The 5 Am Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.

This is a formulation that comes from the Spellbinder via Mr. Riley, who expresses it like this: “[T]o double your income and impact, triple your investment in two core areas—your personal mastery and your professional capability” (70). Importantly, neither Riley nor the Spellbinder suggest that financial gain is a negative thing. It’s when the sole purpose for growth is driven by greed and materialism that it becomes an issue. Here, financial gain is built into the motivation for growth.

This is defined as “a core behavior that multiplies all your other regular patterns of performing” (78). Riley insists that rising at 5:00 a.m. every day is the one keystone habit that made the most difference in his own life, which is why he urges the artist and entrepreneur to adopt the same routine.

This concept is used as another motivational source. It is built on the premise that “[t]here’s a ton of competition at ordinary, but there’s almost none at extraordinary” (98). Because of this absence of extraordinary, “There’s never been such a glamorous opportunity to become peerless because so few people are dedicated to world-class in this age of such scattered focus, eroded values and deteriorated faith in ourselves along with the inherent primal power we hold” (98).