To achieve similar status, it’s human nature to mimic those we perceive as more successful than us. Or at least those with more wealth, fame, and power.
Thankfully, many tech CEOs, celebrities and fitness influencers are willing to share their daily routines, often claiming they ensure maximum productivity and continued success.
But whether it’s Mark Wahlberg’s 2:30am prayer-and-workout blast, Grimes’ other-worldly wellness routine, Musk’s punishing scheduling approach, or Bryan Johnson’s bleak immortality grind, such routines are often… rather extreme. They're incompatible with the average person’s life – and, invariably, science.
So why do numerous successful people end up promoting such bonkers daily routines?
Rise and shine
It’s odd to think that the rich and successful adopt punishing daily routines because they desire ‘control’ (aren’t they powerful enough already?). But psychologically, it can make sense.
For many high-profile millionaires, their status often hinges on volatile factors like the stock market, economic shifts, trends, and social media algorithms. These elements are unpredictable and constantly evolving, leaving even the most successful individuals at their mercy – a situation that can create a sense of unease and instability.
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While we can't control the randomness of the world around us, anything that allows us to feel in control provides psychological reassurance. It restores a sense of autonomy and gives us the comforting illusion of control over our immediate surroundings.
It's easy to see how this could drive powerful individuals to adopt gruelling, seemingly irrational daily routines, convincing themselves that these habits are the key to their success. It’s not about logic and reason, but rather about wrestling with a sense of control over their fate.
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Interestingly, the human brain reacts to money just like it does to more biologically significant rewards, like food and drugs. However, if you’ve just helped yourself to a huge meal, eating more food will no longer provide the same sense of reward. Evidence suggests the same diminishing returns are true for money.
This effect can be compounded by successful people regularly hanging around with other successful people. After all, if everyone you socialise with has a similar level of wealth or fame to you, you no longer feel ‘high status’. You’re no longer special.
How do you address this? One approach is to assert your superiority in other ways. Like establishing and maintaining an extreme daily routine that most people couldn’t hope to replicate. You could become the healthiest, hardest working, most disciplined successful person you know.
But if many of your peers do the same, group polarisation kicks in, pushing everyone to more extreme and ridiculous lengths. Next thing you know you’re waking at 2am to do 5,000 squats.
What comes first, the success or the routine?
But how many of these high-profile people followed their punishing routines before they were ‘successful’? The odds are, not many.
Think about it. Daily multi-hour exercise and meditation sessions, an unconventional sleep schedule, a bizarre diet of ‘vulcanised water’ or ‘double-activated flax seeds’ – all of that demands a high degree of personal and financial independence. That's what you obtain after becoming successful.
Also, the one factor always omitted from coverage of the ‘secrets’ of successful people, is plain, simple luck. Whether it's being in the right place at the right time or having access to influential family, social connections, or opportunities, the majority of highly successful people owe much of their success to good fortune. No amount of focus on motivation, intellect, or work ethic can change that reality.
Luck, though, is random. By definition. So you can’t really take credit for it. This, of course, likely conflicts with the mindset of those who amass vast personal fortunes, often at the expense or exploitation of others.
It can create a powerful cognitive dissonance, which may be resolved by convincing oneself, "I’m not successful because of luck – I earned it! It’s because I’m disciplined and hard-working!"
Ultimately, people dislike randomness and have an innate desire to believe the world is fair. So it’s much more reassuring to believe that success is the result of gruelling daily routines. Even though that’s almost certainly not the case.
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