and the struggle have gone… I’m achieving at levels that I never have before and I feel happier than I ever have before. I’ve for such a long time wanted to share my journey with others (like you I guess) in the hope it might inspire you. This has been the case for years - just look at my hundreds of random videos on YouTube. But 430am starts have, for the first time, given me a consistent, realistic and achievable route to getting into the fast lane of success in my own life. I could not recommend waking up at 430am more. And when you consider what we all tend to do on weekdays after 6 pm - for most of us we’re at home in front of the television and generally winding down for the evening. So the sacrifice is really just in our heads. Waking up at this time has added a great sense of discipline in my life that echoes into other parts of the day. Success begets success - and in waking up at 430am (as I have today) and then looking at the clock (it’s 7.06 am now) and seeing that I’ve already managed to:

Book a meeting in with a Facebook agency guy
Sign off another email campaign
Respond to all my emails
Respond to all of the overnight WhatsApp messages
And write this blog post

Makes my head into the rest of my day feeling powerful. In fact, the latest addition to my 430am starts is turning off my phone until 10 am - it’s an ambition and I’m slowly working towards dealing with the ‘pre-10 am’ stuff that’s impeding me from keeping my phone off. But these sacred hours - from 430 - 10 am are continuously evolving (and are diaried take a look:)

And remain a powerful time of the day when I am able to do deep work and make real inroads into whatever the central activity of the morning might be - which is at this time this newsletter. So, I hope you do consider an early morning start. It doesn’t need to be 430am - but even rolling the clock an hour back (and sticking with it), might lead you to roll it back even more. I’m confident waking up at 430am is going to be the biggest driver of success in my life. And I hope maybe one day I’ll see you in my Whatsapp group! ___________________________ In my next email...we’ll turn to the death and destruction that is the SAS; the British Special Forces - and my application to them.