Jeffrey Gitomer's morning principles
Jeffrey Gitomer is an American author, professional speaker, and business trainer, who writes and lectures internationally on sales, customer loyalty, and personal development. He is known as the 'king of sales' and has decades of experience being in sales and just as much experience writing and teaching sales to others.
I started following and reading his books because selling is one skill that I was interested in working on. And any time I feel I need to work on a skill, I will read a vast number of books on the subject to learn about it (though I'm starting to think that the way to learn sales is not through reading but by actually selling).
Jeffrey wrote a book called Get Shit Done which shares his lessons on getting things done. While there are many great takeaways in the book, I wanted to share one that I have been thinking about.
As you may know from other blog posts I have wrote, I am a student of habits. I like seeing what other successful people do on a daily and regular basis. I like seeing what athletes do in the mornings. Or what entrepreneurs do when their energy is high.
Jeffrey has five principles for his morning practice: read, write, prepare, think and create.
Read
Every day, Jeffrey wakes up and devotes time to reading something. In his book, he talks about reading from Orison Swett Marden, but any personal development author can be a great read. Authors such as Napoleon Hill, Jeffrey Gitomer himself, Samuel Smiles, Dale Carnegie.
My personal favourites are Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn, but that has since expanded into any other non-fiction books I am interested in.
Write
Once he has read something (and I don't think there's a set time limit, but I would say read for as much time as you can allocate), Jeffrey writes. He writes what he has learned from the book. He writes down ideas for his blog posts and other content that he is thinking about. He may write down observations.
For me, this is similar to writing in a journal. Often times, I'll write about what I learned from the book I read, but I will also note down other things in my life that may be important: decisions, feelings, issues I am facing, dreams, goals and other things. Basically, if I need clarity in something in my life, I will write it down. I won't filter myself and I will write down everything that I can think of and feel.
Prepare
After reading and writing, Jeffrey prepares for his day. This can mean a lot of things for you, but for example, if you have a speech to give, this would be the time to practice and get it just right. Or if you are about to head to work, this would mean eating breakfast, dressing, and making sure you have the right mindset for the day you are going to tackle.
For me, at least during the covid pandemic, this means eating breakfast and getting my tea ready so that I am ready to tackle my to do list for the day. You may have noticed that the to-do list magically appears. It's usually created the night before so that I don't have to think about what to do on the day of. It does have flexibility for things that pop up during the day.
Think
In Jeffrey's book, Read, Write and Prepare are written first, then with a line underneath, and then underneath the line, Think and Create. What he is saying with this 'equation, is that reading, writing and preparing are first, and those lead to thinking and creating.
Once you have read, write and prepared for the day, some of the most valuable time you have (within a few hours of waking up) for getting deep work done is now in play. This thinking time is where you will do the work that really matters. In Michael Hyatt's book Freedom to Focus, he talks about the daily big 3: the three most important activities for the day. Can you have more? Yes, but that means that you often won't complete them. Try to choose three activities here that if you got nothing else done, would still make you feel like you got a solid day's worth of work done.
Create
Okay, you have read, wrote, prepared, thought, and now is the time to create. Create what? For Jeffrey this could be writing a new blog post. Or shooting videos for online courses. Or writing down notes for future speeches. Or writing for his book. This is content that is shared with others.
For me, I don't share as much content as Jeffrey does, but I strive to blog at least twice a week. I've also been experimenting with posting professional content on LinkedIn. Before, I thought that what I shared wasn't good enough to be posted on LinkedIn so I never did it. Now, I realize that nobody's content is good enough the first time they share. But the way it gets better is to consistently post content, share and get feedback on what works and what doesn't. For instance, after posting for a few weeks on LinkedIn, I see that 'short' content gets more hits than 'long' content. For example, many of the infographics that I post is easier to quickly view and like than the videos that I post. People do not want to sit through a video that is even a few minutes long unless it is instantly engaging.
Are you interested in more from Jeffrey Gitomer's Get Shit Done? Check out his book, Get Shit Done on Amazon.
What do you think about these morning principles? What type of morning principles do you have?