Audiobook Review – Power Hour by Adrienne Herbert

Power Hour by Adrienne Herbert was the perfect audiobook to listen to at the start of a new year. It’s packed with great advice on how to review your goals, set milestones and adapt your habits to maximise your time. Getting up early lies at the core of Adrienne Herbert’s methodology, which for a night owl like me is pretty daunting but also hugely exciting. The family schedule doesn’t really fit my personal clock so rising at dawn makes a lot of sense. However, whether a long-term change to my waking hour will be achievable is another matter (more on that later!).

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Synopsis

From the popular podcast Power Hour comes a book about making the most of the first hour of your day, to pursue your passion and achieve success.

How many times have you said, ‘I’d love to do that, but I don’t have time’? The Power Hour message is simple: we all have an hour to dedicate to building the life we want, whether we think we do or not.

Power Hour will show you how to harness the first hour of your day in order to achieve your goals – whether those are writing a book, running a marathon or starting a business – before the rest of the world wakes up and starts competing for your attention. From the importance of developing a growth mindset to creating powerful habits and the significance of daily movement, it will help you reclaim your time and unlock your full potential. Most importantly, it will make you realise that it is always possible to make a change and create a life you love.

Stop waiting for the right time, or for more time. Start with just one hour today.

The Story Behind the Power Hour

Before Adrienne Herbert shares her tips, she tells her own story which is just as powerful as the personal development strategy. I hadn’t listened to her popular podcast before so really appreciated hearing about her working class background, and the way she had to motivate herself to achieve. This is followed by a tragic section where she miscarried her second child despite doing everything to try to succeed. The Power Hour was borne out of this loss as she tackled a new challenge – running a marathon – to move forwards with her life.

What struck me about the author is how driven she was – and still is. I would go as far to say that Adrienne Herberts’s strength of conviction is unusually high, but this doesn’t undermine the book. I saw it as a real benefit to be mentored by someone who has managed to harness their determination and this shines through her narration.

Preparing for Change

There are six chapters which build up to Create Your Own Power Hour:

The Power of Mindset
How to Create Powerful Habits
The Power of Movement
The Power of Sleep
The Power of People
The Power of Purpose

Although the author says its fine to listen to them in any order, I followed the structure in the book. Each one refers to a wide range of other personal development approaches and practitioners (I’m guessing that Adrienne Herbert has met many of these authors in her podcasts). These summaries built on the central message and also gave me a brief insight into other books that I might enjoy.

By the time I’d finished Power Hour, I was excited to have a go myself. The only aspect that undermined the overall direction was a lack of focus at the end of the audiobook. Rather than doubling down on one goal, it seemed that the author used the first hour to exercise. Of course that’s fine, but it seemed to take away from the aim of achieving something really amazing.

My Personal Outcome

So this is the part where I have to be brutally honest!

For the first two weeks after finishing Power Hour, I got up at 5.30am religiously and got a massive amount done. I went on the exercise bike and knuckled down on a personal project. It was as helpful as Adrienne said it would be.

The downside? Lack of sleep. Even though I was going to bed at 10pm, I couldn’t settle and subsequently had about 5 hours of rest a night. Add in homeschooling, two jobs on top of the pandemic and it just wasn’t feasible to keep on going at the same pace until everything settled down.

BUT four weeks on and I’m prepared to give it a try again. This time with a firmer regime in place. I’ll report on my progress in April!