354: Establishing Evening Routines to Optimize the Day Ahead with Jarrod Warren

Pete Mockaitis
Jarrod, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Jarrod Warren
Pete, I’m so excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yeah, I’m excited to have you too. I want to start with your story. It sounds pretty dramatic and interesting with regard to you. You have experienced some burnout and in a powerful way, and also bounced back in a powerful way. How does that work?

Jarrod Warren
Well, I’m just super excited that I bounced back in a powerful way because I find so many people don’t do that. They get into this burnout routine. I call it a routine because they sit there and they stay in it without even really understanding how to get out of it.

I would have told you probably back in 2015 when I started experiencing some of the burnout, the fatigue, the self-sabotage, that stuff had been going on long before I actually got into it, but it really came to a head I guess and really came to a point where I was like “Man, I can’t do this anymore.”

There was a lot of pride wrapped up in that. I’ll be transparent with you. There was a lot of people are not going to outwork me, people are not going to out sleep me. Sleep was a big thing that I had a lot of pride wrapped up in. My parents could operate on very little sleep, still do to this day.

I was one of those guys that I would tell people “I’m experiencing a lot of stress. I can’t get a lot of sleep.” Their first thought is, “Well, have you tried melatonin? Have you tried these sleeping pills?” I’m like, “No, no, no, make no mistake about it, I can sleep. If I close my eyes for just a couple of seconds, I’m out like a zombie.” I just don’t stay in bed very long.

I’m setting my alarm for super early in the morning. I’m getting up really early in the morning. I’m just not in bed very long.

In 2015, I really thought my brain was turning to cabbage. That’s the best way I can describe it. I couldn’t focus on things. I couldn’t concentrate on things. Of course, people say, “Oh yeah man, I have ADHD. I can’t concentrate either.” This was way different.

I was concerned about early onset dementia, things like that. I just couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t look people in the eyes and have straight conversations because my brain was sending signals to my body that things are not right. I didn’t know what to do with that because I had never experienced that before.

Some of your listeners out there hearing this might think, “Man, I’m going through some brain fog. I’m going through some fatigue. I keep fighting through that and things aren’t getting better. They’re only getting worse.”

The best way I can describe it, Pete, is I was walking – visualize this – I’m walking down this road and this giant wind, this hurricane-force wind just keeps blowing me off the road and I’ve got to get back up on the road and then it blows me off again or I wobble around. That’s what my thought was like during the day.

I’d always been a super hard charger. We may get into some of my career and what I’ve done and things like that, but I’ve always been a super hard charger. I was like man, this is not good. This is not right. I can’t do. I can’t run at the pace and the hustle and the grind and all this stuff people talk about. I can’t do it anymore because I’m so fatigued both mentally and physically and the mentally started taking over more than the physically or the physical.

I went to a neurologist, one of the leading neurologists here in Dallas. He got in there with his staff and for like two hours they just typed away on computers. He came back to me and said, “We’re going to run you through a bunch of tests. We’re going to run you through a lot of scenarios as far as testing out what this is because if there’s something there, we want to know what it is. But, my friend, I think you need to get some sleep.”

Of course, I’m like, “Okay, doctor.” I’m like okay, I kind of want there to be something. You never wish there to be something but it’s like “I want there to be something because that can’t be the answer.”

He comes back and says, “Like I said, we’ll run you through the tests, but you need to get some sleep. What I want you to do is I want you to track your ten day rolling average of time in bed, from the time you go to sleep – from the time you get in bed to the time you get out of bed. I want you to track your ten day rolling average.”

Pete Mockaitis
Ten day rolling average. That is a very specific statistical measure of your sleep.

Jarrod Warren
I get now why he said that because if you just track your every single night sleep, there’s going to be so many data points over the course of even a six month or a three month period that it’s not indicative of how your real sleep patterns are going. I understand why he did that now.

I said, “Okay, I’ll track my ten day rolling average.” On my first ten day rolling average, Pete, my time in bed was four hours and three minutes. That was just ten day rolling average.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s just time in bed. That’s not even your sleep.

Jarrod Warren
Yeah, exactly, exactly. That’s time in bed.

Pete Mockaitis
Were you using just a standard notepad or app or how were you kind of getting the data?

Jarrod Warren
I use an app called Sleep Cycle.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yeah.

Jarrod Warren
It’s awesome. So many people in the bio-hacking community and neurological community, the sleep community, people that I follow nowadays and associate with, they follow this Sleep Cycle app. It’s so good.

What I would do is I would get in bed at night and I would set my alarm. I would start. Then when I’d wake up in the morning the first thing I’d do is turn that thing off and it would track my sleep time. It’s awesome. It’s an incredible – it’s just an incredible app.

Four hours and three minutes. I reported that to him and his team. He said, “Like I said, we’re going to run you through an MRI, a neurocognitive brain study, an eight-hour neurocognitive test,” which wore me out, by the way. I’ve never been so mentally fatigued after that eight hour test of just using my brain all day long. He said, “But I think you need sleep.”

It was pretty apparent what he was getting at at that point was how important sleep is. I hadn’t really gotten into this bio-hacking, this peak performance type state that I’m in now, which is why I run my podcast, Success 101 podcast, that’s where all of this came from, which is just understanding how important all of this is.

He said, “Look, we’ve got to get you to five. It’s still going to suck at five hours, but we’ve got to get you to five and then we’ve got to get you to six.” I’m proud to say that since the end of 2015 to right now when we’re recording this in 2018 and really for quite a while in 2018 now even since almost the beginning of the year, I’ve been right at seven hours of sleep per night.

You’ve got to give some things up. If you’re a hard charger out there, if you want to be awesome at your job quote/unquote, if you’re looking at our society today, especially the Western culture, they tell you to be awesome at your job, you’ve got to hustle and grind. You’ve got to muscle it through. You’ve got to run through the brick walls. Nobody wants to do that.

I think we’re going to get out a couple of generations from now and realize “Man, they had it all wrong.” This whole social media hustle grind. Who knows what’s going to be around at that point. But nobody wants to do that. Everybody wants to just show up and have money fall in their lap and have the business deals fall in their lap. But the problem is we’re going about it in such a wrong way.

That was my story. It was like I had done the hustle for so long. I’d muscled it through for so long. I’d worked hard for so long and then life happened. I had my third child. I was running an office, a financial planning advisory firm that I run, which is my main staple here, coaching advisors, working with my own clients. Everything just kind of hit.

My burnout, I remember it just like yesterday. I was walking through my bedroom – it wasn’t even a really tough day. It was just a mediocre day. I’m walking through my bedroom. All of the sudden, just imagine taking 2 200-pound sandbags and just putting them on each shoulder. For the first time in my life I felt this physical weight. It was all for my mind, but it was a physical weight.

I got in the fetal position in my bedroom, something a guy like me, being transparent was too prideful to do in the past. I probably looked at those type of people as weak people. When I heard about panic attacks, I’m like, “Okay, let’s just be tougher. Let’s just work harder. Let’s just-”

Pete Mockaitis
Suck it up. Walk it off.

Jarrod Warren
Yeah, right. Let’s go. I’ll compete with you in anything. I’m the most competitive person you may know. Here I am in the fetal position in my bedroom. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. I’m going “Holy crap, what is this?”

I sat there for a couple of minutes. I gathered my thoughts. I recognized it. I was like this is a physical weight on me right now. I did some deep breathing exercises. I stood up and I sat on the edge of the bed. I remember it like yesterday.

It’s crazy. I don’t know why I’m getting emotional thinking about it right now. But I sat on the edge of the bed and I just thought literally what I just said. I was like, “What crap is that?” I got up slowly and I changed my clothes. I went and had dinner with my family.

About two months later to the date, something about half as bad happened. It wasn’t quite as bad. I just kind of stopped for a second and sat there and recognized it for what it was. I’m like no more, no more, no more, no more. Because what I realized was I was a shell of a person that I thought I was.

I was wrapped up, without even realizing it honestly, wrapped up in this pride of work harder than anybody, challenge anybody, competitiveness, that builds energy. I realized wow, I’m going about this the wrong way.

I remember the very next morning I woke up and thought something’s got to change. I’m going to be a horrible husband, a horrible father, a horrible mentor. I call myself a leader, what the heck am I doing. I didn’t know what leadership was. Leadership to me I realized was just a title.

I chastised people early on about that. So many people are chasing titles. They want to get in these positions and they don’t even know how to lead people then I found myself in that position. I was like, “Whoa, man. Holy cow, what a hypocrite I am.” I had to take a big step back.

Funny enough, I started listening to old school people, classic people like Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar. What they taught me was is that optimism, which I always thought was kind of pie in the sky, hocus pocus, just shoot for the moon and you’ll land in the stars, all those sort of things. I’m like what the heck does that even mean?

I started realizing man, these guys understand functional optimism, which is life really sucks. Life is bad around you. This is a pretty chaotic world that we’ve built for ourselves, but look at all the blessings that you have that you can really understand to sink your teeth into each day and focus on those things. I started really understanding that.

Then I started noticing. It’s like you buy the red car and everyone on the street’s driving a red car. I started noticing that I’m burnt out and everybody else is burnt out too. I started recognizing that.

Where the Success 101 podcast was born was really me understanding that and saying, “Man, I’ve got to help people.” I’ve got to help people understand that you can hustle, you can grind. You can compete. You can do all of this. But if you’re not doing it in a smart way, you’re only not going to be great at your job, but you’re going to be pretty horrible in life as well, as a father, a husband, a leader, a mentor, a fill in the blank, whatever.

That was my path to a complete 180 turnaround. I’m so fortunate. I’m so blessed I learned that at a young age because where I am today – I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have that turnaround. Where I am today, I’m just so thankful where I am now because I’ve gone through that.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m intrigued then because we have a unique situation. Sleep has come up numerous times on the show as one of the top things you can do to boost your performance. In you, have we an intriguing case study in that you were hardcore doing very little sleeping. Now you’re doing normal, recommended amounts of sleeping. You experienced a huge relief/release, no longer this crushing weight and pressure, which is awesome.

I guess I want to also focus in kind of talking to your former self, who when we’re talking about hard charging, no time for sleep, let’s get her done, let’s make it happen, all that stuff. Tell me, how has your performance been enhanced or impacted by increased sleep?

Jarrod Warren
Oh, it’s been unbelievable, just in the way my brain works, the way my body works, the way I process things, even down to the level of forming sentences differently than what I did before.

Because remember, early on, I told you I thought my brain was turning to cabbage. People kind of laugh when they hear that. I’m like, “No, really.” That’s not just me fabricating an idea or thought. I really felt that something was super wrong. What it showed me was it showed me the true importance of sleep.

I’ve been fortunate, I’ve been blessed. I’ve accomplished some things in my business, my financial planning career with my clients and running the office that I’m running here in Dallas at a topnotch financial firm and being an entrepreneur where all the financial risk is on me and with three kids. Actually, Pete, what happened was, I started having more kids and getting less sleep and performing better than before I had kids.

The typical persona of what people go through is they start having more kids, they have less sleep, they have more stress. I was able to combat that before all of that happened and actually do the reverse of that even with three kids now and running a 50% office and my own financial planning practice. When I say I’ve had a complete 180 turnaround, it’s the real deal. I’m so fortunate I went through that.

Pete Mockaitis
You talked about less sleep, so you had a recovery period of normal sleep and then you had more kids and then less sleep or could you—

Jarrod Warren
No, no, no, I’m saying most people have more kids and go through less sleep. I had more kids and went through more sleep.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, I’m with you.

Jarrod Warren
Because I had learned my lessons early on. Again, that’s why I’m fortunate. I’ve got clients who are in their 40s or 50s that are talking about really hitting this – call it a midlife crisis. I don’t know if that phrase is used a whole lot anymore, but just call it this reality of man, I’ve really wasted a lot of life. I’ve done things the wrong way. I’m coming to this revelation that I haven’t done things the right way.

I’ll be honest with you man, this happened to me just out of nowhere, but at the same time I’m so glad that I went through this before I was in my 40s or 50s because I look at those people and go man, that would have been me. I would have been even worse off than them. How much time waste?

If people ask me what my biggest fear is, it is a wasted life. You can quantify that in many different ways for many different people, but for me it has to do with what are you doing to add impact to other people? As a financial advisor I feel like I have a huge responsibility to add impact to other people, but also my family, also my wife, also my friends.

Pete, you know, years ago I went to my wife’s graduation and George Bush Senior – not to be political here – but George Bush Senior was talking there, whatever you think about him. He comes out and says, “I’ve been all over the world. I’ve done this. I’ve done that. I’ve been the President. I’ve done this. I’ve done that.” He said, “And the most important thing in life is family and friends.”

The crowd kind of just erupts because when somebody says something like that after what’s he’s accomplished, you’re like, “Wow, if he can say that, what are we doing?” I realized for my family, my friends, my business, it’s like wow, what a blessing it is to learn this at such a young age so that I can be awesome at what I’m doing every day because hindsight is 20/20.

Pete Mockaitis
So then can you tell us when it comes to – what’s the trick to getting more sleep while having more kids at the same time? How does one accomplish this?

Jarrod Warren
Wow, where do we start? Right now we’ve been in a hotel for four weeks because my youngest daughter decided that one of my older daughter’s shorts should go down the toilet and flooded our entire house. They came in – yeah – they came in and moved everything out of our house. If you go in our house right now it looks like a war zone.

We’ve been in a hotel for four weeks, looks like we’ll be there for another four to six weeks. It just – it’s one of those things. It is what it is. But I’m looking at that going, “Man, how would I have handled that before? How would I have looked at that?”

If you’ll let me, Pete, I’ll kind of go down this path of what, like I said, the hustle, the grind, muscling it through, hard work versus working hard. I do think there’s a difference there, kind of doing the same things that got you there doesn’t work as you get older.

Your question of as you have more kids, getting more sleep, it’s like if you keep doing the same things you were doing when you were 25, I mean, I used to go work out at 10:30 PM when I was 25 and I looked at that as a stress relief. If I went and worked out at 10:30 right now, that would be a huge stressor in my life just with everything that I’ve got going on.

But I’m really big on – like you have to have a morning routine and an evening routine. I know those phrases – your listeners may hear that and go, “Oh man, I’ve heard that like 100,000 times on other podcasts.” It’s kind of that old dead horse that’s been kicked too many times, right? But I’m going to keep coming back to it. You have to have a proper morning and evening routine.

I’ve said many times before, 80% or more, probably more than that, but 80% or more of an incredible day actually starts in the PM, the night before. People try to start attacking the day from the time they wake up and really we’re not very good at that. We snooze too much. I snooze – for 14 years I snoozed for an hour, over an hour. I would set my alarm for an hour before I had to get up knowing I was going to snooze for an hour. How ridiculous is that?

But 80% or more of an incredible day is actually starts at the PM. As a society Pete, we’re incredibly sleep deprived, especially here in the West, where we’re getting less than six hours of sleep. It’s actually almost down to five and a half. You might as well round it down to five and a half now. A couple of generations ago they were sleeping over ten hours a night before the light bulb was invented.

How do you think that changes a society? How do you think that changes a mindset, like your daily mindset when you’re grinding it out? Why do you think nowadays there’s so many people on SSRIs and stimulants and Adderall and Ritalin?

Why do you think that the depression rates and people saying that they’re unfulfilled are at all-time highs even though we have more technology, more ability, more opportunities to do more in business and profitability today than ever before and people are making more in our society, especially here in the West, than ever before. But worldwide, why do you think that is?

It’s because people are ruining their minds, just as I was. Science backs this up. Like stress, if you look at stress, stress is not good or bad. It’s all depending on how you look at it because you can say stress is what got me to the point of life that I am because it really challenged me or you could say stress really got me depressed. It all depends on how you look at it.

But stress stimulates the brain and it creates a chemical called noradrenaline. That improves or I guess disconnects neural connectivity. That’s why so many of us perform better before deadlines. You’ve probably heard that before from your guests. It’s like if there’s a deadline, if there’s a stressor, if there’s something I’m going to perform better at that.

But it’s a difficult balance because if we let stress impact us the wrong way, then we’re going to be going down the path that I was going down for so long. If we’re pushed too far, our bodies actually react by producing a steroid called cortisol. Your listeners may be very familiar with that. That puts us in a hyper-alert state. It increases our heart rate. It impacts all the people around us.

That’s what I was doing. I’m like, “Man, I’m a really bad leader. I’m a terrible husband. I will eventually be a terrible father if I stay on this path.” I had really high levels of cortisol in the blood testing that I did along with very, very low levels of testosterone and DHEA. I was really destroying my adrenal glands.

In fast-paced workplaces today like we’re all in, we’ve got to look at this stress as good stress. We’ve got to learn how to turn stress into good stress or we’re going to have adrenal fatigue.

For any of your listeners listening out there, if you haven’t heard to haven’t experienced adrenal fatigue, go Google that. There’s probably 100 million articles out there about what your adrenals do and how they play a very crucial part of you guys being really good at your job every day and really good at life.

But as leaders, we’ve got to check in to make sure that our top performers aren’t going through high stress levels, that we’re turning stress into positive stress without having people really drift into distress, I would call it.

Pete Mockaitis
So then, let’s talk about it. First of all, evening routines. I’ve heard much more about morning routines and we’re having Hal Elrod on the show a bit later.

Jarrod Warren
Oh, I like that.

Pete Mockaitis
I know he’s going to rock out on the morning routine, so let’s focus on the evening.

Jarrod Warren
His book – just to kind of go into that. When I was going through all of this, his book the morning – basically The Miracle Morning and The Miracle Morning for Sales People, which I read second, I mean genius.

Again, I said 80% or more of a great day starts actually in the evening. If any of your listeners are hearing this and they’re thinking “Man, I agree with Jarrod. I’m stressed. I’ve got a lot of stress going on. But wow, he’s talking about a lot of work, a lot of stuff I’ve got to do,” I really want you guys to maybe listen to this a couple of times through if you’re feeling that way and really dissect what I’m saying.

Because here’s the deal, and this is what I’ve learned, Pete, is that there’s a lot of things in life that if they constrain you, they can add more stress to your plate, let’s just face it. You’ve got these constraints, you’re bundled up.

But when you’re looking to eliminate stress, you’re looking for more of a positive mindset, you’re looking to turn a 180 from all the things I’ve described, having a structured lifestyle, especially a morning and evening routine, since that’s what we’re talking about here, can actually give you a ton of freedom.

I had Ed Mylett on my podcast recently. He and I both talked about how constrained lifestyles, if you’re doing it for the right reasons to reduce stress and get in a better state of structure, can actually give you more freedom rather than making you feel bound up.

What do I do in my evening routine? First of all I’m always testing. If you go to my tools and resources page, I think it’s Success101Podcast.com/Resources, you’re going to see all of the tools and testing that I always do. It’s my most updated page that I have on my site because I’m always testing new things.

But I would say number one, just at a base level, you guys have to be using a light blocker at night. When I say at night, again, 80% of a great morning starts the evening before, I would back that even up further until like before the time you get off work. I use a blue light blocker on my Apple devices all through the day and on my Windows devices at work all through the day. You’ll never—

Pete Mockaitis
So like f.lux?

Jarrod Warren
Yeah, I use f.lux.

Pete Mockaitis
So you’ve got f.lux going all day?

Jarrod Warren
Yeah, all day long.

Pete Mockaitis
F.lux, we can share what f.lux is for those who don’t have it yet. Explain what f.lux is.

Jarrod Warren
If you’ve got Night Shift on your phone, I’ll leave that on 24 hours a day. In fact, I’ve got mine set up from 2:59 AM to 3:00 AM, so there’s like a minute there when I’m sleeping that it goes back to the regular state because you can’t just keep it on all the time.

But if you ever pull up my – people pull up my phone all the time to look at a picture or look a document or whatever and they’re like “Why’s it so yellow?” I’m like, “Oh sorry, I’ve got a filter on that. Let me turn it off.”

But I use f.lux as well on my Window’s devices. You can do that on Mac also. But I’ve always got a filter on all of my devices. Now some people would say blue light is actually really good for you early in the mornings to get you awake. After what I went through, I don’t – I’m not trying to play that game at all. I’m like man, I’ll keep the filters on all day long. It doesn’t matter to me.

But if you’ve got those filters on your phone or on your computer, like f.lux or like Night Shift, that’s going to eliminate a ton of problematic blue light for you guys. If you just keep it on – like now if somebody gives me their phone and I have to watch a video for like a minute or two, like the blue light literally starts hurting my eyes. It’s kind of crazy how that works.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’ve got to give a shout out to a recent sponsor, Phonetic Eyewear, who makes these glasses that reflect a portion of the blue light. I’m wearing them right now. They’re pretty cool.

I like it that it’s very subtle. It’s kind of hard to notice that the white difference unless you’re really looking closely and flipping them off and on, which is nice so that you’re getting some protection without feeling like the whole world looks weirdly yellow.

But so you’re – how yellow are we getting if I may ask with your f.lux? Is it like halfway on or 100% on?

Jarrod Warren
I’d say it’s halfway on because if you put it 100% on it would almost be red. It would be completely red. I have that as well. I will send you, Pete, if you want to link it up in show notes, I will send you how you can turn your iPhone completely red at night.

If I’m sitting, like right now we’re in a hotel, so it’s not ideal. We’ve got two bedrooms and a small, tiny kitchen that we’re – it’s just like oh my gosh. If you told me this five years ago we’d be living in this, I’d be freaking out. But we’re good. We’re totally good. My kids are all – I’ve got three daughters. They just all kind of climb into bed together.

But when I’m sitting in there with them because of course it’s kind of scary at night in a new place. They’re like, “We want you to sit in here,” so I’ll kind of get on my iPad at night, but I can triple tap my home screen and make my screen turn blood red at night.

That’s really cool because if you just have Night Shift on, even if you turn it all the way down to the lowest level at night – my recommendation to you guys would all be to be super disciplined and have a digital sunset. As soon as the sun goes down, you guys never look at a screen again.

But if you have to look at a screen to check a message or if you want to watch a movie with your wife in bed at night or whatever, I can send the notes to show you how to turn the color themes on your iPads/iPhones, whatever, I don’t know how to do it on Android, but turn it to blood red and you can turn it down really low. It’s really cool.

But during the day it’s about halfway on, so it’s more of like a yellow tint, like a washed out looking yellow tint. I’ve got that on 24 hours a day. I think there’s enough study out right now for people who are in older generations or when we get out to older generations that are showing that our eyesight is going to be gone from all this blue light.

The only time that I have blue light on my phone and I turn all of that off is first thing in the morning if I’m checking – I try not to check emails first thing when I wake up to start my day off in a reactive state, but if I want to do something fun, if I want to check social media whenever I wake up or I want to check ESPN on Saturday mornings for college football, I’ll actually turn blue light on in full effect, full effect because that will wake me up really fast.

But if you’ve got that on all the time, there are so many studies showing how it’s going to really decrease our eyesight over time and there’s – let’s face it, there’s not enough studies on these iPhones yet. They just came out in 2008. There’s not enough studies yet to really determine how all of this blue light is really going to affect our – or impact our vision. I’m telling you there’s going to be a lot of people needing glasses earlier in life because of all the blue light that’s coming through their screens.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you. Okay, you’ve got f.lux. You’ve got a link coming to us. Thank you. I will put that up with the show notes with regard to getting the super red very quickly. Then that’s part of the game is keeping the blue light from messing with your sleep. Awesome. What else?

Jarrod Warren
I’ve got my good friend James Swanwick out in California, who I’m always promoting his glasses because he’s got these blue light blocking glasses called Swannies.

I’ll tell you my first – when I first started diving into this way back in the day, I bought these literally seven dollar welder’s glasses off of Amazon to wear at night. My kids thought I looked like Bono. They kind of laughed. It’s kind of funny. But you’re in the comfort of your own home, so who cares.

But we’d be watching TV at night or we’d be doing whatever before all these blue light blocking technologies. I’m like, well, hey, I’ve got these amber looking glasses on that look ridiculous, but man, they sure are helping me wind down. I’d put those on about 90 minutes before I go to bed.

Now, fortunately, several companies have come out including James Swanwick. My friend Dave Asprey over at Bulletproof, they’ve got these glasses that will really help you wind down a lot faster. You’ve got to use a blue light blocker on your screens. You’ve got to use the blue light blocking glasses if you’re watching TV though because most TVs nowadays don’t have blue light blocking technology.

I think in the future that’s going to be – I mean if company like Apple, a trillion dollar company, has realized the need to put blue light blocking technology on every single device they make, the TV, Samsung, all these other – LG, all these other TVs, they’re going to come out with that soon enough. But for now you’ve got to wear those glasses. Luckily they look pretty stylish. They’re pretty good.

That would be number one is use a blue light blocker, whether it’s glasses on a TV that doesn’t have a blue light blocker or use it on your mobile devices like Apple that does.

Second thing is you’ve got to have a caffeine curfew. Caffeine is powerful. Your listeners are going to know if you’re being good at your job and you’re being great at what you do, let’s face it, most people nowadays, they’re chasing after some caffeine. It’s a nervous system stimulant, but if your nervous system is lit up at night, you can forget about high-quality sleep. You can forget about a great morning the next day.

Guys, set really a hardline unbreakable curfew that your body can remove that. Pete, I don’t know if you’ve ever done any research on this, but caffeine has a half-life of about six hours for your average person. That’s average. There’s going to be some people it has a half-life of like eight hours. That means eight hours after you drink a cup of coffee, half of the stimulant response is still going to be present there in your body.

I’ve seen people drinking coffee after dinners at night. I’ve seen people drinking coffee at five PM just because they’re like, “Man, I’m slammed. I don’t want to go home feeling so groggy. I’m going to kick a little caffeine before I go home.” It’s like ah, don’t do that. For the average person it’s a six hour half-life, so three hours after you have that cup of caffeine, you’re still going to be wired.

If you have that after a dinner at night with friends or at a restaurant or whatever, and you’re sitting there at 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock trying to go to sleep, you may have half of those caffeine remnants still in your body.

For me, I shut that thing off at 2 PM. I have no caffeine after 2 PM, none, whatsoever. I love coffee. I love the taste of coffee. Right now in Texas, it’s super hot, so I like iced coffee and nitro coffee and everything that’s cold. But after 2 PM, I’m not having any stimulants whatsoever. I’m trying to do things to wind down, which is more in the GABA supplements and things like that, which we can go into.

But just remember don’t have any – like have a caffeine curfew. Don’t have any caffeine after about 2 maybe 3 at the most PM and you’re going to get an awesome sleep.

Third thing is use high quality magnesium. Pete, especially for us as guys, we’re really deficient in magnesium. Just in our Western diet we don’t get it as much as we should. But magnesium – I had to do all this research because I didn’t know any of this – but it helps optimize circulation, blood pressure, balance of blood sugar. It helps relax your muscles if you get the right type.

It helps reduce pain if you work out and you’re a little sore from your morning workout or your evening workout. It’s going to help reduce all that. It’s going to calm down the nervous system, especially to keep your mind from just running crazy.

But magnesium is the number one mineral deficiency in our world today, especially in our Western culture as I keep coming back to. Getting your magnesium levels up, can almost instantly reduce your body’s stress load, improve the quality of sleep.

I use a product called Calm. You can go to my resources page as I mentioned earlier and Calm is on there. It’s not something you want to take a lot of because you’ll be on the toilet at night because magnesium makes your body flush out – again, it’s a muscle relaxer, so it makes your body flush out a lot of things. But it’s going to help you really get to sleep.

Then lastly, I want you guys to get your rooms blacked out. This is one that I was a little slow to come around on. If you read my friend Dave Asprey’s book called Head Strong. I had followed Dave Asprey for a long time, the creator of Bulletproof. He said he was coming out with a new book called Head Strong. I thought, “Man, okay, maybe I’ll get it.” I’m not really sure what else Dave can teach me. He blew my mind with all the things he came out with.

But one of the main things he talks about is mitochondrial function. Mitochondria is the powerhouse of your cells. It’s what energy comes from. It’s what good sleep comes from. It’s what really a good rested mind comes from. So many people are sleeping in very bright light situations.

Especially right now, I posted a picture just the other day on my Instagram page, Jarrod Warren Consulting, that showed one of those hangers that you hang pants on in a hotel room. I’ve got the hanger pinching the curtain rods because I’ve got the curtain rods all folded up just to where no light can get in whatsoever and I’ve got the hanger pinching those together. I think I said something like tips to a good night’s sleep or something. I listed those as one of them.

But having light sources of any type in your bedroom can seriously disrupt your sleep patterns. Again, I would have heard of that five years ago and gone, “Oh man, come on. Really? Just go to sleep.” But even using an eye mask. I use an eye mask every night. I use nose spacers now to get really good deep nostril air, which builds nitric oxide, which helps you sleep a lot deeper.

Here’s the big one. I may lose your listeners on this, but I learned this from my good friend Patrick McKeown, who wrote the book The Oxygen Advantage. I tape my mouth shut every single night with surgical paper tape. Every night. I’ve done this for almost two years.

Pete Mockaitis
I have heard Patrick McKeown recommend this before. He’s Irish, right?

Jarrod Warren
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you go to my—

Yeah, if you go to my podcast, I’ve got two episodes with Patrick McKeown. I had to have him on because I started understanding how when you tape your mouth shut at night, most of us are mouth breathers even during the day, so you can imagine when you go to sleep at night.

Pete Mockaitis
Mouth breather.

Jarrod Warren
But you lose almost a pound of water at night just through dehydration, breathing through your mouth and through your skin, and sweat. You’ve probably heard those mattress commercials where they’re like, “Hey, every eight years you need to change your mattress because it’s got like such and such pounds of skin and sweat and all kinds of stuff in it.” It just grows, right? But we lose over a pound of water every single night just by breathing out of our mouths whenever we fall asleep.

If you tape your mouth shut with paper surgical tape, which I’ve done for almost two years now. I use nose spaces because I broke my nose twice early in life playing basketball. I’ve got a severely deviated septum. I probably need to go get some surgery done on it. Like if I breathe in really hard, one nostril that completely collapses.

If you have any listeners out there that are experiencing that, you may want to get some nose spacers. I’ll hook that up – I’ll let you know, Pete, in your show notes how to hook that up as well. I’ve got nose spacers. I’ve got an eye mask on to completely black things out. I’ve got the mouth tape on.

Pete Mockaitis
You must look terrifying. It’s like who is this monster.

Jarrod Warren
Yeah. No, my wife has a field day. She’s like, “Oh my God.” She doesn’t prescribe to any of this. But she’s tired a lot during the day. I’m like you’ve got your phone in your face. You’re not doing anything – I’m a champion of thinking eventually she’s going to come around, but who knows.

But I do this every night. Again, your listeners may hear this and go, “Man, I’m not getting great sleep. I’m already stressed out. That’s so much workload to my plate of everything that I have to do.” I’m telling you, if you will structure your life in this way, you will have such a better life.

I mean literally now it’s to the point that I put that tape on my mouth at night and my brain automatically starts winding down no matter what I’ve done because it just knows man, it is time for sleep. I’ve got the nose spacers in because of the deviated septum. If you don’t have a broken nose in two places, like I do, maybe you don’t need to deal with that. But I’ll send the link for your show notes. Then the eye mask. Then I even sleep with ear plugs in.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Jarrod Warren
Back when we had our first kid, I was running a brand new business here with a 50 person office and I was like – I told my wife I was like, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to get sleep.” She was such a champion to let me get sleep. But I put Hearos – they’re called Hearos ear plugs. I’ll send you the link for that as well. Hearos ear plugs, the highest decibel rated ear plugs.

I put those – literally if somebody broke into my house at night, I’d be in big trouble because I don’t know that I’d wake up at all. I put the Hearos ear plugs in, the night mask, the nose spacers and the tape over my mouth. I’m telling you man, I sleep like a rock. It’s awesome.

I get up. I’m so refreshed in the morning. Most days I don’t even need any caffeine. I don’t need anything to get me going. I splash a little water on my face and I’m ready to rock and roll with a very positive clear mindset. I’ve gone through all my sleep cycles and I am good to go.

Pete Mockaitis
Now I’m well convinced. We’ve had some previous sleep doctors on the show with regard to the sound blocking and the light blocking. I often end up with the ear plugs and sleep mask myself.

I want to dig into this mouth covering business. The advantage is that it kind of forces you to breathe through your nose and thusly you’ll lose less moisture. What’s this doing for me, this mouth taping?

Jarrod Warren
Well, again, you lose over a pound – the average person loses a pound of water every single night.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s why I like to weigh myself in the morning, Jarrod.

Jarrod Warren
Yeah, right. Make sure you urinate too.

Pete Mockaitis
I do.

Jarrod Warren
A lot of people weigh themselves before they urinate, that’s like two pounds there if you’re really trying to track your weight.

Basically, you can lose just through your mouth, and that’s not including your skin and your sweat, but you lose over a pound of water. Basically look at it like this, you’re dehydrated by less of a pound every single night just through your mouth.

If you tape that shut, first of all you’re going to retain that. Secondly, if you’re in a place with high allergies, which I never had allergies until we moved to Dallas about seven years ago. But it’s like – I don’t know. I feel like it’s the allergy capital of the world. Every year about three or four times a year, I was getting complete like absolute laryngitis. I couldn’t talk. I would have to cancel three or four days of my financial planning meetings.

I don’t have that anymore. Why? Because I don’t let all that cold air down in my throat. I’m retaining my hydration. I’m also making sure that I’m building more nitric oxide. If you look at nitric oxide and all the benefits that it has for your heart, for your lungs, for your brains.

Pete, I know you don’t promote this a lot, but if you’re looking at – as a guy, if you’re looking for more blood flow in the areas you really want blood flow as a guy, nitric oxide is going to do that, if you get what I’m saying there. There’s a lot of reasons to build nitric oxide.

Your nose builds that based on how we were created and how we were made. Your mouth doesn’t do that. Also, when you breathe through your mouth, you do deep chest breathing. If you’ve studied any breathing exercises from Wim Hof or my friend Mark Divine about filling your belly full of air, like there’s so much of a – gosh, where do we go with this.

80% of serotonin, which is the feel food chemical that your brain makes is actually produced in the gut.  A lot of that happens with you breathing into the gut, not breathing in through your mouth. When you breathe through your nose, you breathe through the gut. You fill up your belly, big deep belly breathe.

If you guys are trying to get relaxed out there, if you’re like “Man, I’m dealing with a super hard day,” just stop, sit back in your chair or I’ve got a standing desk here. Just lean back on a surface, just kind of relax for a second, sit down, breathe deeply through your nose. Science has shown that four deep breaths – four to six deep breaths for most people can significantly reduce blood pressure, stress, cortisol, all of those sort of things.

If you’re doing that all night long and you’re breathing through your nose and deep belly filling your air versus deep chest filling, which builds cortisol, just imagine how much more refreshed you’re going to wake up and be ready to take on the day and be awesome at your job.

Versus not doing that, waking up dehydrated, especially if you had a little bit to drink and you’ve even more dehydrated. You hadn’t drink enough water, which I was bad about for years. It’s just – the science, it’s just not arguable behind it as to how your body works and how you build nitric oxide, how you reduce dehydration and how you wake up more rested every day.

Tape your mouth shut at night guys. If you’ve got a deviated septum, like I do, use nose spacers. I’ll send you the link, Pete. And if you are in an area that has any light whatsoever, I’ll also send you the link to the best sleep blackout mask that I’ve ever tried in my life.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, Jarrod, I would say link away. I’d love them all. I’d also love to the extent that you’ve got the journal articles and studies and research support, that’s great. Some of them I’m already convinced on, like yes, of course, it must be completely dark. I’m well on board. Others, it’s like – this mouth taping sounds a little weird, but I’m always down to try.

Jarrod Warren
It sounds nuts. It sounds nuts, man.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m always willing to experiment, Jarrod. I’m looking at the Amazon page right now for paper surgical tape. Am I looking at one inch wide? How wide do I want it?

Jarrod Warren
Yeah, one inch. 3M, 3M surgical paper tape.

Pete Mockaitis
Micropore.

Jarrod Warren
Micropore, yeah, that’s correct.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, I’m looking at it. You’ve got it.

Jarrod Warren
You want surgical micropore hypoallergenic so that it doesn’t cause any – the worst thing that I have in the morning, and if you call it the worst thing, it’s like it’s a little stickiness on my lips from the glue. But it’s hypoallergenic. It’s microporous, so it breathes a little bit but not enough for you to open up your lips at night.

The surgical paper tape, that’s what top surgeons use whenever they tape up people. Your skin has to breathe. It has to be porous. It’s all just a perfect recipe for you to put on your lips at night.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s funny. I see it’s got some 743 reviews. I’m guessing a segment of them are people like you who are taping their mouths shut.

Jarrod Warren
Yeah. You hear that and you’re like 743 reviews, holy cow. How have I not been privy to this?

Pete Mockaitis
Well maybe there are probably like physicians like “This is great. After I draw blood I use this.” Then some are like, “I’ve been taping my mouth shut. My wife loves it.”

Jarrod Warren
It’s still weird to me. Two years in I’m literally – maybe I’m over two years now – two years in and I still put that on my mouth at night. I tell my wife – she’s talking to me at night and I’m like, “Okay, I’m putting my tape on.” She’s like, “Okay.” Two years in she’s used—

Pete Mockaitis
She’s like, “Finally. I wish you would have done that an hour ago, Jarrod.”

Jarrod Warren
Right. You should have put that on for the last three days. But it’s still weird. If you feel normal putting tape onto your mouth and putting ear plugs in and putting nose spacers in, if you feel normal doing that, like I’m more worried about you than not.

But that’s just – that’s the culture, the society that’s built for us today is that you hear that and you’re like, “Oh, that’s weird,” but do you want to be like the culture that we’ve built today? Do you want to be getting less than six hours of sleep at night when two generations ago before the light bulb was invented, we were getting over ten hours of sleep?

The depression, the SSRIs, the Adderall, the Ritalin, the caffeine. Just look at how our society operates today and say do you want to be like that or do you want to be a little off the beaten path and see what science has really come up with as far as what helps your body at night.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, well Jarrod tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things.

Jarrod Warren
I would encourage your listeners to shower at night instead of in the morning just because that’s going to help you get up faster without having to take the shower. I think so much of this is mental. If you feel like you have to get a shower in the morning like I did for so many years, then you’re going to feel like “I’m groggy. I’m walking into the shower. I’m wiping out my eyes in the shower. I’m going to stand there for a long time under the water.”

You just get a slow start to your day. Take the shower the night before and if you’re going to get in the water during the morning, take a cold shower. Turn the nozzle as cold as it can go. Your mitochondria in your body, your systems, everything wakes up.

The very first thing you guys want to do in the morning is to drink about 32 ounces of water to kick start your adrenals and kick start your system.

I would encourage you guys – Pete, I know we’re rushing through this kind of fast here at the end, but I would encourage you guys to do a little bit of sea salt, Himalayan pink sea salt and a little bit of lemon squeeze, like lemon juice is fine if you don’t have a natural lemon, but that’s going to help it to be more – it’s going to help wake up your adrenals in the morning to where you’ve got a little bit of salt, a little bit of lemon.

You’re crushing 32 ounces of water in the morning right when you wake up because you’re so dehydrated in the morning.

Then just make sure that you guys aren’t snoozing for 14 years like I did to where you start your day off so reactionary.

We haven’t even talked about alcohol, but I would say, I mentioned having a caffeine curfew in the evening, make sure you guys have an alcohol curfew for those of you who drink about three hours before you go to sleep because the REM sleep – and we don’t have time to get into this right no.

But the REM sleep and the deep sleep, the REM and the deep, as you’re cycling back and forth through those, you can’t cycle though those at night to get a super deep sleep if you’ve got alcohol in your system more than three hours before you go to sleep. That would be another – I guess, reverting back to the evening here – that would be another thing that I would tell you guys.

But just make sure you’re aware of what you eat and drink the night before including junk food, high carbs, alcohol, all of that before sleep, you’re going to – it’s going to be really hard for you to get in deep sleep if you’re doing that.

Pete Mockaitis
Great, thank you. Now could you share with us a favorite quote?

Jarrod Warren
Oh man, I have so many. I think my favorite quote is by Abraham Lincoln. I’m a big historical – like in fact this weekend, we’re going out to our farmhouse. I can trace my fatherhood all the way back to the late 1600s. It’s like father, father, father, father, father, father, all the way down to me. I’ve got these three girls and I’m an only child. I’m like, “Holy cow, it’s all going to end. It’s all going to end right here.”

But the Presidential, like the American Revolution, all of that is really – I don’t know why, it just kind of gets me. It’s just so important to me.

But my favorite quote I would think is by Abraham Lincoln. It says – I hope I don’t butcher this – but it says “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that matter, but the life in your years.” He was even smart enough back then to realize man, it’s not how long you live, it’s how many years in every year you actually live. I think that’s what I’m striving for nowadays is am I really living every single day.

A lot of the stuff you’ve heard on this podcast, a lot of the stuff in my evening/morning routine, it’s so that I can freaking live every day and be so different than I was before when I was dying. I know a lot of your listeners are going to resonate with this where they feel like they are just dying every day, but they’re trying so hard to grind it out, that doesn’t work.

It’s not the years in your life that matter, but the life in your years. If you’re not doing a lot of the stuff we talked about today, you’re not going to have a lot of the life in your years.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you, thank you. How about a favorite book?

Jarrod Warren
It would have to be With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham. If you guys haven’t read With Winning in Mind – Lanny Bassham is a mental strategy coach that coaches a lot of golf pros, a lot of Olympic athletes. If you think about the Olympics and you think about golf, what two sports really need more mental management than that? He runs a mental management clinic.

His book With Winning in Mind. He’s got a couple different books out actually. His son, Troy, has a book – Troy Bassham – has a book called Attainment. It’s like the 12 steps toward peak performance. Of course, that’s what my podcast is all about, so I’m all about that.

But With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham is one of my favorite books on the planet because it talks so much about how the brain deals with what we deal with every day and how you can really retrain that for being better at what you do each day.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Jarrod Warren
Man, the tool would be what I mentioned before. It’s going to be the sleep app. If you’re not tracking your sleep at night and if you don’t have a good morning and evening routine, then you guys are setting yourself up for failure every day.

Now, there may be some people, like I did for so many years, who could thrive without having that, but I would argue eventually you’re going to hit a brick wall. Eventually you’re going to be a shell of the person that you could have been. Don’t let that happen. Make sure you’re tracking your sleep.

Make sure you understand that 80% of an incredible day actually starts in the PM by getting all the blue light out of our face and using a sleep tracker at night. I actually use now the Oura ring. If your listeners are familiar with the O-U-R-A, the Oura ring.

It actually tracks my sleep in a little bit of a better way by not just tracking what time I went to bed and what time I got up, but actually tracking my sleep cycles because if you’re in a bed with a wife or a partner like I am, you can’t – the sleep cycle app, you can actually lay that on your mattress. If she’s moving around or if she’s doing something – it doesn’t know when I’m moving or not. With that device on your finger, it’s actually a lot better. That would be my tool.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. How about a favorite habit?

Jarrod Warren
Man, this is a tough one and this is one that if your listeners hear this, I would love some accountability on. It’s spending at least one hour a week in silence and deep thought while note taking.

I don’t know why – I have no idea with everything that I’ve learned why this has been so hard for me to get my mind around, but blocking off at least one hour – or not at least, but blocking off one hour on my calendar to where I sit in silence, I sit in deep thought and I journal. It’s been really hard – probably over the last six weeks I’ve been better at it then I have ever been in my life. I hope to continue that.

But if your listeners are like I am where they’re just kind of go, go, go and they can’t calm the mind and they’re busy all the time, this is probably one of the most important habits you guys can lock in.

Because what do people say? They say if you have a few minutes each week, you should meditate and spend time in silence and really calm the mind. If you feel like you don’t have time to mediate and calm the mind, if you feel like, “Man, I don’t have that time. I’ve got to be doing other things,” then you probably need two or three times that time for meditation because you’ve really got a real issue going on there.

But that would be one hour a week in silence and deep thought with note taking. I would really encourage your listeners to do that. That’s something I’m working on. I’ve gotten a lot better at, but for hard charging performers that want to be excellent at what they do each day, it’s really hard to just stop and be in silence, but I think it’s going to be the biggest game changer for people that really over time master that.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a particular nugget you share that seems to connect and resonate and gets quoted back to you frequently?

Jarrod Warren
It’s just to be present.

Pete Mockaitis
Jarrod, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Jarrod Warren
Oh man, thanks so much. My website is Success101Podcast.com. The resources page I’ve mentioned a couple of times is Success101Podcast.com/Resources.

If you guys want my book, which I don’t put out on Amazon, I don’t put out anywhere because I thought originally I was just going to give it out to clients and advisors and things like that, but it’s become – it’s been a blessing. It’s become really popular. It’s called From Success to Significance. I’m giving away the e-version of that right now.

If you just go to Success101Podcast.com/Book and you select the e-version, the e-book version and put “freesuccess101”, you’ll get a code to download that for free or if you want the paperback version, just enter Success 101 and you will just pay the shipping cost in the US.

It’s kind of a workbook that I developed, where people could go through and really understand what creating a vision, creating goals, creating a more positive mindset looks like. I’ve gotten – I’ve been so fulfilled by that because I’ve gotten such good feedback. But that’s where people can find me.

On Instagram I’m under Jarrod Warren Consulting. I’m on Facebook under Jarrod Warren as well. I’m kind of out there where you can find me. But it’s all pointing back toward sharpening ourselves, being at better at what we do each day by eliminating stress, distractions and really all the stuff we talked about with morning and evening routines.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Jarrod Warren
Man, I think I’ve already said it. I think it’s the morning and evening routines. I know that sounds so boring and ho hum and whatever and I would have felt that years ago, like, “Okay, yeah, I’ll do that. But what’s the real secret.” I think that’s it.

I think it’s really understanding that you’ve got to quiet your mind at the end of the day. You’ve got to make sure that you’re getting in bed on time. You’ve got to make sure that you understand in your mind that 80% or more of an incredible morning is only going to become – is only going to come whenever you focus on the PM and just making sure that you’re living a very essentialism or minimalistic type lifestyle, where we just get rid of all the noise.

I’ve always been such a big podcast fan and news fan and reading fan. Information is power. Information is power was such a common phrase years and years and years ago, like 30 – 40 – 50 years ago when there wasn’t a lot of information. Now we’ve got so much information that we almost have to say information can be noise and really just cutting out some of that is helpful.

I hope your listeners take a lot away from Success 101, which the Success 101 podcast is just how do we get back to the grassroots of success. It’s not making tons of money. It’s not being super influential. It’s how do we get back to all the stuff we talked about today toward the 101 of success. I think we’ve missed a lot of that in our society and I hope we get back to it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Jarrod, thank you so much for sharing the goods. This was a whole lot of fun and I wish you tons of luck and a wondrous sleep night after night.

Jarrod Warren
Pete, thanks so much for having me here. It’s such a blessing. I just want to affirm you for just helping people be better at what they do day in and day out through your podcast and all the guests that you have on and all the episodes that you’ve had. What an incredible time we live in today where you can tune in and listen to podcasts like yours and mine and get so much information. I just really hope your listeners take a lot away from that.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.