The age-old saying that the early bird gets the worm has remained true throughout centuries, with many leaders attesting to rising early to get their day started. Some Baby Boomers might argue that if you’re still sleeping with sun comes up, you’ve already starting the day losing.
One Inc. writer details the advantages of being an early riser, citing that many successful leaders—-even those who get the full eight hours of sleep—get out of bed by sunrise and are better off for it. Entrepreneur Margaret Heffernan writes :
Helena Morrissey, CEO of Newton Investment, gets up at 5 AM. Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone gets up at 6. Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL, gets up at 5 because, he says: “Life is too exciting to sleep.”
I suspect there’s a virtuous circle here: Great jobs make you want to get up early–and the better the job you do, the more exciting getting up early becomes. Waking late could be a sign not that you’re indolent but that work is, after all, not so thrilling.