Joe De Sena outlines the 10 principles from his book The Spartan Way, including knowing your true north, delaying gratification, and embracing adversity. He uses the "Will it make the boat go faster?" rowing story and a marshmallow test with his son to show how discipline and purposeful decisions shape both business and life.
Chapters
But the last book I wrote, which I'm happy to give everybody free is no problem, or your staff or anything, is the Spartan way. And I came up with 10 principles that will get you through business, get you through anything in life. One of the principles we'll dive into. But I'm going to rattle off the 10 principles quick, right? And the professor spoke about earlier, know your true north, right? If you know your true north and have self awareness where you want to go in life, it's going to be easier to do. Commitment is, is a huge one for me. Like commit, make it non negotiable, be enthusiastic. Like who wants to be around an energy sucker, right? Delay gratification. Can I take two more minutes? Oh yeah, no, absolutely. So I tested my son when I learned about the marshmallow test. You know the marshmallow test. I tested my son. He was my oldest son, he was 6. And I gave him a scoop of ice cream. And I said, hey Jack, you could have the scoop now or you could wait and I'll give you two. And you don't know what kind of kid you have, right? I didn't know I was going to have a kid that doesn't. And three and a half minutes into the test he turned to me and he said, dad, how long would it take to get 15 scoops? And so that. So my message is, how do we all go for 15 scoops? Because that's what we're going for, right? So delay gratification, maximize time. So there's this great story, you look it up that Joe references called Will it make the boat go Faster? And it's a rowing team. I'm going to screw up the facts of the story in the sense of dates and things. But it's a UK rowing team. I'm not sure what Olympic Games it was they're going up against, let's call it the Australians. They're going to lose. There's no way they're going to win. And the coach says, here's what we're going to do. The next 18 months, every single decision we make, we are going to ask ourselves, will it make the boat go faster? Right. Hey guys, let's go for ice cream. Will it make the boat go faster? No, we're not having ice cream. Hey guys, let's go hang out with the girls. Will it make the boat go faster? No. So the only thing they did were things that made the boat go faster. Probably very boring, probably very painful. They won the gold and it's no different in life. So maximize your time. Get gritty, Embrace adversity. The professor and I were going back and forth. I'm a big believer in manufacturing adversity in your life because you never know when a lion's going to attack you on a run in the woods, right? Adjust your frame of reference. Dean was talking about earlier, and all of a sudden you don't get upset in traffic. Be honorable. And then the last one is be Spartan, which encompasses all of them.
