Wow! Last week I began a conversation around your "MORNING ROUTINE" and I've been inundated with emails, thoughts, questions and ideas. If you'd like to read the post from last week that started this conversation, CLICK HERE

The question was simple: If you have a morning routine, what is it?

I heard from about 70 different people, and their routines are all different and accomplish different things.

Some focused on "what you do in the morning". This includes things like: brush my teeth, have a cup of coffee, read the paper, go for a walk, make my bed, comb my hair.

I would call most of these "morning habits". (I can hear my mother saying, "Russ, make your bed before breakfast!")

At a recent leadership summit, we had a short conversation about your "MORNING ROUTINE".  This has created some great conversation, as well as questions from many. I want to begin a conversation today around this.

In Brendon Burchards book, "High Performance Habits", he researches habits that are consistent with High Performing Leaders. He identifies 3 things that just jumped off the page for me:

1. High performers are more successful than their peers, yet they are less stressed.

2. High performers love challenges and are more confident that they will achieve their goals despite adversity.

3. High performers are healthier than their peers.

He digs much deeper, and he identifies a bunch of other things that are common to High Performers, but these three connected with me around the theme of a "MORNING ROUTINE".

Time Leadership

I don't talk about Time Management anymore.  I talk about TIME LEADERSHIP.

Many of us spend so much energy trying to "manage" our time, and the reality is that our time is limited, it's somewhat controlled, and if we're just trying to manage it, then there's nothing real strategic about it.

Bob Shank taught be about "TIME LEADERSHIP". The idea is that as leaders, we decide where we want to spend our time based on our goals, based on our priorities and based on what will produce the greatest outcomes. WE decide. We don't simply try to manage whatever morsels of time are on our plate, but we made decisions around what is important.