The Four Interior Empires

In Robin Sharma's The 5 AM Club book, he shared this habit that super producers do. It is waking up at 5 AM and having one hour for ourself. He calls it the holy hour. Where we're not in the world. No gadget, no watching the news, no chit chatting. Just ourself. We are running a one hour period to set up our four interior empires — our mindset, heartset, healthset, and soulset. But before jumping to what he calls the 20/20/20 formula, let us define first what are the four interior empires and why these are important for our productivity and success.

The Four Interior Empires

The Mindset

Mindset is our psychology and beliefs. The belief that we are in charge of our own ability and our lives. We can build a healthy mindset through reading books, through the people we meet, and the words we speak. However, having a healthy mindset is not as easy as it seems. Because along the way, we can also feed our minds with negative information from social media, the internet, or even from the negative people that we intentionally or unintentionally include in our lives. This is why we have to be careful about where we live, where we work, where we go, and what we read. Because they all contribute to shaping our mindset.

The Heartset

Our heartset is our emotionality. Our emotions control us, and if our heartset is not healthy, it may end up affecting all the other three empires. Working on our heartset is vital to the overall growth of our emotional intelligence.

According to Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, there are five critical elements of emotional intelligence:

• Self-awareness

• Self-regulation

• Motivation

• Empathy

• Social skills

The Healthset

Our healthset is our vitality and energy. Healthset is important because a healthy person has a lower stress level, which results in a higher productivity level.

The Soulset

Our ego is our perception of ourselves, whereas our soul is who we sincerely are deep down below all the labels and titles. When we learn to understand how to align more with our soul each day, life will seem to flow more freely.

The 20/20/20 Formula

This is called the 20/20/20 formula because we have to set each 20 minutes of our holy hour for certain activities that will help to keep our four empires healthy.

Move (5:00 AM - 5:20 AM)

The first thing we should do in the morning is to exercise or do intense physical activity. The key is to sweat. Why? Because science has confirmed that when we sweat, we release Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). BDNF helps repair brain cells damaged by stress. It also accelerates our ability to earn and fortifies our neural connections. If we sweat first thing in the morning, our body also releases dopamine, which is the inspirational neurotransmitter. Our body also releases oxytocin and serotonin, which is the pleasure neurotransmitter. This is why we'll start to feel happy. And if we are happy, we'll become less toxic, more creative, and we'll have more energy. This activity is good not just for our healthset but for our heartset as well.

Reflect (5:20 AM to 5:40 AM)

In this next activity for our holy hour, we have to reflect. We can do this through praying, meditating, writing on a journal, or making our blessing list. These practices will help us bullet-proof our heartset and soulset. In this time, we can also write our dreams, the feelings we want to feel, and what we have to do to achieve them. Because one research says that "knowing your story and writing out who you want to be, literally locks in the commitment and allows your behavior to change."

Learn (5:40 AM - 6:00 AM)

The 5 AM Club book says that the job of a leader is to grow. This is why our last 20 minutes should be spent learning. Life is all about personal mastery, who can you become, and how many people you can help. One American psychologist calls this Capitalization. Where the best athlete, the best boxer, the best in their crafts are not the best naturally. Instead, they are the one with the most fire, and grit, and commitment to practice so they can live whatever potential they have. In this time, we can listen to audiobooks or podcasts, read books, and many other ways to learn and broaden our knowledge.

And if you liked this article, I challenge you too to do this 20/20/20 morning routine.