Unlike you and me, CEOs start farting around well before dawn!

You know I love to read about CEOs’ morning routines, as I detailed in a piece earlier this year, “A Day in the Rigorously Meaningless Life of One Corporate CEO.”

Normally I send up these pieces as the authors’ transparent attempts to portray themselves as impossibly singleminded Frederick Winslow Taylor work-bots, in order to make everyone who works for them (including the board of directors) feel lazy by comparison, and leave them alone.

But Axios CEO Jim VandeHei uncorked one the other day on his own platform that diminished the credibility of even this deeply suspect journalistic genre.

Axios’ reliably objective headline over its own CEO’s piece: “How Axios CEO Jim VandeHei Wins the Morning.”

“I’m a huge believer in early mornings, strict routines and doing a lot before the sun rises,” VandeHei begins. “I’m not a doctor, neuroscientist or therapist. So take my screw-loose list for what it is: one 52-year-old CEO’s routine, based on lots of experimentation for what works for me personally.”

But you’re taking it upon yourself to share “Jim’s morning hacks” with the world, right, bruh? So we’re gonna take it for what it actually is: Your self-righteous advice to us.

1. Get up early. Yes, some people are night owls and still crush life. But I’m all-in on getting up between 4:30 and 5 a.m. most mornings. No one is around to bother you. So it provides a few hours of full control — and solitude. I do my best writing in the early part of the day. That’s when I’m tapping out this column on my iPhone.

First off: I don’t know the meaning of life, but I feel deeply certain that we are not here to “crush” it, exactly. Also, are you “all-in on getting up” early, or do you get up early? Because those sound like two different things. And finally, do you squander your precious early morning hours doing things like “tapping out” columns on your phone? If this is your best writing, I’d hate to see your worst.

Next!

2. Focus my mind. I try (don’t always succeed) to start with some combination of meditation (20 mins. of transcendental meditation), prayer and reading, plus adding to my Gratitude List — a rolling diary of people who have made a difference in my life. This process helps me focus on what matters most.

Gosh, Jimbo, I thought you were big on “strict routines.” Seems like when you open your peepers in the pitch-black, you don’t know which combination of meditation, prayer or reading you’re going to do (if any), or who you’re going to add to the “rolling diary” of people who have made a difference in your life. (Egads!)

3. Feed my body. I’m a huge believer in a high-protein, healthy breakfast (latest kick: six egg whites, half an avocado and Ezekiel toast every a.m.). Big fan of coffee.

Back up the trucks, big dog. Ezekiel toast? Seriously, duder, don’t you have any blue-collar friends who will stick your head in the toilet when they see a thing like this, and flush?

… For me, there’s a massive connection between eating healthy, working out and greatly limiting booze — and my productivity and clarity of mind. Research is clear that this is pretty much universally true.

This means avoiding alcohol most nights. I’m noticeably foggier if I don’t clock seven hours of sleep. Booze interferes, sadly.

You seem like you’re really white-knuckling it with the “booze,” hoss. You also seem to lack confidence in your ability to navigate through a little “noticeable” fog. Churchill, Hemingway, Mantle and I—we worry a little about a fella who can’t operate, even in a gravely important, artistically iconic and exquisitely exacting job like yours, when not feeling absolutely, positively bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

It also, for me, means no added sugar or processed foods — both of which sap my energy the next day. Yeah, most of you will hate this one.

Hate the priggishness, not the prig, my brother-made-too-much-of-by-your-mother.

4. Feed my mind. I run a news company, so I read the news every morning without fail. My menu is lots of Axios content, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, several non-Axios specialty newsletters — and a quick spin through Twitter, which I still find useful for spotting ideas or opinions I might otherwise miss. Lots of people email random stuff to eat up, too.

As long as you’re squandering your precious early hours screwing around on your phone, you might has well gape at some reels, too. (And I bet you do!)

If I run alone in the a.m., I love podcasts (Huberman Lab, Joe Rogan, “Pivot,” “All-In,” Peter Attia’s “The Drive,” and “How I Built This,” among others).

And now you run, yet! What time does the sun rise where you are, noon? Where is Axios headquarters, Longyearbyen, Norway?

5. Strategize. The best, most useful part of my morning routine is a rolling conversation with [Axios President] Roy Schwartz and [Executive Editor] Mike Allen, via phone, about Axios. We all do our best thinking early and play off each other.

Oh, to be a virtual fly on the virtual wall of that daily pre-dawn rolling conversation of strategery with Jim, Roy and Mike!

Okay, Jimmerz: So you do your best writing early, your best thinking early, all your prayers and your meditation and reading and your workout and Ezekiel toast feast and business-bromance bullshit palaver—all before sunup! What, pray tell, do you do all day?

And why can’t I shake the old W.C. Fields line: “I spent fifty percent of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.” 

Time, too.