In this episode of the Above the Business podcast, host Bradley Hamner opens with a candid confession that he lacks the personal discipline he admires in figures like Jocko Willink and in his own community. He reflects on how this shortfall affects both his personal life—such as tracking macros and maintaining early‑morning routines—and his business, where he previously "winged" decisions, operated without consistent cadence, and let his personality drive the company. Hamner argues that relying on personal discipline alone is insufficient for scaling; instead, he advocates building deliberate structure, processes, and routines that compensate for discipline gaps. He introduces the Blueprint Operating System, pointing listeners to assets on blueprintos.com/assets, including a forthcoming web class, templates, and the "Rainmaker to Architect" assessment designed to help entrepreneurs shift from being the sole rainmaker to architecting a scalable business. The episode also features sponsor reads for Club Capital and Coach P Consulting, offering financial advisory and coaching services for insurance agency owners. Hamner concludes by encouraging listeners to use the provided tools and workshops to develop systematic business habits that run like clockwork, even without innate discipline.
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What if you could step out of the day-to-day and see your business from a whole new perspective? Welcome to Above the Business, where we empower you to rise above the daily grind and embrace a higher way of business ownership. It's time to build your business by design. Hey everyone. Well, you know what? This podcast is kind of— the name of it is on the tin. The discipline I wish I had. I'm not as disciplined as I wish that I was, and I'm not as disciplined as some of the people, even my clients that I work with, think that I am. Ultimately, I look at other people. I look at my pastor, I look at some friends, I look at even some of the members in my own community, and I admire their discipline. I think to myself, I really wish I could be more like this person. And many of you who listen, you know who you are because I compliment you on your discipline. And for so long, I would see somebody and people like Jocko Willink who get up at 4 o'clock in the morning every single morning, take a picture of his time and post that every day. And I love that about them. And I want to aspire to have more discipline. In my life. I want to be able to track my macros every single day, as disciplined as some of the people that I know who are in tip-top shape, have these six-pack abs at 45 years old or whatever it is, because they just always track their macros. And the people that get up at 4:30 in the morning, they wake up the same time and they do the same routine each and every day. I admire that so incredibly much. And for a long time, I didn't admire it, I envied it. I wanted to be more like them. And so then I would begin to, you know, beat myself up a little bit around the fact that I didn't have that level of discipline. I didn't have that level of consistency. The reality is that also becomes very true whenever we're talking about not only in the personal aspects of our lives. We're also talking about in our businesses as well. And so it's in this ironic twist that when I talk about structure and process and routine, it's not because I'm naturally bent that way. I wish that I was. In fact, it was just a few years ago that if you would have told me that I would be doing a podcast talking about, you know, opening it up and sharing that I'm actually not as disciplined. I actually wanted people to think that I was as disciplined as they maybe thought that I was. But the reality is, is that whether it's the Blueprint operating system, etc., and other things, it's because those things needed to be created because I'm not naturally that way. See, I don't think it's as much of a relatability if somebody says, you know, I've just always been this way. I've always been super organized. I've always been something to where I'm on top of everything. I do the same things. And I admire those people that do that, but I'm not actually that way. And so having structure and process and routine, everything that I've wanted in the business has been on the other side of that. And even though I don't have the natural discipline— now, I've worked hard to try to create some habits and to create structure outside of me to try to protect me from me. A lot of times, for it's hard to do that. It's because of that, because I'm not naturally that way, that those things have helped me to be able to grow the companies.
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I think it can be for you too. For a few— so if you're one of those people that I mentioned before, that you really are just naturally very disciplined in all aspects of your lives, man, I commend you. I think that's amazing that you have been given that gift to be able to do that. But for many of you, if you're officially an entrepreneur, you may not have that gift. And so what do you do? Ultimately, for me, I was winging everything. I just was constantly winging the whole deal all the time. It just doesn't scale. It gets the business to a certain point, which is good, but it doesn't really allow the business to scale because ultimately the business was being ran through my personality and not being ran through process. There was no structure. I was changing things constantly. There was no, um, cadence to planning. There was no cadence to the meetings that we had. There's no cadence to communication whatsoever. I was making things up as I went. That was fine early on. But it was never going to be something that was going to scale. And I think that leaning into my strengths is certainly something that I've, um, makes sense. Yes. But also understanding what my weaknesses are, and then how can I create structure, process, and routine around those weaknesses, such as discipline? Because if I relied on only my discipline, it wasn't going to get me as far as I wanted to be. But structure and process and routine doesn't always rely on my discipline. Now, I think that there are certainly habits that can be formed, and I think a lot of habits— there's some work habits, but I really think around a lot of personal habits too. But we're not going to get into the difference between habits and discipline. I wish I had the rigor that some of— some people have, both personally and in business. But I do believe even if you're somebody who doesn't naturally bent towards discipline, that you can still have a scalable business that can grow beyond you, can grow past your own skills, because it's going to be ran through process, not by your personality. So I'm going to point you to a couple assets that we have, a couple things that may help you. To be able to serve you in your journey. If you go to our website, go to blueprintos.com/assets, blueprintos.com/assets. There's a couple things. One, I'll have an upcoming web class that you can register for. Go put in your name and email address, we'll send you the details of the upcoming web class that we have. And then also down below, you're going to see a number of downloads that we have, some templates that may be able to help you, and those give you kind of some ideas. We talked about the preloaded year template that we have, but I also specifically want to point you to an assessment. So we have a business assessment. I call it the Rainmaker to Architect assessment. How do you go from being the Rainmaker— everything's dependent upon you— to becoming the architect of your business? And that assessment It's about 40 questions and they're really simple. Most of them are yes/no, kind of multiple choice, uh, take you less than 5 minutes, probably in the, you know, 3-minute range or so. And it's going to give you a score and we'll get that information. I'm happy to send you a Loom video back and just give you some insights into some things and maybe even send you over a tool that may help you. So I want to point you to those two things. Because sometimes we might need an objective view of the areas that we can improve. So go to blueprintos.com/assets and those two things. So if you'd love to join on one of my upcoming, uh, workshops that I've got coming up, I talk about this very specific thing and even give you some questions and some tools that you can use to help you. So if you're somebody who, like me, just maybe has not naturally had the gift of discipline, that doesn't mean you still, you're not able to grow a business that can run like clockwork. You can, it absolutely can do that. So I'd love to have you join one of my upcoming workshops. Go to blueprintos.com/assets. Take a look at that workshop, that web, web class I've got coming up, and then also take the Ray Mekert Architect Assessment. I think even just the questions themselves may serve you. All right, everyone, till next episode, lead well.
