Matt McGregor debunks the popular idea that rising at 4.30am can make you healthy, wealthy and wise.
Jason awakes to the sound of light music. It’s 4.30am.
“Time to rise and grind” he thinks to himself as he slides into his Versace slippers and silk robe.
He glides down the hallway to his designer kitchen to prepare his Matcha tea.
Surrounded on three sides by vertical gardens and Buddhist sculptures, his floor-to-ceiling window looks out upon a vista of city night lights.
Jason closes his eyes and begins his morning routine.
Thirty minutes of meditation; 30 minutes of yoga; 60 minutes weight-training, cardio or swimming; 30 minutes for breakfast and 60 minutes reading.
After his daily ice-cold shower, Jason sits down at his desk to check his morning numbers.
This is his favourite part of the day. Even after all these years, he still gets excited. Jason makes money in his sleep.
His website sold 108 downloads of his flagship product — the Millionaire Early Riser Program.
At $89 each, Jason made more than $6,000 profit last night and is on track to earn more than $2 million this financial year.
No doubt you would’ve heard of the latest trend being touted by online millionaire marketers.
Just waking at 4.30am will make you more productive, help you feel like a winner because you’re beating everyone else.
It basically guarantees that you have what it takes to be a self-made millionaire.
Let’s take a moment to consider what this would mean for the average person.
You may be a naturally early riser but, if this is something you’re not accustomed to, how does cutting your sleep short make you more productive?
It doesn’t.
If you’re working a job and studying as well, your waking hours are spent working and studying.
You have bills to pay and deadlines to meet.
It’s far more likely you’ll be pulling all-nighters and eating takeaway instead of getting up early to get in your morning yoga.
You’d be lucky to even find time to hit the gym, let alone get a full seven-to-eight hours’ sleep to then wake up early.
If you’re a stay-at-home parent, taking care of two toddlers, you’re just trying to get through the day without any tantrums.
That time at night after your kids are in bed is the only time you have for yourself.
You might catch a TV show or read a good book, but only after you’ve finished cleaning up and preparing everything for the next day.
Plus you might be getting up a couple of times a night anyway.
Completely changing your routine to wake up at 4.30am is simply not practical because of responsibilities which need to be taken care of during regular working hours.
So who exactly — all of a sudden — becomes more productive as a result?
Yes you may ask, but waking up at 4.30 every morning makes you feel like a winner.
You’re beating the competition because everyone’s asleep.
Everyone else is asleep because most of us don’t operate at any kind of proficiency at that time of the morning.
On average we all need the same amount of sleep and therefore have the same number of waking hours in which to be productive.
It makes no difference at all when you get up; it only matters what you do with your time each day.
It’s all well and good if, after completing your Millionaire Early Riser Program, you’re feeling fantastic.
However, I wonder how you’ll be feeling at 1pm when you’ve still got four hours of work left, and the two double-shot lattes have worn off?
Do you think when Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos were building their massive global empires they were going to bed at 9pm or 10pm ready to wake up at 4.30am?
Far more likely they were working an insane number of hours to the point of complete and utter burnout.
Only once their companies boomed, could they then buy back their time.
So why has this program become so popular?
Back to our fictional friend Jason.
Early in his career, Jason’s marketing team discovered a Ted talk by a famous Navy Seal discussing the benefits of waking up at 4.30am.
They were able to package this as a primary key to becoming a high-performing self-made millionaire.
They flooded the internet with emails, articles and videos all promoting its benefits.
All just in time for Jason’s Millionaire Early Riser program to be released.
*Matt McGregor is a Melbourne-based copywriter providing services for business coaches and sales training businesses. He can be contacted at [email protected].
This article first appeared on Matt’s blogsite.
