My Super Productive Daily Routine (CEO & Athlete)

Written by NelsonQuest
July 12, 2022

For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Nelson Quest – I’m a 36 years entrepreneur from the US.

In 2013 I founded real estate technology company that I’ve since grown to over 50 employees –

in 2014 I moved to Colombia donde me aprendí a hablar español con fluidez – improved my salsa level from ‘human tree’ to ‘casanova’ – am currently working towards climbing the highest mountain in every continent while also trying to win a national title in boxing.

And in my spare time I’m basically trying to give myself a brain aneurysm by spending 30 hours per week on YouTube videos – where I dive into the darker, more authentic aspects of personal development that nobody else is really talking about.

Funny story – about 3 years ago I had the fastest growing personal development channel in North America until that channel was deleted with no explanation, after uploading more than 100 videos and investing over 100k.

I actually cried – for about 15 minutes – and then I started working on a new channel, which I launched a few months later.

That channel is now the fastest growing personal development channel in the spanish speaking world.

And so you might be able to tell, given that I’m speaking English right now – the prodigal son has finally returned to making english content… , and in the time that I’ve been gone I’ve made some significant upgrades.

My goal with this video is to introduce or reintroduce you to who I am, through a daily routine that has evolved IMMENSELY over the last 10 years as I’ve worked obsessively to dominate each of my 4 dimensions – physical – occupational – expressive and mental – or what I like to refer to as the P.O.E.M. framework, which I’ll cover in other articles.

Morning

These days I tend to wake up 6am and the first things I do are piss and check my phone.

I have employees working in every time-zone so that over the course of 24 hours my business is always moving forward – and so I like to check to see if anyone is waiting on me for feedback.

I find that blue-light exposure first thing helps me to wake up and maintain healthy circadian rhythms, and to help with that, I put on blue-light glasses as I move through the rest of my routine.

A quick note on my house – everything is automated – I’m obsessed with efficiency and virtually every time-saving investment I can make is worth it to me, even if it only gets me a few extra minutes.

So at certain times throughout the day the curtains go up or down, lights go on and off – the stars turn on after the sun sets – and my bed even tucks me in at night.

My apartment design was heavily inspired by Tony Stark – full tour video coming soon so for the 1% of you that didn’t immediately subscribe when I winked at you a minute ago, make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications.

Ok so after I check my phone, I head to the kitchen and drink a big bottle of celery juice – It’s got some vitamins and helps get me hydrated, but I mostly just take it because it helps me go to the bathroom. I’m getting old.

I also take a single serving of FOCL day – I promise this video will not turn into an infomercial, but with that being said, I’ve been using FOCL products for over a year now and I swear by them – FOCL day kills morning brain fog and helps get me focused for the work that’s coming –

After that I ask my housekeeper Girlesa to help make me my morning drink – which is a caffeine-free probiotic tea that I mix with some keto chocolate, and a a single serving of collagen powder – which is amazing for my skin and joints.

I try to avoid carbs from 6pm until around 10 am the following day and I find this gives me the same benefits as intermittent fasting.

Girlesa works with me every day now – she’s obsessive-compulsive, which is basically a dream disorder to have in a housekeeper –

If every inch of my apartment isn’t completely spotless, she feels like she can’t breathe. I really don’t know how I get so lucky in life.

Girlesa also prepares all of my meals, which are always delicious – as well as fresh cold-pressed vegetable juice – my favorites are carrot and beet juice with a bit of ginger –

While Girlesa is getting my drink ready I take a quick 2-3 minute shower – start out hot and then slam it over to cold for about a minute to wake up – Then I dry off and it’s time for meditation.

I always start my meditation with some Rapé – which is a type of tobacco that I was introduced to me by a shaman a few years ago –

It’s considered ancient medicine, and has lots of physical and mental benefits.

In my case I find that it it purges my thoughts puts me into a space of calm awareness that’s perfect for meditation – it also clears the fuck out of my sinuses.

Although I have a really nice meditation area – lately I’ve been meditating in my closet so that I simultaneously do my red-light therapy – which improves my energy – makes my skin young and sumptuous, and boosts recovery from workouts.

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I do a 10 minute timed meditation on the Calm app – where every 15 breaths or so I rotate a little bit so that I’m getting light exposure across my entire body.

Meditation increases that little space between the things that happens to me and how I react to them, and most of who I am today is a direct result of constantly working to amplify that space.

Meditation was also my gateway into Taoism, which I consider to be my principal philosophy.

Taoism’s most powerful metaphor is “The River” – at any point, we’re either moving ‘with’ the river or ‘against’ it –

Learning how to move with the river at all times has been an invaluable part of my process.

Now listen – at this point you may think that I’m extremely disciplined, and while I won’t say that you’re mistaken – what I will say is that most of what I do is really… effortless.

To me, ‘difficult’ is… laying on a beach with a pina colada, going out partying, or anything that isn’t moving me closer to my goals.

People love to tell me that I need to be more social. Respectfully, these people have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about.

I don’t go out, have virtually no friends, work entire days, every day – and I’ve never been happier.

I’ve spent most of the last 10 years living a very lonely and isolated life, which sometimes did get pretty difficult, but it was in that solitude where I discovered, and continue to discover, who I really am.

These days, I am rarely lonely, thanks to my two beautiful ladies.

First is my almost 2 year old boston terrier – her name is Ro, which is short for ‘Rorschach’ because her face reminds me of a Rorschach test.

She’s blind in one eye and everyone thinks she’s a mute because she doesn’t bark, but I love her anyway. She loves me unconditionally

I also have a beautiful, brilliant, intellectually curious girlfriend who supports me in ways that makes me feel like it’s actually OK for me to be me. I’ve never experienced that before.

We don’t have a normal relationship – she understands that I need to work and train every day, even when we hang out on weekends– but when I work, she studies. When I train, she trains with me.

Sometimes – actually a lot of times, I find myself looking at her and wondering if she’s really real.

Anyway, from the moment i wake up I try to be at my desk working within 30 minutes.

From 6:30am to 10am, which is when I’m most creative, I work exclusively on NelsonQuest.

For my first few years of making videos, I used to absolutely detest writing the scripts – but a scary voice in my head demanded that I keep going,

And I’m glad I listened because at some point I began to experience writing as a boundless artform, and that’s when I became obsessed.

There are few things I enjoy more than getting on my treadmill first thing in the morning and queuing up a beautiful symphonic playlist as I sip on my tea and lose myself within the infinite corridors of my mind.

Hopefully you guys are noticing this passion reflected in my videos, and if you have any questions about writing, let me know in the comments below.

At 10am I have my first 1 hour training session – boxing – which despite my profound predilection for writing, is my favorite part of the day.

Pre-workout, I have a glass of sanson wine with a spoonful of honey, 1 egg ,and beta alanine – it’s an old boxers’ potion that tastes just as disgusting as it sounds, but it gets me fired up.

During my workout I sip on my patented intra-workout recovery drink – 8oz orange juice, 100 calories of dextrose, 25g of protein, and a few big scoops of greek yogurt – which tastes delicious and helps me recover much faster from intense workouts.

My boxing coach and I have lots of chemistry – We’re both bullies and always try to be as offensive as possible in our interactions.

I laugh hysterically when I’m around him, at least until the warmup is finished. From that point onward it’s all business.

I always work with a training partner so that every combination, every drill, everything I do has the context of an actual fight.

At the end of training we do sparring rounds -which is the part of the day where I most feel alive.

I love developing new movement patterns and then having an opportunity to test them in a scenario where there are dire physical consequences if I make mistakes.

I also fucking love hitting and getting hit – love having to wipe the sweat out of my eyes so that I can see – I even love the way my coach cackles away like a hyena in the background whenever I get cracked with a big shot.

After boxing we all usually head to the pool to swim a little bit, grab some sun, and then another cold shower before I head back to my apartment where my housekeeper has my breakfast ready –

When I’m done, I go to a cafe to work for at least 4 to 5 hours. From this point of the day onward I focus 100% on my business, AgentFire.

For the past 7 years my cafe order has been the exact same – 1 oatmeal cookie, 2 bottles of water, and a shot of espresso – of which I only take a few sips so I don’t get addicted.

I spend most of my days in meetings and working on big picture stuff, focusing mostly on sales and marketing.

Fun fact: I use the exact same setup, equipment, and team for NelsonQuest to help me make videos for AgentFire.

Afternoon

At around 4pm I head home and it’s time for workout #2 – which is either a workout in my home gym, which I do about 2 times per week to keep my body strong and injury free for boxing.

A salsa class, which is my go-to recovery day workout, or, my personal favorite – the green goblin.

I train on a Trek Madone SL6 with a full Wahoo system that adjusts resistance through the back part, and adjusts the incline through the front part for when I’m going up or down hills –

I always pick a different 60 minute training program using my Zwift app – picking more intense programs based on how I feel.

I only allow myself to play videogames if I’m training on my bike – and I LOVE video games, especially Role playing games – which is kind of a problem because I end up always wanting to train on my bike.

I play on a big 8k TV with bose surround sound and Hue Sync, which syncs all of the lights in the room to the TV and makes me feel like I’m in the game –

So much so that there are times where I’m pushing myself to the max, and I forget that I’m even working out.

After I’m done, I’ll shower again, eat my dinner – and then it’s back to work until 8 or 9 pm.

At home I alternate work between my treadmill, seated – where I have a vibration plate I use frequently, and then sometimes on my sofa using recovery boots –

I think sitting for long periods is horrible for our bodies and as someone who used to suffer from chronic leg pain because of this, I now do everything I can now to keep my blood flowing.

I also do do ALL of my work using the Pomodoro technique – my sweet spot is 50 minute work sessions followed by 10 minute breaks.

Evening

At 9pm I shut everything down, take my FOCL night along with ZMA, which helps me sleep like a baby – and then hit the sauna for as long as I can survive, which is usually about 15 minutes at 120 degrees fahrenheit.

After that I take a very dark shower (for those of you keeping track at home, we’re at 4 showers now).

And then I like to listen to a podcast or a fiction book to wind down while Ro tries to smother me to death with her body.

At 10pm it’s time to go to sleep – and then I do it all over again the following day.

Closening

Hey guys – so that’s my full day… or at least the 10% of it that I was able to cram into this short video – if you want WAY more detail then make sure to follow me on Instagram @nelonquest.

If you’re wondering why my girlfriend disappeared by the end of the video – we actually broke up… that fucking bitch.

Nah I’m just kidding. She lives in a different city and had to fly home.

Anyway if you have any lingering comments or questions from the video, let me know in the comments.

Make sure to check Dark Mode – the productivity system that I designed and use to achieve insanely difficult goals – which you can download for free.

This is the path.

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My Super Productive Daily Routine (CEO & Athlete)

Table of Contents

Morning