How much sleep do YOU get?

A day in MY life.

[ This was part of a response to my team this morning. ]

I’ve got this weird curiosity about how much sleep other people get—especially those I consider successful.

I’ve only asked a couple, but given [ comments about lacking motivation after work ]—which is precisely why GBXM, and TGP, to lesser extent, publish such spotty content—I feel like you might find my typical timeline at least a novel glimpse into how I’ve been rolling for several years now.

Most of my days start with a struggle.

My 5AM alarm is labeled “Get the Funk Up.” If I actually get out of bed at 5AM, I promise you it’s because I’ve yelled at myself in my head to get up.

About half the time, I silence it and wait for the 6AM buzzer. The struggle is real.

I have to get my daughter up by 630. She don’t wanna. That’s a fun game. I remember all too well my own parents getting me up for school. #karma

Assuming things go to plan, the kiddo’s dressed, I’ve brushed her hair (I’ve gotten halfway decent at making pony tails in the last year), and we’re out the door by 815. Hopefully we remembered to brush our teeth, too.

I drop her at school, stop at QT for the first of two, maybe three, Rockstars of the day, and a microwaved sausage sandwich. I get to work by 9AM.

Because I need to leave at 5PM, I don’t get or take a lunch break. I keep a box of various protein bars in a desk drawer. I tend to eat two or three, depending on how hungry I get. Sometimes there’s pizza for a lunch and learn in the common areas.

If I have room in my schedule, I’ll sneak out for 15 minutes, down to the P3 underground parking level, where I walk laps of P3 and P2, checking out cars, reminding myself to watch my thoughts, words, actions, habits, and whatnot, kinda meditating to the white noise of a dozen giant ventilation fans.

I bail at 5PM, grind it out in traffic for an hour, and get home at 6PM.

Between 6 and 830PM, we eat dinner, clean up the kitchen, go for a walk around the block or I give the kid a bath, get jamz on, read a book (she’s got homework now, learning to read), and watch two episodes of Adventure Time.

And then it’s bedtime.

Just about every single night at 830 for the last six straight years, I’ve been sitting in a dark bedroom, speaking in soft, soothing voices, trying to convince someone who DOESN’T want to go to sleep that she needs to.

That’s 15-20 minutes a night, at the end of a hectic day, sitting in a dark bedroom, thinking, and talking about going to sleep. You are getting sleepy. Very sleepy. Your eyes are getting heavy.

I step out of that room just before 9PM and all the motivation I had driving to work in the morning, all the big ideas I had during the day, all the plans I laid on the way home—I’m getting things done for ME tonight—vaporize.

I am so tired. All I want to do is sleep. (Even if I drank a Rockstar on the way home from work less than three hours earlier.)

I tell myself, If I get to bed by 10PM and get up at 5AM, I can have two hours a day for myself to work on TGP. Two hours a day is 10 hours a week is a full work week spent building the dream each month.

Lately I’ve been pushing myself to stay up until 10PM. And I’ve been doing it, but I’ve been crawling into bed closer to 11PM.

Which means most of my days END with a struggle—Am I really going to get up at 5AM? Should I even turn that alarm on? Am I already writing off half my ME time tomorrow?

There’s a part of me that wants to craigslist everything in my house, clean out my garage, and trade writing everyday for building something tangible for the monied class of society, my own $30,000 wooden bath tub or something.

There’s a part of me that wants to take someone up on his offer to get together twice a week for the next six months so he can train me to start working in his industry and more than double my salary potential by next summer.

But for some ridiculous reason, I keep coming back to this stuff.

It feels like this is what I do.

And now that I’ve got others signing their names to it with me, there’s no way I could do anything else.

I’ve spent the bulk of my dream-building time this week focused on making sure my team knows THEY COME FIRST.

I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Can I get another Rockstar over here? Brawndo if you got it.