Review of ‘The 5AM Club’ by Robin Sharma

Hello there! Welcome to Words by ken. In this post, I’m going to be doing a full review of ‘THE 5AM CLUB’ by Robin Sharma. If you want to learn about different ways through which you can uplift your life, you will love this post.

This book is based on a concept of waking up early in the morning and following a dedicated morning ritual that will help us lead productive and efficient lives. Let’s dive a little deeper.

This book revolves around the lives of a few people and the impact that they were able to see in their lives through the 5AM concept.

It starts with the story of an entrepreneur who once lead a successful business life but was now struggling with the same. Crushed by the cruelty of life, she was now pushed to a point where she was trying to figure out the best way to end her life.

On the verge of the worst decision in her life, she comes across a strange item on her bed that eventually saved her existence. Her mother had given her a ticket to a personal optimization conference and she had randomly come across that among her things. This conference is where she meets the other three characters.

The spell-binder is the guest speaker at the conference, and the artist was a fellow attendee. As the entrepreneur sat next to the artist, they began their first conversation during the conference. As they were getting to know more about each other, a random stranger joins the conversation. It was Mr. Riley. Though he was an extremely wealthy person, he had a homeless aesthetic and a weird vibe about him which made the two a tad uncomfortable.

*The story of what happens next is extremely long, and I don’t want to bore you with the whole plot. I’ll keep it short and move straight into the key concepts*

After a weird start to the conversation, Mr. Riley revealed that he was a business mogul and had a large amount of wealth to his name. The stories about his life were great, but his appearance made it hard to believe. Being a devout student of the spellbinder, he slowly began to explain the impact that his teachings had on him.

Once they got to know more about each other, Mr. Riley proposed a great idea to the two. He invited them to his private island and offered to teach them all the valuable lessons that he had learned in his life. especially the great morning routine. He offered to take care of all of their needs on this trip and only wanted their whole-hearted co-operation to learn.

*The following are the things that the two people were taught during their visit to the island*

After they moved to his extravagant private island, he revealed to them the magic of the 5AM Club. Here are some of the key aspects :

How do we install the habit of waking up early?

The author talks about a 66-day Habit installation protocol that can help us create and stick with a new habit. This protocol is divided into 3 sections of 22 days each.

STAGE 1 -> Destruction (22 Days)

STAGE 2 -> Installation (22 Days)

STAGE 3 -> Integration (22 Days)

The Destruction stage :

• In this stage, we destroy all our old habits and rituals that kept us at a mediocre level.
• You need to overcome your deeply ingrained habits, dominant rituals and traditional states of performance.

The installation stage:

• Stage two is called installation because it’s like you are going through an interior renovation, of sorts. Former foundations must be torn down so that much better ones can be put up.
• This is the stage in which our lives begin to transform.
• Stage 2 is also the toughest of them all. But if we persevere, we will witness a massive impact in our life.

The integration stage:

• This final stage is where it all comes together. At the end of the 66 days, the routine gets encoded into our brains and it becomes a part of our identity.

These are some of the many points that Mr. Riley taught his guests on the island. And he also added a few more points along with the habit installation protocol :

The 20/20/20 formula:

• The 20/20/20 formula is an idea in which we divide the first hour of our day into 3 different sections and focus on the three most important aspects of our life – health, mindset, and growth.
• The book explains what needs to be done in each of these sections and a brief insight into the benefits of doing them.

Section 1-> 5:00 TO 5:20 AM :

What to do -> Intense exercise, Sweat hard, Breathe deeply

Benefits -> Cleanses cortisol, More focus, and productivity, Dopamine rises

Insight: The best way to start our day is with exercise. Research shows that there is nothing better to improve our focus and energy than sweating it out in the morning. Doing an exercise first thing in the morning will generate an alchemy in your brain – which will electrify your focus and energy which in turn will keep you motivated throughout the day.

In scientific terms:

• Scientific data suggests that our cortisol levels are highest in the morning. If you didn’t know it earlier, cortisol is the hormone of fear. This hormone can also be responsible for lowering our motivation levels.

• Starting our day with a 20-minute exercise can significantly lower our cortisol levels and dial us into our top performance.

• The kind of exercise that we do doesn’t matter. The key here is to make sure we sweat in the process. The sweating from a powerful workout releases BDNF – Brain-derived neurotrophic factor – which supercharges that organ for a successful day.

*All the scientific terms that I use here are from the book itself. Please do some research if you want to learn more*

Section 2 -> 5:20 to 5:40AM :

What to do -> Write a journal, meditate, pray, contemplate, plan.

Benefits -> Increases gratitude, better awareness, serenity expands, wisdom develops.

Insight -> One of the most important elements of a morning routine is a period of deep peace. That is what these 20 minutes are for. Mr. Riley stated a beautiful quote, saying, “Tranquility is the new luxury of our society”. This period of time is to keep our mind calm and free from disturbance.

During this segment, we have to savor some time on stillness, think about the morals and intentions that we want to live by, and figure out ways to make the day great. Plan the most important things that you want to do and figure out exactly how you want your day to be.

Reflection is the main source of transformation because once you know better, you definitely can do better – MR. Riley

Section 3 -> 5:40 to 6:00AM :

what to do -> Review goals, read books, consume audiobooks, study online

Benefits -> Knowledge deepens, more confidence, better income, domain dominance

Insight: The third section focuses on our daily growth. Mr. Riley taught them another formula – The 2 X 3 mindset. To double your impact and income, triple your investment in two areas, your personal mastery, and your professional capability.

So, the final section of the victory hour is to deepen your base of knowledge, increase your acumen, improve your expertise and outlearn your competition.

Moving on to the next topic, the billionaire teaches us 10 new strategies to lead a successful life.

The 10 tactics of lifelong genius:

Tactic 1 -> The tight bubble of total focus :

• The tight bubble of total focus is a small circle that surrounds the most important aspects of our life – mental focus, physical energy, personal willpower, original talent, and daily time.
• This strategy preserves our focus as well as our primal brilliance by giving us long stretches of time free from trivial fascinations.
• The idea here is to be in a zone in which you are away from all the things that don’t matter to your personal growth. Anything negative or toxic cannot enter the bubble.
• for example, avoiding television for a few days, avoiding social media, cutting out time spent with energy-draining people, etc.

Tactic 2 -> The 90/90/1 Rule :

• For the next 90 days, schedule yourself to invest the first ninety minutes of your workday on the one activity that, when completed at world-class, will cause you to own your field.
• This 90-minute period must be without any distractions or interruptions.

Tactic 3 -> The 60/10 Method:

• Work at your best for 60 minutes and rest for 10 minutes.
• The most successful people in the world work in oscillations, meaning, they work in specific periods.
• Spend 60 minutes with no distractions, in your tight bubble of focus, and then take small breaks. Then the cycle repeats again.

Tactic 4 -> The Daily 5 Concept:

• At the start of your day, set 5 targets that you will like to complete in the day. The idea is to complete tasks that would make you feel like the day was well spent.
• Small daily achievements, when done consistently, lead to stunning results.

Tactic 5 -> The Second Window Workout:

• As mentioned earlier in the 20/20/20 formula, the author believes that working out is very essential to personal growth. He mentions the same point here again.
• Schedule a second workout at the end of your workday. One of the best options is to go for a one-hour nature walk. You’ll gain another period of time free from digital distraction.

Tactic 6 -> The 2 Massage Protocol (2MP):

• This is another tip to reduce stress. Lock two ninety-minute massages onto your weekly schedule.
• Massages are one of the best stress relievers in the world. Living in stress-free environments helps us live a long life.

Tactic 7 -> Traffic University

• An average person spends approximately 1200 days of their lives traveling. That’s over 3 years spent in traffic or on a bus or train.
• The author asks us to make good use of this time rather than staring at our phones and tablets.
• for example, listening to podcasts, consuming audiobooks, learning online courses, etc. The key is not to waste any time in our lives.

Tactic 8 -> The Dream Team Technique:

• Successful people often have a great team around them. The author teaches us the importance of having the right people around us all the time.
• This could include a fitness trainer who works with you regularly, a nutritionist, a massage therapist, a financial coach etc.

Tactic 9 -> The Weekly Design System:

• Create a blueprint for a beautiful week. Spend some time early on a week and write down all the things that you plan to do in the week. Planning your week is a very important habit.
• Write down all the things that you learned in the past week, and focus on all the lessons you learned and the areas you need to focus on. Doing this weekly will build extraordinary focus into your lives.

Tactic 10 -> The 60 Minute Student:

• The greatest achievers of this world are often great learners. They spend their whole lives trying to learn new things and get better. The key is to be a lifetime learner.
• Spend at least 60 minutes every day learning and studying. Read books, watch skill-building videos, enroll in online programs, etc.

The author then goes on to talk about a few more topics as well. But most of that content is repetitive and dragged out longer than needed.

My thoughts on the book:

The problem that I have with this book is that it is filled with tons of unnecessary stories and motivational quotes which made me cringe as a reader. Looking at the content of this book, I feel like it should have been much shorter or must’ve just been a blog post instead. I’m not sure about what others feel, but the style of writing was not it for me. I wrote a post about this book before and I stated that this is truly just a collection of motivational quotes and life stories.

I usually love reading motivational stories, but in the context of this book, most of it was completely unnecessary. It soon made me lose interest as a reader and I was just skimming the pages during the last few chapters. No offense to the writer though. I’ve heard a lot about him and his success as an author, but this book wasn’t very appealing.

Anyways, I wouldn’t stop anyone from reading this book. You may have different preferences and you may love this. So do try reading this book if want. Here is the link to it -> *clickhere*

My Rating for the book : 3/5

Thank you for reading. Hope you found it useful.