Episode 1 | Evolved Elements Podcast | Master Your Day's First 10 Minutes: The Golden Hour Strategy

Transcript:

Hi everyone, welcome to episode 1 of the Evolved Elements podcast. First, let me introduce myself. My name is Will, and I'm here with my brother and co-founder of Evolved Elements, David. This podcast, The Golden Morning, is about transforming your first 10 minutes. We'll discuss everything we know about starting your morning right and how it correlates to living a self-actualized life.

Think about our world with smartphones. They're amazing tools that make us more productive and efficient, but it's hard to put them away, especially before bed and when waking up. One of the cornerstones of mastering your morning in the first 10 minutes is starting phone-free. Go more analog. Remember, a cell phone is like a prison cell. We depend on it so much. I recently went on a trip, and my phone burned out. I didn't have access to rideshare, banking, Apple Pay, or communication with family or friends. It's crazy how dependent we are on our phones. The other day, I forgot my phone when leaving the house. I stopped about 10 feet away and had to go back. I was laughing at myself for how dependent I am on this device. For most people, the first thing they wake up to is their phone, and that's the problem. We need to train ourselves to wake up to our own dependence on self, not on external technology or circumstances. This breeds in our minds that we are dependent on the external world.

With personal development, we often talk about the first 10 minutes, but I'm going by the motto that the first minute you wake up determines the next year of your life, the quality of the first 10 minutes determines the next 10 years, and the first hour of your waking morning determines the rest of your life.

How do we tweak our initial waking state of consciousness to best serve ourselves and the world? Brian Tracy mentioned the concept of the golden hour. The first hour of your day is the most important because it will guide and dictate how the rest of your day goes. A great metaphor he used is a rudder for a boat. The first hour of your day, and we want to go a step further by saying the first 10 minutes of your day is literally like the steering wheel aiming the direction of your day. But, ultimately, if you're unconsciously starting every day in a random, non-deliberate manner, that's how you're living your life. If you look at screenwriting and filmmaking, the rule of thumb is the first 10 minutes of a movie encapsulates the overall story. So, just like our overall lives, our first moments of the day encapsulate our life. They're a reflection of how we move forward and live.

It's like the microcosm and the macrocosm. So, I want to ask all of you to take a personal audit of what you do in the first 10 minutes upon waking. What do you do? What do you think about? What do you expose yourself to? What are you priming your neurons with morning after morning? I encourage you all to do an experiment. Start your morning phone-free. Put it away the night before. When you wake up, notice your urges. What are you inclined to do? Are you inclined to pick up your phone, maybe go on social media, check your email, or check for messages? Just know what you're unconsciously doing is seeking stimulation, a dopamine hit. So, that's a big clue into how you should start your day, but in a more deliberate and self-empowering way. What we like to do is get up, journal, and do gratitude journaling.

Another thing we've been doing is taking a supplement. Take a neurotransmitter-stimulating supplement. We're going to plug our product, NeuroElevate, which is excellent because it has L-Tyrosine and Phenylalanine, which literally feed your neurotransmitters and promote dopamine.

When we drink our morning coffee, we're stimulating our dopamine centers, but we're not feeding them. We're just taxing them. What NeuroElevate does is it feeds your neurotransmitters, giving you that natural high without the stimulation and without the drug of caffeine. We're not against caffeine. In fact, taking NeuroElevate with your cup of coffee or caffeinated beverage of choice enhances it. It gives it more power because, instead of the coffee squeezing out your reserves of neurotransmitters, the coffee is tapping into the supplement. So, it's the perfect win-win situation. Whereas most people are just constantly tapping into their reserves, with NeuroElevate, you don't get a coffee crash, which is great. But, deeper than all that, that isn't going to fix the psychology behind your morning routine. There's that psychological component, the physical neurochemical aspects, but there's also the psychological addiction to devices and social media or checking your email.

Those are really habits that I was discussing today with a good friend of mine. She mentioned how her sister sends her negative Instagram reels first thing in the morning. This led to a conversation about what we're exposing ourselves to first thing in the morning. From an outsider's perspective, it's startling how we don't consciously choose this exposure.

Technology is a double-edged sword, exposing us to a plethora of information, often gravitating towards violence, sex, and various vices. The first 10 minutes are crucial. Just focus on the first minute. Some people, including myself at times, don't even know where to start. The keystone habit of your morning starts the night before by leaving your phone outside. Second, buy an analog alarm clock from Amazon. Third, buy a digital egg timer.

This allows you to time your first minute with some activity that generates momentum in your day, be it reciting a prayer, affirmations, or just getting into a high state of being for a minute. Doing something positive for the first minute upon waking generates so much momentum in your life. The bigger picture isn't about having a specific routine; it's about interrupting your current pattern to shake up your routine and become more deliberate. This will rub off into your overall life. It's about living deliberately and evaluating everything you do.

Why are you doing the things you do? Are you working the job you want, or hanging out with the people you want to? This could probably be traced back to the momentum lost by the lack of a morning routine. You're probably questioning your day-to-day activities and not living a deliberate life. It really starts with the first 10 minutes. Taking an audit of that. Another interesting thing to think about is the spiritual component of what we're talking about. Not to get too esoteric, but when you wake up, you are emerging from an unconscious state. You're in a dream state, but you're almost being reborn.

It's like you have another chance to live the best life possible. Being deliberate about the first 10 minutes of your day is gratitude in action. You're not just writing a gratitude list; you're putting it into action by being deliberate. You're saying, "I'm grateful for being alive, for having another day in this life," and you're owning it.

So, what are some activities that could be done in the first 10 minutes? I think you hear a lot about gratitude journals, and that's great because being appreciative and having gratitude for things in your life is literally the highest vibration you can have. Tuning into that is really powerful because when you wake up, you're in theta waves. You're still in that frame of mind.

You can leverage those brainwaves to influence your subconscious mind. When tapping into gratitude, you're literally implanting it into the subconscious. How do you actually implement that? Are you physically writing something, like five gratitude points a day? I find waking up, or yeah, I think first you need an analog alarm clock, so you don't need your phone to wake up or be aware of the time.

Number two, have a basic notebook, pen, and paper. First thing in the morning, just open it up and start writing three things you're grateful for. It doesn't have to be an essay. Just start with something basic. It could be your dog or a breakthrough you had, whatever, but it's really about feeling that appreciation and tuning into that vibe. Another thing you could do is something physical, like pushups, or maybe go for a walk. What do you say to people who just lay in bed and are just fucking tired? Do you think a lot of that is due to the phone and technology? People who lay in bed after waking up for 30 minutes, let's say they're up at 6:20 and then get out of bed physically at 7.

Is that mainly due to the phone, or are they overwhelmed? "Atomic Habits" by James Clear talks about how to have a really small, easy habit like getting out of bed and making coffee. But doing that chains into more complex habits. Would you recommend that as well?

Yeah, it's like that saying, "If you want to start a workout routine, just show up at the gym." And it's kind of cliché, okay, like what am I going to get out of that? Just show up at the gym. But it does get the momentum going, and that's really the key. So yeah, if you wake up, if you even just start the day phone-free and just lay in bed and feel like crap, we're not perfect, right? Some days, you're going to have the phone. There's that saying, "If you want to start a workout routine, just show up to the gym," right?