Business
Forget retirement: Martha Stewart wants to be a ‘super ager’—she wakes up at 4 a.m., packs in brain games and pilates, before staff arrive at 7 a.m
Martha Stewart doesn’t want to be your typical retiree. The 84-year-old cooking mogul is up at 4 a.m., fitting in brain games, a homemade green juice and a pilates class, all before dawn.
“I have friends now, unfortunately—and I feel very bad for them—they have stopped changing,” she told Lipstick on the Rim podcast, adding that it’s the peril of quitting your job and kicking up your feet when you reach a ripe age.
“The people I admire most are what they’re calling now ‘super agers’ who are not retiring, who continue doing good things, who continue to evolve… that’s what I’m going after.”
Although for many, the benefit of not having a 9-to-5 is being able to wake up whenever, Stewart insists her pre-dawn wake-up is “the secret for everybody who wants to get a lot done in the day”—and in her world, it’s not just her who’s banned from sleeping in.
“I live on a farm. Everybody comes to work at 7, right? So, you can’t be in bed, you have to be up,” the lifestyle guru said. “You have to be up and you have to show them that you’re as lively as they are at 7:00 a.m.”
Martha Stewart’s energizing morning routine
While many of her retired peers are leaning into leisurely retirements, Stewart treats her mornings as a launchpad to gain energy for a full workday, despite only getting four hours of sleep a night.
“I read the entire New York Times,” she said. “I do all the puzzles. I do letterbox and I do tiles, I do all of those silly games. It’s good for your brain.”
After getting mental stimulation from a game of Connections, she hits the gym or does pilates. Though the TV star has a gym at home, she likes to leave the house for her workout routine. Then she washes it all down with some green juice from ingredients from her garden. Her breakfast ranges from yogurt or eggs—which unsurprisingly, are both homemade.
It’s the same relentless work ethic that made Stewart the first self-made female billionaire in America, from being a media mogul to commuting into Manhattan well into her 80s.
“I mean, I work in New York, so I drive into New York almost every day,” she said on the podcast.
Stewart, or otherwise known as America’s homemaker—had a path that was far from linear. From starting as a Wall Street stockbroker to launching Martha Stewart Living on TV, by the 90s she took her company public and became the first self-made billionaire in the U.S.
After serving jail time in the 2000s for lying about a stock trade–she expanded her brand into retail partnerships and teamed up with Snoop Dogg to win over younger people. She graced the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit at 81, and created a brand of CBD products.
“I was lucky, and I was smart. I built a beautiful company, and I was rewarded. And that’s the American way,” Steart previously told Fortune in 2021.
In that interview, she reflected on her past endeavors and advice for entrepreneurs booking to start a business, after all her success late into her 80s embodies its never too late to start.
“If you have a good idea, and you have encouragement from your family and friends, try to build it into something amazing. Entrepreneurial behavior, to me, is the most exciting way to work. To build on a business, and build more and more, it’s so much fun. Every day I wake up with a new idea. That’s kept me really active,” she added.
“My motto is, when you’re through changing, you’re through. I really believe that—you have to keep aware of what’s happening around you.”
