A lifelong entrepreneur and longtime tech investor, VaynerMedia cofounder and CEO Gary Vaynerchuk has counseled and invested in more than 50 startups, including Twitter, Tumblr, Medium, Birchbox, Uber, and Venmo. Read more from Gary here.
I wake up at 6 a.m. Literally. Every day.
For me, every minute counts, so my schedule is planned down to the second.
And I’m not kidding: I’ve had, and continue to have, three- and four-minute meetings.
The first thing I do when I wake up is grab my cellphone and take it to the bathroom with me, where I start my day by consuming quite a lot of information.
I go to TechMeme and check out the headlines. I read Jason Hirschhorn’s email newsletter, MediaREDEF.
Then I hit the news outlets, primarily Business Insider and ESPN. But the main site that I focus on during this time is Nuzzel, an aggregator of headlines and links that my circle is sharing. It’s a tremendous tool, and I recommend everyone look into it if they feel they don’t have time to properly focus on every website individually.
After those sites, I head to Twitter, my No. 1 outlet for communication with the public. I search my handle and try to find anything I might have missed from the night before, or even that morning, considering my European and Asian bases. I respond to as many people as possible.
Twitter is becoming a listening platform; there is such a volume of information on the platform now that you need to pay attention and listen more than you tweet out. So I spend a significant amount of my morning responding to people and starting conversations.
Lastly for my phone, I open Instagram and look at photos from my friends. It’s a nice way to start the morning — seeing all the cool stuff your friends are up to.
After all this comes my workout with my trainer Muscle Mike. I usually work out for 45 minutes to an hour. The specific workout routine varies depending on the day of the week, what I ate, how much I’ve been traveling ... There is no one big secret GaryVee workout.
After the workout, I head back home to say bye to my kids before they go to school. I hug them for five minutes, give them a kiss and they’re off. After getting myself ready, I’m off to my first meeting of the day, which is often before 9 a.m.
This is where, I think, one of the more original aspects of my morning routine happens. In the car to the meeting, I call my mom, dad, or sister, depending on who I called last.
I catch up with them. Talk to them. Just learn what they’re up to. I really value those small moments.
You have to use every second you get in a day. For example, later, when I’m in the car, I’ll use the travel time for phone meetings or talking with my team.
The last call of the morning is to Brandon Warnke at Wine Library, who is the vice president. We review the Wine Library strategy for the day ahead.
By the time I step into that first meeting, so much is going through my head already. The day started the minute I opened my eyes.
The Success Series is a collection of the best advice from some of our favorite writers, thinkers, and leaders. This week, we asked: "What is your morning routine?" See other articles in the series here.
