Self Discipline Hacking

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Is there a way you structure your day

00:00:06.760 | or your workflow to be more productive?

00:00:09.720 | - I have a, I have a personal assistant.

00:00:11.320 | So she makes me do a lot of things that are important.

00:00:13.120 | So actually let's talk about hacking real quick, right?

00:00:15.280 | Like the idea of like, you know, card, credit card hacking

00:00:17.920 | or travel hacking or, you know, house hacking.

00:00:21.240 | Let's talk about self-discipline hacking.

00:00:23.440 | I have zero self-discipline, almost none.

00:00:26.040 | Like if there's a cookie on the counter, I will eat it.

00:00:28.960 | If there is a, if there is a meeting I can skip,

00:00:31.800 | I will skip it.

00:00:32.720 | If there is anything I need to do, I will let myself down.

00:00:35.400 | I will lie to myself.

00:00:36.820 | I will disappoint myself all day long.

00:00:39.240 | As a result, I'm really bad at getting things done.

00:00:42.760 | So I've had to hack my way into being productive

00:00:45.680 | and being efficient.

00:00:46.760 | I'll give you a couple of examples.

00:00:47.960 | One, I hire a personal assistant.

00:00:50.120 | So Jane, who's my assistant right now, Jane's awesome.

00:00:52.760 | Jane makes sure that I do the most important things

00:00:55.080 | and will yell at me.

00:00:55.920 | And I tell her like she has permission

00:00:57.080 | to like force me to do things.

00:00:59.400 | And there's ways to do it, right?

00:01:01.000 | For example, the massage I mentioned earlier,

00:01:02.580 | I'm getting them, I get a massage once a week.

00:01:05.160 | I don't get a massage because it feels good.

00:01:07.440 | I mean, yes, it feels good, right?

00:01:08.520 | Like massages are fun.

00:01:10.060 | I get a massage because I know the most important thing

00:01:13.320 | as an entrepreneur that I can do

00:01:15.480 | is have uninterrupted thinking time every week.

00:01:19.300 | But I don't do it, like I won't do it.

00:01:22.260 | I will write that, I'll put on my calendar, you know,

00:01:24.360 | go sit at the beach and go think for an hour and a half

00:01:26.500 | or just process, journal, I won't do it.

00:01:29.080 | 'Cause I lie to myself and I disappoint myself all the time.

00:01:32.320 | But when Adriana, my Brazilian masseuse,

00:01:36.000 | shows up in my driveway and she's pulling behind

00:01:38.680 | this giant massage chair, well, now I'm gonna do it, right?

00:01:41.440 | I'm now, 'cause I've now obligated myself to somebody else.

00:01:44.600 | So then I go and get an hour and a half long massage.

00:01:46.640 | And most of the best ideas and problem solving I've had

00:01:49.700 | are during that massage.

00:01:51.080 | So a massage is simply a way that I have hacked

00:01:54.800 | my lack of self-discipline to do the things

00:01:57.540 | that I wanna do.

00:01:58.380 | I hire a personal trainer to come to my house to work out.

00:02:00.760 | I do the food thing, like you said.

00:02:02.380 | I have somebody now helping with the kids

00:02:04.200 | so that I can do other things.

00:02:05.100 | I align my life so that way I am obligated to do the things

00:02:09.600 | that I know I need to do,

00:02:11.360 | but lack the self-discipline to get it done.

00:02:15.000 | I even have like accountability groups,

00:02:17.080 | like mastermind groups that we meet every week

00:02:18.840 | and go through our goals.

00:02:20.040 | All this is designed to get me to just do something

00:02:23.360 | 'cause I'm so darn lazy.

00:02:25.360 | Let me just throw out a couple more ideas

00:02:27.160 | in case people are interested in more ways

00:02:28.920 | they can kind of hack their laziness

00:02:30.080 | or their self-discipline.

00:02:32.080 | One of them, I am a big believer in like checking boxes.

00:02:36.240 | Maybe I can, there's a great, the Seinfeld strategy.

00:02:39.040 | Let's talk about this one.

00:02:40.120 | Seinfeld has this quote from years ago.

00:02:42.800 | It's probably made up.

00:02:43.620 | It's probably one of those like Abe Lincoln said it

00:02:44.980 | kind of things, but where he said,

00:02:46.960 | "Every day he writes one joke.

00:02:49.080 | And when he's done with the joke,

00:02:50.160 | he puts a big check mark on like a spreadsheet

00:02:53.080 | or something like that.

00:02:54.040 | And after a while,

00:02:54.880 | you start getting a lot of check marks in a row."

00:02:57.240 | And so his advice to this up-and-coming comedian he gave

00:03:00.560 | was don't break the chain of check marks.

00:03:03.200 | Just don't break the chain.

00:03:04.560 | So I'm a bigger believer of doing little tiny actions

00:03:08.880 | over and over and over and over,

00:03:09.760 | and then putting them on a checklist.

00:03:11.640 | Like that's why I said I have a checklist

00:03:12.760 | inside my bathroom mirror

00:03:14.760 | for some of our relationship habits.

00:03:16.520 | But I do it in my journal every single morning.

00:03:18.120 | So for example, like read one page.

00:03:20.200 | I can read one page.

00:03:21.520 | Or I can, I'm really bad at flossing, right?

00:03:25.140 | So like, I'll be like, I'm gonna floss.

00:03:26.780 | Like these are things, now I'm not good at it,

00:03:29.080 | but because I'm tracking it now,

00:03:30.600 | and because I have an accountability group

00:03:33.040 | that looks at my tracking,

00:03:35.160 | I've now, like I would look stupid if I showed up

00:03:37.600 | and was like, "Yeah, well, I said I was gonna eat healthy

00:03:39.840 | all week, but I just ate, you know,

00:03:42.000 | Cheetos and Mai Tais all week."

00:03:43.360 | Like, I would just look stupid

00:03:44.280 | 'cause I don't wanna disappoint my accountability buddies.

00:03:47.160 | Like the other guys that are like,

00:03:48.280 | "Hey, we're gonna, you know, build our businesses too."

00:03:50.720 | So I don't wanna look bad in front of other people.

00:03:53.240 | So I will then get that, what do you wanna call it?

00:03:57.120 | Account, I guess, accountability around them.

00:03:59.800 | In fact, in my own company, I operate a system called EOS.

00:04:03.360 | Have you read "Traction"?

00:04:04.500 | Gino Wickman's "Traction"?

00:04:05.880 | So Gino Wickman has a book called "Traction."

00:04:07.600 | It's right here.

00:04:08.760 | Get a grip on your business.

00:04:12.480 | It's basically a system for pulling all the different pieces

00:04:18.320 | of your business together into one cohesive system.

00:04:20.840 | And so it's kinda like what I said earlier with the goals.

00:04:22.840 | You have your big 10-year goal, maybe,

00:04:24.160 | and a three-year goal, and you track it down

00:04:26.240 | to a meeting that you have once a week with your team.

00:04:28.480 | But in that meeting, I say out loud in that meeting,

00:04:32.520 | like, "Last week, I said I would do blank, and I blank."

00:04:37.520 | Like, "Last week, I said I would call three investors.

00:04:43.640 | I called two."

00:04:44.960 | In other words, I have to fail.

00:04:46.400 | I have to publicly fail in front of my team

00:04:48.320 | if I don't deliver on the thing I said I was going to do.

00:04:51.560 | So by adding in that piece of the meeting

00:04:54.560 | through the book "Traction," again,

00:04:55.720 | we operate on this kind of system,

00:04:57.020 | but that piece of the meeting is,

00:04:58.400 | "I said I would do this. I did this."

00:05:00.960 | That holds me accountable,

00:05:01.960 | because although I will let myself down,

00:05:03.720 | I don't wanna let my team down, right?

00:05:05.560 | I don't wanna let them down.

00:05:06.440 | So the more I can obligate myself to things,

00:05:09.720 | the more likely the things get done.

00:05:11.480 | I mean, at the end of the day,

00:05:13.120 | you are the results of what you repeatedly do.

00:05:16.480 | I'm gonna say that again,

00:05:17.320 | 'cause this is like one of the most profound statements.

00:05:18.760 | I didn't invent it.

00:05:19.640 | I've heard it said many different times

00:05:21.160 | in many different ways.

00:05:23.120 | You, well, I'll say you get the results

00:05:25.760 | of what you repeatedly do.

00:05:27.640 | You eat chips and nachos and Mai Tais every day,

00:05:30.040 | you're going to get overweight.

00:05:31.600 | You jog every single day, you're going to lose weight.

00:05:34.320 | You spend 15 minutes every day

00:05:36.720 | looking into your significant other's eyes,

00:05:38.940 | having a real conversation,

00:05:41.000 | you're going to have a better relationship.

00:05:43.080 | You avoid them, you're going to have a bad one, right?

00:05:45.120 | So we, there are certain things in life

00:05:47.680 | that give us the result of life that we want.

00:05:50.760 | So all we need to do to be successful in anything,

00:05:54.400 | I really believe this, it's like,

00:05:55.640 | know where you wanna go,

00:05:57.200 | know what things are going to get you there.

00:06:00.480 | And when I say things, I mean the habits,

00:06:02.040 | the traits, the systems, whatever.

00:06:04.240 | So know where you wanna go,

00:06:05.920 | know the things that are gonna get you there,

00:06:08.440 | track those things and get accountability on it.

00:06:12.280 | If it's a group of guys getting accountability together,

00:06:14.440 | or guys meaning guys or girls,

00:06:15.920 | or is it hiring a performance coach?

00:06:18.400 | Whatever that is, get the accountability.

00:06:19.840 | So know where you're going,

00:06:21.360 | figure out what the steps are needed to get there,

00:06:23.480 | track it so you can be aware

00:06:25.360 | of you getting there or not getting there,

00:06:26.840 | and then get accountability

00:06:28.080 | so you can hack your self-discipline.

00:06:29.680 | You can accomplish anything, anything by doing that.

Self Discipline Hacking

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