How Successful Business Leaders Start Their Day

7 min readJul 25, 2019

I couldn’t agree more with Drew Canole, “how you start your day is how you start your life”.

Unfortunately, not every morning is as exciting as you expect it to be. On some days, everything goes perfectly with your plan, on some everything seems just okay and on other days, you are completely sapped of energy, battling to somehow make it till the end of the day.

Now, what about people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Richard Branson — How do they turn a dull morning into an epic one? What do they do so differently to have a positive and productive morning routine? Well, we’re about to find out.

While a lot of people struggle to keep their day jobs, there are people (the ones you look up to) who have established strict morning routines to help them maximize their energy and productivity throughout the day. From planning their day the night before to staying on top of everything using a work management software, every successful business leader has his/her unique way to hack productivity. Mentioned below are some of my favourite people — and their early morning habits that you and I can learn from.

11 Successful Leaders And Their Morning Habits

Bill Gates

Net worth: $79.2 billion (2019)

Bio: Technology Advisor of Microsoft, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CEO of Cascade Investment Chair of Corbis

How Bill Gates starts his day?

Bill Gates starts his day by working out on a treadmill for about an hour while watching the courses from a teaching company.

Steve Jobs

Net worth: $10.2 billion (2011)

Bio: Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc., Primary investor, and CEO of Pixar, Founder, and CEO of NeXT

How Steve Jobs started his day?

Steve Jobs had a habit to give himself an early morning motivational speech. He used to look himself in the mirror and ask: “If today was the last day of my life, would I be happy with what I’m about to do today?”. If his answer was “no”, he knew something needed to change.

Richard Branson

Net worth: $5.1 billion (2018)

Bio: Founder of the Virgin Group

How Richard Branson starts his day?

Richard Branson starts his day with an early morning swim or kite surfing. He then follows it up with a health vitamin-rich breakfast.

Warren Buffet

Net worth: $89.9 billion (2019)

Bio: Chairman & CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

How Warren Buffet starts his day?

Warren Buffet wakes up early and starts his day by reading the paper. He is a big fan of reading. In fact, he spends 80% of the day reading because that’s how knowledge builds up.

Mark Zuckerberg

Net worth: $73.6 billion (2019)

Bio: Co-founder of Facebook

How Mark Zuckerberg starts his day?

Mark Zuckerberg likes to start his day early unless he has been working the entire night. He also pares down decisions like what to wear or what to eat — because he has too many other decisions to make.

Oprah Winfrey

Net worth: $2.8 billion (2018)

Bio: Host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Chairwoman, and CEO of Harpo Productions, Chairwoman, CEO, and CCO of the Oprah Winfrey Network Author

How Oprah Winfrey starts her day?

Oprah Winfrey starts her day by meditating, then hits the treadmill — followed by a healthy meal. She usually gets to work early so that she can get more working hours in her day.

Arianna Huffington

Net worth: $50 million

Bio: Entrepreneur, Journalist

How Arianna Huffington start her day?

Arianna Huffington starts her day with 30 minutes of morning meditation. She also has an interesting habit of shutting off all her devices at night and keeping them out of the bedroom while sleeping.

Elon Musk

Net worth: $19.2 billion (2019)

Bio: CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and Product Architect of Tesla Motors, Chairman of SolarCity and Co-chairman of OpenAI

How Elon Musk starts his day?

Elon Musk usually skips breakfast and wolfs down lunch in a 5-minute span. He tries to make the most of his days and avoids any lunch meetings. Apart from this, he works out twice a week — treadmill and weight lifting.

Jeff Bezos

Net worth: ‎$165.4 billion (2019)

Bio: Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Amazon.com

How Jeff Bezos starts his day?

Jeff Bezos is not a big fan of early morning runs. He sleeps 8 hours a day and even keeps a sleeping bag in his office. He also clears out certain days where he doesn’t have any meetings — this helps him to stay rejuvenated and productive.

Jack Ma

Net worth: ‎$44 billion (2019)

Bio: Founder and chairman of Alibaba Group

How Jack Ma starts his day?

Jack Ma starts his day by exercising. In fact, he has a tai chi trainer who travels with him when necessary.

Jack Dorsey

Net worth: $4.7 billion (2019)

Bio: CEO of Square, Inc.,Twitter, Computer programmer, entrepreneur

How Jack Dorsey starts his day?

Jack Dorsey usually starts his day with morning meditation — followed by running.

So, what did we learn?

Productive days don’t happen by accident. The most successful business leaders we know have a strict morning regime and they hardly stray from it.

You and I need the same. We too need a morning routine that jump starts our day and maximizes our productivity all day long. And here are a few things that we noticed in nearly all of the above-mentioned routines.

Add some kind of mindfulness practice like meditation into your morning routine — it will help you train your mind and emotions for the challenges to come.

Note: If you want to meditate and relax better, Brain.fm would be a great app to try. Just download the app and let AI guide you through the process of improving focus, relaxation & sleep.

Determine what kind of exercise is right for you and schedule it to keep your routine interesting.

Note: If you’re looking to exercise more consistently, try The 7-Minute Workout app. Begin your workout with just one click, every morning.

Eat a healthy breakfast so that you have more energy and a stronger ability to focus throughout the day.

Note: If you have no idea what you should or shouldn’t eat, try MyFitnessPal. It’s a great app with over 5 million different options in its food database.

Have a “to-do” ready to conquer. Prioritize your day’s task list to make sure you tackle the most pressing things first and make your day productive.

Note: If you want to keep your tasks, your schedule, and your work for the day in one central place without any trouble, ProoHub is for you. It’s an all-in-one solution for professionals like you. With ProofHub, things will never fall into cracks as you will be able to see a clear agenda for the day, every morning.

Be your biggest motivator (and critic). Say something good to yourself in the morning. Put time and effort into building self-confidence. Start reading books on entrepreneurship. Management, self-improvement, and modern work culture.

Note: If you want to read books without actually reading them, them download Blinkist. On this app, you will find books in various categories, including productivity, leadership, and personal growth.

Stay unplugged from tech during sleep hours. Also, checking your smartphone for messages or work email shouldn’t be the first thing you do when you wake up.

Note: If you need help to deal with your tech addiction, Forest would be a great choice. This app puts an end to your constant struggle to take breaks from your phone and lets you focus on the more important stuff.

Is there something that you would like me to add to this list? Tell me about it in the comments!

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