Do work that is heroic—that staggers your marketplace by the quality of its originality as well as from the helpfulness it provides.

Create a private life strong in ethics, rich with marvelous beauty and unyielding when it comes to the protection of your inner peace.

“No matter where you are on the pathway of your life, please don’t let the pain of an imperfect past hinder the glory of your fabulous future. You are so much more powerful than you may currently understand. Splendid victories—and outright blessings—are coming your way. And you’re exactly where you need to be to receive the growth necessary for you to lead the unusually productive, extremely prodigious and exceptionally influential life that you’ve earned through your harshest trials."

Nothing is wrong at this moment, even if it feels like everything’s falling apart. If you sense your life’s a mess right now, this is simply because your fears are just a little stronger than your faith.

With practice, you can turn down the volume of the voice of your scared self. And increase the tone of your most triumphant side.

The truth is that every challenging event you’ve experienced, each toxic person that you’ve encountered and all the trials you’ve endured have been perfect preparation to make you into the person that you now are.

“Ideas are worth nothing unless backed by application. The smallest of implementations is always worth more than the grandest of intentions."

"World-class begins where your comfort zone ends is a rule the successful, the influential and the happiest always remember.”

“Hard is good. Real greatness and the realization of your inherent genius is meant to be a difficult sport. Only those devoted enough to go to the fiery edges of their highest limits will expand them."

"A major key to happiness—and internal peace—is knowing you’ve done whatever it took to earn your rewards and passionately invested the effortful audacity to become your best."

“The place where your greatest discomfort lies is also the spot where your largest opportunity lives."

"Time is one of the most precious commodities I’ve learned to bulletproof. Warren Buffett, the brilliant investor, said the rich invest in time. The poor invest in money."

"I’ve learned the importance of being around only the highest quality, wherever I go. That’s one of the best winning moves I’ve made to create the life I’ve crafted."

"Life’s way too valuable to hang with people who don’t get you. Who you just don’t vibe with. Who have different values and lower standards than you do. Who have different Mindsets, Heartsets, Healthsets and Soulsets.

It’s a little miracle how powerfully and profoundly our influences and environments shape our productivity as well as our impact.”

Your surroundings really do shape your perceptions, your inspirations and your implementations. Art feeds my soul. Great books battleproof my hope. Rich conversations magnify my creativity. Wonderful music uplifts my heart. Beautiful sights fortify my spirit. And all it takes is a single morning filled with positivity to deliver a monumental download of inventive ideas that elevate an entire generation.

Uplifting humankind is the master sport of business that The Top 5% play. The real purpose of commerce is not only to make your personal fortune. The true reason to be in the game is to be helpful to society.

My main focus in business is to serve. Money, power and prestige are just the inevitable by-products that have shown up for me along the way.

Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of your day will pretty much take care of itself. Own your morning. Elevate your life.

“We only hear what we’re ready to hear. All learning meets us exactly where we’re at. And as we grow greater, we understand better.”

In a culture of cyber-zombies, addicted to distraction and afflicted with interruption, the wisest way to guarantee that you consistently produce mastery-level results in the most important areas of your professional and personal life is to install a world-class morning routine. Winning starts at your beginning. And your first hours are when heroes are made.

Wage a war against weakness and launch a campaign against fearfulness. You truly can get up early. And doing so is a necessity in your awesome pursuit toward legendary.

Gargantuan results are much less about your inherited genetics and far more about your daily habits. And your morning ritual is by far the most essential one to calibrate. And then automate.

Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary feats, once they’ve routinized the right habits.

The poet Thomas Campbell said it beautifully when he observed, “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

Each of us - truly - has been built to make history, in our own authentic way.

Most of us in this age spend our most valuable hours being busy being busy. Chasing trivial pursuits and artificial amusements while neglecting living a real life. This is a formula for heartbreak at the end.

What’s the point of spending your best mornings and potentially productive days climbing mountains that you realize were the wrong ones when you are frail and wrinkled? Very sad.

The job of the leader is to help disbelievers embrace your vision, the powerless to overcome their weaknesses and the hopeless to develop faith.

Through using technology wisely our lives become better, our knowledge becomes richer and our wonderful world becomes smaller. It’s the misuse of technology that’s ruining people’s minds, damaging their productivity and destroying the very fabric of our society. 

Obstacles are nothing more than tests designed to measure how seriously you want the rewards that your ambitions seek. They show up to determine how willing you are to improve into the kind of person who can hold that amount of success.

Failure’s just growth in wolf’s clothing. And pretty much nothing else is as important in life as personal expansion, the unfoldment of your potential.

‘The part of you that clings to fear must experience a sort of crucifixion so that the portion of you that deserves high honor undergoes a kind of reincarnation.’

To find your best self you must lose your weak self. And that only happens through relentless improvement, continuous reflection and ongoing self-excavation. If you don’t keep rising daily you’ll get stuck in your life, for the rest of your life.

Once we transform the primary relationship with ourselves, we’ll find that our relationships with other people, our work, our income and our impact transform.

Upgrading your life so you know real joy and optimizing your skills so you own your field can be uncomfortable a lot of the time. I need to be honest. But here’s one key thing I’ve learned: the soreness of growth is so much less expensive than the devastating costs of regret.

Learn to savor simple beauty, experience gratitude for small miracles, appreciate the priceless value of peace of mind, spend more time cultivating human connections and come to understand that the one who gives the most is victorious.

And what’s left of your life then becomes a phenomenal dedication to loving life itself as well as a ministry of kindness to the many. And this becomes, potentially, your gateway into immortality.

“All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.”

Every day—for the rest of your life—you’ll be faced with the chance of showing leadership, wherever you are and in all that you do. Leadership isn’t just for global icons and marketplace titans. It’s an arena everyone gets to play in. Because leadership is a lot less about having a formal title, a large office and money in the bank. And a lot more about committing to mastery over all you do—and in who you are.

Leadership is about making a difference, right where you’re planted. 

Be a virtuoso. A standout. An exceptionalist. The Top 5% are a lot less concerned with fame, cash and approval and a lot more invested in punching above their weight class within their craft, playing above their pay grade around their talents and creating the kind of productivity that inspires—and serves—millions. That’s often why they make millions. So never mail it in. Always bring it on.

Anyone can become an everyday leader by showing up as I’m encouraging. When it’s easy and especially when it’s difficult. Starting today. And if you do so, a guaranteed victory is in your future. 

There’s not one person alive today who cannot lift their thinking, performance, vitality, prosperity and lifetime happiness magnificently by wiring in a series of profound daily rituals and then practicing them until they become your second nature.

Rising at 5 AM truly is The Mother of All Routines. Joining The 5 AM Club is the one behavior that raises every other human behavior. This regimen is the ultimate needle mover to turn you into an undefeatable model of possibility. The way you begin your day really does determine the extent of focus, energy, excitement and excellence you bring to it.

In a world that seeks to keep you down, build yourself up. In an epoch that wishes you would stay in the dark, step into your light. At a time that mesmerizes you to forget your gifts, reclaim your genius.

Our world requires this of each of us. To be champions of our crafts, warriors for our growth and guardians of unconditional love—for all of humankind.

Display respect and compassion for all other people who occupy this tiny planet, regardless of their creed, color or caste. Lift them up in a civilization where many get energy tearing others down. Help others sense the marvels that sleep within them. Show us the virtues we all wish more would practice.

Accept this opportunity to human mastery and I promise you that a synchronicity of success as well as an orchestrated magic well beyond the boundaries of logic will infuse the remainder of your days.

And the larger angels of your grandest potential will begin to visit you regularly.

Actually, an orderly series of seemingly impossible miracles will descend onto your most genuine of dreams, causing the best of them to come true.

And you will evolve into one of those rare and great spirits who upgrade the whole world by the simple act of walking amongst us.

Nothing works for those who don’t do the work. Less talk and more do is what I say. 

“Victims love entertainment. Victors adore education.”

Empires arrive in many forms—economic is just one of them. You can also create empires of artistry, productivity, humanity, philanthropy, personal freedom and even spirituality.

You can’t win a game you don’t play. The reality is that life has got your back, even when it doesn’t look like it does. But you need to do your part and go all in when windows of opportunity appear.

Your Mindset is an enormously potent tool for private greatness, prodigious productivity and creative victory—along with your Heartset, Healthset and Soulset.

"Everybody can be great because anybody can serve... You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

Giving to other people is a gift you give to yourself. Raise the joy of others and you’ll get even more joy. Increase the state of your fellow human beings and, naturally, your own state of being ascends.

Generosity—not scarcity—is the trait of all of the great men and women who have upgraded our world.

“All that matters on your last day on Earth is the potential you’ve leveraged, the heroism you’ve demonstrated and the human lives you’ve graced.”

Voluntary discomfort, whether by dressing as I did or by fasting once a week or by sleeping on the floor once a month, keeps me strong, disciplined and focused on the central few priorities my life’s built around.

An addiction to distraction is the end of your creative production. Empire-makers and history-creators take one hour for themselves before dawn, in the serenity that lies beyond the clutches of complexity, to prepare themselves for a world-class day.

Excuses breed no genius. Just because you haven’t installed the early-rising habit before doesn’t mean you can’t do it now. Release your rationalizations and remember that small daily improvements, when done consistently over time, lead to stunning results.

All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. Everything you now find easy you first found difficult. With consistent practice, getting up with the sun will become your new normal. And automatic. 

To have the results The Top 5% of producers have, you must start doing what 95% of people are unwilling to do. As you start to live like this, the majority will call you crazy. Remember that being labeled a freak is the price of greatness.

When you feel like surrendering, continue.Triumph loves the relentless.

Transformation isn’t an easy play. Yet, the life of the caterpillar must end for the glory of the butterfly to shine. The old ‘you’ must die before the best ‘you’ can be born.

Great power is unleashed with a simple start.

...

Nature notices your effortful actions and then goes ahead and replies to your faithful commitment with a series of unanticipated wins. Your willpower heightens. Your confidence climbs. And your brilliance soars. A year from now, you’ll be so happy you began today.

All of the great teachers of history owned very few things, you know. When Mahatma Gandhi died he had about ten possessions, including his sandals, a watch, his eyeglasses and a simple bowl to eat from. Mother Teresa, so prosperous of heart and rich with the authentic power to influence millions, died in a tiny room containing almost no worldly goods. When she’d travel, she’d carry all her things in a white cloth bag.

One of the primary aims of a wonderfully crafted life is contribution. Impact. Usefulness. Helpfulness. What business-builders might call ‘unlocking stakeholder value.’

“It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth and wisdom.”

"Having lots of money doesn’t make you different. It just makes you more of who you were before you made the cash.”