The 5 am club

The 4 Focuses of History-Makers
model he’d been
walking his two students through on this particular day. It had “Personal
Mastery Practice” printed on it.
“What are we talking about here?” wondered the artist, his dreadlocks
dripping and his thick tattooed arms around the entrepreneur to keep her
warm. She was shivering.
“Training the best parts of you,” was the straightforward reply.
“Remember the Spartan warrior credo that The Spellbinder shared at the
seminar? ‘Sweat more in practice, bleed less in war.’ Well, the quality of your
morning practice determines the caliber of your daily performance. Battles are
won in the early light of intense training—when no one’s watching. Victories
occur 
before
warriors walk onto the field. Triumph belongs to the one who
prepares the most. It’s obvious that if you want to be the best in the world at
business or art or chess or as a designer or as a mechanic or as a manager, you
need to put in enormous amounts of practice time to advance your expertise.
Specifically, a performer must invest at least two hours and forty-four minutes
of daily improvement on their chosen skill for ten years, as preeminent
psychologist Anders Ericsson of Florida State University has taught us
through his groundbreaking research. This is the minimum viable amount of
practice required for the 
first
signs of genius to appear within any domain. Yet
so few of us think of the importance of putting what amounts to ten thousand
hours of training 
into becoming better human beings
. And that’s why so few
among us unlock that code which, once cracked, liberates our sovereign
selves with all the wisdom, creativity, bravery, love and inner peace that
comes with that manifestation. It’s only when we improve that our lives
improve, know what I mean? What I’m suggesting to you two is that you
need to practice advancing toward personal mastery daily, just as we must
dedicate ourselves to any other skill we seek to be world-class at. Fortify and
bulletproof and nourish the core dimensions of your inner life and, trust me,
you’ll x
100
your life. Everything you do in your outer world is an absolute
consequence of what’s happening within you. This is where you need to do
the real morning preparation. Then you’ll walk out into the world every day
thinking, feeling and producing at levels that make you unconquerable. You
owe this gift to yourself.”

---

“I’ve never believed much in self-improvement before The Spellbinder’s
conference,” stated the entrepreneur flatly. “It’s never seemed real to me.”
“Have you ever tried it? I mean seriously practiced it over an extended
period of time?” asked the billionaire, firmly. Yet another dove flew overhead.
And when the mogul glanced up at the sun, it almost appeared that the clouds
parted.
“Not really,” admitted the entrepreneur. “Until now. Until I joined The 5
AM
Club.”
“Okay. Good. So, let’s keep going. Here’s the key,” said the billionaire.
“During your Victory Hour, from 5
to 6 
AM
each morning, concentrate on
upgrading what The Spellbinder calls 
The 4 Interior Empires
. This will be the
smartest, and sometimes the most difficult, work you will ever do in your life.
Deeply working on you. Cultivating the four central inner arenas that I’ll walk
you through in a moment is your golden key to transformation. It won’t be
easy—I need to reinforce that. But it will be totally worth it.”
“Why?” wondered the entrepreneur. She’d stopped shaking from the cold
water of the Indian Ocean. But the artist still held her. His dreadlocks still
dripped. And the renegade rooster still crowed.
“Because inner empires need to be unfolded up to world-class before
you’ll ever see outer ones. And your fortune always follows your fearlessness.
Powerful insight, cats: 
Your influence in the world mirrors the glory, nobility,
vitality and luminosity you’ve accessed in yourself
. Very few people in this
time of superficiality and human creatures behaving like artificial machines
remember this essential life truth. External always expresses internal, without
always reflects within. Your creativity, productivity, prosperity, performance
and impact on the planet are always a sublime expression of what’s going on
inside of you. For example, if you lack faith in your ability to get your
ambitions done, you’ll never achieve them. If you don’t feel deserving of
abundance, you’ll never do what’s required to realize it. And if your drive to
capitalize on your genius is weak, your fire to train is dim and your stamina to
optimize is low, it’s clear you’ll never take flight into the rare-air of outright
mastery. And realize domain dominance. External always expresses internal.
And to experience empires in your outer life you need to develop your inner
ones first,” reinforced the billionaire.
He started to sip from a bottle of green-colored liquid that one of the
fishermen had given him when he hopped out of the motor boat. If you looked
very closely at the text printed on the glass, you’d read these words of
Mahatma Gandhi: “The only devils in the world are those running in our own
hearts. That is where the battle should be fought.”

---

“As you consistently increase the inherent power inside you,” Mr. Riley
continued, “you’ll actually begin to see an 
alternate
reality flush with
gorgeous opportunity and luxurious possibility. You’ll play in a universe of
the marvelous that members of the majority can’t even perceive. Because
their eyes are blinded by doubt, disbelief and fear. Greatness is an inside
game,” the billionaire affirmed as he drew yet another learning model into the
sand. It looked like this:
“Okay, let’s go granular on this framework so you cats have a high and
ultra-clear 
awareness
of what aspects of your inner life to improve during
your Victory Hour. I’ll provide you with the complete morning routine to run
soon, when I teach 
The 20/20/20 Formula
. For now, please just know that
there are four interior empires to train, cultivate and iterate before the sun
comes up: Mindset, Heartset, Healthset and Soulset. Together, these four
private arenas form the foundation of the true primal power that rests inside
every human being alive today. Most of us have disowned and discredited this
formidable force as we’ve spent our days pursuing things outside ourselves.
But we 
all
have this profound and illustrious capacity within us. And the best
time to optimize your four interior empires is from 5 to 6 
AM
. That’s the most
special time of the day. Own your morning, and you’ll elevate your life,”
encouraged the tycoon.
“Oh, a question: What if I only want to do this five days a week and take

---

weekends off? How strict is this whole 5 
AM
Method?” asked the
entrepreneur. An ancient dog shuffled by and the song “Occhi,” by Italian
music legend Zucchero, could be heard playing from the fish restaurant. You
would probably have found that part of this scene quite strange. But it really
did happen this way.
“It’s your life. Do what fits you best and feels right to you. What I’m
revealing is the information The Spellbinder shared with me. It caused me to
make my fortune. And helped me find a consummate sense of daily joy and
ongoing peace. Really, all of this gave me personal freedom. Apply it all in
whatever way works for your values, aspirations and lifestyle. Yet also know
that