I like to wake up at six o'clock in the morning so I have a very long morning, so I have time to meditate. I can really tell that it makes a difference - the days I don't have meditation and the days when I do.
The shadows in the early morning don't tell much. The shadows rest at that time. So it's useless to gaze very early in the day. Around six in the morning the shadows wake up, and they are best around five in the afternoon. Then they are fully awake.
"We don't take sufficient time to meditate." I get up early in the morning...five o'clock, when my mind and spirit are clear and rested. Then I meditate.
I think the most hectic time in my house is about six o'clock in the morning, our sausage dog starts howling and barking and scratching to wake us all up - no alarms needed.
I have a very set routine. I work six days a week, but only half days. I work from 9 in the morning till 1 in the afternoon, without any interruptions, a fair slug.
I was born in the south of France, I moved to Paris 30 years ago. I was running nightclubs and restaurants, so that was my business - working until six o'clock every morning, and then one day I noticed my wife. We opened the gallery together. She got pregnant, she was 22, I was 35, and it was time for me to change my life, and I decided to wake up early - wake up at the time I used to sleep.
The first thing I do after I wake up is a morning meditation. It's just as I awake and before I open my eyes. It's where I'm feeding my gratitude and the love in my heart and opening my heart. A good morning meditation is key. It lasts about 10 to 15 minutes. Then I get out of bed.
In the morning I stand up, scratch a little bit, then I light a candle and I meditate. Every morning. I've been meditating for maybe 20 years. I meditate so I can make choices; so I'm not a sheep all the time. So I can see better than what everyone else is doing.
The days of waiting for your morning paper to show up in your driveway and tell you what the main stories are? Those days are over.
I usually record all through the night, but I'm known for waking up early in the morning. Even if I had recorded till 3 or 4 in the morning I might wake up at 9 or 10. I never sleep till 1 o clock.
A conscience is a troublesome thing at times. I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning and I spent the time feeling what a nothing I was, and wishing I was so very different. Then the morning's post brought me a letter from a friend, saying I was so this, so that - it made me really cry, I was so grateful.
Like anyone else, I go up and down. You wake up some days, and you're like, "Life is great." You wake up other days, and you're like, "This is so shitty. I just want to stay in bed." Right now, I feel confident that as long as I can keep the sound moving forward, this is something I'll be doing for at least another five years.
I'm very proud to say I only took one course in economics in college, and it was on Saturday morning - Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 8 o'clock. Now I don't know what your college experience was like, but I'll tell ya, on Saturday morning at 8 o'clock, the last thing I wanted to do was go to economics class.
This morning did you wake up to an alarm clock or an opportunity clock?
There are days when I'll wake up and think, oh, I've really been something. You know, it won't be the same without me. And then there are days when I wake up and I say, 'Don't kid yourself. Your contribution was minimal. You changed very little. Everything you hated prospered'.
[I remember going] to a hotel gym at six o'clock in the morning, and the television was on, and it's some drama in which two men have clearly kidnapped a woman. They're interrogating her, and they put a plastic bag over her head. They're suffocating her, and I'm thinking, It's six o'clock in the morning! Why does anybody need to see this? How can I find the off switch?
For me, training is my meditation, my yoga, hiking, biking all rolled into one. Wake up early in the morning, generally around 4 o'clock, and I'll do my cardio on an empty stomach. Stretch, have a big breakfast, and then I'll go train.