![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-610611272-e1784039565137.jpg?w=2048\")
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Richard Branson wants you to stop stealing his morning routine. The billionaire Virgin Group founder famously wakes up at 5 a.m., exercises, scrolls on social media, and sits down to a bowl of muesli, fruit and his first of 20 daily cups of tea, before kickstarting his day. But now he\u2019s warning that getting up at the crack of dawn won\u2019t make you more successful\u2014and could actually burn you out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is you need to find a routine that works for you and your life,\u201d Branson recently wrote on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n
He revealed that he\u2019s \u201coften asked about waking up at 5 a.m.\u201d\u2014nearly a decade after breaking down how he spends his mornings in a Virgin blog post. And now, he\u2019s having regrets. \u201cI sometimes worry that people think it\u2019s the secret to success,\u201d Branson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of noise out there telling people how to live their lives and be successful,\u201d Branson added. \u201cRigid routines, relentless hustle.\u201d He clarified that he only wakes up early because it comes \u201cvery naturally\u201d to him. But in reality, there\u2019s no \u201cone-size-fits-all formula\u201d for success\u2014and following these hustle-culture silver bullets \u201cwill more likely lead to burnout than breakthroughs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWork hard, absolutely,\u201d Branson said. \u201cBut also work smart, take care of yourself, and create a rhythm that\u2019s sustainable. The best routine is the one that helps you feel your best.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Branson has one piece of advice for anyone trying to replicate his routine, it\u2019s not to. Instead, the billionaire told Fortune<\/em> that people should spend less time obsessing over when successful people work, and more time figuring out when they<\/em> do their best work.<\/p>\n \u201cFirstly, reflect on when you feel at your best during the day,\u201d Branson said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s early in the morning. Other people do their best work late at night.\u201d<\/p>\n That self-reflection goes beyond deciding whether you\u2019re an early bird or a night owl. You might be at your sharpest in the morning but most creative after dinner, Branson explained. Once you understand those patterns, you can start structuring your day around them. \u201cThere will always be parts of your schedule you can\u2019t control,\u201d he added. \u201cBut even the smallest tweaks can make a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Branson said it took years of trial and error to discover his own rhythm. Having worked everywhere from \u201ccrypts underneath churches to houseboats and spare bedroom,\u201d he said that he gradually learned what worked best for him and what didn\u2019t, building a routine around those insights rather than forcing himself into someone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n The same philosophy applies to avoiding burnout. \u201cBe wary of anyone who claims to have the \u2018key\u2019 to success, and don\u2019t compare yourself to others,\u201d Branson told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cEveryone is on their own path. Work hard, certainly, but know the difference between working hard and working smart.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Ultimately, the British billionaire stressed that prioritizing your health, relationships, and time away from the desk to be inspired will get you further than any 5 a.m. alarm.<\/p>\n It often feels like the business world was built for morning people. Most office jobs start at around 9 a.m.\u2014forcing night owls out of their beds hours earlier to shower, commute, and caffeinate.\u00a0<\/p>\n And more often than not, the people setting the schedules are morning people themselves.<\/p>\n Tim Cook, Michelle Obama, and Jack Dorsey have had their morning coffee, caught up on emails, and squeezed in a workout before the sun has even risen\u2014and research has even shown that the early bird does indeed catch the worm. One study found that while two-thirds of the general population claim to be night owls, their chances of success are much slimmer than those of morning people.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a growing cohort of executives rejecting the 5 a.m. club.\u00a0<\/p>\n Scott Mellin, was credited with transforming Salomon from a niche French outdoor performance label to the billion-dollar streetwear brand Rihanna wore for the 2023 Super Bowl halftime stage. And he\u2019s been leisurely waking up at around 8 a.m. for decades. Instead of flipping his day, the branding exec likes to ski in the morning and doesn\u2019t head to the office until noon, preferring to work later in the evening\u2014often over dinner with clients.<\/p>\n \u201cIt might be different, but it is a routine I\u2019ve stuck to for over 25 years,\u201d he told Fortune<\/em>. In that time, he\u2019s held various executive roles, including at Benetton Group and The North Face\u2014proving you don\u2019t need to rise at the crack of dawn to make it to the top.<\/p>\n Other night-owl CEOs\u00a0echoed that they\u2019re putting in the same hours as early-bird bosses. The only real difference is that they\u2019re working when they\u2019re most productive. In the same way an early riser uses the stillness before everyone\u2019s awake to put in extra hours, they\u2019re logging back on to their work late at night while everyone else is unwinding.\u00a0<\/p>\n As Todd Wiesel, CEO of whisky marketplace Baxus and self-confessed night owl, put it: \u201cI prefer to go to bed tired and wake up energized than to try and fall asleep while I am full of energy and excitement only to roll out of bed at 4 a.m. in search of calm and quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Richard #Branson #warns #copying #a.m #routine #burnouts #breakthroughs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Richard Branson wants you to stop stealing his morning routine. The billionaire Virgin Group founder famously wakes up at 5 a.m., exercises, scrolls on social media, and sits down to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5095,2783,307,512,13590,13592,5742,13591,424,426,7252,5172,5093,2782,1071,2401,2781,13589,13586,4813,7254,3063,12095,56,13587,13588,583,3042,2785],"class_list":["post-12309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-a-m","tag-and-wellness","tag-billionaire","tag-billionaires","tag-branson","tag-breakthroughs","tag-burnout","tag-burnouts","tag-career-advice","tag-careers","tag-ceo-wellness","tag-copying","tag-day-in-the-life-of-a-ceo","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-lifestyle","tag-personal-health","tag-richard","tag-richard-branson","tag-routine","tag-the-promotion-playbook","tag-u-k","tag-u-k-ceo","tag-uk","tag-virgin","tag-virgin-group","tag-warns","tag-work-life-balance","tag-workplace-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Richard Branson isn\u2019t the only CEO pushing back on the 5 a.m. club<\/h2>\n