The 7-9 a.m. Writer’s Club
Like Fight Club, but for writers.
This is me and my friend Victor.
We have been meeting at a coffee shop every day at 7 a.m. for the past six months.
Monday-Friday. Rain or shine, we show up and experience life.
It always starts simple, grab some coffee, lay our materials out for the day, talk about random stuff, make some jokes, and just settle ourselves in.
Today we were talking about IQ.
Victor will be taking the Real IQ 4 test to see what mode of processing his brain is as well as his specialties when it comes to learning. For instance you can learn if you are more of a visual learner, text style learner or more of doing in order to learn.
Then he mentioned the Hogan Personality Test which costs $1,650 and compares your personality traits in high performer situations (stressful confrontation, big meeting) with the rest of the world to determine your strengths.
Then we laughed at the idea of Elon Musk naming his kids based on engineering and math concepts. Victor has this Mexican accent that makes everything funnier, and he goes “How do you think Elon’s kids are going to grow up when they are named X Y and Z and go to meetings since they were 5 about making a rocketship to Mars?”
Victor is a real estate developer who created Santa Barbara Homes where he builds luxury homes, and he is about to drop a platform called Mindops that helps you develop the architecture of your dream life.
Summer Moon has oak flooring, a large wood coffee bar, old school glass lamps, a nice touch of boho. Different walks of life fill the place in the morning. Finance guys in suits, moms with their children and golden retrievers. The smell of oak roasted coffee and a jovial busy vibe. I have done this morning session in many different coffee shops but this one is my favorite.
And now here I am, writing this newsletter.
Coffee Shop Creative Therapy
Nothing has brought me more creativity, productivity and personal insight like my morning coffee shop work. It has been with me through tough times at work, tough times developing my brand, tough times in life in general. When I am having a hard time with my relationship with my girlfriend, when work is incredibly stressful, when family issues come up, when I am dealing with existential questions about what I am doing here in life.
The brain dump holds all of it.
The words I am typing right now is what allows me to process emotions, take the creativity out from my brain and transcribe it. Studies show this kind of unfiltered writing lowers cortisol and helps the brain process stress. I did not know the science when I started. I just knew it worked. It allows me to record beautiful moments like on the way here driving on the highway as the spring Texas sun begins gently brightening the sky, cars are beginning to come out and the excitement for the day is beginning. You feel the butterflies in the stomach, a twinge of dopamine and cannot wait for the commencement of the coffee shop day.
I love it.
One of the first things I do after we have our talk is I pull out my journal. It is a large Moleskine, 8.5x11, almost a standard piece of paper and I will write down the date, and then I will record the context of the day. For example: March 12th, beautiful Sunday and brisk day in Dallas, Texas, with my friend Victor at Summer Moon, today I feel relaxed and ready to see what happens.
This sets me up for my brain dump, which is the one thing I do every day that has allowed me to write my newsletter and create my dream life. The brain dump was an idea I pulled from Matthew Dicks’ “Storyworthy.” It was originally a way to create more ideas by simply setting a timer for 15 minutes and then writing whatever came to mind. The rules are the moment you have a new idea, you are supposed to write it down, and keep on writing down new ideas. You cannot stick to an idea if something new pops up. Hard and weird at first.
Brain Dump: Write as Many Dumb Things as You Can
I always like making up random brain dumps so here is a brain dump I will do for 30 seconds. This might also help you learn a little bit about me. Ready, go:
Well here I am, oh this beat is nice, what is this some tribal techno? Ok here we go again, lady walks up to the coffee shop, another lady pushes the baby stroller, here we go, the shaker and the techno lady, this is why it matters to eat the superfoods, the nutrients as Jack Black would say in his infamous role as Nacho in Nacho Libre, great movie, and my goodness these synths are beckoning from the realm of heavens!!!
This is what a brain dump looks like. Now imagine 15 minutes of that. The amount of thought and perception and idea transcribed onto the page is incredible.
James Pennebaker at UT Austin has studied this. When you allow someone to jot down their thoughts in this manner, not only does their creativity go up, but also their perception about themselves. Their stress markers like cortisol and adrenaline go down and they are better equipped to process tough emotions and learn new patterns.
This is how I feel as well. I have organized my whole work days around brain dump. This is where my article “Your Vibrator Is Probably Toxic” came from. I remember watching a podcast with Suzanne Bratton, the world renowned health expert on biohacked sex and having a healthy and positive sex life, and she was talking about vibrators containing microplastics. I began riffing on it and next thing you know I had a full article on vibrator health. A couple thousand people saw it. The ladies appreciated me.
I will say ah this article idea is amazing, what else should we do, oh and yes I forgot send that email here, and then we need to do that big work project here. Eventually after the 15-30 minute brain dump depending on how much time I have I will write the Get To Do list.
The Get To Do List: Change Your Perception, Change Your Reality
The Get To Do list is profound. I forgot where I found it, but I am proud to say I am an avid believer in it. The most amazing benefit of the Get To Do is the change of perception. When we have a Get To Do, we instantly transform into the frame that we get to do this task, like it is a gift that we were placed on this earth to do, like we have the privilege to do it. It takes a boring and mundane activity like work or laundry, and reframes it into, oh wait I get to do this job, that pays me money and helps support my family, or I get to do this laundry with my amazing laundry machine.
I used to not like my job. The Get To Do helped me see how profound it was. So many other kids probably wanted it. It helped me also to be proud of myself to write this newsletter, to share with the world and try to build my dream life. I get to do this. This is not what everyone gets to do. And I get to be myself. That is special.
I get to do this. This is not what everyone gets to do.
Also the Get To Do is a way to organize your day. “4000 Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman, one of the greatest books on real productivity I will add, states that we cannot get to do everything so we might as well pick the most important tasks (3-5) and stick to those, and do not do another thing until you finish one task at a time. Yesterday my Get To Do list was: 1 query, bio list stats about life and passions, chiropractor, message Paul about setting a session before his tournaments, take off Hoot Street, get booking. Read chapter 4 of the TIGER Protocol. Simple. Focused. Done.
Ah the simplicity of real productivity.
Organic Coffee Is Key
Ok, need to regain focus.
Between 7-9 a.m. this is what I am doing. Drinking organic wood roasted coffee from Summer Moon, talking with amazing people who are smart and arguably smarter than me, which makes me a better person, writing down my brain dump and my Get To Do. This practice has changed my life.
I wonder, how would your life change as a human, as a writer if you were to employ some activity like those of your own?
After that it is either time to read a chapter of a book or work on an article. Most times it is the article but if I need to learn more on something and pull some facts either for a piece about gut health or longevity I might read “Boundless” by Ben Greenfield or “Deep Nutrition” by Catherine Shanahan. This helps also prime the way I write, because by reading really good writing, you become a better writer in the process. Studies show exposure to quality prose actually changes how your brain constructs sentences.
So, this practice is beautiful. I usually finish at least 90% of an article by the time 9 a.m. is up, or at least a really strong idea. This is how I rewrote my favorite and most popular gut health article.
The original direction was not working at all, so I just took the article and did a full rewrite during my 7-9 a.m. brain dump and bam. I am not a robot, and although I love AI, I cannot get it to write for me, it is not right, but it is a great way to find your unique angle as well as create beautiful headlines at times, so AI is good, within context.
But yes, this routine is beautiful and I learned from Ryan Holiday that whatever you want to achieve, if you keep on showing up, and writing, even when you are tired and sick and even if the writing is not good, you are practicing your craft.
The Benefits of Having a Coffee Shop as a Home
The coffee shop has allowed me to literally do business in. I met some real estate leaders in there and have developed life long relationships, all from a morning coffee shop routine.
I met a girl named Victoria who has shot a ton of my photos for Biohack With Jack, including me holding the espresso shot and the ones of me working out. Just from being there drinking coffee. We even shot at a coffee shop.
You also develop a dope ass relationship with the coffee baristas and often time get to hear epic stories on their end. I love talking to the baristas, it is the greatest thing because they are my friends so I really feel like I am priming myself in a dope and beautiful way.
I have met business owners who are so nice and kind and show me the power of being kind to people. I have learned that being nice really goes a long way and buys you a ton of free coffee. I learned that business is a lot more chill than people think, and having a newsletter is a great way to connect with others.
And doing all of this has just made me a better person in general, who experiences a ton, who learns a ton, who meets a ton of amazing people, and this is what I am building my life on. My 7-9 a.m. coffee shop visit.
Sociologists call coffee shops “third places.” Not home, not work. Research shows regular presence in third places lowers baseline stress and increases sense of belonging. I did not know the term when I started. I just knew the feeling.
Ok, Conclusion
So the question I have for you is what is the routine that is building your life? Is it empowering you, filling you with love and amazing people?
Here is my challenge. Pick a coffee shop. Show up at 7 a.m. Bring a journal, a book, and a laptop. Do a brain dump. Write a Get To Do list. Write a gratitude list. Then write one article during this 7-9 a.m. window. Do it five days a week. Watch what happens.
I think you will find a lot of success and meet some amazing people along the way.
Send this to someone who needs a morning routine.
Let’s build the 7-9 a.m. Writer’s Club together.
Drop a comment and tell me your coffee shop.
Wow, this is inspiring me to go back to my coffee shop routine. I used to go 3x a week and just read a book or write. Then I moved and forgot about it. Definitely gonna try this! 7am🥴🤷🏻♀️