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Discipline vs Motivation: The Rule That Built My Business · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  Motivation has never built a single thing that I own.
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  And I say that as somebody who spent years waiting to feel ready before I did anything, and ready never showed up.
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  So neither did the money or the goal that I was reaching out for.
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  Subscribe if you want more of these.
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  Stay to the end of this video, and I'm going to give you the one rule I made.
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  that took feeling out of the equation completely.
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  And it's the reason that both companies, Harder Than Life and NTM exist at all.
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  I'm Kelly Siegel, this is Harder Than Life.
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  All right, motivation is a scam.
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  Everyone is selling you this feel good feeling.
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  The motivation industry's product isn't change.
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  It's the sensation of being about to change.
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  And that sensation is a drug with a two day half-life.
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  Heck, it might even be a half a day.
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  But think about that for a second.
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  When you make the decision, I'm gonna change something, you get all excited.
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  And then it dies off so quickly.
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  Stay with me, watching motivation is avoidance.
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  Consuming your fifth motivational reel of the morning feels like progress and costs you nothing.
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  That's exactly why it works and exactly why it's worthless.
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  I used to wake up and listen to motivational videos and get all fired up.
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  Then I looked around and realized it really wasn't doing what I wanted it to do.
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  The most disciplined people don't feel like doing the work either.
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  They just stopped consulting the feeling before doing it.
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  You've heard me say this a thousand times.
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  I never negotiate with myself because those feelings will quit on you.
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  Motivation is like the weather.
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  Discipline is the climate.
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  You don't build a company, a body.
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  a marriage on weather.
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  Feelings quit in a week at 5 a.m. when the deal falls through, when things get hard.
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  And here's the funny thing about it.
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  I'm usually in Michigan or even Florida, and if you make plans based on the weather, you'd never do anything.
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  So let's get into how we do this.
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  And I gotta be completely honest.
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  I profit from motivation.
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  Hear me out on this.
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  I want to get ahead of the hypocrisy charge.
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  Yes, I'm in the self-improvement space.
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  The difference in me is I sell the proof and the systems.
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  And I'm telling you the feeling alone is worthless.
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  I'd say sell, I'm just always repeating the receipts and the systems that I use over and over.
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  Remember, systems, save yourself time, energy, money, and stress.
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  That's how I do things.
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  I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I have systems that absolutely keep me from being able to bug out.
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  There were years I waited to feel ready and ready never showed up.
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  The ideas I sat on, the moves I delayed, waiting for the confidence that was supposed to arrive first and the money that didn't arrive either.
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  Remember that
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  ABC, action builds confidence, not the other way around.
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  I was raised by broken promises.
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  Nobody in my childhood kept their word.
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  Not about the drinking, not about the violence, not about food, not about tomorrow.
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  A kid built by broken promises grows into a big, strong man who waits for guarantees.
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  And waiting is fear wearing patient's clothes.
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  How many times have you all said, I'm waiting for the right time?
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  And it's the most respectable sounding lie in business.
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  I want you to call it what it is.
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  And that waiting gets embarrassing.
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  It is a lie.
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  There is never going to be a right time.
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  Actually, the best time to start is yesterday.
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  And yesterday has already passed, so let's start right now.
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  And here is what I want you to understand.
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  There was a day that the waiting broke.
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  And it's the moment I realized the feeling was never coming and I had to move without it.
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  Remember, progress over perfection.
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  And I'm going to give you the number one rule that I use to proceed anyway.
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  But you're gonna have to wait.
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  I'm gonna deep dive into what actually build my companies.
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  Nobody buys brilliance, they buy reliability.
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  Clients didn't sign with an NTM because I was the smartest tech guy in Detroit.
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  For those of you that know me, you know, I'm not the smartest guy in any room.
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  Definitely not technical.
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  They signed with us because if I said it would happen on Tuesday, it happened on Tuesday.
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  My word is gold.
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  You'll see me post all about it.
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  Make sure that your words and actions align and people will trust you.
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  Another pro tip is to show up on the bad days.
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  The receipts, the days I showed up grieving.
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  Broke, scared.
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  Heck, when I first started, it was drunk and hungover.
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  There is a rule.
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  I'll give it to you at the end, but it didn't care how I felt.
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  And those bad day appearances are the entire difference between me and my competition or other people that I started with.
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  My competitors kept quitting.
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  The market share I won wasn't taken.
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  It was abandoned by talented companies and guys who ran on motivation.
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  and disappeared every time the feeling did.
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  Your word is the only marketing that compounds.
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  Every kept commitment became a referral.
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  Every referral became a client already sold before I walked in and reliability is that flywheel and it expands and allows you to lift and do expansive things.
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  Remember,
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  Hard can be fun and it is fun.
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  Somewhere in my grind, it stopped being a burden and became an identity.
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  We make fun look easy because we do the boring reps nobody claps for.
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  And remember, winning is more fun than fun is fun.
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  So keep doing this.
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  You will win and that's fun.
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  Keep in mind,
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  Discipline you can hire, but you need to install systems and patterns and processes.
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  I used to say people, processes, platform.
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  But when I was saying that, the company was running on my mood.
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  For years, NTM's discipline was my discipline, which means the business had a single point of failure with my name on it.
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  And this, my friends, is literally how the harder than life movement started because I would look in the mirror and I wasn't in alignment with what I was saying and I would be partying and rocking it out, not feel good, come in, not be my best.
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  And it was life's negative merry-go-round.
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  That all changed when I started implementing systems and in NTM,
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  The systems that save people, we run EOS, Entrepreneurial Operating System.
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  And the fix wasn't hiring more motivated people.
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  It was installing that EOS system.
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  I had scorecards, rocks, level 10 meetings, starting on time every single week on a Wednesday, starting on time, ending on time.
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  We solved issues and we were actually productive.
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  No negotiations.
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  Not when I felt like it.
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  We just had it no matter what.
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  What you measure gets better.
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  Score cards measure these outcomes, not activities.
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  Busy is a feeling too.
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  The score card doesn't ask if you worked hard.
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  It asks if the number moved.
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  If you actually got to your outcome.
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  I've said it a thousand times to you.
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  We can walk on a treadmill and we never actually go anywhere.
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  So people can be busy doing nothing.
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  Pro tip, look at revenue generating activities and needle mover tasks.
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  Everything else is just busy.
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  So measure gets better, measure needle mover activities, needle mover tasks and revenue generating activities.
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  You can't interview for motivation, it's fakeable.
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  for exactly one quarter.
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  And that's usually when we do a new hire, exactly how long it takes before they get exposed.
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  Day 91.
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  But if you build systems where kept commitments are visible, measured, and non-negotiable, everybody wins.
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  Now, years after implementing this EOS, NTM runs on Rails now.
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  Company that performs whether I'm in the building or not, that's not luck and it's not talent.
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  It's the rule that I'm gonna share with you very soon.
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  If you stayed this long, keep staying with me because you're gonna freak out when I tell you how simple this is.
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  Remember, I installed this rule into an operating system and then everything changed.
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  You guys ready for it?
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  There's one system, one Kelly, my body,
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  my mind, the business, the family, it's never four departments.
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  There's one rule and it's the same rule, runs all of it.
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  And weakness in one arena leaks into all of them.
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  Everybody talks about that work-life balance.
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  That's hogwash.
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  I worked out over 555 times last year with zero motivation.
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  The physique wasn't built on feeling like it.
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  How many of those workouts do you think I was excited for?
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  I can honestly tell you very few, especially the second workouts, because for those of you keeping track, 555 workouts is one and a half times a day, but many were double.
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  Keep in mind too, doing all this without drinking is maximum difficulty.
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  Seven plus years against the loudest feelings a body can produce.
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  If a rule can hold there, it will hold anywhere.
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  I will go out with people who were drinking and not have a drop and still have just as much fun.
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  Keep in mind, the rule that I'm going to share with you, your kids are auditing as well.
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  All the people around you who are closest to you, don't hear your intentions.
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  They count your follow through.
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  My daughter Ari learned what my word is worth by watching, not by listening.
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  Here's the rule, my friends.
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  You waited 13 minutes just to hear this, hear this.
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  Do what you say you're going to do every single time.
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  Period.
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  Let me say it again.
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  Do what you say every time.
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  To your clients, to your team, to your family.
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  But most importantly,
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  to the person in the mirror, the man in the mirror.
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  And if I slip one second and I don't honor my word, the things I say to myself, you wouldn't like me if I said them to you.
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  Every time is the entire rule.
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  No negotiations, not when it's convenient, not when the client is watching, not when you feel like it.
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  It's what makes a rule instead of a mood.
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  One exception, and it's merely a suggestion.
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  It takes feeling completely out of the situation.
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  Once the rule exists, readiness is irrelevant.
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  The decision was made when you gave your word.
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  So 5 a.m. isn't a debate.
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  It's an appointment.
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  It's a commitment, and I'm gonna meet it.
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  And remember, my day starts off
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  with the mirror.
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  I look in the mirror, I high five myself.
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  I say, I love you.
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  And that's my first client.
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  So this order matters.
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  Keep the promises to yourself first.
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  Because someone who lies to themselves at 5 a.m. will lie to this team at 9 a.m. and will lie at other things and in business.
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  So in essence, I'm pretty much saying just don't lie.
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  I literally, in my bathroom, it says, love everybody and tell the truth.
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  But tell the truth to yourself.
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  And the smallest promises count double, heck, maybe triple.
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  Nobody breaks the big promises first.
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  They break the small, tiny ones they think nobody will notice.
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  The workout, the callback, the bedtime, the cheat meal.
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  The rule lives or dies in those small moments.
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  What do they say?
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  Don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff.
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  And what comes out of keeping the promises you make to yourself and everybody else?
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  I said it earlier, ABC.
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  Action builds confidence.
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  Confidence is the byproduct.
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  You can't affirm your way to confidence.
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  It's the mathematical result of promises kept.
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  And it stacks and compounds daily.
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  That's why the rule built the company and the man I am today.
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  So homework.
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  This is a funny one.
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  And I do this in my journal.
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  I do this.
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  So please follow with me.
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  Write down every promise you made this week, whether it be from your clients, your team, your family, definitely to yourself.
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  And score it very simply.
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  Did I keep it or did I break it?
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  The number will humble you.
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  Be honest, obviously.
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  This is all about honesty.
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  Simple and easy thing is write down the three things that you want to get done each day in your journal.
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  And then if you did it the next day, very simple and easy way, that number, don't beat yourself up.
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  If you missed every single promise, just keep one the next day.
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  Pick something small, one promise and keep it for 30 days.
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  Pick something small enough to be unbreakable and keep it daily.
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  You're not building a habit.
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  You're rebuilding trust with the man in the mirror.
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  Pro tip, don't announce this.
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  Demonstrate it.
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  Stop telling people what you're about to do.
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  It's the proof over the promise.
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  Let them find out the way they found out about me.
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  Besides, if you tell them and then you don't follow through, that adds to the embarrassment.
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  Just kidding.
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  I always tell people don't pay attention to people's tongue in their mouth.
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  Pay attention to the tongue in their feet.
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  Keep in mind, this rule is free to all of us.
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  There's no coursework.
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  There's no coach.
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  There's no morning routine required is literally six words starting tomorrow at whatever time you're already said you'd wake up, go back,
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  And do what you say every time.
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  Period.
• 16:57
  If you've watched 100 motivational videos and changed nothing, subscribe and keep one promise.
• 17:05
  Face your fears.
• 17:06
  Live your dreams.
• 17:07
  This is Harder Than Life.
• 17:08
  And I'll see you next Thursday.
• 17:10
  Please rate and share this podcast.
• 17:12
  I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters.
• 17:16
  Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity.
• 17:27
  Visit TrustNTM.com for more info.
• 17:30
  Until next week, be harder than life.