Tea and Paper Newspaper: How Google CEO Sundar Pichai Starts the Day
The head of Google and Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, is sure that the right start to the day is the key to peace and productive work. About morning reading, favorite breakfast and the technique of “yogic sleep” - in a selection of his statements.
An Indian-born metallurgical engineer and cricket enthusiast, Sundar Pichai has led Google since 2015. In December 2019, he was appointed head of parent company Alphabet, which under his leadership became the fourth major technology corporation with a market value of more than $1 trillion.
The position requires Pichai to be able to multitask. Nevertheless, despite the high load, it works calmly, measuredly and without fuss. In this he is helped by morning rituals, with which he begins every day.
Pichai wakes up at 6:30-7:00. He is a vegetarian, and it is important for him to get enough protein. “I always have the same breakfast — scrambled eggs and toast,” he says.Pichai dislikes coffee and prefers to start his day with a cup of tea, indicating that it is his “very English habit”.
He always reads paper newspapers at breakfast and prefers The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times. Time with the newspaper and tea helps him get ready for the day. “I’m not a morning person, so I need to sit with a newspaper and a cup of tea to wake up and get down to business,” admits the head of Alphabet.
Special morning at Pichai on Monday. On this day, he makes a plan of affairs for the week. He sums up the results of the previous week and identifies three to five key tasks that he is going to complete over the next working days. “I really appreciate the silence in the morning,” says the head of Alphabet. “This is the only time when I can calmly comprehend everything. On Monday mornings, I try to think about the really important things I want to get done this week.” Pichai writes his ideas and plans in a special notebook.
In order to concentrate, Pichai tried to learn how to meditate, but did not like this activity. Instead, he prefers long walks, during which he listens to podcasts. “It’s much easier for me to think when I’m walking,” he admits. So Pichai likes to have some work meetings on the go.
Pichai prefers to exercise in the afternoon, in the late afternoon, and when there is time for it. “Before dinner, I can work out. I definitely get bored doing the same thing, so it could be a Peloton machine or something else that I’m in the mood for,” he says. Pichai was very fond of football as a child and would wake up in the middle of the night to watch a match on TV. Another sport that still draws Pichai as a spectator is cricket. “I dreamed of becoming a cricketer, like many Indians,” admits the principal, who was the captain of the cricket team at school.
He tries to spend his evenings with his family. He goes to bed at different times, but tries to get seven to eight hours of sleep. To relax, manage stress and relax, Pichai uses the Sleepless Deep Rest (NSDR) technique. The authorship of this term belongs to professor of neuroscience from Stanford Andrew Huberman. This technique assumes that the person “intentionally enters into states of calmness.” One type of such practice is yoga nidra, or “yogic sleep”: the organs of perception are turned off, the person completely relaxes and finds himself on the verge of sleep and wakefulness. “I find videos for NSDR from time to time. They are available for different times - 10, 20 or 30 minutes, so I choose the one that suits me, ”says Pichai.
In 2020, after the pandemic began and the US was quarantined, Pichai found a new hobby - cooking videos on YouTube. The first dish that the head of Google cooked was pizza. “I made pizza from scratch from video description,” Pichai said. “It worked out well.”
Sources: CNBC, Recode, INC.com, Drworkout, Insider (formerly Business Insider), The Verge.