Less than 10 minutes after waking, I threw up cigar chunks into my master bathroom toilet.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Twelve hours earlier, the groom and I were celebrating his upcoming wedding with a night on the town in historic downtown Leesburg, Virginia. 

As you might have guessed, this night included alcohol and stogies.

We drank and walked and talked and smoked and drank some more. We hopped from restaurant to restaurant, downing wine and beer and whiskey, all the while drawing down a box of cigars purchased at the local tobacconist.

At one point, the groom had me laughing so hard that I bit down on the cigar butt, crumbling the outer paper, which I inhaled, coughed up, then involuntarily swallowed.

I washed it down with a swig of wine—all of it came up the next morning.

Gross, I know.

But it perfectly illustrates the entire point of this article... 

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting around 30 thousand spam calls a day.

OK, I exaggerate. But sometimes it feels like that.

Anytime an actual phone number shows up on my caller ID, I know it’s from someone I don’t know.

When my Mom calls, it says Mom. When my wife calls, it says Elaine. When a telemarketer calls…

Rajesh was 6’ 2”, 215 lbs.

I was 2 inches taller but 35 pounds lighter.

So when he punched me in the face, I felt it.

It wouldn't have mattered if all 7 billion people on this planet were screaming in unison for my success. Nor would it have mattered how early I'd woken up that morning, how much water I drank, or if I'd eaten protein for breakfast. It wouldn't have made a bit of difference if I'd created a plan for my day, meditated, or drafted the perfect self-introspection piece in my journal.

I didn't know how to drive a stick-shift well, so it was unlikely I'd get it right. I would have stalled that son-of-a-bitch on the platform every single time.

Skills can't be faked.

Wanting to succeed is never enough.

And life-hacks won't give you some magical power to achieve more than you're already achieving.

In the darkness of a winter morning, when the house still smells of freshly brewed coffee and candlelight dances on a good book, this time to think and plan is my meditation. It's my time to set the day right, before it has begun. Which is what I’ve done in the silence of this a.m.