They say “The 5 AM Club” is one of those books that will “change your life.” I’m not so sure. I mean, yes, technically you’ll be awake during different hours than before, but I think “changing your life” is overselling it a bit. I first stumbled onto the #5AMWritersClub on Twitter, which I wholeheartedly recommend. Only later did I discover it was inspired by a book by Robin Sharma, which I do not.
This book is a bizarre self-help fever dream, repackaged as a motivational parable, something like a Hallmark Channel movie mashed up with a TED Talk written by someone who just learned the word “ataraxia.” In this tale, a billionaire pretending to be a homeless guy, as all of them do at one point or another, mentors two burnt-out clichés of late-stage capitalism and teaches them that the magic was inside them all along. Basically, he’s half Yoda, half “The Dude,” and half Elon Musk.
According to Sharma’s philosophy (or maybe a discarded Tony Robbins screenplay), successful people are successful because they get up at 5 AM and “work on themselves.” I assume that also means they go to bed at 8 PM, because otherwise, we’re just glamorizing sleep deprivation, which (Surprise!) has been medically proven to make you dumber, crankier, and less productive.
But no, Sharma barely whispers a warning about sleep. His message is essentially: “Forget all that, sleep is for wimps. You want six-pack abs and a yacht? Eat that worm before the early bird gets it!”
The secret, apparently, is that the universe opens a magical creative energy vortex at exactly 5:00 AM, and this is the only time true creative genius happens. Oh, and that vortex is directly under whatever city you live in, so no cheating the early hour by moving to a better time zone.
Now, in fairness, I was already sort of living this life before I even read the book. For me, 5 AM just makes sense. I work a hybrid schedule, and my team is based in the UK, which means getting up early gives me a few precious hours of quiet before emails start flying, Slack starts pinging, and the kiddo is stomping around.
It’s a calm, sacred time. I’d craft a witty tweet or drop a one-liner in the group chat, then dig into something creative. On a good day, I hit “flow state” and gift myself another hour of “me time” before dragging my body into the shower and preparing for capitalism.
It turns out, however, I was doing all this completely wrong.
Sharma insists the first hour of your day must be rigidly divided into three 20-minute rituals designed to feed your four “Inner Empires.” Yes, empires. Not zones, pillars, or realms. Empires. I think I missed the memo where we all became monarchs of our own personal psychobabble kingdoms. Regardless, it gets a bit “Church of the Subgenius” meets “Game of Thrones” in places.
So, what are these empires?
- Healthset – 20 minutes of tai chi, aerobics, running, cycling, whatever you’re going to do in your imagination when you were actually waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.
- Soulset – 20 minutes of meditation, or maybe just write a blog post about.
- Mindset – 20 minutes of reading affirmations. He suggests inspirational quotes or mantras. You can find a ton of these if you search “fridge magnets” or “bumper stickers” on Pinterest.
There’s a fourth empire called Heartset, but I guess that one gets to sleep in, or maybe I don’t have one, since it doesn’t get a timebox.
Anyway, I don’t do any of that crap, which might explain why I’m not a billionaire with emotional intelligence and six-pack abs typing this from my yacht. Dammit, so close!
Are there any side effects to waking up before dawn? Absolutely. Occasionally, I’d forget that being awake at 5 AM doesn’t mean I should attend a 5 AM meeting, but I’d do it anyway because I could. At one point, my boss pointed out he didn’t expect me to attend the early meetings, but I took great pride in smugly saying, “It’s okay. I’m up at 5 anyway. That’s my writing hour!”
On the other hand, the first time you realize you’ve written 400 words before the birds have even woken up, you feel like some smug hybrid of Hemingway and Batman. “I was writing a novel before you even hit snooze, Robin. Here, have a worm.”
But don’t worry, I’m not going to be one of those overachieving evangelizers of the 5 AM lifestyle, and I probably won’t start a cult. I’m just saying, for me, it works. I don’t buy into the mystical nonsense, but I do find that my soulless day job is a bit more tolerable after I’ve had a crack at something creative in the silence of the morning, or maybe it’s the three extra cups of coffee I get in before 8.
The only time it really sucks is when I’m in the friggin’ zone, man, crafting some brilliant scene or having a breakthrough, when, suddenly, I have to stop everything to log into Teams and watch some rich, successful corporate officer, who probably slept in, talk me through his PowerPoint slides.
So, to summarize:
- Getting up early to write? Surprisingly nice.
- Doing it Sharma-style? No thanks, I’m already a rebel. I’ll do it my way.
- Becoming a morning evangelist? Not unless there are robes and a membership card.
- Would I recommend it? If you like having bragging rights, caffeine-induced superpowers, and a slightly smug sense of superiority, absolutely.
Just don’t forget to nap, hydrate, and occasionally write something after sunrise, too.
