The Nick Bare Podcast
158: How A Simple Morning Routine Can Lead To A Life Of Freedom And Success | Michael Chernow
26 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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So go to bpnsups.com to take advantage of this awesome deal. We appreciate all the support. Thank you. Now into today's podcast. Today on the podcast, we have Michael Chernow, Creatures of Habit. What's going on, brother? What up, man? Thanks for having me. It's been a long time coming.
I know. I know. We've been on the DM text chain for a minute now.
Yeah. Well, it's good to have you down here in Austin, Texas from upstate New York. I bought a pair of Toccova boots, man. Oh, you did?
Dude, I had to. Which ones did you get? I didn't go crazy. I got these guys. They look good, man. Yeah, dude. I'm stoked on them. I've wanted a pair. You know, the PBR comes to Albany every year. And so we always take the kids to go see the bull riding. Yeah. And every time I'm there, I'm like, God damn it. I need a pair of cowboy boots. And my wife's an equestrian.
So my wife is on a horse every day. And, you know, I'll get there. I'll get on a horse. But, you know, it's fun. And in Texas, I was like, all right, this is the time. This is the place.
You got to. I got to wear boots. I was driving into work yesterday and this new Aaron Watson song popped up. Aaron Watson's a Texas country artist, real Texas country artist. And just like his music, it was that perfect song. All I wanted to do was throw a pair of cowboy boots in on going to back Texas country road, put the windows down and just fly. Just fly, man.
Especially in that truck, dude. Cause that, that truck, that thing is incredible. Have you seen the old truck? That's what I'm talking about. The 74?
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Chapter 2: What are the key components of Michael Chernow's morning routine?
It could just be help, right? And so obviously my prayers have evolved over the years. But so I pray for about five minutes. And most recently I've changed a few things in my prayers where I used to ask God to remove certain things that I didn't like about my life or certain things that could potentially present as hurdles, fear, insecurity, character defects, character assassinations.
I mean, basically I would say every morning, you know, God, please help to remove my fears, my insecurities, my character defects, my character assassinations, my wrong thinking and my rationalizing. And then I would finish with, please allow me to be of service today. And more recently, in the last probably six months, I was having a conversation with a buddy.
And we were talking about God and our prayer. And he said, you're putting that into the... into the universe, that negative stuff, the fear, the insecurity, you're saying it every morning. Why don't you flip it on its head?
And instead of saying that, just say, hey, God, please help to bring optimism and positivity and confidence and courage and kindness and presence and joy into my day, as opposed to asking him to remove the bad stuff. Because if he introduces that stuff, they say it's really hard to be angry if you're smiling, right? Like if I get that stuff,
then I don't have to worry so much about the fear and the insecurity, right? Like if my day is blanketed with this positive stuff. So that's one thing I do. So I say my prayers and I call it prayers, pushups and poses. I do as many pushups as I can right after I pray. I'm in that like 76 to 77 range right now. And it just, it's gotten, as I've gotten older, they haven't gotten smaller.
They've actually grown. Consistency works, right? And then I do some yoga poses. I do up dog, down dog for five rounds. And then I do cat cow for five rounds. And then right when I'm done with that in the guest bedroom, that's connected to the guest bathroom. I, uh, I sit on my little meditation stool. I turn on my red light and, um, and I meditate for about 10 minutes.
And, um, I kind of think about prayer as, uh, as talking to God. And then I think about meditation. Um, as listening to God, right? And so I like to try to spend a little bit more time listening than I do talking. And so I meditate for about 10 minutes and then I walk back out of the guest bedroom, make my way into the garage and that's where I have my sauna, my cold plunge.
And I sit in the sauna for about 20 minutes. And that's where I get my reading done. I like to read in the sauna. And then it's a battle every single morning. It's never like, oh, I'm just going to hop in the cold plunge. It's just always a battle. I'm always trying to convince myself that it's just, I did it yesterday and I just don't need to do it today. I could just go take a cold shower.
It'll be easier, faster. but you know, I always fight that fight and end up in the cold plunge for somewhere between three and four minutes. Um, and that's where I get to like really slow down my breathing, really get centered, really get focused. The cold plunge is, uh, you know, obviously there's a lot of talk about cold plunging and all the health benefits.
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Chapter 3: What insights are shared about setting boundaries with technology?
You want to mourn. You know, like it's a lot of, you know, feelings are hard. Feelings in general are just hard. Whether it's coming from family or business or friends or death, whatever it is. And, you know, human beings, I believe, are conditioned, especially now, to not want to feel. We are looking for...
comfort it's just what it is there's been great books written about it recently you know i don't know if you've read the comfort crisis or you know um but there's there's there's where for whatever reason we want to be warm we want to be fed and we don't want to have to lift up heavy things right or you know run fight yeah fight it's just and um
You know, the one thing I've done every single day since I've made the decision to put a plug in the jug and stop using substances was pray. It's the one thing. I've done a lot of other things. A lot of consistency, but the one thing I have been unbelievably consistent with without fail is prayer.
When did that first action of prayer evolve and turn into a relationship with God? It's a great question. Honestly, recently.
Like years recently or months recently? Months recently, where I really believe I... I never thought of meditation as listening, right? And I've been meditating on and off for years now. But I was talking to my therapist six months ago. And she's Christian and she, we don't really, you know, it's like kind of church and state, right?
Like we don't always, you know, talk about God in therapy session. But, you know, she said to me, she asked me a question that like, I kind of got stumped, right? She was like, what is your relationship with God? And I was like, I mean, I pray every morning and My life is great, not without its faults and challenges, but my prayer. And she's like, so let me ask you a question.
She said, if you were in a relationship and you were just the only one speaking, what do you think the other person in the relationship would feel if you're the only one talking? Because right now, your prayer in the morning, you're the only one talking. You know, you're not giving God a chance to talk. You're not receiving. You're just talking.
And so I was like, wow, that's a really interesting perspective, you know? And so about six months ago, I started meditating and journaling on this idea that it's got to be a two-way street. And I didn't really understand that because I, you know, I don't, My wife is a self-proclaimed atheist. And so it makes it really difficult because I try my best because how powerful God's been in my life.
But she is just adamant about her belief and I'm fine with that, right? I'm not trying to force or convince or whatever her to want to start looking at God the way I do. but I don't go to church, right? Like I've been doing, I've been like YouTubing my way through this thing. And so she had proposed that I, after my prayer, I sit in silence for two to three minutes just to receive.
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Chapter 4: How does prayer play a role in recovery and daily life?
Nine to five was created to not only have a life of work in a condensed period of time, because eight hours is probably the right amount of time to have your focus in full throttle without diminishing returns on either end, but it also gives you an opportunity to do what life was really presented to us for, which is to love. We are love beings.
It's really, really hard to love the people around you when you're stuck in an email chase. So 5.30, I shut the computer every night. I get to the, I walk to my truck, get my car. I really, really try to decompress on the drive home right before I pull up into the house. And this is something that I've done.
And I'll tell this story because this is like a really, really very pertinent to this conversation. Right before I get to the house, I create a buffer for myself because the energy that I have, I have a lot of energy and I'm a hard charging guy, very much like you. There's a difference in the energy between being a hard charging dad and a hard charging business person.
My hard charging business person is the opposite of the energy that I want to introduce to my kids as a hard charging dad. As a hard charging dad, it's all love. As a hard charging business person, it's discipline, right? And so I get to my house at about 5.55, dinner's on the table every single night at six. My wife is incredibly punctual.
It's my favorite part of the day, sitting down at the dinner table with my wife and kids. Pull the truck halfway up the driveway. I shut the thing down. I close my eyes and I do about three minutes of breath work. And it'll be either box breathing or I'll do the double inhale, long exhale. Or if I'm really fired up and amped up from a crazy day at work, I'll do both.
I'll do four or five rounds of box breathing. And then I'll do four or five rounds of the double inhale, long, slow exhale. And it really calibrates me. It brings me back to baseline. It just does.
And so anybody that's listening, like if you're struggling separating business and family and you walk in and you sit at the dinner table and you're just completely not there, I'm not here to say that it's going to fix that problem totally because there's definitely times where I sit down at the dinner table and my wife won't be talking to me and I'm just looking at her.
like totally lost in space on other things, but it definitely helps. It helps. In the beginning of the pandemic, probably 2021, 2022, I was not doing that. And I was just starting creating, you know, I just kicked off Creatures of Habit.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Michael face while starting a new business?
And it's a new business for me, completely new business. I'm learning on the fly. I'm like literally YouTube in my way into creating a D2C brand. And so I'm under a lot of pressure. I've raised some cash and I just like want to succeed. And so I'm just like, I got to get it in.
And I pulled a truck into my driveway, shut it down and I pick up my phone and I'm just like, I got to get these last few emails out, right? And I'm doing that as I'm kind of like walking into the house. And at that point, my kids were probably six and four. And my son, I get into the house. I don't acknowledge anybody.
And I'm kind of like replaying this story, kind of like looking at it from above, right? Because this is, I can only imagine what it felt like. And I'm walking in and I throw my bag down and I know that dinner's ready. And I'm like, just trying to like bang it out. And my older son, Finn, walks right next to me and he goes, daddy, daddy. And... I didn't respond.
Chapter 6: How does Michael's relationship with his children impact his perspective?
He goes, daddy, daddy, I want to tell you something. And I just didn't respond. I'm like on the email. And he says, dad. And I look over and I say, dude, don't you understand that I'm doing something right now? And I watched his face crumble. And I just couldn't believe that I had the part of my language audacity to to take the one thing that my son wants in life. The one thing.
He doesn't want my car. He doesn't want my bank account. He doesn't want my job. He doesn't want the fancy house or the car or the title. Only thing my six-year-old son wants in life from me is attention. That is it. That is all he wants. He wants me to hug him. He wants me to teach him. He wants me to lead him.
Chapter 7: What lessons does Michael learn about discipline and commitment?
He wants my attention, period, done, nothing else. And I took it from him. And it makes me emotional to say that because it's just, it's insane that I thought that that was okay. And so from that day, after I was able to reflect on that a little bit, because it sounds a little dramatic, right? Like, oh my God, I told him to leave me alone. I'm finishing up this thing.
But it was such a burst of failure for me as a dad, because my relationship with my father was absolutely terrible and there was no attention. It was really sad. And it changed the way I see my leadership as a dad. All my children want is my attention, period. That is all they want. And it's crazy to think that way, but it's just a fact. They love getting a Lego set.
They love going skiing and going to Mexico. But I guarantee you,
Chapter 8: How does Michael define success and its relationship to personal growth?
if you were able to get in the brain of the child, looking up at his father, all that stuff can go to the wayside as long as his dad is paying attention to him, you know? And so, you know, that story is, I think, super relevant because I think we do that a lot in our lives. And yes, it's like, it was so powerful for me with my kids because there's nothing I love more in life than being a father.
Like, you know, I just... If you were to look at my childhood, you would say, if you had to bet, if it was a betting man, he'd say, oh, he's going to be a terrible dad based on the blueprint that he was given. And somehow, some way I've been able to, well, I know how. I'm sober and I have faith. And I met the woman of my dreams that supports me. But...
If you looked at my childhood and you had to make a prediction of what my fathership skill set would be, you would never say that this guy cares about the attention for his kids.
If we're not intentional with the way we show up, especially, I really found that transition from leaving the office and work to coming home, if you don't intentionally... create that time and space to kind of download. And as you walk into the home, walk in with a new temperature, you will carry all your problems from work and the day into the house.
And one of the best things my wife has ever said to me was, as the leader of the household, you are like a thermometer, right? you control the temperature, whether hot or cold. And if you come in from work into the house hot, if before you got there, everything was comfortable, that thermometer is going to go hot right away or cold right away.
So whatever you bring into the house, just know like the rest of the day, the rest of the night, that is the temperature of the household. And it's tough. It's tough going from a hard day, an exhausting day, a stressful day, And I'll do the same thing. I'll drive home. I'll try to disconnect, chill, get in the driveway, park. And before I go in, ask myself, how am I going to show up as a father?
How am I going to show up as a husband? And I try to bring all this new energy in. Because if you're not intentional with the way you show up, you will bring all that crap from the day into your family.
Totally.
And I think it's super relevant to hear from a lot of my audiences, younger, new dads. And it's tough. Whether you're a business owner or not, trying to manage and build a career and take care of your family and lead your family and be professionally driven, but also personally content. Doing both at the same time while raising a family and being a dad and being a husband and being a leader.
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