The 5 am club

gorgeous
at the end.”
The billionaire paused, smiled gently and then touched his toes. He kissed
the flesh between his fingers again. Then he went on.
“This final stage is when it all comes together,” he explained, “and you
get to experience the benefits of your fantastic commitment to being a
lifetime member of The 5 
AM
Club. You’re nearing the end of the roughly
sixty-six-day period required for a human brain—and being—to encode a

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routine. So now it’s success time. You’ve advanced through the initial
disruption, you’ve made it through the dangerousness and chaos of the middle
phase and you’ve come out the other side stronger, more skilled and with
greater intimacy of your most supreme—and invincible—nature. You’re now
the next version of your greatest self, able to bring on a bigger game,
influence more people by the glorious power of your example and be more
useful to the world because you’ve owned more of your primal heroism. All
your hard work, sacrifice and suffering, careful consistency and brilliant
bravery come together in this stage as the new habit you’ve been working on
integrates at a psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual level. And
becomes your new normal.”
“Normal?” wondered the artist. “Life gets easy?”
The billionaire suddenly fell to the marble floor of the Taj Mahal and
started doing more push-ups. He looked sort of like a boxer training for the
main event.
“What the heck are you doing now?” questioned the entrepreneur,
amused. “He’s crazier than I ever imagined,” she thought. “I do love him.”
“The primary purpose of life is growth: to be continuously pushing
yourself to materialize more of your potential. My daily push-ups not only
keep me in a state of continual optimization toward world-class. It’s also a
tremendous way to keep myself feeling young, happy and alive. Boredom
kills the human spirit.”
The industrialist stood up.
“For the A-Player, the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next. The
installation of one great new habit brings on the outstanding opportunity to
begin the next. I do one thousand push-ups a day, you know. Superb exercise.
One of the best. So simple. Keeps me lean and chiseled. Good for my core.
And the exercise also recruits my glutes,” the billionaire said with an
awkward expression.
“But doing a thousand push-ups a day is also a ritual to remind me to keep
going. Keep expanding. Keep elevating my Mindset, Heartset, Healthset and
Soulset and escalating my rise to my best. Honestly, I’m not afraid of failing.
That’s just part of learning to fly. I’m just horrified of not growing.”
“Got you,” the entrepreneur said, scribbling frantically on her notepad.
The billionaire then moved an index finger across the teaching model and
rested it at the area that said, “The Automaticity Point.”
“The exciting fact is that once you arrive at the automaticity point, you no

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longer need any willpower to get up at 5 
AM
. The new regime’s
implementation into your human operating system is complete. Awakening
before dawn becomes second nature. And easy. Here’s the real gift from your
excellence and devotion over the sixty-six or so days: 
the willpower you were
using to lay down the early-rising habit is now freed up for another
world-
class behavior
, so you have the chance to grow even more productive,
prosperous, joyful and successful. This is the hidden secret of all pro athletes,
for example. It’s not that they have more self-discipline than the average
person. It’s just that they capitalized on whatever impulse-control they had for
sixty-six days until the game-winning routines got installed. After that, they
redirected their willpower to something else that would improve their
expertise. Another practice that would help them lead their field and achieve
victory. One habit installation after another habit installation is how the pros
play. Over time, their winning behaviors became automated. Systematized.
Institutionalized. Absolutely no effort was required to run them once they got
hardwired. And these superstars practiced their habits of victory so often,
they’ve arrived at a place where they forgot how to 
not
do them.”
“They got to a point where it was easier to run them than not to run them,
right?” commented the entrepreneur.
“Absolutely correct,” responded the billionaire.
The artist was excited. “So valuable to me personally and to my work as a
painter. And, so I completely understand this process fully, each of the three
stages—Destruction, Installation and Integration—takes about twenty-two
days, right?”
“Right. And at around the sixty-six-day mark it locks in as an automatic
routine. That’s The Automaticity Point, because habits take around nine
weeks to implement. Don’t stop getting up at 5 
AM
after a week. Don’t give
up when it gets messy in the middle of the process. Stay relentless through the
entire exercise through all its trials and challenges just like Shah Jahan did as
he and his workers constructed the Taj Mahal, building it into one of the
wonders of the world. Awesome takes patience. And genius takes time. Stay
true in your dedication to carving out an hour for yourself as the sun rises and
while the majority sleeps to develop your Four Interior Empires that will set
you up to realize all the outer ones that your big hearts long to actualize. Do
not neglect the call on you to deploy your fullest talents, magnify your
spectacular strengths, multiply your happiness and discover a paradise of
peace within you that no outer event can ever reduce. This, my friends, is how
you become undefeatable, unbreakable and a true master of your domain. As
well as a wonder of the world, in your own unique way.”
“Love it,” beamed the entrepreneur. “Bravo. Totally helpful. Explains why

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so few people have the habits necessary to achieve mastery. They just don’t
stay with their initial commitment long enough for it to work. They could. But
they don’t.”
“Yup,” agreed the billionaire. “That’s why information and education,
learning and growing are so vitally important. The majority just don’t know
this life-changing model and the practical insights that I’ve revealed to you
around it. And because they don’t know, they can’t apply. And knowledge
unimplemented leaves potential undercapitalized. We’re all built for triumph,
in whatever way we choose to define it. Sadly, most of us have never been
schooled in the philosophy and methodology that The Spellbinder taught to
me. The same teaching I’m now paying forward to you. You just need to
make sure you tell as many people as possible about The Spellbinder’s work.
Please. This way, we can help people leave the darkness of apathy, mediocrity
and scarcity and find their inherent power to do astonishing things with the
rest of their lives. God, we need to make this world a better, healthier, safer
and more loving place.”
“For sure,” the entrepreneur and the artist promised, together.
The entrepreneur then stopped to take in the unforgettable nature of the
scene that enveloped her. She was standing next to a man she’d unexpectedly
fallen in love with over a bizarre, beautiful and marvelous adventure. She was
standing inside one of The Seven Wonders of the World, located in India, a
nation she’d always longed to visit for the breathtaking sights, exotic delights
and the country’s extraordinarily special citizens.
She paused to consider what had unfolded back in her usual world. The
manipulations, the thievery, the disloyalties and the treachery. In that moment,
she laughed. Not some forced laugh that so many of us hear at business
meetings where good people in quiet fear wear social masks in an effort to fit
in, appear powerful and look cool. No, this was the palpable joy of a person
who’d just discovered some of the true treasures of a life wisely lived.
The entrepreneur, in that instant, realized how blessed she was.
The takeover attempt would resolve itself since life always has a way of
working things out for the best. Sure, she’d learned not to repress the natural
feelings of anger, disappointment and sometimes sadness that were arising
within her from time to time when she’d think about the situation. That was
just her being human and real and even brave, not weak. Yet, she also now
understood there were things more important than wealth, acclaim and fame.
And that many financially rich people are actually desperately poor.
“Nothing’s as valuable as my happiness. Nothing’s as priceless as my
peace of mind,” the businesswoman thought.

---

She’d found love. She was still in excellent health. She had so many
things to be grateful for: two eyes to see the splendors of this wonderful
world, two legs to explore it all, food on her table each night at a time when
billions have empty bellies. And a roof over her head for ample shelter. She
had wise books to read in her library, work that fed her creativity and, as the
billionaire said so often, an opportunity to achieve outright mastery not only
to benefit herself but also in service of society.
And so, inside that majestic mausoleum that has electrified the inspiration
of so many visitors from across the Earth, and as the sun rose into the
abundant Indian sky, the entrepreneur found it in her heart to do something
we all need to do more of.
She forgave.
She let go of her hostility toward her investors. She released her
resentments for her detractors. And she let go of every single one of her
weighty disappointments. Life is too short to take things too seriously. And at
the end of her life, what would matter most would not be whether those
venture capitalists had ownership of her enterprise, but who she became as a
human being. And the quality of the craft she produced. And how many
people she helped. And how much she laughed. And how well she lived.
The billionaire was right: every human being does the best they can do
based on the level of consciousness they are currently at and on the grade of
true power they can command. And if her investors had known better, they
would have done better. These people generated pain and suffering for her
because, at a deep and subconscious level, they are in pain. And because they
are suffering. Those who hurt others silently loathe themselves. Yes, this sort
of higher way of seeing things is not so common in our civilization. But
maybe that’s why our world is filled with so many wars, so much danger and
so much hatred. Just maybe, she considered, these corporate bandits were her
teachers. Sent by life’s better nature to push her to the edge so she would
reach such a place of disheartenment and despair that she’d have to change.
And learn to soar. Just maybe all she’d experienced was, as the billionaire
taught, precious preparation for who she needed to become to fulfill the
potential of her most luminous gifts and realize the promise of her most high
destiny, in a way that benefited humanity. And, perhaps, it’s when we face
losing everything that we come to know our grandest selves.
This strange, quirky and most genuine mentor in front of her, Mr. Stone
Riley, was pouring his heart out, explaining how the simple yet not initially
easy daily discipline of joining The 5 
AM
Club could, and indeed would,
transform the productivity, prosperity and well-being of any person who
applied the method. He’d kept each of the lofty vows he had made at their

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bizarre first encounter, at The Spellbinder’s mesmerizing conference. He’d
shown himself to be a titan, not only of industry but also of integrity. And
decency.
“We need more of his kind,” she thought. “Women and men who are pure
leaders. People who influence not through the strength of a large title and by
the threat of a big position but via the power of their characters, the nobility
of their expertise, the compassion in their hearts and by their unusual
dedication to leaving everyone they meet better than they found them.
Leaders run less by the selfish addictions of the ego and more by the selfless
dictates of our greater wisdom.”
The entrepreneur remembered the words of the poet Maya Angelou: “My
wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a
mean world with your acts of kindness.”
The instructions of Mother Teresa also entered the mind of the
entrepreneur in that instant: “If everyone would only clean their own
doorstep, the whole world would be clean.”
And so, on that very special early morning, inside one of the splendid
monuments of the world, she not only forgave—she made a pact with herself.
Understanding, as never before, that optimizing one’s self is the best way to
improve the state of the world, and that developing the genius within was the
fastest way to uplift her relationship with everything externally, the
entrepreneur forged an agreement. She made herself a promise not only to
never again consider taking her own life. She also pledged that every day, for
the remainder of her days, she’d rise at 5 
AM
and give herself the gift of that
Victory Hour free from all trivial diversions, unimportant stimulations and
unnecessary complications. So that she could continue. Continue calibrating
her Mindset, purifying her Heartset, fortifying her Healthset and escalating
her Soulset.
She would demand this of herself no matter what excuses and
rationalizations the weaker and scared part of her personality would argue for.
Because she deserved to experience her greatness. And because she hoped to
be one of the heroes that we all are waiting for.
“Anyhoo,” the billionaire shouted, inappropriately loudly. “Three final
and ultra-practical tactics to help you lock in new habits. I’ve spent a lot of
time on this subject because it’s so absolutely essential to your success. I’ll
quickly walk you through three techniques that research confirms will help
The 5 
AM
Club morning routine stick. Then we’re out of here.”
He pulled out the flashlight and focused its rays on the ceiling of the
chamber. The following brain tattoos slowly appeared:

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