They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but what’s most important is what you do before breakfast. That is, before the day truly begins, before life starts to distract. 1) Drink two glasses of water If things are going your way, you’ve just slept for eight hours. You’re dehydrated. Do you know what dehydration causes? Fatigue, fogginess, headaches. You know what’s bad for thinking about longterm planning, micro and macro trends, and your financial future? Fatigue, fogginess, headaches. 2. Brush up on the news The market is always changing, shedding its scales and reforming itself. That’s why a daily check-up is all but mandatory. Where you gather your news will be up to you, ultimately, but one thing is important: variety. If you start leaning on one person or network’s perspective, you’re going to be overly influenced by their take on everything. That’s a good way to get bad advice. 3. Check in on your accounts Checking, savings, nest egg, 401k, IRA, investment, roboadvisor accounts. Each and every single account you have. Why? Because this is who you are, financially. And in order to grow, you have to have a mastery of who you are. Check in—it takes 5 minutes—and see what needs help. How’s your credit card load? Do you have extra money? Where should you be putting it? 4. Make your money move Now it's time to open your portfolio. Brand new to investing? No worries, there are a thousand and one educational outlets out there. We recommend a combination of Investopedia articles and tutorials and learning the ropes from Try2BFunded, which let me build a mock-portfolio to trade with over six weeks. Another thing to encourage people to do here is to follow industries they’re well acquainted with. This keeps things simple, especially if you’re just getting started. Don’t try and trade in biopharm if you don’t know anything about biopharm (even if your cousin has a sure-fire, can’t miss tip.) 5. Make other people’s money move You’ve got your money to trade with and you’ve got other people’s money to trade with, you just don’t know it yet. Welcome to the world of prop trading. The short of it: you gain access to up to $100,000 at Try2BFunded or the prop trader of your choosing and then you get to take home a slice of the profit. With Try2BFunded you take home the majority of the pie—a cool 60% deposited in your account every 2 weeks. Now, go have some pancakes. You’ve earned it.