This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with David Barnett, the founder and former CEO of PopSockets phone grips, based in Colorado. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I was once a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado, and I was frustrated with my headset tangling every time I went to make a call on my phone.
So I drove to a nearby Joann Fabrics store and glued a couple of huge clothing buttons to the back of my tiny little iPhone so I could wrap my headset around them.
I got made fun of for how ridiculous it was, but over the course of about a year and many, many prototypes, I miniaturized it, and eventually launched a business out of my garage in the mountains of Boulder in 2014.
It’s been 11 years, and since then, PopSockets has sold nearly 300 million iPhone grips in 75 countries and now sells related products, including phone cases, wallets, mounts, batteries, and chargers.
What I’m passionate about is making a positive impact in the world — not phone accessories. PopSockets fell into my lap with this invention that turned into a viral phenomenon. I ended up running the company, not because I was good at it or was a well-trained CEO, but because I didn’t have the money to hire anybody else.
To put it simply, I wasn’t the right person to be running the company, and my passions lie in maximizing the positive impact. So I found the right person, stepped down as CEO in 2024, and now spend some of my time elsewhere.
My routine today is radically different from when I started PopSockets. I was working 80 hours and waking up every morning at 3 a.m. with racing thoughts, trying to get back to sleep for two hours.
As an entrepreneur, though, you’ve got to have an open mind to possibilities that other people aren’t considering. So I try to incorporate creativity into my daily life as much as possible.
I wake up around 7 a.m., and I don’t ever use an alarm clock.
Alarms kill my sleep. I never set morning meetings, and occasionally, for travel, I have to use an alarm, but it just kills me. I’ll wake up at like five in the morning, even if it’s set for 9 a.m. So, no alarms.
The first thing I do is make a large cup of “graffee.”
“Graffee” is one of my inventions. It’s a mix of green tea and decaffeinated coffee. I have always aspired to be a coffee drinker, but it keeps me awake. I still want the health benefits of coffee, and I want a little bit of caffeine and the health benefits of green tea, so I mix them together.
My friends and my wife all say the same thing about everything I eat and drink. They’re like, “How does that taste?”
It tastes great to me because I managed to get my taste in line with reason.
Reason is the slave of passions. Depending on what we want, we rationalize. But our tastes and passions drive us to behave. I think part of being successful is flipping that. You want to control your passions and desires through reason.
At 8 a.m., I go on a two-hour walk with my dog in the forest.
After I help get my 11-year-old and 12-year-old ready for school, I head out for a two-hour walk with my dog in the forest.
My dog and I walk in the forest for a couple of hours every morning. She’s almost 16 years old, so she’s slowing down a bit, but we have been together a long time, taking these walks.
That walk is really when I have my creative time and toggle back and forth between philosophical topics and PopSocket topics. I’ll move from thinking about the nature of consciousness, to how PopSockets can improve the experience of people propping up their phones in planes to watch movies.
At 10 a.m., I have a smoothie that many find disgusting — and it takes me two to three hours to finish.
I have my first calories around 10 a.m., and I have the same smoothie every day.
It’s an almond milk base, and then it has a large quantity of steel-cut oats, a full cup of psyllium fiber, chia seeds, flax seeds, mixed frozen berries, almond butter, walnuts, copious amounts of broccoli, and a big chunk of fresh ginger.
I have actually had friends try the smoothie, and they spit it up. They describe it as disgusting — but their reason is that they’re a slave to their passions. They haven’t evolved yet.
I do 100 “Barnett-ups” to stay fit, a workout I invented.
I try to do 100 “Barnett-ups” about three or four times a week.
A Barnett-up is an amazing exercise. It gets your core, your triceps, your shoulders, your chest, and your back.
You make fists, bring them into your butt, plant them down, and then lift your body up. You lift your butt first, then your legs, and then crank out as many of these as you can. I do a set of 45 first, then 30, and then a set of 25.
On the weekends, I do whatever I can to be in nature and exercise, like get on my bike, run up a mountain, or swim with my kids. There’s no specific routine.
I do more practical work while I drink my smoothie.
I usually sit in front of my computer and work while I’m drinking my smoothie.
I have meetings, but not many. I try to minimize meetings. If your calendar is full of meetings, something’s not right. If you’re really busy, then cancel your meetings and go get something done.
I used to have our project management team monitor the entire company to determine the percentage of their days filled with meetings. Then, I would set goals for them to reduce the percentage to a more reasonable amount.
I lead the solutions team, so I’m still pretty involved in legal matters, patents, and intellectual property. On a typical work day, I also do some marketing and respond to emails.
At 3 p.m., I have lunch — and again, it’s not something most people would eat.
My lunch is different every day. For example, I’ll have a heated almond butter and hummus burrito with prunes and olive oil. Whatever we have in the cabinets, I’ll mix it all up, and that’s my lunch.
I try to get a decent amount of protein, but I don’t monitor it. I just mix together good fats, good protein, always, complex carbs, tons of antioxidants, and just good, nutritious food that makes me feel good.
I put my devices away between 3 to 4 p.m. when my kids come home.
We play soccer, basketball, wrestle, anything but screens — and don’t really talk. I don’t ask them how school was. Kids don’t want to talk about how school was; they want to play.
My wife usually makes dinner five to six nights out of the week. She and I are both vegetarians, leaning toward vegan, but the kids will sometimes have some meat or fish.
I stretch for 30 to 40 minutes before going to bed at 10 p.m.
After I have dinner, I do a little work, put the kids to sleep, and then usually do some stretching or breathing for 30 or 40 minutes before bed.
The most essential part of my day is not any part of my day. It’s the night before — it’s sleep. The quality of my day depends so much on the quality of the sleep I get the night before.
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