Think about the first ten minutes after your alarm goes off on a typical weekday. Maybe you hit snooze once, then twice, and suddenly the margin you had for a calm start has evaporated. You grab your phone to silence the alarm and, before your feet touch the floor, you've seen three emails, a news alert, and a message from someone who needs something by noon. Your heart rate is already climbing. The day hasn't technically started, but your body has decided it's under pressure.
This is the sprint, and almost everyone reading this book knows it intimately. You're hunting for shoes, answering questions from a child who can't find a permission slip, remembering you haven't eaten, and mentally rehearsing a meeting, all at once. By the time you're out the door, you're often more tired than you should be at 8 a.m.
Here's what I want you to hold onto from the very start: this is not a personal failing. You don't lack discipline, and you haven't failed at being a morning person. You're running a system that was never designed on purpose. It simply accumulated, one rushed morning at a time, until the rushing became the routine.