Latest / The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young / The Long Game: Why Discipline Beats Motivation Every Time

Transcript

The Long Game: Why Discipline Beats Motivation Every Time · The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome back to strategize, adapt and overcome.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I am brad young, and I am glad you are
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: here with me today. Let me start with a question,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and I want you to be honest with yourself, because
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: nobody hears your answer. But you think about the last
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: big thing you started with fire in your chest, the plan,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the goal, the new beginning that had you fired up
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and ready to change your whole life. Now, be honest, cale,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: how long did that fire actually last? A week, a month?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: And when the fire faded, and it always fades, did
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you keep going anyway? Or did you quietly walk away
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and tell yourself you would start again someday. Sit with
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: that for a second, because that gap, the space between
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the fire that fades and the person who keeps going anyway,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: that gap is the entire subject of today. We have
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: covered serious ground together in this series. We learned the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: patience of the warrior who waits for the right moment.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We face the end me inside our own heads. We
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: learn to bend like water when everything changes. We mastered
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the art of the unseen and guarded our intentions with
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: quiet strength. We learn to read our ground before we
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: ever step into the fight, and last time, we learned
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: that no warrior wins alone, that our true strength is
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the people who stand beside us. Today we talk about
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the quality that decides whether any of that ever amounts
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: to anything. Today we talk about discipline. Since Sue understood
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: this better than almost anyone who ever lived. He wrote
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: that the victorious army wins first and then goes to war,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: while the defeated army goes to war first and then
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: hopes to win. Read that again. The winning army has
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: already done the work before the battle ever, starts, not
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: in a burst of passion, in the long, quiet, unglamorous
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: grind of preparation, day after day, when no one is
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: watching and no one is cheering. That is discipline, and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that is what we are building today. So let's get
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: into it. Here's the first truth I need you to
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: sit with. Motivation is a liar. Now, do not misunderstand me.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Motivation is not bad. It is a wonderful thing to
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: feel that fire, that surge of energy that gets you moving.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: But motivation is a guest, not a resident. It shows up,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: it lifts you for a while, and then it packs
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: its bags and leaves right when you need it most.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: And if you build your life on the back of motivation,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: you will always be at the mercy of a feeling
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: that comes and goes like the weather. Discipline is different.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Discipline does not care how you feel. Discipline shows up
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: on the cold morning, when the bed is warm and
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: every part of you wants to stay. Discipline does the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: work when the excitement is long gone and the results
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: have not arrived yet. Motivation asks do I feel like it?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Discipline asks does it need to be done? And those
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: two questions build two completely different lives. And think about
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the ocean and the tide. Motivation is a wave. It
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: crashes in, loud and powerful, and for a moment it
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: moves everything in its path, but then it pulls back
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and the shore is quiet again. Discipline is the tide.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It is not loud, it is not dramatic, but it
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: is relentless, and it moves the entire ocean, and given
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: enough time, it carves the coastline itself. Which one do
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: you want run in your life? The wave that crashes
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and disappears or the tide that quietly reshapes the whole world.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: And let me bring this out of the metaphor and
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: into your real life, because this is where it matters.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you a story. I'm going to
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: change some details to protect the people in it. But
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: this happened, and it taught me something I've carried ever since.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Years ago. I watched two people chase the same dream,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: same goal, same starting point, both hungry to build something better.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: We will call the first one the firework, and the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: firework was something to watch in the beginning. When he
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: got motivated, he was unstoppable. For about two weeks. He
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: would announce his big plans to everyone. He would work
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: late in the night, fueled by pure passion. He bought
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the books, he made the vision boards, he posted about
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: his transformation, and honestly, for a short stretch, he moved
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: faster than anybody around him. But here's what happened. When
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the excitement wore off, and it always wears off, the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: firework fizzled out. The first hard week hit the first
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: stretch where he did the work and saw no reward,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and his fire went cold. So he stopped. He waited
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: to feel motivated again, and a few weeks later a
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: new spark hit and he started all over from zero.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: He lived his whole life in these bursts. Explode, fizzle,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: weight explode again. Years went by, and the firework had
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: one hundred brilliant beginnings and not a single finished thing.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: He was not lazy. He had more raw passion than
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: anyone I knew. But he built his life on a feeling,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and feelings do not last. Now let me tell you
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: about the second one. We will call him the craftsman.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: And the craftsman was almost boring to watch in the beginning.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: No big announcements, no dramatic bursts. He just showed up
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and did his small piece of the work every single day.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: On the days he felt inspired, he did the work.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: On the days he felt flat and tired and discouraged,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: he did the exact same work. He did not wait
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: for motivation because he never depended on it in the
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: first place. Hub He built a system, and he trusted
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the system more than he trusted his own moods. For
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: a long time, the Craftsman looked slower than the firework.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: But something quiet was happening. Every one of those unremarkable
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: days was stacking on the top of the last one.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: The small pieces were adding up into something real, and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: a few years down the road, the Craftsman had built
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: something that lasted, something solid while the firework was still
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: lighting matches and watching them burn out. Same dream, same start.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: One chased the feeling and one honored the commitment. One
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: exploded and faded, and one built and endured. So ask yourself, honestly,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: which one are you right now the firework waiting for
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the next spark to get you moving? Or are you
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: becoming the craftsman showing up whether the fire is there
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: or not. Now, I want to break this down into
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: something you can actually use, because discipline is not a
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: personality trait you were born with or without. It is
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: a skill, and every skill can be built. The first
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: thing you have to understand is that discipline is built
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: on identity, not willpower. Most people try to force themselves
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: into discipline through sheer grit, gritting their teeth and white
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: knuckling their way through. And that works for a little
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: while until your willpower runs out. Because willpower is a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: limited tank. The people who stay disciplined for a lifetime
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: do not rely on force. They rely on who they
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: believe they are. They do not say I am trying
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to become a disciplined person. They say I am a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: disciplined person. And this is simply what I do. The
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: action flows from the identity, not the other way around.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: The Stoics understood this deeply. Marcus Urelius, a man who
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: ran an entire empire, wrote notes to himself every morning
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: reminding himself of the kind of man he had decided
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: to be. He did not wait to feel like a
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: wise and steady leader. He reminded himself that he was one,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: and then he acted like it, especially on the days
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: he did not feel like it. That is the whole secret.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: You do not feel your way into disciplined action. You
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: act your way into a disciplined identity. Every time you
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: do the hard thing when you do not feel like it,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you are casting a vote for the person you are becoming.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: The second thing you have to understand is that discipline
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: loves small and hates heroic. Most people fail at discipline
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: because they try to be a hero. On day one.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: They swing from doing nothing to try and to do
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: everything all at once, power by that first burst of motivation,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and it works for a few days until reality crashes
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: in and the whole thing collapses under its own weight.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: The wise strategist does the opposite. San Soou taught that
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: great results come from a series of small, correct decisions
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: made consistently, not from one giant heroic charge. Think about
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: water carving a canyon, Since we have spent time on
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: water in this series. Water does not carve the canyon
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: in a single dramatic flood. It carves it one small
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: drop at a time, over years, over centuries, relentlessly. The
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: canyon is not the story of one heroic moment. It
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: is the story of a billion small ones. Your life
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: is the same, so start absurdly small, so small it
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: almost feels silly, because a small thing you actually do
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: every single day will always be a heroic thing you
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: do once and then abandon. Consistency is the multiplier. A
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: small action repeated for a thousand days becomes something no
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: burst of motivation could ever create. The third thing you
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: have to understand is that discipline is a form of
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: self respect. This is the one that changes everything when
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: it finally lands. We tend to think of discipline as punishment,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: as denying ourselves as a hard and joyless thing, but
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the truth is the opposite. Every time you keep a
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: promise to yourself, you are telling yourself that your word
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: means something, And every time you break a promise to yourself,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: you are quietly teaching yourself that you cannot be trusted.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Over time, all those broken promises pile up into something heavy.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You stop believing yourself, You stop trusting your own commitments,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: and that is a lonely, hollow way to live. The
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Stoics taught that the person who cannot govern himself will
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: always be governed by his impulses, his moods, and the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: world around him. Freedom, real freedom, comes from mastering yourself.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: When you become the kind of person who does what
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you said you would do, whether you feel like it
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: or not, you become free, free from the tyranny of
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: your own moods, free from the shame of letting yourself
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: down again. Discipline is not the cage. Discipline is the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: key that unlocks the cage. Most people spend their whole
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: lives trapped inside. So let me give you something practical
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: to carry out of here today, because I never want
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: to just fill your head with ideas and send you
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: off with nothing to actually do with them. Here's your
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: framework for this week. Three moves. Run them and watch
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: your discipline begin to strengthen. The first move is to
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: shrink it until it is impossible to fail. Take the goal.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: You keep starting and abandoning and cut it down until
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: it feels almost too easy. If you want to write,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: commit to one sentence a day. If you want to
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: get fit, commit to putting your shoes on and stepping outside.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: If you want to read more, commit to one page.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I know it sounds small. That is the point. You
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: are not building the result, yet, you are building the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: identity of a person who shows up. Make it so
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: small that on your worst, most tired, least motivated day,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: you still cannot talk yourself out of it. The second
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: move is to decide and advance who you are, not
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: how you feel before the hard moment comes. Decide the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: kind of person you are and write it down where
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you will see it. Not I will try to work out. Instead,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I am someone who trains. Not I hope to stay calm. Instead,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I am someone who stay steady under pressure. Then, when
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the moment arrives and your feelings are screaming at you
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: to quit, you do not negotiate with your mood. You
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: simply ask what your chosen identity would do, and you
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: do that. You act from who you decided to be,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: not from how you happen to feel in that weak moment.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: The third move is to keep one promise to yourself
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: every single day this week. Just one, pick one small
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: thing and do it every day for seven days, no
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: matter what. It does not matter how you feel, it
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: does not matter how busy you are. You do the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: thing and you keep the promise because you are not
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: really building a habit here. You are rebuilding trust with yourself.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: You are proving, one day at a time that your
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: word to yourself actually means something. And once you trust
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: yourself again, there is almost nothing you cannot build, shrink
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: it into, you cannot fail decide who you are in advance.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Keep one promise every single day. That is how you
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: stop being the firework that fizzles and start being the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: craftsman who endures. Now, I want to say something important
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: before we close, because I never want this to be
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: twisted into something it is not. Discipline is not about
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: becoming cold or harsh with yourself, or beating yourself up
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: when you slip. That is not discipline. That is just
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: cruelty wearing disciplines close. If you miss a day, you
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: do not quit, and you do not punish yourself. You
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: simply return the next day, calmly. The way the tide
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: always returns. The Stoics taught that we will stumble. That
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: we are human, and that the measure of a person
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: is not whether they fall, but how quickly and calmly
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: they rise and continue. Discipline held with self respect is patient.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: It forgives the slip and refuses the surrender. Be firm
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: with yourself, yes, but be kind too. The goal is
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: not to break yourself into obedience. The goal is to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: build yourself into someone you can finally trust. Let me
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: leave you with this before we go. The world will
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: keep selling you motivation. It will tell you that if
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you just find the right spark, the right video, the
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: right burst of inspiration, everything will change. And that is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: a beautiful lie because it keeps you chasing a feeling
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: instead of building a life. Sonsou knew the truth twenty
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: five centuries ago. The victorious ones win first and the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: quiet work of preparation, and then they go to war.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: The Stoics knew it too. Real freedom is not doing
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: whatever you feel like in the moment. Real freedom is
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: becoming the master of yourself. The fire will always fade.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: That is not a flaw on you. That is simply
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: what fire does. But the person who has learned to
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: move without the fire, the person who honors the committe.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: When the feeling is long gone, that person becomes unstoppable,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: not because they never get tired, but because their life
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: no longer depends on how they feel. They have built
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: something deeper than motivation. They have built discipline, and discipline
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: is the tide that reshapes the entire coastline of a life.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: So this week, stop a waiting for the spark. Shrink
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: your goal until you cannot fail. Decide who you are
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: before the hard moment comes, and keep one small promise
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: to yourself every single day until you remember that your
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: word to yourself is the most powerful word there is.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Because the person you are becoming is not built in
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the loud, exciting moments. That person is building the quiet ones,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the ordinary ones, the ones where nobody's watching. And you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: do the right thing anyway. Thank you so much for
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: spending this time with me today. If this episode gave
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you something real, do me a favor and share it
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: with someone who keeps starting over, someone who needs to
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: hear that they do do not need more motivation, They
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: need one small promise kept, and make sure you follow
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the show because you are not going to want to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: miss what comes next. In our next episode, we go
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: from mastering your daily discipline to mastering your response to defeat.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about how to lose without being destroyed,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: how to turn a setback into a setup, and how
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the wisest warriors treat their failures as their greatest teachers.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Because everyone gets knocked down eventually, the only question that
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: matters is what you do on the way back up.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Until then, honor your commitments, master yourself, and keep moving forward.