Rep. 943. Self Discipline Is NOT What You Think It Is.

You think self-discipline is about willpower? It’s not.
It’s about focus — mental ownership.
In this episode, I’ll show you how to take your mind back, fix your focus, and finally align your actions with what you actually want in life.
Faith. Family. Fitness. Finances. Fulfillment.
No fluff. Just the truth. Let’s get it. 

Want a copy of my Daily Core6? DM me on the socials or contact me at marshbuice.com, and I will send it to you for free. 

Transcript

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All right. 3, 2, 1. Let's get it. Today I wanna talk to you about something that I've never given enough credit to, and that's self-discipline. But self-discipline, not in the usual, you know?'cause when you think about it, self-discipline is like a grind it out, white knuckle, you know, kind of way. I, I'm not talking about that at all, but more so self-discipline. As a power tool. I never used to think of self-discipline as a power tool. I thought it more so like a chore, like something, you know, you think of Cameron Hans or David Goggin, something that's rigid, something that's grueling, something that's a grind. But after reading Success Habits by Napoleon Hill, specifically the chapter, I think it's chapter nine. On self-discipline. Dude, everything changed for me on that because self-discipline, it turns out it, it's not about. Living like a monk. It's not about being this super grinder, superhero kind of guy every hour of the day. You don't have to run a hundred miles. You don't have to sleep for just three hours. Self-discipline, according to heal, is simply this. It's keeping your mind fixed on what you do want in life and off of what you don't. Bro, it's that, that, that's it. It's that simple. And when I read that, it was like, oh my God. Like how hard do we do? We make things, how hard do we conceptualize self-discipline? Because self-discipline, if you ask. 10 people in the room, what self-discipline means to them, you're gonna get 15 different answers. I mean, it's, it's all a little bit different. It's kinda like, what is love? It's kind of like that. And so when you, when you, when you ask people what self-discipline is, you're gonna get all kinds of different answers because. It is keeping your mind fixed on what you do want in life and off of what you don't. I mean, think about what we're mostly consumed with day in and day out. What we don't want, and I tell my salespeople that, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the same way even in my personal life. It's like, why are you talking about things that you don't want? Why are you fixated over it? Why are you stressed over it? Because all you're doing is, is you're reinforcing it. You're breathing life into it. Hell, the Bible even says that life and death come from the power of the tongue. So when we're constantly talking about those things of what we don't want, you literally speak death into your life. You speak death of any future success. You're just, you're killing it. And it's not from any people. It's not from any circumstance. It's completely. From you. So the first step that you gotta do is you gotta define what you want. What do you want? That's the first thing, because being fixated, keeping your mind fixed on what you want, well hell, you better first know what you want. And even if it's not completely clear, get a general direction. There are five pillars in your life for a full-bodied life. Your faith, your family, which includes your relationships, your fitness. And when I say fitness, I'm talking about, I ain't talking about just jacked, chiseled, okay? I'm talking about mental, emotional, and physical. Your finances, your fulfillment, both professional and creative. You gotta fix your mind on those things, but first you gotta define those things. Now, I'm not saying that you're not gonna have circumstances. You are gonna have circumstances. Circumstances are gonna blind you, blindside you. You're gonna have circumstances that you did not even account for. They will pop up. So I'm not saying you, you just focus on what you want in life and all that stuff. It's just gotta, it's gonna fix itself. No, you have to confront those things. You gotta deal with those things. But see, you make those decisions. In all five areas of your life, your faith, your family, your fitness, your finances, your fulfillment, what area is pulling at you right now? What area has blindsided you or is like really aggravating you? Whatever it is, you make your decisions. You, you resolve those by making your decisions that align with what you do want in life. It's not about ignoring the chaos. It's that you're not gonna give it your complete minds share. And that's what self-discipline really is. If you want it in two words, mental ownership. Napoleon Hill reminded us that we have complete control over our mind. We do. That's like the only thing, I mean, read man's search for meaning. I mean, that that's the atrocities that he was facing in, in a, in a prison camp. Uh, it, the only thing he had was his mind. Same thing for you. And it may be difficult to acknowledge that at first, but that's it's because you don't wanna take ownership. But when you take mental ownership and you realize you have complete control over your mind, you realize that you have handed over parts of your mind over to people, to circumstances and your past. Those things are living rent free in your head. They ain't paying no rent, and all they're doing is they're just taking, taking, taking. And this is why you feel limited. This is why you feel whipped. This is why you have no energy. This is why you're cynical and pissed off at other everybody else. Time to take those shares back. You're a majority shareholder of your mind. You are now. You may not have realized over the years until now that, okay, I have given free shares of my mind away. Now, what you're gonna start doing is with self-discipline, keeping your mind fixed on what you want and none of what you don't want. This is how you begin to buy your shares back. This is how you begin. To take your mind back. This is why I created the core six. It's my daily alignment system. I'll send it to you for free. Just DM me, uh, on all the socials. Just DM me. OYPI got you covered, but this is what I live by, man. This isn't something I'm just spitting game about. This is what I live by. This is my core six, and this is. How I stay aligned and I have a OYP journal, which is outwork your Potential. I have a OYP journal that tracks these things. So this is what keeps me accountable and online in the five pillars of my life. Not all at once, but intentional once all the time, little by little. So let me show you quickly how Napoleon Hill used self-discipline in four powerful ways. He had some more, but I just, I, I just wanna unpack these. The first one is, he used self-discipline to remove self-imposed limitations. Most of our limitations are self-imposed. And where do they come from? Your past failures, your bad decision, someone else's opinion. Probably your family, they mean well, but they're capping you off. But when you fix your mind on what you do want, you build a simple checklist that supports that direction. And what's crazy is when you work this every single day, those limitations actually begin to dissolve. Because you're no longer staring at a wall anymore, you're building a path forward. That's why I say lay the brick. You do it one, one brick at a time, man. And as you keep stacking these wins, you reinforce your new beliefs through your actions. Eventually negative momentum becomes positive momentum, and ultimately you'll succeed. That's timeline we're on eventually and ultimately, eventually. Things are gonna tip in your favor. Ultimately, you're gonna succeed. Will you have some losses in there? Absolutely. That's part of it. That's how you learn. That's how you realize what you don't want. This is how you improve your efficiencies. This is how you get out there and start reaching out and having other people help you. You this, you know the decision is yours alone, but you do need other people to help you along the way, and you need to help them along the way. It's a. It's a, it, it, it's not a transaction. You're, you're both transforming each other. And if they don't, then they're not just not in your, they're not in your camp. The second way Napoleon Hill used self-discipline is by budgeting his time. I mean, think about, oh man, the time got away from me. I mean, dude, when I turned 50. You know, I started selling when I was 25. Same place I'm at, and when I turned 50 I'm like, oh my God, I've given half my life to this business. I seriously, bro. Like, I was like, what the hell happened? Where did 25 years ago, where did the time go? And this is why I'm so adamant now about accounting for my time. And this is where my core six actually keeps me on task. And it's super simple, man. I wake up at a set time. Okay. Did you wake up when you said that you would wake up? Look, you can go back to bed later, like get up win the day, then go back to sleep, get you another 30 minutes here and there. I do that. I got 15 minutes here. I get 30 minutes there, read for 15 minutes from a random book every day. Man, I read from a random book. Write for at least 20 minutes. I say one page, write at least one page every day. That's how I, what I had to do to get started. And now it's about 20 minutes. And these are, you know, my takeaways from what I just read. These are feelings. These are my thoughts. This is the only time you're like secluded with yourself. Give yourself that time, man, work out or get a sweat going again, you don't have to be jacked and chiseled if that's not in your wheelhouse. But dude, I wanna be physically fit. I'm getting older and I'm not trying to be on a walker with tennis balls. I'm not trying to have the Joe Biden shuffle. Okay? I want to, I, I, I'm tall, I want to command a presence when I walk. I don't want to look all beat up and shuffle. That's why I work out, man, share something of value every day. Everybody's a badass at something, man. The best person to help is the person you once were. So share something of value, whether it be you could get on social media and do that. I do it on my Instagram stories. I do it in Substack post, but also man, if, if you just wanna make a tweet or X whatever it's called. Now, if you wanna post something on LinkedIn. If you wanna paint something, you wanna express it through poetry if, if you just wanna talk to one person today. Not on offline, dude, I'm completely fine with that. This is, this is your thing, but share something of value and then design to align. Man, design your day. I know what I'm gonna eat. I'm gonna eat today. I know what I'm gonna wear. I gotta, I, I can't be naked, but I wanna look good naked. And then I don't let the day get away from me. I know. Uh, there are task, these are blocks that hit along the way. And bro, all of that that I just told you takes about two hours. Really? And, and it's really cus customizable. Like if, if I only have like an hour to devote to this, Fridays are like really? Uh, tight for me. Then you can customize it. That's what's good about how I coach it. It's, it, it lives with you. It's, it's e evolving and it's evergreen and it evolves with you. Same thing that the OYP Journal does too. You know, I, I've used journals for many, many years and none of 'em quite got me. And with this one, it's very fluid. It, it grows along with you. And my coaching clients, they get a copy of this and, it's just remarkable what it does for you. So all this, like I said, takes about two hours and there are days, it's not like I'm just blow pops, rainbows and unicorns. There are days, man, when, you know, I don't have the patience or I have the low energy. All I gotta do, I don't have to negotiate with myself. I just. Win the decision. I check the list, go to the next thing. And a lot of times, man, what'll happen is even when I have those low energy days, or it just looks like, like, what the hell is all this for? By the time I get through that list, I've won the day before, before noon. Okay. I've won the day really before I even get to work. My whole day is one. And so really, my, my mindset, my emotions actually. Get back in line and I've already won. It doesn't matter how hellish the day goes, doesn't matter how bad the day goes. I took care of me. That's the biggest thing. The third way Napoleon Hill uses self discipline. It helps him stick to a major purpose. Do you realize, I didn't realize this. Do you realize it, it, it was like it took hill over 20 years. Without compensation to develop the science of success, bro, would you commit to anything for 20 years? Like there's no compensation in this? Go ahead. But it obviously panned out well, and I guarantee you, if you devote your life to 20 years of anything and you're not worried about what am I getting for this in the next six months? No. If you just say, this is my major purpose in life. Andrew Carnegie said, look, if you do this, uh, there's gonna be no compensation. I'll help you. I'll, I'll give you, I'll give you the tools, but you gotta figure all this out. You gotta perfect it, and you're on your own with this. You want it or not? And he said, yeah, obviously it panned out for him. Now, you may not know your major purpose in life. That's okay. I didn't either. Sometimes you just gotta stumble into it. I did. But if you want a place to look, your major purpose in life is probably through your pain, your pain, your, your platform. It really is. And until you analyze that and stare at it, a lot of us don't wanna look at that. I had no choice. Okay. I was at rock bottom. I was demoted, I was bankrupt. I was alone, and I was supposed to be well-established in my forties, and here I was completely having to start over, and I'm so grateful for it. It literally saved my life. This was like God's last warning shot to me. I mean, I, I felt it in my spirit. He is like, I'm gonna give you one more shot, but after this, man, you're outta here. And I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful to him for it. And so I've used that Core six to develop my major purpose in life. This is how I de discovered the core six I. Nobody taught me this. I just did a little bit every day. I just thought about it a little bit more and did the things that. Seemed to be working and I just did more of those things. I mean, imagine like starting over in your forties. Like I could have very easily just sit there and cried and complained and be like, what my life is, no. Or run it, just run to the next thing. No, and it was a painful thing, man. But it was, it was, um, it's become my platform. And so that is my purpose, my major purpose in life. It's to help. Successful men who feel stuck get unstuck. That's, that's my major purpose in life. You know, not guys that just don't want nothing in life. I, I can't do nothing for you in that. Okay. I'm talking about successful men who just like, really feel stuck in life, whether they're taking stock at their ages and they're like, you know, whether I've stalled out or I've blown everything up. Okay. You could start over and you're not starting completely over from scratch. You're starting with experience. I had to leverage that and so the podcast became my medium to help me. It was my therapy session. It was my way that I kept, stayed accountable and I loved to communicate and so I just, I said, this is, lemme just start here. I didn't know where this thing was gonna lead. I didn't know we were gonna be the top 3% podcast in the world. I don't even have a, you know, it's, it's nice and I do talk about that. I, I have a desire to be the top 1%, but it's not to be the top 1%. It means that I'm able to get out there to more people. It is scaled to a level that more are listening to it and getting unstuck in their lives. That's the only reason why I say I wanna be up there at the top. It's not. Out of like, oh, so I can get a Lambo, I'll roll in a Honda. My daughter's got a 2013 Honda and I told her I laugh all the time. I'm like, I'm a you get me a free, uh, you get a scholarship for college.'cause she has straight A's. I'm gonna get you a free car. Same thing my dad told me. So I'm gonna get you a free car. And I said, and I'm gonna take your car, bro. I'll roll around that 2013 Honda like a champ. I'm six three and I'm gonna cram myself up in there anyway. So, you know, the biggest thing, man, wherever it is that you are in life, that you know, you, you may have like blown things up or you may have stalled out. You, you just need alignment. When you get that alignment, you're gonna get the energy, you're gonna get the ownership, and it's going to, it's gonna keep you on a system. And then the last one, how, uh, Napoleon Hill uses self-discipline as a power tool works through a lack of patience. He admitted. He's like, I have zero patience, and I get that. I have too many, many times, many, many times I've been on the mic before, just frustrated as hell. I'm like, I'm just banging episode after episode. It's like nothing's happening in my life. It was just because it doesn't seem like it's happening. Things are happening. They're just happening in the spirit room. But see, you have to understand there's a timing to your time in, first, you gotta put in the reps. You don't control the timing, but you do control putting the time in. So even on the days, man, when I wanna quit, I just go back to the checklist. That's all I do. And that's what Hill said. And he's like, don't think for one minute in the 20 years that I'm developing it. Don't think for one minute. That I just didn't wanna quit. There's no compensation for this. There's no guarantees for this. It seems like it's not working. I guarantee you he wanted to. He's like, I just, I just reminded myself on what my major purpose in life was. Okay. That's what he did. And so on those days, man, where it's just like, I get reminded that. This is a way that keeps me from stalling out again in life. This is how I take on adversity and uncertainty and beat back complacency. And so when I do these things, I'm reminded of my major purpose in life and my energy shifts when I get done with this checklist, and so I stay aligned and I just stay progressing. So let me ask you a couple of questions for you, because I believe this should be a working podcast, not a feel good podcast. If you want to go deeper into this, I do have a select few of coaching clients that we can go deeper into this, but if this is good enough for you, you can do it on your own. Cool, and I'll send you the core six at no charge. I have a screensaver on my phone for those of you looking at the video. Uh, it's not really showing 'cause there's too much light in here. But anyway, uh, I'll put it on my Instagram stories. Um, but, you know, I'll, I'll send it to you. I, I have it, I have it on the screensaver as a reminder, but also I have it on just a, a daily checklist. So let me, let me ask you this. If you're struggling right now with self-discipline, just. Just wonder about this. Just write these down and maybe an, an answer. These get started, like, wake up at a set time and this'll be your one page. Uh, writings are you reinforcing. Think about this. Are you reinforcing your self imposed limitations? Are you leaking your time and your energy? Like, where did the time go? It's 'cause you, you, you don't have, you don't have a process. And again, life's not easy, but you can make it simple. Um, do you know your purpose, your major purpose in life? If you need a place to look, look at your pain. Stop running for your pain. Actually go into it. This is why confrontation's so key. So if you go into your pain, then you'll realize. That could be your platform. And do you have a lack of patience? Could be like, you know, we all want it fast and easy, right? But there's a faith component to this. You know, if it was easy and evident, there'd be no, no need for faith, right? It's not supposed to be easy, it's not gonna be evident. You have to earn it. Okay. And so there's a, there's a faith component to that, and with that you gotta develop the patience. But I think what's interesting is, hill didn't say this, but I, I think this, I think he was able to become more patient. I know I've become more patient when all I do is I take my mind off of the timeframe and I just focus on the task at hand the day and however it shakes out. I've already won. Remember, I've already won, and so I can carry those lessons forward the next day. If it's a bad day, okay, analyze that. What can I do to fix it? But see, you always put yourself first, and that's what's important on the core six. It's putting yourself first. It's a mechanism of putting yourself first. And if you put yourself first, then the world gets the best representation of you. Ain't nobody, your family don't want sloppy leftovers. Your relationships don't want sloppy leftovers. Your people at your job. Don't want an old piece of you. Okay. You know, and you're just all, and the piece they get is just angry and frustrated. People don't want that. I mean, bro, lemme tell you something, I'm living proof. I'm 52 years old, and my flesh tells me all the time I'm running out of time. I have plenty of time, but I just don't have a second to lose. All right? Neither do you. Self-discipline is super simple. Keep your mind fixed on what you do want, and forget what you don't want. All right. Thanks for sharing this episode. Who needs this episode? Please help share the show. We are worldwide, but we need more people to get this. The only way I could do it is look, you don't have to leave a rating and review. If you would, that'd be great, but if you would just do one thing. Share this, whether it be on your socials, whether you send it in an email to somebody or a text message, yes, people still use email or text me, forward this to somebody else and say, man, check this out. Again, I'm just a messenger. It's not about me. I'm just the messenger. I'm just living the message and I wanna share it with you, and I hope in turn that you'll pay it forward and share it with somebody else. All right? With that, keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.