This Will Transform Your Day, Your Business and Your Life

NEW! Listen to Episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify! 👇

Prefer to Read? Click Here

SUMMARY

• 2 pieces of my morning routine that I challenge you try out, at any time of day it works for you.
• It only takes minutes, but it can alter the state of your day.
• If you put this into practice on a daily basis, it will change your business and change your life. 
• We can't win the game of entrepreneurship or win the game of life, unless we truly can appreciate today.  
• You can be grateful for the challenges you're facing and the lessons you're learning.
• To download your Gratitude PDFs: CLICK HERE. What's Included:
  • 40 Gratitude Prompts
  • DIY: Gratitude Jar
  • Gratitude Journal Worksheet
• Mentions:
  • Savage Sunrise
  • Savage Gratitude Journal - COMING SOON!
• If you have any questions about this, about your business, or about working with me, email me: [email protected]  

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

"It's a game changer. Now, I’m extremely passionate about it because I know how much of a difference it's made in my life. I know how it has transformed me as a person, as a dad, as a husband, as a friend. A lot of these challenges and overwhelm of building a business and trying to get to that next level and overcoming some of these challenges that you're always going to face, because when you can be grateful for today and you can be grateful for the things that you have in your life, it makes it easier. Especially when you start your day in a really, really good spot.

Hello and welcome to the SAVAGE Entrepreneur. My name is Mike Savage. I’m on a mission to help people build great companies and simultaneously build great lives.

Today what I want to talk about is a magical way to start your day. Our morning, our morning routine. You may think like, you know savage are you getting soft on me? We’re supposed to be go-getters and entrepreneurs and drive and work hard. Yeah, all of that stuff is true. We set goals. We strive for different things. We build our companies. We build our team.

But something I discovered—you know, I’ve been building businesses for 30 years. 30 plus years, now. When I was in my 20’s and maybe my 30’s, I was 100% GO-GO-GO! There were times when GO-GO-GO actually hurt me. As we go through this journey called life, guess what? We learn shit a lot. You know? We're constantly learning different things.

I have discovered a beautiful morning routine that I do—I’m not going to go into all the details of what my morning routine is—but I want to talk about a couple of things today. Those couple of things completely can reshape your day. It's worked for me. I’ve shared this philosophy with thousands, and so what I want to talk about to start is the two pieces of my morning routine that have become so instrumental in changing my outlook on everything.

And that is the practice of gratitude and prayer. Gratitude and prayer. You can say like, you know that's kind of touchy feely. Yeah, you know what, it probably is. Gratitude is a little bit touchy feely, and prayer is a little bit touchy-feely, and even though you're that go-getter entrepreneur, I’m telling you: we can't win the game of entrepreneurship, building companies, win the game of life, be happy, healthy, self-confident, be fired up, have great relationships, all that stuff, unless we truly can appreciate today.

I’m going to step you through just a few of the things that I do, things that I think about. This isn't for everybody. The entrepreneurs that I’ve shared this philosophy with, tell me it's flat out changed their life. That's a pretty—that's a high, right? That's a high when someone says well you improve my business , you did this, you did that; but when they say, “You've changed my life,” that's pretty cool."

Gratitude

"So I want to share with you some of the pieces, some of the components that go into my morning routine. And when I talk about gratitude, I start off the day—first off I have a morning routine, go through a variety of different things, but typically, I go into my gratitude practice right after I meditate. And my morning routine doesn't take hours, it takes 20 minutes, and you can incorporate it to whatever extent you want to."

Gratitude Spiral

"But my gratitude practice, when I get into the mode of gratitude, I play some soft music and then I look at the things that are in my life and I use what I call a Gratitude Spiral.

When I start off, I think about my inner circle. Who are those people, that are in my life right now, that are so instrumental to my happiness. You know, I will think through my parents, my wife Donna, and my kids and my friends and all of those people that are so important to my happiness and my love of this journey. That's part one.

Then I think about those other people that have impacted my life, people that have been game changers, and there are people that have impacted my life that I’ve never even met! I have been studying the best of the best in the world of mindset and you know just overall appreciation of this journey.

Then I’ll sort of segue into special events or things that I might have—you know, moments that have impacted my life. Vacations, whatever it may be. But I go through this process, it really is a game changer once you gain the appreciation of being grateful for the stuff that you have and being grateful for where you are.

Find those things that you can be grateful for. If you search hard enough, I don't care at what point you're at—now, I’m not gonna sugarcoat and say that when you're struggling with massive health issues, or family members are sick, or you've been through a tragedy—I get it, you know, I’ve been there. I’ve experienced that stuff. I’ll tell you; gratitude is pretty difficult at that point. Yep, it's really difficult. Someone screws you over, someone does something bad to someone you know, it stinks. But you got to try anyways."

Gratitude Prompts

"And so, what I wanted to do was sort of share with you—I look at it from a holistic perspective from the Gratitude Spiral, but I also wanted to share with you some prompts.

Some of the questions that you can use to ask and questions that I ask is something like, who has had a positive impact in my life? And you can think back through parents, in grade school, and in college, if you went to college, people that have impacted you with within your career or just overall, in general made you happy or gave you great moments. Think through those people.

And then another great gratitude prompt is, what do I love most about my spouse or significant other? You know, oftentimes that person that is with you, or maybe may not even be with you anymore, that's powerful. Oftentimes we choose to go through this journey, and we decide to find a partner that we can go through with, and they become the most intimate and important person in your life. And I constantly try and share this with my wife, and say, “Hey hon, you really should think about how wonderful your husband is.” And her response is always the same: “You're a pain in the ass.” So, you know, it works for some, it doesn't work for others. I’m a little bit tongue-in-cheek and facetious there, but when you can dig deep and appreciate all of the other great qualities that your significant other has, and you don't focus on the bad stuff, you just think about the good stuff. 

I don't have my parents anymore, they're both deceased, but I think about them often, and I think about the impact that they made in my life. And yeah, everybody goes through this journey, sometimes we get parents that are real pains in the ass; but typically, there are times when there's been good stuff. I’ve obviously been around long enough, and I’ve worked with enough people to know that everybody hasn't had a beautiful upbringing.

Some upbringings and some parents have flat out sucked. And there's difficult times when that happens, but if there is a parent or a grandparent that's been an impact in your life, think about them and really focus on them.

You know what? Think about some of the vacations that you've had! Most of us like to go on a vacation, do something different, go to places maybe we've never been or maybe even it's something that we do on an annual basis, where we get together with friends and family, what not, and usually you go there to have a moment.

You know, you go on these vacations, you go on these trips, you just do stuff to have moments. And we don't remember all of the stuff that goes on in our lives, but we do remember those special moments that made a difference in our heart and our mind and our family and just really enjoying the trip. So think about some vacations that you might have had.

Then, here's a tough one I think for a lot of people, is, what do I love about myself? What are those qualities that I possess that have potentially helped others? You could be a giving, caring person. You could work with your church. You could do charitable stuff. You could be a teacher. You could be a coach. You could be someone that works in an office that has employees. Whatever it may be. You have good qualities. There are good things about you.

Some people that really suck, maybe they don't have anything good, but they may think that being an asshole is good. So for them, maybe that's part of their gratitude practice.

But I look at it as, what qualities do I have that are powerful? What are some of the qualities or skills that I may have that can help put a smile on someone else's face? It could be as simple as cooking dinner, but the reality is that we all have great stuff.

Then to me, this is one of my favorites, is I think about my kids. I got two kids, and I could not be more proud of them. I’m even getting a little uh—I’m getting a little emotional. But there's a reality that our children become everything to us. Especially as we get older, and they sort of go on their own journey.

So as part of this, I’ve also created a PDF. We’ll put this in the show notes where you can download it. I created this PDF of 40 different gratitude prompts. I think there are things that can help you incorporate this practice of gratitude. It's a game changer.

Now, I’m extremely passionate about it because I know how much of a difference it's made in my life, and I know how it has transformed me as a person, as a dad, as a husband, as a friend.

I’ve always been a jacked up, positive, energetic guy. Motivated and inspired, but this has taken it to a next level, because when you can be grateful for today and you can be grateful for the things that you have in your life, a lot of these challenges and overwhelm of building a business and trying to get to that next level and overcoming some of these challenges that you're always going to face, it makes it easier. Especially when you start your day in a really, really good spot."

Gratitude Jar

"The next thing I want to share with you is something that I’ve been doing for years and it's kind of a fun little thing, if you want to learn more about it, again I’ve got another PDF that I’ll put the link into the show notes. But it's a gratitude jar.

A gratitude jar is really nothing more than a jar that sits on your counter, or a place that is highly visible. What we do—what Donna and I do—is we really just have a little pad of paper, you know, almost every day, why was your day great? We just write something down.

Not oh, I got screwed by a customer or oh I ran out of cash for this thing or one of my employees quit. No. That's not the purpose.

The purpose is one good thing or two good things. If you had a bunch of good things, put them all down with a piece of paper.

But here's the fun thing: it's when you come to the end of your year, and we do this like at holiday time or New Year's Day or Christmas week or holiday week or whatever it is, and you dump all the notes out, and you just get to flip through them and it gives you a period of euphoria.

It's super exciting and you just get to reflect back on some of the really cool things that you experience. Because guess what? We all have an end date. We're not we're not going on forever, and so when we get to appreciate some of those moments, and then you take this and dump the jar out, reflect on it.

It can bring back some real joy and some real fun to think about how your year went."

Gratitude Journal

"Another thing that I’m going to maybe let the cat out of the bag when you're watching this, but I’m in the process of creating a somewhat different gratitude journal. It's different than other stuff that I’ve seen, and it will be available on our website and on Amazon.

But a gratitude journal is not for everybody. There are some people that absolutely are addicted to a gratitude journal. You know, it's kind of fun. If you have the ability to capture something great that you've experienced in your day or in your week—and I have another worksheet that you can download that just kind of steps you through some gratitude journal prompts.

A lot of the things that we do when we go through, when we go back into the gratitude journal, it's really all about capturing moments. How can I capture a moment? How can I look at the things that I’ve experienced throughout the course of the day and jot it down. Flip back to it and appreciate it.

And my Savage gratitude journal is going to be coming out soon, depending on when you're watching or listening to this, but it's really, to me, one of those game changer moments, where you get to reflect back on your day consistently, on the beautiful things that happened in your life.

And oftentimes you can go put the negative stuff into your gratitude journal, the challenges that you've had throughout the day, so that you can appreciate the challenges that you've had to overcome to get yourself to the end of the day, or how you aspired to start your day. But a gratitude journal again is another one of those, I think, super fun ways to capture great stuff.

Now all of these things that I’m reflecting on, whether it's just a moment in silence practicing gratitude, a gratitude jar, a gratitude journal, there is no one size fits all. I just challenge you to experiment with the activity of practicing gratitude."

Practicing Gratitude In Difficult Times

"Because when you get into those moments—and I know what it's like to build a company. It's hard! You've got employees, you've got challenges, you've got your favorite customer decided to leave, you've got cash flow problems, you've got you know marketing challenges, you've got customer challenges, you've got sales challenges, you've got all these challenges. You may be talking to banks and investors and you may not have a great story. We all go through it. It's unbelievably challenging.

It's rewarding as hell when you get to that point. Or you've set yourself a phenomenal goal or a big stretch goal and you attain that goal. And maybe you're writing yourself a big check or maybe you're moving into a new house or maybe you're just capturing enough money to go on a phenomenal vacation or put your kids to college.

Whatever it is, there's a lot of really challenging things out there, but when you can capture the great things—and sometimes great, during those super challenging times is, I’m just grateful that I can see the sky. I’m grateful that I’m alive. I’m grateful that I’ve got money to buy food. Because there's a lot of people that are in this world that don't have the things that you and I have.

We live in the greatest country in the world. We have opportunities unlike anywhere else on the globe. It's really special and when we're going through those really challenging times, it's tough to be grateful. When you when you lose a child or you lose a spouse or you lose a business or you lose a parent or a grandparent, whatever, I mean there are times that are absolutely excruciating.

And during those challenging times, we can be down all the time, but we can surround ourselves with people that will pick us up. And we can also do our best to get through. To get through the difficult times and be grateful for the things that we had.

And I get how challenging it is when we are dealing with life situations that are crushing and defeating, but when we have the opportunity to practice a little bit of gratitude, we can find some solace and some great appreciation when we're going through it."

Prayer

"The other piece of my morning, I mentioned at the beginning I talked about gratitude and prayer. Now prayer and religion are one of those areas I’m not going to go dipping my toes into and start talking very feverishly about.

You know, it's one of those things like politics and religion, you can certainly raise the energy level of people when you start to go deep. I’m not going to go deep.

I’m just going to talk about what I do, maybe it's of benefit to you. I pray every morning. I follow my gratitude practice with prayer, and my prayer is not some extensive detail-oriented thing.

All I do is pray for the people that are in my life, or people that I know that are going through challenges and pray for them to get through. Because it's complementary to gratitude, right?

There are people that are suffering a lot worse than we are out there in the world. When we can be grateful for those things that we have and we can pray for those that are in our lives that are going through difficult times or challenges—you know what, I don't know how it all works. I don't know how where prayers go. Do they go up into the universe and I don't know! I’m not gonna—anyone that probably claims that they know, I think is full of shit—but when we can pray for others there’re spiritual things that happen. Prayer can go a long way.

When you're grateful for the things you have in your life, and you pray for those others that are going through challenges in their life, it's really an absolutely amazing and magical way to start your day. I’m going to finish with challenging you to ask a question."

Why Was Your Day Great?

"Now, our language can completely impact our mindset. I’m challenged with something, or I have an opportunity with something. I’m having a really crappy day or I’ve got some interesting things that are going on that are impacting my emotions.

But there's one question that I’ve used since my kids were able to walk and talk and listen to me, and I use this across the board. I use this with clients. I use this during speeches. I use this and it's really a simple question that can change the interaction that you have with people. That question is, “Why was your day great?” or “Why is your day great?” or “Why are you doing great right now?”

When you ask the question in that term rather than, “How you doing?” “What's up?” Oftentimes you're asking people, “Hey, how you doing?” “Oh my god!” And then and that's almost like an invitation. You open the gate for them to spew all negativity on you, right? It's like, oh you wouldn't believe this! I just stubbed my toe. I hurt my ankle. I got a sunburn. I went to the store and someone gave me a fender bender. Or I was in traffic all day. Like it's an invitation to start to spew negativity onto you.

I try not to do that. And I even used this with my kids when they're very young. They come home from school, it's like, “Why was your day great?” Oh, I got a bad grade in my repo—no! No, no, no. You have to find something good. Find something, anything! Whatever it may be.

When you start by changing the question to, "Why is your day great?” “What's going on that's great in your world?”

You know, your spouse comes home from work and they're miserable and they maybe had a tough day it's like, “Why was your day great?” Well, wait a minute, I need to tell you about all the other the bad shit that happened in my—no, no, no, no! Why was it great? We can find something. Usually, we can find something.

So, I am sharing this with you because it has been a game changer for me. It has been a game changer for so many in my life. The way that we start our day, I’ve got a whole course on this called Savage Sunrise, but all I wanted to do was share with you today the practice of gratitude and prayer."

Any Time of Day Will Do

"And if you have the ability, and it doesn't have to be morning, it could be afternoon, it could be evening. The practice of gratitude and prayer, those two things, work hand in hand together, and I have found it magical.

I challenge you to try it. I hope you give it a shot. I hope you try it. I hope you do a little insight into it. I hope you download the PDFs that I have in the show notes. And I just want to thank you."

Thank you!

"Thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of this. If you're watching this on YouTube, I’d love for you to subscribe to my page and if you have any comments, please leave me comments. Let me know what you think. Did the things that I say today, did they resonate? Did they sort of maybe made me think a little bit differently.

And if you're listening on the podcast, I’m grateful if you can like, share and subscribe to the podcast, I’d appreciate that. If you have a question, you just want to fire me off a question, shoot me an email at [email protected].

I’d love to hear from you. I’d love to see if this is resonating with you. Thank you for tuning in. Have an amazing, great day! Talk soon."