What Is the 5 AM Club? Robin Sharma’s Path to Self-Mastery

An alarm clock that shows the time is 5:50 AM illustrates what the 5 AM Club is

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The 5 AM Club" by Robin Sharma. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Each of us has something special inside we were meant to discover, develop, and use to shape a better life and world. When you incorporate the behaviors and tips in Robin Sharma’s The 5 AM Club, you’ll deepen your understanding of your unique genius and true self so you can master your creative and productive potential.

Continue reading to learn what the 5 AM Club is and why its members stand apart from the crowd.

Originally Published: February 28, 2021
Last Updated: December 15, 2025

What Is the 5 AM Club?

Robin Sharma wrote The 5 AM Club (published in 2020) as part fictional narrative, part instructional guide for creating a quality morning routine and life. The book follows a burned-out entrepreneur whose life changes when she attends a personal growth conference led by a character called the Spellbinder. There, she meets a billionaire devoted to the Spellbinder’s teachings, who goes on to mentor her and another conference participant, a struggling artist, in the principles of the 5 AM Club. The billionaire’s lessons on rising early to cultivate self-mastery, focus, and purpose transform the lives of both her and the artist.

According to Sharma, the 5 AM Club describes people who’ve learned the importance of rising early and starting their day with the intention of getting the most from it. He says that the first hour after you wake up is your most productive hour of the day. Your body and brain are recharged and more capable of focus and creative thought. Plus, when you rise before dawn, the world is quiet and devoid of the distractions that zap your attention and cognitive energy.

(Shortform note: How easily you can wake up and be productive at dawn may depend on your chronotype—your body’s natural sleep and wake patterns. In When, Daniel Pink says there are three common chronotypes: morning types, night types, and intermediate types. Your chronotype is influenced by several variables that are largely out of your control, like genetics. Getting up early might feel natural for morning types, but it’ll likely be a bigger struggle for the other types. If you’re not a morning person, recalibrating your internal body clock might be difficult, but it’s not impossible. To do so, the Sleep Foundation recommends having a consistent sleep schedule and then adjusting to an earlier sleep time in increments over a few days.)

Why a Morning Routine Is Important for Productivity

Sharma says that, if you follow the steps to create a successful morning routine, you can begin your day focused, grounded, and ready for the tasks ahead. You’ll then have the ability to master your creative genius and reach your peak performance level to produce exceptional results. However, all too often, distractions—such as technology, social media, and the news—steal your mental energy and deplete the cognitive resources required for optimum productivity.

(Shortform note: Sharma says that distractions like social media and the news prevent you from reaching your peak performance level. But, in Indistractable, Nir Eyal argues that distractions don’t only come from external sources. He maintains that the root of distraction is inside you. Humans are motivated to free themselves from discomfort and use distractions as an escape. Eyal says that to get a handle on your distractions, you need to control their root cause: internal triggers. The first step is to identify your triggers—like anxiety or boredom—and reflect on them so you can determine patterns.)

Sharma argues that, on top of having too many distractions, you might also have to contend with a lack of motivation. He says that, as a society, our willingness to be distracted and seek out easy lives and cheap thrills have made us lazy. We settle for “good enough” because we live in a world where mediocrity is the standard. We’ve lost our childhood wonder about life’s possibilities and what we’re capable of achieving. We’re impulsive and passive rather than creative and productive.

(Shortform note: In Laziness Does Not Exist, psychologist Devon Price takes issue with arguments like Sharma’s that view laziness as a societal ill. Price argues that a negative focus on laziness is linked to the rise of American capitalism and perpetuates the myth that our value as individuals is directly tied to our productivity. Price says you should reframe laziness not as a serious failure to be productive, but as a signal to slow down—it may be telling you that you’ve been pushing too hard, doing too much, or neglecting your health. Trying to “power through” may cause more harm than good; on the other hand, allowing yourself to be “lazy” and do nothing can help you recover.)

Sharma says that, to reach your creative goals, you need discipline, willpower, and determination. Real legends—people whose creative and productive output positively affect the world—understand the importance of focus, practice, sacrifice, education, and patience in their work. They create solitary spaces to connect with their genius and reflect on their work. Sharma says that you too can do this by starting each day committed to harnessing your mental, emotional, and spiritual power through a standardized early morning routine.

(Shortform note: Other authors offer different routes to harness your power and transform your life. In Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins recommends that you take the seven-day challenge, wherein you’ll tackle an assignment each day to start improving a different area of your life. Day 1 is for your emotional patterns, Day 2 is for your physical life, Day 3 is for your relationship with your partner, Day 4 is for your financial life, Day 5 is for your behavior, Day 6 is for your time, and Day 7 is for rest. Completing the seven days can help you hone the discipline, willpower, and determination that Sharma says you need to reach your goals.)

The Principles Guiding the 5 AM Club

There are five tenets of the 5 AM Club, according to Sharma:

One daily hour of tranquility leads to a lifetime of achievement.
There is no power in excuses.
Without struggle, there will be no glory.
Being extraordinary means being different.
There is only one direction that leads to greatness—forward.

He writes that the vast majority of the population is made up of dreamers and ordinary workers—they move through life like robots, performing the same actions every day and hoping for new results. But, he says, when you adopt these five tenets, you separate yourself from mere dreamers and become extraordinary. To adopt these beliefs, you must shed old ways of thinking and allow your old self to die to make room for a new you.

Humans Are Wired to Self-Sabotage

While Sharma presents five clear, straightforward tenets to help you become extraordinary, you may still struggle to live by them even if you know they’ll help you excel. According to psychologist Judy Ho, this is because humans—even the most intelligent, motivated ones—have a tendency to self-sabotage.

In Stop Self-Sabotage, Ho explains that we’ve evolved with two fundamental motivations: to get rewards and to avoid danger. These drives helped our ancient ancestors survive by seeking out necessities like food and shelter, and by avoiding danger like predators. However, there’s an inherent conflict between these two drives—seeking rewards can sometimes lead to danger. In the modern world, this tension creates what psychologists call the approach-avoidance conflict, when something seems desirable and undesirable at the same time. People generally experience this conflict as a feeling of excitement in the beginning, then of reduced enthusiasm when they realize that what they’re trying to do is hard or uncomfortable.

Of these two motivations, says Ho, the drive to avoid danger (even minor threats like physical discomfort) is usually stronger, leading us to derail our own progress. As you begin to live the five tenets of the 5 AM Club, consider Ho’s advice to help you overcome this tendency when things get tough: First, recognize and transform self-destructive thought patterns and feelings. Then, ground yourself in your values so you have a powerful source of intrinsic motivation. Finally, replace self-sabotaging habits with better ones with the help of contrasting (vividly imagining the future you want and comparing it against your current situation) and implementation intentions (identifying a cue for a bad habit then replacing it with a better one).

Sharma outlines three steps to help you rise above mediocrity and become extraordinary: First, educate yourself about your talents and chosen field to become more aware of ideas and opportunities. Second, use what you learn to implement stronger strategies in your work. Third, maximize your implementation efforts to create better results. These steps will give you a competitive advantage in your field. Even the smallest change each day will compound in the long run, producing huge results.

(Shortform note: Once you know what skills you need to have a competitive advantage in your field, you can start mastering them. In The Art of Learning, chess prodigy and tai chi World Champion Josh Waitzkin breaks down how to unlock and develop any skill. He says to start with the fundamentals by patiently practicing each element of a skill until it becomes intuitive. Then, combine those elements in different ways to see how they’re interrelated. Waitzkin says that this incremental skill-building and deep understanding of a skill will allow you to develop your own personal approach to that skill, which he says is crucial if you want to become exceptional.)

What Is the 5 AM Club? Robin Sharma’s Path to Self-Mastery