Most single dad entrepreneurs think that they simply need to hustle harder, grind in order to find success, but. What if the way that you are starting your day is the very thing that is destroying your energy, your focus, your drive, and then ultimately your success in your business and in your life. So if you're feeling stuck, exhausted, overwhelmed, resentful because you're not taking care of you, and that business isn't moving forward, life isn't moving forward.
Your morning routine very well might be the silent killer, my friends. Welcome to Be The Torch Podcast. I am excited to go over the topic because we just got out of a five day master your morning challenge, and this is where I had men just like you, single fathers, entrepreneurs, high level executives, we came together virtually for five straight days, where we invested about 45 minutes of time to develop the understanding and the discipline that is required to master your morning.
Because here's the thing, let's, let's begin with the end in mind. Yes. I wanna develop self-mastery. I want to be a master of my true, authentic self so that. I can become the man capable of having success in my business, having success in relationships as a father having a, a healthy fit feeling good body. So in order to become that, we have to have the discipline and the structure within our days, within our weeks, and it all starts from the moment that we rise.
So I really locked in on, on Mastery Morning because if we can just get that. Just that little slice of your day, slice of your life down where you are investing in yourself, well then that changes the game. That changes your day, changes your week, changes your months, changes your year. It is a transformational process, and I do not use that term lightly. It is transformational. It's something that I decided about two years ago when I was had, had really.
Been through a life where I was reactionary. I was reaction to the relationships I was in, reactionary to, to dealing with my kids. Eh, I shouldn't say dealing with 'em, but I means like I, I mean, I love dealing with them, but it was just the chaos and the structure. It was on me. I just did not have the discipline and the structure. And so I was at the ebbs and flows of everyone's needs, desires, and business and in life. So I came with this process, said, enough is enough.
I'm going to take back control and. I, I wanted to start with making myself the priority first and foremost, the minute I woke up. Now, why does this matter? Because your morning determines everything. It's, it's the foundation for your day, for your business, for your health, for your relationships, your energy, your focus, everything that you need to lead as a man.
In your, for your children in a relationship, if you're in one or in seeking one in your business for your customers, for your employees. Look, I've been that guy where I, you know, I've never really been someone that's like, oh, I gotta sleep in, I can't get up. Like, what are some, once I'm, once I wake like I'm up. But I've been that guy where I just, I jump straight into okay, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, and then suffering the consequences.
And you know what some of those consequences are, and I'm, what I'm gonna do in this episode, I'm gonna break down really three common signs or, and or consequences that that men face. When you do that, when you jump in, you wake up, you go straight to the phone, you go straight to the email, you start to responding to, to others. You are at the beck and call of, of your family and not carving out time for you. Do you have responsibilities? Yes, of course you do.
And you, depending on your scenario, you know, whatever situation there is, you, you, you're obligated to. For example, for me, when I have my children with me, I'm getting into school, I'm getting them activities like those are responsibilities of mine. However, it's whole different ball game. When you stop the victim mentality that most men are are in. And the victim mentality is what's keeping them small. It's keeping them stuck.
It's keep, it's having them settling for less than what they're capable are of. And so, you know, the truth is, you, you, your morning sets the tone whether you are gonna set yourself up to win that day or you're gonna let that day dominate you and then you're gonna bitch and complain and play the victim role. Oh, I had all these meetings, or I had to work so long today, or I. I just was, I didn't eat very much. I wasn't full of energy.
And you come home exhausted and stressed and overwhelmed and, and I say resentful because you're resentful in that he didn't take care of you. So let's break this all down. Sign number one is you. You are coming home exhausted. Lack of energy. Frustrated and it stems from you starting your day in chaos, waking up immediately, grabbing your phone, jumping on the emails, following up, shooting text messages, connecting with people before you even taking care of yourself.
Look what you recognize, where you put your attention when you first wake up is where your priorities are. So don't tell me that your kids are first, you know, family first. I hear that a lot. Or faith first or, you know, connection to a, a higher power first. Or, you know, I'm first bullshit. If, if you wake up and you are making it about someone else, you're not making it about you. And this is not being selfish. This is definitely in your best self-interest.
It's, it's in the interest of your children, in your partner, if you have one in your business for you to take care of you. 'cause then you show up a different man, a different leader. So we don't wanna make your morning about someone else's priorities, someone else's fires about taking care of others. It should be intentionally crafted for you. Now if that means you gotta wake up 30 minutes earlier. Then that's what you do, so you can't let excuses hold you back.
Or I see a lot of men who just, you know, put up alibis, alibis as to why they are who they are or why they can't explore and develop a discipline necessary to achieve the results they want. Oh, it's because I'm a single father. Don't work that way. Or my situation with my co-parent, or it's because you know I have to be at work by 8:00 AM and all this stuff. You are in control. Be intentional and I. Let's not go to the grand, the, the, the grand grandiose.
Like, I gotta completely change my life. Yes, there's a lot that can be done. We do a lot of that inside the Be The Torch Academy. However, let's start with just the morning, when that first hour, 90 minutes of your day, no screens, no social media, no news, no emails, no distractions. You're gonna start with five key elements and, and each day of the mastery morning challenge that I did.
In fact, you know what you can do, my friends, if you go to cletuscoffey.com/morning, you can actually download the the cheat sheet that we actually went through during the challenge and it encompasses five key elements of mastery, mastering your focus, your family, your fitness, your fortune, and your foundation.
And so those five key critical areas I dive into in the challenge and highly encourage you to stay attuned to Be The Torch forward slash challenge where you can jump in on the next challenge. So just jump on the wait list and, and be a part of the next one when we launch it, but it's all about winning that first morning because you are a mission driven, being my man. Men, we are driven for a mission. And if we, and I, I'll tell you what the mission is not achieve and accomplish.
That's the big fog that lives, that's in front of all of us. We've, we want to achieve our mission. And so you can see 'em on YouTube. I'm, you know simulating that there's a fog in front of us. But on the other side of the fog is what we really want is that happiness of fulfillment. Fulfillment, the joy, the wholeness, the love, the wanted. Yeah, we want all that, but there's a fog in the way, and that fog is you must achieve and accomplish.
And dude, that's, I I, I've been stuck in that for so long in my life and, and when I was in my darkest times, and that's all I could think about is like if I just had money, if I just could grow my business, if I could just make money that'll solve all my problems. And boy was that very far from, from the truth. So. We wanna make sure that you are being intentional when you wake up in the morning. Like it's about you, it's not about anyone else. Okay? Sign number two.
And that is you are running your, your, your body is running on false energy and it's usually in the form of something like caffeine, coffee, tea, sodas. Whatever. And some level of like a, a adrenaline, you know, you get up and you hit the day running and you're, you're juiced up on some caffeine and, you know, you hit, you hit the, you hit the door running.
And I actually, I had someone, actually, I can't remember who it was, but I heard the story one time about the, the connection between caffeine and credit cards and see credit cards. We, we borrow from the future. To pay for something now, however, we have to repay that debt down the line at some point. And hopefully not too far down the road where you're paying a lot of interest expenses.
Well, the same thing with your caffeine, and that is it's not real energy that's creating, we're we're borrowing energy from the future. And in order to give us something now, a little bit of a bump, an adrenaline hit, you know, a little bit of energy and focus, but it's gotta be paid. It's gotta be paid back. And that's where most people forget. So in order to pay back the energy that they borrowed from the future, what do they do? They borrow more, they drink more caffeine.
And so thus you have some caffeine at lunch and you have something mid-afternoon because you're exhausted, you're tired, and. And so thus you never get out of caffeinated debt. And look, I'm not here to harp on caffeine. I'm not here to harp on coffee and all that. Like I know it has its place for a lot of people. What I'm doing, what I'm trying to emphasize here, is for a lot of men, we.
Get up and we hit this ground with this this freshness and like, I'm gonna go slay the day and I'm going to get pumped up on, on you know, caffeine and just kind of help, help me carry through. And those energy crashes they hit and, and you can't get out of it. It's a cycle that, that you're stuck in and your body's craving more.
Your gro, your body is craving the, the the energy, the, the, the nourishment, the, the amazing feelings that you need to operate and be your, your, your, your true, authentic self. Because what, and, and, and kind of the, the, lemme put a bow on this one here and. Your body goes with you everywhere, man. Every sales call, every meeting, it goes with you on every date you go on. Or it's with you if you're in a relationship. It goes with you every day with your kid.
You're being an example to them. Like your body goes with you everywhere. And if you are outta shape, you are unhealthy eating, poorly fueling, just on caffeine energy drinks. If you are, you know, don't have a, something to train for, something to to focus on. It doesn't have to be, you know, anything too huge and grand like a marathon and like that. No, forget that. Like find something that that's in alignment with you that you can train for.
If you're not you, you wear it, you see it, you feel it. Other people see it and feel it. Other people may not be trusting of you because if you can't take care of your body, you're supposed to take care of my account. My, my future finances. They may not be saying that, but unconsciously there's a disconnection there. You wanna grow your business, man, take care of your body. And the best time to do it is right when you get started in the morning.
Sign number three in that your morning routine is slowly killing you. 'cause yes, not taking care of your body is, you know, you're getting poor health, man. You're not gonna be on there very long. I don't care how much money you make. How big a business you have. If you're not taking care of your body, you're not gonna be around to really experience and enjoy it, experience and enjoy your money, whatever it is you're creating.
So having no intentionality, and we are, as I mentioned, we are mission driven. If we're not focused on our mission, we settle, we are stuck. We are feeling less than, and that causes a tremendous amount of. A feeling of not good enough struggling with with identity. 'cause we're bringing on false identities to explain a why us, explain away why we're not all in on ourselves. And it causes stress, which further is gonna shorten your life.
So you have to be intentional and get out of this survival loop. That's your in, you know, you wake up and you go through the motions. What, what I talked about in our five day challenge is that we develop patterns and habits and our body becomes the mind for us. The mind body. And what that means is, I mean, think about it. You get up in the morning, what happens?
Do you even think about, like, I just go to the, I don't know, I found, somehow I find my way into the restroom and I'm brushing my teeth and I jump in the shower and I get dressed and I grab a cup of coffee and I, I get in the car and somehow I make it to work. I'm not really thinking about it, but it's kind of operating in the background. And so the body's controlling you. You're not actually thinking about it. You're not conscious.
You're in a reactive state to things just trying to survive the day and this feeling, this lack of mission, this lack of being intentional, like, I'm gonna go slay this dragon today. And that, you know, that fire that's in you is, is diminished. It's, it's a little pilot light. It's a small little candle. And this is where I really struggled. Man, I struggled with all these. Am I kidding? But this was one I really struggled with.
'cause I knew there was a fire in me and I just was following the norm, stuck in a victim mindset. And, you know, there's reasons why I couldn't do these things and I was. I was locked in in trying to figure this out, but I just didn't have the framework and the tools and the playbook as which to by which to, to actually be successful with this.
I was just being reactive to so much around me to the women I was in relationships with and, and how they were feeling about me, and they're pissed off at me and. I was just getting up, reacting to that, oh my gosh, like, what is this today gonna be like? And it was, that's my fault. That's on me. All of that I attracted, I was responsible for it. So this is going to lead to tremendous amount of frustration, anxiety, stress, depression, burnout.
There's not a lot of freedom in being reactionary to everyone else. Not being intentional does not equal freedom. What equals freedom is discipline. And my friend, my hope and what you're gaining from this is the importance of developing the discipline to commit to yourself, to take care of yourself first in the morning. And so there's, there's a lot of excuses, alibis at menus, a lot of mistakes that they make in this. And a lot of 'em say, well, I, I don't have time to do it.
Cletus, I. I got kids, I gotta get 'em to school and I gotta get to office and yeah. And what? Get better. Figure it out enough. Enough of just complaining about it and bitching about it. 'cause that gets you nowhere. That's keeping you stuck in a victim mindset. Yeah. And get better. Figure it out. Get up a little bit earlier. Have someone else take your kids to school. Figure out a, a work schedule that's in alignment with the life that you want? Is it the biggest thing?
Gosh, dudes, I, and I've been there, I did the exact same thing. We set up a we get focused on business and then we figure out how to fit our life in. Okay. I work from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM and within that I'll figure out how to get the kids to school and I'll figure out how to get some exercise in and, and it doesn't happening. Because you're so focused on business and it's a trap. It's the big snapback.
If you've heard my story about the rubber band snapback if not listened to many of the previous episodes, I won't address it here today, but when you focus specifically on money, everything else is an anchor. So. Now what? You don't have time for yourself. You're never gonna have time for yourself unless you're intentional about creating it and having the discipline, because freedom lies on the other side of you. Being able to develop the discipline to take care of yourself.
I often hear things well, this is our busy season, Cletus, and once business slows down, you'll then I'll be able to focus on myself again. Excuse, explain away as to why you can't take care of yourself first. Some, some guys will, will subscribe to the, well, I'm just not a morning person. I can't exercise in the morning. Yeah. And get better. Figure it out. That's a being.
You know, I'm not a morning person is an identity that your ego is taken on to explain away why you're not all in and taking care of yourself. This is tough. Talk here, man. Shift your perspective. You're, you're not a morning person is an identity. You that's being created. It's a story that you're telling yourself. So if it matters to you, if it's important to you, you'll put forth the, the discipline and the the effort to do that.
So the action items that starting tomorrow morning, whenever you're hearing this two more morning. If you're gonna lock in on five key things, and again, I highly recommend if you go to Cletus coffee.com/morning, just download my cheat sheet there and you can follow along. I actually have some videos. I send you a video each day explaining some of the different each one of those phases. But focus family fitness.
Fortune and Foundation and each one of those you're gonna do each morning and you got a couple tasks to do. So, get up in the morning. No screens, no social media, no call on anybody, no text message. It's on you. Block it out on your calendar. You amazing how many guys have nothing in regards to their lifestyle on their calendar, other than like, I gotta pick up the kids here. I know I've been there and or my, my appointments and my calls and all that.
It's important for you to, to block out some time in the morning, 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM whatever it is, block it out for just you. You're gonna focus on your you're gonna master your focus, which is your emotional intelligence, developing you personal growth. Do something personal growth wise. Read a book, listen to podcast, taking your kids to school, whatever it may be. Fitness, you're gonna move your body. Well, Kalise, I, you know, I can't get to the gym.
I'm, I've got a, I know this is one of, one of the things I, I'm challenged with. I have kids who don't drive and I gotta get them to school. I can't. And you know, one, my daughter's still younger, so getting up and going to spending time at the gym when she's here with me, I don't have, I'm not afforded that opportunity. And I gotta get better. I gotta figure it out. So on those mornings, I have my routine in my living room.
That's where I do my rolling out and my stretching and my, my kinda, my, my, my recovery days are on the days that I can't get up in the morning and get to the gym. You gotta feel your body. You gotta take care of your body just loading up on caffeine and coffee or whatever the heck it is to, to get you through the morning until you, until you can get your. Next caffeine, fix, energy, drink in the afternoon. It's not gonna cut it, man. It's not going to cut it.
So family, what you see in there is I encourage you to connect. So it's so common that especially if we're in an intimate relationship, that it's just like, Hey, good morning, you see you sweetheart. Okay, boom, I'm out the door and I come home and I'm too, so I'm too tired. I'm enough energy. I can't focus on you. I gotta numb myself with things like alcohol drugs, video games. Sometimes exercise.
You know, men who aren't connected, aligned with themselves are not gonna be connected and aligned with, with their partner and then their partner's left hand, you know, with, with their bag in the hand going, okay, now what, where are you? So numbing yourself at the end of the day is not the answer to freedom. Those are temporary freedoms and those temporary freedoms. A quick little release you think is what?
You're, you're, you're, you're seeking And the, but it's, it's a facade You're seeking for the overall overarching experience of freedom in your life. You, you experience freedom every day and not in short little spurts where you're numbing yourself. So then your fortune, which is, look, you, you gotta be humble that you're here to continue to learn and grow. I don't care how big your business is or how much money you make and all that, you can get better and you need to be focusing on that.
Otherwise, you're gonna get, you're gonna fall behind and 'cause the environment around you is shaping and, and shifting from your employees to your customers, to marketing, ai, you name it. You gotta be continuing to learn and grow, always be learning mastering your foundation.
That's a connection to a higher power, whether you're, you know, you meditate, or some level of stillness, or some sort of way to just stop and listen and be connected to a, a source, a, a higher power that can help support you as a teammate. In this process, when you listen, listen to the downloads and the messages that you are hearing and seeing. What I hope you can see now is the importance of your dedicating time to yourself, and by not doing so, it's slowly killing you.
It's gonna shorten your time here on this earth. You gotta take care of you, make you the priority, and get out of the achieving and accomplishing trap. And get into building a life. We'll build the, we'll, we'll work on the business. Everything you're learning here, we can apply into your marketing, into your sales, into your business operations. We're gonna build your business, but it starts with you first.
So if this hit home by all means, like I said, if you go to cletuscoffey.com/morning, you can get access to the cheat sheet. I also invite you to join our next Master Your Morning five day Challenge. As of right now, we're running it five days. We may go a little bit shorter, but for now it seems to be working. Short spin short spurts each day where we connect and you learn about the elements of incorporating this type of intentionality into your morning. So Mastery Morning Five Day Challenge.
If you go to bethetorch.com Forward slash challenge, you can jump on the wait list for our next challenge as we just ended one, we can jump in on our next one. Obviously, I'll put all this in the show notes so you can have them for you as well. Your mourning as a man, as a, as an entrepreneur, as a father is critical for you to become the man capable of being your true, authentic self, becoming the man capable of having the business that you truly desire, however big and wide you want it to be.
Being the partner in the, in the, the intimate lover that you want to be. And of course being the father that, that I know you, you want to be because you have a legacy to, to, to live first and then to live and lead and then leave behind. And that legacy is not in the form of any coin, my friend. It's not how much you left in the bank account.
It's, it's about how much you took today during your lifetime and invested in yourself and, and applied it to be, to become the greatest version of yourself. Because people are watching if you have kids, they're watching. So my friends thank you so much. I'm grateful. Cletus Coffey dot com slash morning. Get the cheat sheet, get you on the next one.