Becoming Disciplined: A How To

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Welcome to this podcast episode. What are we talking about today?

Today we are talking about how to teach yourself discipline.

Oh, gosh.

Would you consider yourself a disciplined person?

No, not at all.

I would consider myself one of the most disciplined people I've ever met. I, I'm, I would say I'm very. 10 out of 10 disciplined.

I, I think it depends in what way. In a, in a work related kind of way. How, how to teach yourself discipline.

Yeah, but like, I think this, the, the characteristic of discipline carries over in every aspect of your life. I don't think somebody can be disciplined at work and then just turn that switch off and not be disciplined at home. Do you?

Yeah, a hundred percent.

What?

I think a hundred percent.

Well, we're in major disagreement about this.

I think discipline. So if you have a goal that you want to achieve, it needs to be the effort, needs to be worth the goal. So, so let me bring up an example. So if you have $20 million in the bank and you.

I would be driving a Aston Martin dbx. If I. Okay, this would be clear. All right.

Yeah. So if you have $20 million in the bank and somebody says, hey, can you come work on Friday or Saturday over the holidays and I'll pay $200 and you want to spend time with your family, you're probably not going to do it. You're going to say no, because it's not worth the effort and the time because the payment isn't big enough. But if you are negative $100 and you have a bill for another 50 and they say, hey, do you want to come work over the weekend? And I pay $200 and that gets you out of debt and that pays some groceries too. There might be enough draw there if you're money motivated to actually go out and work, because then you're in a positive.

I see.

So the effort is worth the cost.

So your point is, if there's something worth exerting discipline for, you can do that.

Yeah, and I think most people can do it. I think most people have the ability if they're truly. I see it all the time. I see people are super undisciplined in one area of their life and super disciplined about going to the gym, eating healthy.

Okay. You're, I think you're Changing my mind. Because I'm looking behind you at the plants in our house right now, and I used to be disciplined about watering the plants and taking care of them because it was important to me to have, like, clean air in the house and beautiful plants to look at. But have you noticed how I've stopped watering them?

Yeah. Now I. What?

Thank you for doing that. I love that about you. But I guess you have a really good point, because sometimes I can be disciplined about something if I choose to be. And sometimes I'm like, yeah, that's not so important. So I guess. Yeah, I guess you're right.

And discipline at work is like, when you. When you have to do things and you do them right away, that's. That's kind of discipline. But it needs to be worth the goal. So that's why a bunch of companies now say what their goal is for 2024, what their tagline is.

Yeah.

So people can relate to the cause. And you can have discipline because you want the company to reach, like ocean cleanup. Hey, we want to clean.

Have you heard Apple's new climate initiative?

No.

I mean, there was an amazing ad for it recently that was really, really funny and well done. But basically, they're making a bunch of promises. They're going to be, you know, carbon footprint zero by a certain year. They're going to use less plastic. So I think that kind of thing helps. Might help their employees feel disciplined at work. Because if they're environmentalists or they care about climate change, then they have another reason to work hard and be disciplined at work.

Yeah. And if you don't have enough, like, if it's not worth it to you, then the pain wasn't big enough for you to actually do it.

Yeah. So the reason that we chose this as a topic for this podcast episode is because somebody on Instagram sent me a private message asking a question. Shall I read it out loud?

Yeah.

Okay. And keep in mind, this is the owner of a real estate company, so I think they manage real estate agents.

Yeah.

Okay. They said, girl, they were talking to me. Girl, you work so hard. Would love to hear you talk about staying on task and motivated as an entrepreneur versus employee. So many people on my team struggle with it. Do you think the discipline is something you either have or don't?

So I actually know the answer to that.

Oh, thank goodness. Because I sure don't.

So I. When I was in construction and I managed teams, each and every person had different motivations.

Yeah.

So you got to figure out what and what each person wants Some people might be motivated by time off. Some people might be, might be motivated by help, by you being mentored. Some people might say, hey, I want to be, I want to be doing, I want to be, become a broker or I want to become, I want to write newsletters or I want to become a journalist after this, or write about real estate blogs, or I just want more time with my, with my kids. So you need to, so when I was doing H Vac and I had these, a bunch of people working for me, I tried to, to get, to figure out what they wanted so I can hold a carrot in front of them to achieve goals. So you as the team leader need to have certain goals. So you say, I need to sell $20 million in real estate. And if we, and then we have 14 members, so that is 5 million a pop. So we say, hey, if we reach this goal, I can help you or the company can help you get babysitter, I can help you put you in touch with these people to help you do the newsletters and help the company succeed. And when you're close to that goal, even if you don't hit it, even if you hit like three quarters of it, you still give them something. So they know that, hey, I worked hard and I got that.

And also as an employee, if your manager or leader asks you, hey, what motivates you? And then they do that thing, maybe they give you a bonus if you reach your quota. If you're money motivated. Yeah, maybe they give you an award. If you are motivated by public acknowledgement of a job well done, your employee will think, wow, my manager really cares about me and I can see myself staying here because they're looking out for my best interest.

Yeah.

I also think it takes self awareness on the employees part to know what motivates them because all of us want to get paid more, right?

I doubt it. So not so when you're commission based, not everything is about money. I know we say that.

Yeah.

But let me tell you this. So if you, if, and I've seen this on Reddit and I've seen this with other people, they get paid a lot of money, but they're being treated like they're stressed. They're stressed and they have a horrible work life balance and that will lead to divorce, angry with the kids. And so money isn't always, it's a great carrot, but it's not, it's not always the leading cause. I feel like money is, is something, but it's not everything.

You, there's, there's been studies done that say you need a certain amount of money to live and be happy, baseline happiness to take care of your basic needs. And anything after that, there's no correlation that shows more money makes you more happy. But obviously, if you're living in poverty, you're going to be unhappy and money could solve your problem. So.

Yeah, but then you have different problems. Right? Because when you have more money, then there's different problems. So it's not that money solves all problems, it solves your money problems, but then you have. You know. So I. I read this Reddit thread from Justine Musk where she read it a lot. Yeah. Where she, where she says, is Justine.

Musk who I think it is?

It's Elon Musk's ex wife. One of them.

Okay. I thought it was Mommy.

And no. And she said it in order for you. Somebody said, how can I become a billionaire? And she said, the likelihood of you becoming a billionaire is almost zero. Because in order to become a billionaire, you need to have the dedication and put that above all else. And you need to start multiple companies, and that can then fuse and have babies with other companies in order for you to become a billionaire.

Wow.

And the sacrifice is huge. And I read this other person's Reddit post who said that to become. So he's. So he's claiming to make $200 million a year with his business, and he says for him to become a billionaire, to 5x his business, the time commitment would be so, so much.

Wow.

For so little return because he already has enough money. He can drive whatever car he wants, he can go on vacation with whatever.

Yeah.

He says, is it worth to fly, to own a private jet? Is that worth it to me to put in that much time?

Wow. And he'd have to increase his discipline.

Yeah.

And maybe he's at his max, too.

And he said he would have to take time away from his family, time away from vacations, and he would have to, like, be more brutal on his employees. Has to be more deadlines, more goals, work harder, do all that.

Yeah.

And sometimes just not worth the money.

Yeah, I agree. I have a friend who is the CEO of a law firm here in Vegas, and she does something really cool to motivate her employees, and she does. I think it's called Unicorn of the month, something like that. But it's employee recognition on a monthly basis. And all her employees have a certain amount of money that they can spend on other employees. They can say, I want to give this person 200 unicorn bucks. Or I want to give this person 50 unicorn bucks because they did a great job on this legal case with me, whatever it is. But every month, I don't know if the unicorn bucks are related to the unicorn of the month, but every month, there's like an Instagram post where they recognize an employee who went above and beyond. I think they get something like, whether it's money or something, could be movie tickets, could be a show. A show, anything. But I love that she does that. Because there's a constant reason to be disciplined, whether you're money motivated or you're motivated by public acknowledgement of a job well done or recognition by your peers, whatever it is, that the unicorn of the month thing and these unicorn bucks takes care of all that. So if you're a business owner and you want to have your employees be more disciplined and motivated and you have a little bit extra cash, you know, that's. Maybe not everybody has that, but consider doing something like that and implementing something like that. It's like a carrot, like you're saying. Yeah, okay, so the next part of her question is, how do you stay motivated, Motivated as an entrepreneur? Because that's a little different than motivation as an employee. How do you stay motivated as an entrepreneur?

I just know where I want it. I actually enjoy the journey, you psycho. I actually like the journey. Yeah. Because it's so different. So for me, I would not work at the DMV if they paid me $2 million. I would not do it.

Yes, you would. Come on, you liar. No, because I would make you work at the dmv.

It's so monotone, and it is so. And I. I remember I had that when I did H Vac installing, and we had this repair thing, and it was always the same thing. After the third one, I was about to quit my job.

Okay, so you need, like, new stimulation.

New things all the time.

That's entrepreneurship.

I cannot do the same thing over and over.

When I worked at. As a program manager for a lot of these medical device companies, I felt like there was not a lot of new stuff every day. And I felt like it was the same shit.

I could not do it.

So for me, how I stay motivated as an entrepreneur is choosing. So I feel like I have put myself in a very risky position financially, and so entrepreneurship needs to work out for me, otherwise I'll be without food, shelter, and home. So I'm a little more extreme and aggressive with it. I literally left my corporate job. We've started this business together. We did okay last year I think we opened up our sole prop six months ago. Now it's going to turn into an LLC on January 1st, which is exciting. We've kind of graduated to the next level of business. But I feel like we have intentionally put ourselves in a position where our entrepreneurship journey has to work out. Therefore, the discipline has to be there.

It doesn't have to be. You can. You could. We could fail and go back 29 to 5.

I mean, I would rather poke my eyes out.

There's always an. There's always a fallback option, but it's. It's. It's just that I feel, like, the freedom and the time that you do, and. And I like what I do.

It's not like I like what we do too.

And it's not like I'm. That I'm like, oh, my gosh, I got to work today. No, I. It's like my hobby. It's like, I do it.

And you know what's funny? When you and I do all this stuff every day. The video filming, the content creation, social media management, influencer stuff, podcasting, writing the book. I've noticed lately that you and I'll get done with work at the end of the day, and we're like, okay, great, we finished work. Now we have time for hobbies. And we're like, let's just keep going with the content creation thing through the night, because it's so fun and we love doing it, so.

Yeah. So I can. You know, like, it's wintertime also, and it's so cold, so we don't really.

We don't go outside.

It's. It's so cold. It's 70 and 60, so it's like, oh, my gosh.

No. It's 40s and 50s at nighttime.

It is. Yeah. But right now it's 65, so it's not.

That's freezing. Um, so, yeah, discipline. So, okay, I would say if somebody is listening to this and they're like, I want to be more disciplined, but I don't know how. I would recommend setting a small goal for yourself and then having a reward in mind.

Yeah.

That's proportional to the goal. You know, if you. If you save a hundred dollars next month, and that was your goal, don't go and buy yourself a $2,000 watch as a gift. But. So make the punishment fit the crime is what I'm trying to say. Set a small goal for yourself. When you reach it, have a reward in mind where you get to do that thing. And you're like, all right, I Reached my goal. And maybe that gets bigger and bigger every month. And that can teach you discipline because you're working towards a goal. When you reach it, you get a reward. It's kind of like Pavlov's dogs. You're conditioning yourself. Yeah, Yeah. I also think that I did things as a child. Mom, if you're listening to this, thank you. I hated piano lessons as a child, but now I see it taught me discipline. I did music lessons. I did horseback riding. That taught me discipline as well. And I had a job from a very young age. I used to like make $10, like cleaning up the poop in our horses stalls. So I don't know. That taught me discipline. And I feel like you can, if you're a parent listening to this, you can do creative things at home to teach your kid discipline from a young age. And they might feel how I feel later in life that I can turn on the discipline whenever I want. I'm a 10 out of 10. Discipline when I need to be. Um, but I think it's definitely something you can learn later in life. But it's probably easier if you start working on it earlier. Gosh, you're just not agreeing with me on anything today. I hate that. You know, I love it when people agree with me.

It's just, you know, just because piano lessons, I don't think that makes you a disciplined person.

Yeah, maybe. I mean, it was like pulling teeth back and I wasn't like a disciplined 7 year old. I was like crying at the piano. Why do I have to practice?

I don't think that 7 year olds should learn discipline that way. They should do what what a 7 year old does and just be a 7 year old.

Eat dirt. I did that too.

That's fine. Well, well, if you have more questions like that, just ask it on Instagram.

Yeah, send me a DM on Instagram. Let me know what our next podcast episode should be about. We're open to talking about anything professional related. So thanks for tuning in this time and we will catch you in the next episode.

Thanks, bye.