Gorilla Mindset Morning Routine: Full Summary, Review, & My Experience

The very first article that I wrote was about having a morning routine…and it isn’t hard to see why.

Starting your day off the right way can be the difference between success and failure, wealth and poverty, happiness and misery.

When you construct the first hour of your day, YOU take charge of your own life. You become proactive, rather than reactive. You’re the creator, rather than the consumer—the architect, rather than the passive sheep.

If you’re a man struggling to get your shit together, try the Gorilla Mindset morning routine. It only takes about 10 minutes, and will leave you motivated, focused, and energized, ready to conquer your day.

My Morning Routine

When I first started Masculine Development back in 2015, I procrastinated on writing articles. “My first article has to be AMAZING!” I thought. I held myself to very high standards.

After what felt like months of agonizing, I finally decided what to write about: my morning routine. It was something near and dear to my heart, that had helped me transform my life, and I knew it could help others do the same.

Since then, I’ve received literally hundreds of emails from men raving about my morning routine—I still do it to this day, but there’s one slight problem.

It takes about an hour to do the whole thing from start to finish. While an hour isn’t that much time for the benefits it gives you, sometimes you don’t have that much time. Sometimes you have to wake up at 6 and be out of the door at 6:30.

Or maybe you’re JUST getting into self-development, and can’t even imagine spending an hour every day on a morning routine. That’s fine. This is where Mike Cernovich’s morning routine comes in.

Mike Cernovich: From White Trash to Making Cash

Mike Cernovich, blogger over at Danger and Play, was “white trash,” in his own words. He was a poor, meek boy born in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. He had no money, no game, and no success—it seemed his life was destined for failure.

Yet somehow, Mike stumbled upon the world of self-improvement, and was able to become a successful lawyer, blogger, and documentary filmmaker, among other things. He accredits this transformation to his mastery of thoughts and emotions, which he discusses in-depth in Gorilla Mindset.

In this book, Cernovich tackles everything men need to know in order to live a successful life. He discusses the optimal diet, how to exercise properly, how to develop confidence and positivity, and how to invest your money wisely.

He also, however, recommends a very specific morning routine—one that he says he adopted from the sports psychologist John McEnroe. It’s quite simple, and only takes about 10 minutes. So, I figured I’d give it a shot. After having done it for only 7 days, I can now say, without a doubt, that this is an extremely effective alternative to my longer morning routine.

Doing the Gorilla Mindset morning routine will leave you feeling like a million bucks, amped up and ready to go. I’ve also experimented with various additions and modifications to the morning routine, such as cardio and alpha posturing, but more on that later.

Gorilla Mindset Morning Routine

Like I said before, Mike’s morning routine is pretty simple. It consists of you taking a cold shower (or a contrast shower), while performing the following exercises, which are designed to warm up your brain in the morning:

1. Count backwards from 100 to 0. Speed is key. Don’t worry if you skip a number, just get down to 0 as fast as possible.
2. Find a noun that fits each letter of the alphabet, from A-Z. Don’t just think of the noun, however—really imagine it. For example, A might be apple. Imagine the vivid red color, the smell, the taste, and so on. This will activate your right and left brain.
3. Say 10 female names out loud. Don’t repeat.
4. Say 10 male names out loud. Don’t repeat.
5. Close your eyes, and take 10 deep breaths. Feel the oxygen flow through your body.

All in all, this morning routine only takes about 10 minutes (arguably even less). You just wake up, go in the shower, and do the 5 exercises. Mike recommends you take a contrast shower, which is where you switch from hot to cold.

So, you start off with hot, and stay there for 1 minute. Then, switch it over to cold for 1 minute. Repeat this several times, all the while saying the exercises out loud. When you emerge from the shower, you’ll feel like a new man; refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to kick some ass.

Additions I Recommend

Although the Gorilla Mindset morning routine is phenomenal, you can always make something better. I recommend you make several simple tweaks to the morning routine, that won’t add any more than a few minutes.

• Wake up and write down 3 things you’re grateful for
• Say affirmations
• Do the Gorilla Mindset Morning Routine
• Meditate for 10 minutes using Life Flow

First, you want to write down three things you’re grateful for after waking up. This re-wires your subconscious mind to be in abundance mode, rather than scarcity mode. It also encourages a good mood, and positivity, which have obvious benefits.

Then, say some affirmations. Again, this will reprogram your subconscious mind and change your beliefs—Mike Cernovich also recommends affirmations in his book Gorilla Mindset. Most successful people recommend affirmations, so you should take note.

Then, do the Gorilla Mindset morning routine that I described above. Take the contrast shower and do the brain warm up exercises. Then, get out of the shower, get dressed, and do a quick 10 minute morning meditation while listening to Brain FM.

Brain FM is a unique set of binaural beats that trains your brain to enter into “alpha” frequencies more easily. I wrote about this in a previous article on binaural beats, but the idea is that it will speed up the rate at which your brain rewires itself for focus and serenity.

Set a timer for 10 minutes, and meditate while listening to this. You will emerge from this cold shower, brain warm-up, meditation trifecta feeling like an 800 pound gorilla ready to destroy anything and everything in his way.

Gorilla Mindset Summary

I recommend you try the Gorilla Mindset morning routine out for just seven days. Just one week, that’s all I ask—and that’s all it will take.

You’ll notice benefits the first day, but you’ll really start to notice the benefits once you get into the groove of things. I also recommend you try the addons that I mentioned. They only take a few extra minutes, and will drastically improve your mood and focus.

If you gained something from this article, and want to unlock your mind’s potential, be sure to check out Mike’s book here. It’s filled with tidbits of information and valuable wisdom from years of experience.

Be sure to check out his blog, as well. You can find him over at Danger and Play (update: no longer active), although he’s far more active on Twitter. If you guys have any questions let me know, and as always, I’ll see you next time.