Why I Joined the 5 AM Club (And How to Start Your Own)

Sean Weisbrot: Welcome back to another episode of the We Live To Build Podcast. One of the toughest problems any entrepreneur faces is how to manage time. Effective time management means being able to accomplish the most important things as efficiently as possible, and the more we grow into our roles, the best people to delegate as many of our responsibilities to as possible.

Sean Weisbrot: Doing this gives us what should amount to a tremendous hole in our daily schedules, and yet the best entrepreneurs are barely free ever. It's because they fill as much of that free time with the things they want to do in order to improve themselves so they can be better for their self, their family and friends.

Sean Weisbrot: And their teams. Today I speak with Anthony Mongeluzo, the founder and CEO of PCS LLC, a 150 person team that provides IT consulting to companies around the world. He runs multiple companies and still has time to do the morning news for Fox 29 in New Jersey. More specifically, we talk about what does time management mean to you? What is the most important thing you've learned? Why you should develop a morning routine. How can you start developing a morning routine? How can you add something to your routine? What tips and tricks can you share?

Sean Weisbrot: So thank you for taking the time to talk to me about time management. It's one of my favorite topics. It's something that's probably ignored by a lot of people, so hopefully we can, uh, help people with their ability to manage time.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I hope everyone at the end of this podcast really understands that there's only one resource that is the most important in life. It's our time.

Sean Weisbrot: One of the things that I learned in the last few years was that having money doesn't mean you're happier because you have money. Having money allows you to buy yourself more time and time is the name of the game,

Anthony Mongeluzo: and time could also make you more money. It's a way that you actually structure what you're doing, how you're doing it. You know, we all, we all want these things. We all want vacations, right? Everyone wants to make money. So I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And guess what happens? You grow your business, you grow where you're at, and then guess what?

Anthony Mongeluzo: You're still a slave to time. So let's figure out how to make that better.

Sean Weisbrot: So before we go much further, I just want to ask a totally random question. You said you were 40.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I am 40. And that hurts that my time went too fast. 20 sounded a lot better.

Sean Weisbrot: So I'll be 35 in a few months. When I hit 30, it felt to me like the movement of time just kind of doubled. Does that sound about right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: I agree with you. The funny thing is, you know, having kids actually accelerates time. I don't know why, but you know, they just make it go by a little faster.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't have kids, so I can't understand that specifically, but my assumption is that once you finish school and you start to work, you have less time to yourself because you spend time working.

Sean Weisbrot: Then once you get into a relationship. Now your time is split between working and your relationship, but once you have kids, your time is then split by your spouse, your kids, and your job or your business. So time moves so fast because you literally can't have the time to do all of the things that you wanna do.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I said to one of my team members, right, we have 150 plus people that work at PCS, right? So your average day. You know, you got 60 minutes an hour, you got eight hours a day. Not that any of us work eight hours a day. I think a lot of us work a lot more, especially if you're listening to this. If I actually spent two minutes talking to every team member, that would be 300 minutes, five hours a day, right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: What's two minutes? Right? It doesn't sound like much. All you know, the. The CEO's like mean, he's not talking to me or the business owner. It really adds up. I gotta tell you. I'm trying to do a lot of different things right now, like I'm trying to better myself, and do some piano lessons. Number one, I'm trying to take some more business classes.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'm a part of Vistage, I'm a part of YPO, I'm a part of eo. Just between YPO, EO and Vistage. That's about 20 hours guaranteed a month of work. It's a lot of time. Gotta find a way to make our time, uh, more useful, I guess.

Sean Weisbrot: Before we get into the topic a little bit deeper, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about your backstory and what it is you do right now that makes you a good person to talk about time management?

Anthony Mongeluzo: So, I'm kind of an interesting person in a, in a weird way, I'm a computer geek, right? So I like video games, I like the computer, I like all that stuff. But you know, when I grew up, my parents were bar and restaurant owners, right? Which is the exact opposite of a computer person, video gamer, right? So I grew up in the most social business.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'm talking tips, serving people, restaurants, waiters, waitresses, all that. I made the, uh, switch, I'll call it. I mean, in college I started out as a communications major. I was radio, tv, and film.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I wanted to be the next Howard Stern. I ended up becoming a computer geek doing different things. And what my company does is we support businesses, nonprofits.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Government entities are kind of small on the government entity side. Anytime you work with government pain in the butt. But what we do is we take over the technology for all these companies. So we run their help desk, we run their engineering, we run their infrastructure, and basically we make sure that their technology's running very well.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So it's, it's literally a 24 7 operation. You know, we're doing stuff all across the us. We're doing stuff internationally. You know, we have clients in London, Barcelona. You name it. I literally walk in the office and it makes me proud seeing all the push pins we have around the world. So while the globe is a, uh, very big place, it's also a very small place.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So what does time management mean to you? So one of the things that makes time management kind of crucial to me is the fact that there's so little of it to be frank. I remember when I first started doing tv, right? I remember there was like, Hey, two minutes to the segment. And, you know, all the seasoned TV professionals, they're, they're eating a hoagie, they're doing this.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'm like, two minutes. Oh my God. Now when I'm in the TV studio, if someone tells me I have 30 seconds, I feel like I could take a shower. So one of the things that's important is to realize that every minute that you have. It's something that's very precious. It's not gonna be there and scheduling your day and making use of other things and other, uh, I'll call it mediums to make sure that your time is good.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So what I'll jump right into is, you know, I literally turn driving in a car, the highway, you know, the local road that you drive in the time I created a mobile office called the Tech Tank. So my office has a full computer set up with multiple TV screens, printer, scanner, refrigerator, you name it. So I hired a full-time person to drive me around because I was on the road three, four hours a day.

Anthony Mongeluzo: You know, not so much with the pandemic, maybe two hours. I'm still out there quite a bit, but I was able to actually convert road time and time that you drive, getting your gas tank filled, you know, anything that you think of. I literally created an Office on Wheels and it changed my life.

Sean Weisbrot: What is the most important thing you've learned about time management while running PCS over the last, what is it, like a decade or more?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Well, two decades. Two decades. I. Yeah, it's crazy. It makes me feel good. I've done it for more than half my life, but you know, I used to make a lot of mistakes as a lot of rookie business owners, and I still think I do sometimes. All of us, we wanna be nice, we wanna be helpful. I think one of the biggest problems that many people have, aside from business owners, I'm talking to anyone in any walk of life, is, you know, we really devalue our time.

Anthony Mongeluzo: You know, we say, oh, well it's only 10 minutes. It's only 15 minutes. But if you actually look at it and put it all together, that 10 minutes here, that five minutes there, that wasted, you know, Hey, I'm gonna watch that sitcom, or you know, I'm gonna just veg out for a little bit. If you actually look at it and put it all together, those small little doses of time, they can make big things.

Anthony Mongeluzo: You know, imagine if we all worked out 30 more minutes a day, we'd probably have that six pack that we wanted. You know, when we talked, you were walking. You're doing a great job with that. But you made a commitment to do it. There are certain things in your life where you could take a walk and listen to an audio book, you can have a conversation. So, you know, I think many of us just really miss out on the importance of time. And I could tell you what I'm a 5:00 AM Clubber. I'm getting up at 5:00 AM every day. Monday through Friday. I do, I do schlep a little bit on the weekends, but I'm getting up and I could tell you the days that I don't get up at 5:00 AM those aren't good days for me.

Anthony Mongeluzo: It sets your day so every minute and you know, everything you could do to, you know, really maximize that time is important.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I never use an alarm. And I naturally wake up between 4:45 and five 30. If I wake up at six 30, it's a horrible day.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Exactly right. You're behind the eight ball. There's probably emails piling up.

Anthony Mongeluzo: There's other stuff that you plan to do and you know, unfortunately, you're behind the eight ball.

Sean Weisbrot: the last few days I've woken up at like five 50 and I'm like, oh, why? So I I, I have to get back to going to sleep a little bit earlier. I've been like edging closer to 11 o'clock where I used to go to sleep, like at 9 30 10.

Sean Weisbrot: So I think if I go to sleep earlier again, then I'll, I'll be waking up earlier again.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Now you will. My ultimate goal is honestly, if I could move the 5:00 AM club to the 4:30 AM club, I'm not gonna get much earlier than that. That's gonna be a little bit ridiculous. But, uh, four 30 I think would be optimal for me, it's, it's tough that way.

Anthony Mongeluzo: It's not easy. It's great in a habit, you know, the pandemic didn't help with it. I was 5:00 AM club for a long time and then I was pretty crappy near the last like 40, 50 days. I've been back

Sean Weisbrot: by going to sleep early and waking up early. I find that I'm able to do a lot of the things that I wanna do at a time when there's nobody awake to bother me.

Sean Weisbrot: So like, I can do my 30 minutes of meditation, I can do my. Uh, you know, mobility on my joints. I can get a little bit of work done, maybe read from a book, do a little walk, go do exercise, and then get food. And I start work like 9 30, 10 o'clock. But, you know, I'll work until 7 38 with, of course, you know, time for walking. Interspersed between that,

Anthony Mongeluzo: the, the most beautiful thing about sending someone an email at five in the morning. They don't respond. There is not that rabid fire. There's not that jab, jab. You send an email to someone, they write back, they do this, they do that. As you said, there is a sense of peace. You literally are the only person awake at five in the morning in terms of productivity.

Anthony Mongeluzo: It boosts you through the roof. Because you know, I'll find that I have this paperwork, that paperwork, all sorts of stupid stuff that, you know, it might be something I just have to scan it. But when it's one o'clock, people are coming past your office. Like you just don't wanna deal with it. For some reason, there is a sense of inner peace.

Anthony Mongeluzo: A sense of productivity. You know, when you do that,

Sean Weisbrot: what are some tips and tricks that people can try to employ in their lives when managing their time better? Or how can they start, how can they develop a routine, something like that?

Anthony Mongeluzo: So, for me, is personal accountability, right? So I'll start with my, you know, personal nuances and then maybe we'll go into anything else.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So from a business perspective, I have someone else manage my calendar, I set the parameters, I set what I want. And I joke, but it's very true. So my assistant is Elisa. I say from Monday, every Monday at seven in the morning. She runs my life until about Friday to about four 30. Then my wife takes over until four 30 from Friday until about three o'clock on Sunday.

Anthony Mongeluzo: And then, you know, I hang out with my parents Now, my mom used to be both of them on Sunday. You basically need to understand that you can't run your own calendar. We might not all have an assistant, we might not have someone that could do that, but you need to set the parameters then if you can't. So you need to be very smart about what you do.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So I do all my working out and all my other stuff at five in the morning, six in the morning. But you need a routine. You know, habits are either make you or they'll break you. And I think that's really it. I mean, people look for this, oh my god moment, or how do I do this? And book the time that you need, whether it's reading, whether it's stretching, whether it's working out, whether it's business planning, book the time.

Anthony Mongeluzo: You know, someone said to me like, oh, you're too busy. You can't do this, you can't do that. Guess what? I find a way to do piano lessons. I find a way to work out, and you know why? It's on my calendar. If you don't live by your calendar, you're not gonna maximize your time.

Sean Weisbrot: The only thing that I put in my calendar is the calls that I have, and I try not to take more than four calls a day, but I try to have one, maybe two at most.

Sean Weisbrot: And then, like I said, the exercise and all of the things I do, I do before I work. So they're not on the calendar, but they're in my head, this is what I do. This is when I do it. This is the order that I do it in, and this is why. And that's something I've been doing for years. So it's just ingrained. I have a list of things that I need to do that day, preferably in order of when they'll be done.

Sean Weisbrot: And if I just feel tired, I'll go and I'll go for a walk or I'll go for a massage or I'll go get food or whatever it is. So I'm kind of the opposite of you. I, I don't really plan the specifics of anything. At any time, but I get them all done.

Anthony Mongeluzo: The funny thing is, I was that way, but then kids, you know, I gotta spend time with my girls.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I have to spend time with my wife, I have to do all this other stuff. So I kind of feel like there's probably two to three hours a day is stuff that's very useful, but useless. Right? So my house here, I have a sauna. I need the sauna for 15 minutes. That just, you know, cleans you out. You feel good, you do that.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I have a light healing machine. I have a JoVE. I want to do that. That's good for, especially, you know, in New Jersey the last month there's been no natural sunlight, right? That's 20 minutes, right? It sounds stupid, but you got 15 minutes of sauna, you got 20 minutes of this, you got 15 minutes of stretching.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So all this stuff that really doesn't impact my work life, that's when I do it five in the morning, you know? So I start out with that and I put on the calendar, you know why? Because maybe I come home and I wanna have a drink. I wanna do something. Then I look at the counter, I'm like, well, you know what? I could have a drink and sit here, but I got 5:00 AM stretch tomorrow.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Do I really wanna feel miserable doing 5:00 AM stretch, right? Some days it's like, yeah, I'm fine with it. Let's go. You know, tough day, let's do it. Other days, not so much. So for me it's knowing what I have. And then you have the wacky stuff, right? Because I'm in a business that's very strange. You know, one of my core components of my business is, um, incident response to Global Hackings.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I could get a call right now to be frank, that a Fortune 500 company was hacked, and then we gotta help them. Guess what? That changes your day. Today is the, uh, 8th of March. Two days ago, two and a half days ago, Microsoft released a critical vulnerability to Microsoft Exchange, which you probably heard about.

Anthony Mongeluzo: They're taking down servers worldwide and globally. You know, my life gets a little bit different. So when I have it on the calendar, I could then move those blocks. But all the other wacky stuff happens too. I mean, there's a lot of times where. Now, today, for instance, I had three hours in the afternoon with nothing to do.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'll put that in like Doctor Evil, like quotes. Yeah, my day got destroyed. No rhyme, no reason, no nothing.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the importance of having a morning routine

Anthony Mongeluzo: basically set you up for your day? You know, people think that, oh, why would you do this? Why would you do that? If you actually have a good morning routine where you know whether it's health.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Whether it's focusing on your finances, whether it's focusing on, you know, your core mission. I mean, it's a game changer. You know, the 5:00 AM Club, I listened to this book from, uh, Robin Sherma. By the time I got to the end of the book, I was like, Hey, you know what? I'm gonna try getting up to 5:00 AM every day.

Anthony Mongeluzo: It was game changer. It literally changed my life. I was so much ahead of what I was doing, how I was doing it. It slipped honestly for me during the pandemic because you know, over here in New Jersey we're fully locked down. There was nothing going on. Well, am I gonna get up by 5:00 AM I can up 8:00 AM 'cause no one's doing anything.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Well, as the pandemic now is kind of going away for the last 40, 50 days, I've been getting up at 5:00 AM My life is. Much better. I'm more productive, I'm happier. Uh, I have a lot more mental clarity, and again, that's more time management because I could just focus on the stuff that I need to do while everyone else is sleeping, quite frankly. So it's been good.

Sean Weisbrot: So what do you suggest someone does to start developing a routine?

Anthony Mongeluzo: So, for me, and you know, we're all human, right? We all do these different things. Um, for me was, I was getting up at like 7, 6 30 to start the routine. I would suggest just forcing yourself to wake up 15 minutes early every four or five days, right?

Anthony Mongeluzo: So if you wake up at seven, guess what? Start waking up at 6 45, give it a week. Wake up at six 30, right? Don't, don't look for that big major change, right? You know, if you're a little overweight, you're not gonna lose 50 pounds in a week. But if you do it slowly and surely, I think it's gonna work out well.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So it took me probably about eight to 10 weeks to get back to my 5:00 AM club. But now that I've done it, it's a lot easier, you know? So it's just creating a habit if you try to set yourself up for big changes. You're probably gonna fail. You know you're not gonna go bench, press 150 pounds and then, hey, it worked out for three weeks.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I could do 300. Probably gonna go 1 50, 1 60, 1 70, maybe struggle, go back to one 60 and then move up again. You know, it's the same thing with any other habit. I would just suggest, you know, saying, Hey. This is who I want to be. This is how I'm going to be, and I'm gonna be there in six months. Rome wasn't built in a day,

Sean Weisbrot: so people have spent, let's say two months, whatever, going from waking up at seven to let's say five.

Sean Weisbrot: Right? They've slowly changed that. How do they then determine what's the next thing they should change that they can add to their daily routine?

Anthony Mongeluzo: I think it's small stuff, right? I think that every person needs to look at, you know, a few different things, right? So there's health. How do you feel? How do you look?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Do you want a six pack? Like set that goal. Then you have wealth. What do I do to better myself financially? Do I spend some time in the morning? Do I read about the local stocks? Do I look at cryptocurrency? Obviously there's a lot of different investment mechanisms and, and now the fourth thing I think a lot of people fail to, to really look at is family.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Is there a skill that I need to have to better my relationship with my children? You know, wacky thing for me was kind of neat during the pandemic. You know, I would've never thought that I would play We sports with my kids. My daughter loves we sports, right? You know, it's. You know, nine years old, 10 years old, and one of the best bonding experiences I have is playing we tennis or we bowling and setting a new challenge.

Anthony Mongeluzo: So I think everyone's gonna have a different thing with their morning routine or what they're doing. But what I would think is you look at something that's like, what's my number one goal? So for me it was stretching. I'm not flexible by getting up at five in the morning. I fix. Flexibility. Well, guess what?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Now I beat flexibility. What's next? You know what? I wanna read a chapter of an inspirational book every morning, so I've added that to my routine. So I think what happens is you figure out the things that you really stink at, you get better at them. So you don't need to spend as much time, like I don't need to spend as much time stretching because it's working now.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Now granted, I put this six months in to do that, so not read or play a piano or do this or do that. So it's gonna be different for everyone. But it's really having those goals and saying, Hey, if I had 35, 40 minutes more a day, what would I do? And that's gonna change. It's not gonna be the same.

Sean Weisbrot: So what other tips and tricks can you share, or what else have I not asked you that you wish I'd asked about?

Sean Weisbrot: Time management.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Every minute matters. It's unbelievable what you could get done in a focus five to 10 minutes. I went through something a couple weeks ago, one of the business groups I'm involved with, and I looked through directory, you know, I was like, Mr. Like. I'm no COVID, I'm not worried about anything.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I'm not doing a Zoom meeting. And finally I'm like, you know what? You're an idiot. You know, this is the can, this is what you're dealt. I reached out to people in my business groups and um, it was unbelievable the response. I picked up a couple deals on a very, I. Very simple email, Hey, we're in the same group, haven't talked to you, and guess what?

Anthony Mongeluzo: Something happened. It's really just like supersizing your time because you know, you don't realize the power of a minute. You don't realize the power of five minutes. You don't realize the power of a quick email. You know, it sounds stupid, but it's really true. You know, you never know who you'll reach out to and who you'll find that connection with by just going first.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Just spend that one minute. So whether you're in a LA tip group, A, B, and I group, a alumni group, we all have cultural things that we're associated with. Guess what? Go through that member directory and just say hi to someone. Just say, Hey, how are you? Can I help you? Don't look for anything. Don't, don't try to get some business deal, or I.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Make things happen, just try to actually meet the person. Good things will come of it

Sean Weisbrot: for sure. Like, uh, recently I had a friend from the US who's based in China, come to me and he was like, uh, yeah, I have a friend in Shanghai. They have a blockchain client. They need to have a white paper written, like, can you help me?

Sean Weisbrot: Well, I have a friend who can do it. So I, I arranged everything. I negotiated the fee for him. I negotiated the terms, what their expectations are and all of that. I even negotiated the commission for the. For the guy who introduced the client, like I did all of that stuff. I'm not taking any of the money 'cause my friend's been hit hard by the virus and all that.

Sean Weisbrot: So I just want him to have some money to feed himself. But then what happened was, my friend, uh, him and I had never done business before, but like I've known him for years in China. As soon as he saw that I was able to get something done that was small, he instantly came back and said, okay, I've got an investor who's looking to spend five to 10 million on blockchain.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you have a project you can introduce? Where like the commission on that is, you know, probably 200 grand. He's only making $300. But because I was selflessly helping everybody involved, now I have this big six figure opportunity. And so if I hadn't done that, he wouldn't have offered it to me.

Anthony Mongeluzo: I gotta tell you, someone, someone made a comment at my office the other day, there's something that's no more true or we had a.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Small client, right? They were, you know, three or four, you know, elderly ladies. They did, uh, medical billing and they referred me to a multimillion dollar state contract in New Jersey probably about 12 years ago. You know, if you went in there, literally these girls. You know, they were like the golden girls, except they smoked cigarettes and probably drank beer.

Anthony Mongeluzo: They, the whole place was full of smoke. You know, you would go in there, it's like, who would want a four computer deal? Right. Not gonna make much money. A couple hundred bucks maybe a year. But they had contact with someone at the state that needed what we did, and they're like, oh, these guys are the best.

Anthony Mongeluzo: They take care of us.

Sean Weisbrot: That's why I love the podcast and I love helper reporter.com. I'll sing their praises from any rooftop you let me get onto because I get to meet crazy people like you who are doing all sorts of and interesting things and you know, doing business at a big level. I just have the most fascinating conversations and I don't know who is in your network.

Sean Weisbrot: But if I do something that makes you happy, then you're gonna be like, oh, I've got more people for you to, to interview. Like, you know, people are just happy to share other people in their networks. And like I've been connecting guests with each other. I've had some guests say, oh, I heard what another guest said.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, I reached out to them for a consultation because I think what they're doing is really cool and like maybe that can help me. So there's all sorts of really cool stuff happening in the background. No, the audience doesn't normally get to see, but it's been very enriching for me. Not financially, just emotionally to, to meet these people and connect to them.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Probably gonna be both at some point. Like you'll never realize like how it happens. I mean, literally one of our biggest, one of our biggest contracts came from a guy that I had drinks with at a bar. Like, it sounds stupid, but you know, everyone thinks I've like this sexy moment on TV or you know, this.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Cool sound comes in the background, the music, and, you know, it was all set up, but, you know, a lot of the stuff just happens really organically like this. All right, so how can people follow up with you? My Twitter handle is, uh, at PCs Anthony m because nobody could spell Manja Luso. My myself included my last name.

Anthony Mongeluzo: They could of course email me atAnthony@helpmepcs.com.

Sean Weisbrot: So if you liked this episode, definitely reach out to him by Twitter or email. I'll have the information on the show notes that we live to build.com/listen where his episode will live. Don't forget that entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint.

Sean Weisbrot: So take care of yourself every day, and if you don't have a morning routine yet, you should start to develop one because that will help you to take care of yourself every day. Thank you, Anthony.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Yes. Entrepreneurship is a marathon. Everyone wants a result. No one likes the grind. The grind is the prize.

Anthony Mongeluzo: Enjoy the grind.