Jarvis Leverson

Introduction and How They Met

Taryell Simmons: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of RISE Urban Nation. It's always a pleasure to reconnect with old friends. As big as San Diego is, it's not that big once you're in the circle of influence doing great things, like this brother here, Jarvis. How are you doing this morning, sir?

Jarvis Leverson: Man, this is almost lunchtime for me.

Taryell Simmons: With a name like The Morning Hero, I had a feeling we were getting a late start. Two people in two weeks told me I had to have you on this podcast. Do you remember the first time we met? I think it was Startup Weekend.

Jarvis Leverson: I believe that may have been it. Back in the day I was developing an app, so I was embedding myself in the startup community. Since then I've pivoted in several directions and went into coaching, which is what I do now.

The Wake-Up Call That Created The Morning Hero

Taryell Simmons: They were awesome. So for people who don't know, who is Jarvis, The Morning Hero?

Jarvis Leverson: There's Jarvis, and then there's The Morning Hero, a persona born from a rebirth in my life. I'm from Chicago and went to school for computer engineering. I worked for tech companies out of school, but I quickly saw I had more of a business acumen than sitting in a lab coding all day, so I pivoted into tech sales and did that for 15 years. When I hit 30, I got into a comfort zone. My life wasn't painful, I wasn't making extraordinary money, but I wasn't doing bad either.

Jarvis Leverson: Then one day I got a LinkedIn notification: go congratulate Eric on his new job position. Eric was my old lab partner in computer engineering, and he cheated off me for everything. I carried Eric through school. Fifteen years later, he's the CIO of a logistics technology company. I go to his Instagram, and he's got a big house and a boat, living extraordinary. And here I am on my couch, sunk into a comfort zone of mediocrity. I thought, I'm smarter than him, more capable, I got more skills. I should be the one with the boat. That was the moment I recognized a big difference between the life I should be living and the life I was living. I was pissed off, and it planted a seed of obsession: what do I need to do differently to live up to my highest capabilities?

Jarvis Leverson: I got deep into personal development and read the autobiographies of extraordinary people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oprah, Tony Robbins, and Kobe Bryant. I wanted to reverse engineer success. The first thing I noticed is that they all woke up really early, around five in the morning, with a structured morning routine. I told myself I'm not a morning person. Engineers stay up until two in the morning writing code. Then I read The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, which dispels that myth. You are what you tell yourself you are. So I started saying, I'm excited to wake up at five tomorrow. The very next day I woke up at 4:57 AM before my alarm went off, and I've never used an alarm clock since. That was five years ago. Now I wake up at four, even on weekends.

Jarvis Leverson: That set my life on fire. By the time most people wake up, I've already meditated, exercised, planned my day, and gotten my top priorities done. Every day I felt like a hero, so I started calling myself The Morning Hero on social media, and everyone started calling me that. Now The Morning Hero is a full-fledged coaching company where we help people build systems and processes to be more productive and get more time. I say we can help people be done by lunch. I don't work past one o'clock. I pick up my son and we do something fun in the afternoon. You don't have to be hustling and grinding all day long.

The WARM GAS Morning Routine

Taryell Simmons: I was reading a book at the time about the morning routines of millionaires, and they all had a structure before they touched any work. Is your routine like that? Tell me the secret sauce.

Jarvis Leverson: It's very similar. If you win the morning, you win the day. I call it the power hour. That first hour dictates how the rest of the day goes. Most people wake up right into their obligations and never create a buffer zone for themselves. My process is the WARM GAS routine, seven steps, and what happens when you warm up gas? It explodes. So you'll explode through your day.

Jarvis Leverson: W stands for wake up early. Give yourself peace and solitude before the world wakes up: no social media, no breaking news, no email notifications. Wake up at least one to two hours before your first obligation, whether that's the kids or work. A is activate: break a sweat. Working out peaks your cortisol, the fight-or-flight hormone that gets you into a peak performance state. Why do that just to go home and sleep? Do it first thing, and you're focused all day. R is reflect. In my journal I ask three questions about the previous day: where did I win, where did I fall short, and what do I need to do to fix it? You can pay thousands for coaches, or you can coach yourself to greatness with those questions. M is meditate. I meditate for about ten minutes and hit the pause button long enough for the universe to speak to me. I get a download, some wisdom to act on for the day.

Jarvis Leverson: Then the GAS part is where you explode. G is goals: I write my goals. A is actions: all the actions that push those goals forward. S is schedule, and this is probably the most powerful thing I teach, the zero calendaring technique. Inc. magazine said people waste about four hours a day on low-value activities, like social media, distractions, chores, and errands. So don't use a to-do list. Put everything on your calendar, so your calendar becomes your to-do list. The whole process takes me about thirty minutes, and then I hit the accelerator.

Taryell Simmons: For the goals, are those daily or weekly?

Jarvis Leverson: Break your yearly goal into a 90-day goal, then a weekly goal. Say this week I'm getting five new clients. Every day that week I write the same thing. The repetition burns it into your subconscious, you start waking up with new ideas, and you start attracting it into your life instead of chasing it.

Taryell Simmons: How long did it take to come up with this formula?

Jarvis Leverson: It came over time, taking pieces from different people. Tony Robbins starts his day with a meditative process. Kobe wrote his goals every day. Warren Buffett takes time to reflect every day. If it works for them, it could work for me. That's all engineering is: designing a consistent, repeatable process to get the result you want. I engineered success into a process.

Consistency Every Damn Day

Taryell Simmons: For those not watching, your shirt behind you says "every damn day." Where does consistency rank for you?

Jarvis Leverson: It's number one. I used to be in a bowling league, an average bowler, mostly trying to impress a client. One day I bowled a 300, a perfect game. They carried me out of the bowling alley on their shoulders like I'd won the championship. But that year I ranked around 220 out of 300 bowlers, with an average of 178. Success doesn't come from doing something once. Once a week or every now and then won't cut it. We give ourselves too much credit. Consistency is the number one differentiator between success and failure. That's why I created the Hero Journal. In about 15 minutes, it walks you through all seven steps so you don't even have to think about it.

Taryell Simmons: That reminds me of Kobe's relentlessness, no days off.

Jarvis Leverson: I carry a lot of The Mamba Mentality into The Morning Hero. If you fully commit to something, follow through, and stay consistent, the universe has no choice but to give it to you when you prove you want it bad enough.

Making the Pivot and Choosing Your Circle

Taryell Simmons: A lot of people are sitting dormant like you were, or stuck in a career someone else chose for them. How did you make your pivot?

Jarvis Leverson: It was gradual. I went from engineering to sales and then real estate. In my mid-thirties I started hosting workshops on waking up early with a structured routine, and I saw the results in people's lives. I thought, I think this is what I'm called to do. Real estate was still my primary income, but on weekends I hosted workshops and seminars and took one-on-one clients to test the theory. Over time I built a reputation and saw I could replace my income. So validate the idea on the side first. Then it's not a leap of faith, it's a step over. A leap is jumping into the abyss and blindly hoping it works out. You build it on the side and step from one thing to the other.

Taryell Simmons: I started this podcast in the middle of the pandemic, and it built through consistency. Not a leap, a step. What's one good lesson life has taught you?

Jarvis Leverson: First, if you win the morning, you win the day. Wake up one hour earlier to work on yourself. Even with a day job, you have to service your dream first. Dream before the job. Second, surround yourself with the right people. We often feel loyal to people we've outgrown, but they keep you where you were. The biggest shift in my life came when I started the Accelerated Growth Club on meetup.com. It started as a book club. Our first book was The Miracle Morning, and five people showed up to my living room. Two weeks later, 12 people came, then 21. It got so big that the city of San Diego sponsored us to host events at the library, and we had an event where 150 people showed up.

Taryell Simmons: What about people you can't get rid of, like family?

Jarvis Leverson: You don't owe them a hundred percent of your time or attention. You can spend time with them and limit their access to you: access to your dream, your energy, your momentum, your agenda. I don't have to absorb their complaining or their mindset.

Getting Into Coaching, the Attention Economy and Closing

Taryell Simmons: What's your advice for someone who wants to get into coaching?

Jarvis Leverson: First, get clear on what you want. I learned from Russell Brunson, one of the top influencers in digital marketing: clarify the goal, then find a guide who already has the formula. Find someone who has achieved what you want and get whatever they offer, their books, course, or coaching. Russell coached me through his books. Every great return starts with an investment. Don't try to find all the answers for free. Investing can shortcut your path from five years of ups and downs to maybe five months.

Taryell Simmons: What does the future hold for your industry?

Jarvis Leverson: The assault on our time and attention is getting drastically worse. I tried an Oculus at a friend's house and walked the streets of Tokyo in the metaverse. You think it's hard to shut off Instagram when we scroll three to four hours a day? Wait until the metaverse is the norm. What I do is help people build the discipline and mindset to steal their time back, with foundational habits that let them produce at the level they were designed for.

Taryell Simmons: Where can people find you?

Jarvis Leverson: Everything we talked about is baked into the Hero Journal: the seven-step morning routine in 15 minutes, to help you gain back four hours of your time by planning and executing your perfect day. It's available on Amazon or at themorninghero.com. Wake up early, activate, reflect, meditate, write your goals, come up with your actions, and schedule your day. And don't be afraid to invest in yourself, with your time or your money. When you pay, you pay attention. Dream before the job, every single day.

Taryell Simmons: And do it like the shirt says: every damn day. Jarvis, thank you for sharing your knowledge, wisdom, and morning routine with us. It's always a pleasure reconnecting with you.

Jarvis Leverson: Every damn day. Let's do it, baby.