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Daily Routines

Dany Garcia: Daily Routine

On Daily Routines, we profile successful leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, executives and athletes to explore their routines, schedules, habits and day in the life.

In a 2022 interview with ABC News, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — who was promoting the second season of his NBC series Young Rock — began talking about all the females in his life and the important roles they played over the decades. He mentioned his grandmother, his mother, his wife Lauren, his three daughters, and Dany Garcia, who was his first wife and now long-time business partner.

If you’re a fan of Johnson’s countless ventures in the entertainment world — whether it’s The Fast and the Furious spin-off Hobbs & Shaw (2019), Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), Jungle Cruise (2021), and Black Adam (2022) — then thank Garcia because she’s played an integral part in his career over the couple decades.

Born and raised in Belleville, New Jersey, Garcia was raised by Cuban immigrant parents and was motivated at a young age to make money to help them.

“My parents were immigrants, they got their GED later in life, they had three children, it was always a struggle,” she explained in an interview with Glamour. “I was all about, ‘Okay, I just need to be a millionaire. If I’m a millionaire, I can take care of my family.’ I knew I was going to get an international finance and marketing degree. I was like, ‘That will give me domestic exposure and global exposure!’ Very specific, very nerdy.”

She studied international marketing & finance at the University of Miami and graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1992. It was at the University of Miami that she met Johnson, who was also there as a college student. By 1997 they were married. Garcia kicked off her career at Merrill Lynch, before starting her own wealth management firm, JDM Partners LLC in 2002. As Johnson started making his way into Hollywood, he asked Garcia to manage his career in 2008.

Nearly 15 years later, Garcia presides over a business empire spanning media & entertainment, tequila, bottled water, ice cream, professional football, sports equipment, energy drinks and more. Oh, and to add to all that, she’s also a professional bodybuilder in her spare time — Garcia first competed in 2011 and went on to receive her IFBB Pro card a few years later.

I was 13 years old the first time I opened an issue of Muscle & Fitness magazine and saw female bodybuilders. I’d never seen an image like that, and it struck me in my soul. At the time, I had short hair, big glasses, and was all legs with a small torso. Very, very skinny. But I started following these incredible women athletes and their sport.

Muscle, Inc.: How Dany Garcia Built Her Body and an Empire | Bodybuilding.com

Dany Garcia’s daily work schedule

Garcia and her husband, fellow bodybuilder and TGC Management fitness industry brand consultant Dave Rienzi, split their time between Los Angeles and Orlando. Depending on which city she’s living in at the time, she’ll wake up between 5.30-6.30am and the first thing she does is check her Oura ring to see how she slept.

After that, she’ll weigh herself to track her bodybuilding progress, before letting her four dogs out and making a cup of coffee. “I take about 20 to 30 minutes in the morning to just enjoy my coffee, have lap time with my amazing Frenchie, Franklin Washington, and center myself,” she told The Cut.

She’ll then have breakfast, which usually consists of bone broth, a protein shake, oatmeal and berries, then have a Zoa energy drink before hitting the gym where she trains for an hour and half before her workday starts.

In a 2022 interview with The Cut, Garcia gave readers a glimpse of what her typical work day looked like as a CEO overseeing multiple brands across different industries.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are for Zoom calls, while Tuesdays and Thursdays are “blocked days” where I don’t have any scheduled calls. Instead, I spend time looking over the portfolio of companies that I have, at consumer sentiment or a new philosophy that we can apply as we’re bringing a film in and how it could tie into another one of my companies. I spend a lot of time researching and reading, whether it’s technical or philosophical books. A lot of my inspiration comes not from reading business journals, but creativity, to set the tone of the companies I own or invest in.

How Business Mogul Dany Garcia Gets It Done | The Cut

As a busy media mogul who does bodybuilding on the side, Garcia is very conscious of eating the right nutrition to fuel both parts of her life. “I don’t stop my career to go into competition, so my diet has to support my physique and my brain,” she told Women’s Health. “I have to be able to train and then chair a number of very important meetings.”

On a typical training day, she eats six times which consists of four main meals and two protein shakes. Garcia’s dietary staples include lots of egg whites, turkey bacon, filet mignon, oatmeal, sweet potato mash and steamed vegetables. Other protein choices include pork or venison, and wild rice or brown rice for carbs.

For her cheat meals throughout the week, Garcia’s go-to indulgences include Teremana tequila and ice cream, particularly the Salt & Straw brand. “My favorite cheat food in the world is ice cream,” she told Women’s Health. “I love it so much that I bought a piece of the company.”

Garcia will generally wrap up her day with dinner at 6pm with her husband and then spending time with their dogs. If she’s in a leaning-out phase in her training then she’ll squeeze in a cardio session before bed. Otherwise it’s lights out by 9-9.30pm.

There are so many moving parts to my life it has to be very structured and disciplined. As you start to get active and as your stress builds, you may not remember to eat or sleep. Since I have muscles to protect and grow, scheduling eating and resting is vital. The training is one thing, but if you don’t do that then it goes away. So it’s all really become a really good anchor in my life to maintain balance and health.

How Business Mogul Dany Garcia Gets It Done | The Cut

Before you go…

Check out more daily routines from Barack Obama, Arianna Huffington, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Michelle Obama, Sheryl Sandberg, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and plenty others.

About Author

Hey there! I'm Hao, the Editor-in-Chief at Balance the Grind. We’re on a mission to showcase healthy work-life balance through interesting stories from people all over the world, in different careers and lifestyles.