The 2 hour morning routine that changed my life

No meditation, cold showers, or other nonsense

Here's my exact morning routine:

• Go on a walk (30 min)

• Start writing (90 min)

After that, I eat a small meal, go on another walk, respond to a few messages along the way, go to the gym, then start emails, meetings, and other non-creative work. Some days I record videos, but we'll talk about that later.

This routine alone is responsible for making a little over $10M.

I say that because you need to grab people’s attention at the start of a post or something like that. To some, that’s a big number, but it doesn’t really matter how big it is.

A few years ago, this was the routine that helped me make my first $10K, then $100k, and so on. That's why I want to share this. Your income can scale without more work, but there are a lot of moving parts we need to discuss there.

If your goal is to make more money (which is most people's goal because your work, bills, status, and sense of control over your life depend on it - you're in a safe space here, you can care about money), but nothing in your morning routine directly generates income, you're doing something wrong.

Most people's morning routines are filled with random habits that some authority figure told them to do, or their routine is unconscious, so they think they don't have a routine (hint: that's still a routine). Most routines are unintentional, hidden forms of procrastination.

A powerful routine, no matter how long, decreases cognitive load and allows you to streamline achieving your one true priority. The worlds most successful people leverage routines to automate repetitive yet necessary behavior and focus their limited mental energy on the right tasks.

That's how important this is.

If you get this one thing right, you can finally start pursuing your life's work, get your side business off the ground, or turn your interests into an income source.

My routine seems simple, and it is, but it needs to click for you to understand its depth.

The 2 Hour Routine

"Writing? You mean you journal for 90 minutes every morning and it makes you money?"

Well… when you say it like that… yes, actually.

To spare you the hundreds of thousands of words I've written on this before, here's my weird philosophy in a nutshell. This is specifically for creative people who know they are meant for more and want to pursue their life's work:

Humans are creators. Not content creators, but people who leverage the tools and technology available to them to solve problems, build solutions, and attract a group of people who can benefit from those creations. Value exchange is a pillar of a meaningful life. Solving your own problems and contributing the solution are the two master keys of happiness. Today, we have the internet and AI. Incredible tools that most take for granted or use in a way that destroys their own life and others. Anyone can learn anything, build anything, and earn accordingly if they have taste, agency, and a sense of responsibility.

Ideas are the new oil. Digital media is the new real estate. Creators are the new interest-based education system that teaches the leading edge that can't be taught in schools.

So, why writing?

I've always had the desire to do something creative. Something that had a positive impact. The internet exposed me to opportunities beyond the traditional job path, and after failing at 7 different online business models, I landed on web design, got a job, and started freelancing on the side which eventually went full-time.

I always thought social media was only for unique people, arguments, or memes, but saw others landing freelance clients by writing content. I realized they were writing content that I could also write, so I gave it a try.

That's when I realized the power of writing I'd been missing out on:

• Writing is a meditative process

• Writing is how you practice thinking

• Writing is how you document your growth

• Writing is how you attract supporters to your work

• Writing is the foundation of media: video scripts, marketing, web pages, etc

I never thought I'd become a "writer," and I'm not great at it by any means, but I quickly realized that if I wanted to combine learning, thinking, and earning (the traits of highly successful people) into one singular morning habit, this was the way to do it. Beyond that, it serves a similar purpose as meditation (mental clarity) and cold showers (doing the hard thing). Talk about efficiency.

What does this have to do with journaling?

Well, I also realized that the best brands were simply sharing the most important things in their head. Their head - or personality, or how they perceived the world and collected an intersecting set of ideas that nobody else could replicate - was their competitive edge. So, when I started to treat my social media account as a public journal, or where I take notes, work started to feel like play.

How does that make money?

There is a new class of assets. Before the internet, we had real estate, fine art, stocks, and gold. Now, we have digital assets that revolve around media and code. Digital assets are different in the sense that anyone can build them. They aren't limited to those who have connections or capital. You can literally start building wealth right now and increasing that wealth as your skill increases. Now, coding is an incredible skill to learn, but without media, nobody can be attracted to use the code, and little money can be made, so I stuck with media.

Media, in the digital world, are things like videos, podcasts, and posts. If they are valuable, and you understand the mechanics of social media, newsletters, algorithms, and things like that, you can attract an audience of people.

It doesn't matter if you want to write a book, build a software, make music, do public speaking, create a course, offer a freelance service, or sell hand crafted cutting boards, you need to get that in front of others and persuade them of it's value, and the most accessible, low cost, and high leverage way to do that is with digital media.

Of course, you don't have to be the person who creates the media. You can hire and train a team, and people are catching onto the importance of brand and distribution, but I'm writing this as if you were a singular person with a few interests and the desire to live a meaningful life.

On that note, why do I walk for 30 minutes first thing in the morning?

Don't get me started… but if you insist:

Walking is low-friction and gives you one single thing to focus on when you get out of bed. Walking burns calories, increases insulin sensitivity, and improves health markers across the board. Morning sunlight is beneficial for circadian response and thus sleep. Sleep is the best nootropic. All of the above reduce stress. Stress is the mind killer. Walking puts your body on autopilot so your mind can solve problems and birth ideas. Going outside pulls you away from distractions inside, acting as a "creativity block" that gives you uninterrupted time to think and learn. I do most of my reading and listening on a walk, which doubles as research for my writing. If it's too cold outside, good, now you have a way to train your mental strength. And… most of the world’s most renowned businessmen, creatives, and ancient philosophers swear by it, and who are you to question them?

Walking, as stupid as it sounds, is responsible for creating a lean mind, body, and business.

The Intricacies Of The Routine

This routine has a few critical parts:

• I have an idea I want to write about

• I have a soft outline for a newsletter

• Those are what I think about on walks

• I normally have a lecture or audiobook for my walks

• I jot down any ideas that can be used for my writing in my notes

That is my entire ideation and research process. The best, most energetic writing comes from inspiration. When I sit down to write for 90 minutes, I have a note filled with great ideas that are ready to be turned into the written word.

There are quite a few caveats here, and I will explain those.

After my walk, the first 30 minutes of writing are dedicated to short-form posts for social media. I take the ideas I wrote down and format them in an engaging way (it's worth watching a few videos on how to write persuasive content, or emulate the structure of someone else's post and plug your own idea into it. I'll write a post here about that soon.)

The second 60 minutes of that 90-minute writing block is dedicated to writing a newsletter. When I state that, that's where I start to lose people. So bear with me as I tie this all together.

Newsletters Are The New Audience

"Nobody checks their email anymore."

Is exactly what someone who isn't in the arena would say.

If that was the case, my newsletter analytics wouldn't be double my YouTube analytics with 900,000 fewer subscribers. Yes. You read that correctly. Frankly, most people just suck at writing newsletters. Or "all they want to do is write about their deep thoughts" without caring or providing tangible value to the reader, so they get stuck in this noble loop of being mad at the world for not caring about their writing, which reinforces their inability to make money. They don't want to change. If you want to achieve any form of success, you need to strike a balance between art and business. You must care about what you do, but so must other people.

You must play the attention game, and learn to play it well.

Contrary to popular belief, you can capture attention and be helpful at the same time. In fact, you can't be helpful without capturing attention. (Notice how the title of this newsletter is legitbait, not clickbait, and introduces you to something you may not have been interested in before like writing a newsletter).

Back on topic. Why are newsletters important?

• Algorithms have switched to an interest graph. Social media "followers" don't mean much because anything can go viral, but having them is a slight advantage.

• This means direct access to your audience has shifted to email lists and communities, but emails are still lower friction than joining a community platform.

• Platforms like Substack have integrated newsletters with a social feed. People don't only get emails, but notifications on their phone and a better reading experience.

• Long-form content is how you build trust and talk about your deeper thoughts, because social media biases surface-level content.

Those make sense to most people, but many are still missing the real power of newsletters.

First, if you are a one-person business, you would be stupid to post original content to all different platforms. You wouldn't have the time, and quality comes from focus on one idea.

Instead, write the best possible content you can, then reformat it for all platforms and mediums. I've been doing this for years. Don't worry about people consuming the same thing if they are on both platforms. People benefit from repetition for an idea to be understood, and some people prefer different mediums.

That said, I write a weekly newsletter for 60 minutes every morning most days of the week. That's more than enough time to create something of depth and quality. Then, I use that as a general outline for a weekly YouTube video. I pull up my newsletter, read some of it to the camera, and riff for the rest of it. I post that YouTube video to all podcast platforms, and may even post the newsletter itself to Medium and my personal blog. If I don't nail the title and content of the newsletter, my YouTube video probably won't do that well.

People always think I have this massive content team behind me when it's just me and my YouTube editor. I quite literally just write 1-2 short-form posts a day and a section of my newsletter, then distribute that to all platforms. There is much more to beginner growth than this though.

Second, newsletters are where you are going to make most of your money. That's where you promote your products or services.

My strategy is very simple:

Every single thing I publish online leads back to my newsletter (I link to my newsletter on all platforms once a day (sometimes I forget)), and my newsletter is where I pitch my products or services. Since my newsletters are somewhat long, deep, and valuable by my standards, even if people don't buy from me, they still get something out of it. This removes most of the sleaziness from sales and keeps the focus on value first.

Since my newsletter gets turned into a YouTube video and podcast, my products or services are also promoted there by default.

I'll write a post on a beginner way to start writing newsletters (will probably post tomorrow), but for now, read this if you want to understand the complete system.

Social Media Is For Reach

"That all makes sense, but I've been writing for months now and my newsletter isn't growing."

Ah yes, the newsletter trap.

Actually, it's the long-form trap in general. YouTube. Podcasts. Etc.

You start writing them because someone like me persuades you of all of the benefits, so you prioritize only that without understanding the complete system, and get discouraged when you keep writing into the void.

Newsletters are like blogs.

When you post a blog, it kinda just sits there and does nothing until you send people to that blog. Yes, SEO is a thing, but I haven't cared about that, so I'm not going to even attempt to teach it. I want instant feedback. I don't want to wait months for traction.

The point is, one of your sole priorities for the longevity and success of your brand is getting people to subscribe to your newsletter. Your newsletter is your core audience. The people who trust you and want to support you.

Newsletters only grow if they are physically placed in front of other people.

It is extremely unlikely that they will grow just because they're good. Either you have to generate traffic and promote your newsletter to them, or someone needs to read your newsletter and enjoy it so much that they share it with their friends or audience.

So, you need to play both the shallow and deep game.

You attract a broad audience on social media, then put your newsletter in front of them on a consistent basis. If you stop putting it in front of them, it stops growing.

When it comes to YouTube, I posted for months and it went nowhere. When I started writing on social media, I realized that I didn't have to play the YouTube game. I could make videos, create social media content, and lead people to my videos. This got me to about 10k subscribers, then my channel started growing on it's own.

If you don't know how to write social posts that actually get reach, here are a few drills you can practice. Or, I also wrote about how I write about deep ideas and still go viral.

How To Make Money

If 2 hours of writing a day consistently grows your audience, and you have a product or service that people want, your income increases as your audience does, and you don’t need to increase the amount of work you do.

See those 2 links right above this?

Those are paid posts. You need to subscribe to my Substack in order to read the full thing.

Most people don't actually study the skills that allow them to succeed at being a creator. Instead, they see a YouTuber or Twitter account that they like, decide that they want to start writing (which is great), and then expect money to magically appear. They pray that YouTube adsense or Instagram’s monetization features will pay them enough to do it full time.

Here's the thing:

I've tried those monetization features. With my audience size (1.7 million on Instagram), I make about $300 a month while generating almost 6 million impressions per month. That's insanity.

So, if you actually want to get paid, you need to build a product or service and promote it every single day. If you have a product or service, and most of your audience sees that, you can make 10x-50x more than any platform would ever think of paying you just for posting on it. A good metric is aiming for $0.50 to $1 per follower per month. If you can’t hit that, your product stack needs refinement.

How do you promote?

• Write social content

• Send people to your newsletter

• Promote 1-2 times in your newsletter like I did in this one

• Promote the newsletter with the links inside on social media

That way, you aren't always selling stuff on the timeline. You give people something more to read. They read it, and since it's long, they are more willing to buy something that benefits their life.

Lastly, this is antithetical to what most people tell you to do.

I personally don't want to sell at every moment I can. I'm playing the long game, and that's not for a lot of people. If you need cash and need it fast, you can either get a job or study customer acquisition strategies for a high-ticket service like freelancing, coaching, or agency work.

I'll leave it there for now and continue later, this is getting long.

Have a great day :)

– Dan

If you want to continue reading, here are some previous letters: