Deep Dive Dialogues with Dan Woerheide

Unstoppable Momentum: Discipline and Resilience in Business

• Dan Woerheide • Episode 5

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In this episode, I reflect on the discipline, mental toughness, and consistency I’m rediscovering through the 75 Hard challenge, and how these lessons apply directly to building a coaching business. From the power of daily commitment to the importance of resilience, I share how these qualities go beyond physical endurance to form the foundation of lasting success in business. Whether you’re building a coaching practice or aiming to grow in any venture, these insights on mental toughness offer a fresh approach to building your resilience and fueling your progress.

You can find out more about 75 Hard here: https://andyfrisella.com/pages/75hard-info

My podcast website: www.podcast.danw.us

The Soldiers Creed: https://www.army.mil/values/soldiers.html

Want to check in on my progress with the program? Connect with me on Social Media - Dan Woerheide

Dan Woerheide:

I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army values. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough. Trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. Trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I will always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself. I am an expert and I am a professional. I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat. I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life. I am an American soldier.

Dan Woerheide:

Some of you may recognize this. For those of you that don't, it's called the soldier's creed, a creed that every Army soldier is to commit to memory. Like an affirmation of sorts. It becomes a creed in which to live by. As I published this episode on 12 November 2024, veterans Day has just passed, and this is important because what I'm going to share today, as I reflect on my career, this creed has stood out to me, but there's one part that continued to reverberate through my mind, and it's that continued to reverberate through my mind, and it's I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself. Welcome back to Deep Dive Dialogues. I am your Dan ,Woerheide, , and today we're going to dive into something a little bit different, but it's something I think that is important for every coach and every entrepreneur, and the and your connection to that, because again, the, the thought process for this episode came up as I reflected on those two lines Especially, I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. While I am definitely trained and proficient in my tasks and my drills, as it pertains to my work and to the other things in my life work and to the other things in my life I recognized that I wasn't maintaining my arms, that is, the tools in the field, my equipment, the tools here that I use and, more importantly, myself Yep, I let myself slip.

Dan Woerheide:

So over the past week as I'm recording this, I'm actually on day seven I've been doing something pretty intense. It's called 75 Hard If you're not familiar, it's a mental toughness program. That's all about discipline, consistency and showing up. No matter what, discipline, consistency and showing up no matter what. Now I've been pushing through these first few days. It struck me just how similar the lessons that I'm learning and the experiences that I'm having are to what we need to build and grow a business, especially as coaches. So today I wanted to share these parallels with you, so you can see how mental toughness, discipline and consistency are just as essential in the business as they are in programs like 75 Hard. More than that, the segment that stood out to me was a constant reminder to me that I had lost my focus, that I had lost my discipline, and not only has my physical health experienced some suffrage, but so has my motivation and therefore the results that I have worked hard to create. In my business we're also seeing a tremendous decline. So let's jump into it, shall we?

Dan Woerheide:

Lesson number one commitment and consistency. With 75 Hard, there's absolutely no skipping days. It's about showing up every single day, rain or shine, and it's that same consistency, as a coach, that helps you to build a profitable business. If we only reach out to clients, post content or follow up on our leads when we feel like it, we're missing out on building real value and building real momentum. Consistency creates trust, both in ourselves and with the people we would like to work with. Next is small daily actions. In 75 Hard, it's easy to think a single workout or reading session won't make a difference, but it's the accumulation of these small actions that brings real results. In business it's the same. Every small step, whether it's sending an email, creating a social post or sending a follow-up, compounds over time. These small actions are what build something bigger.

Dan Woerheide:

What about mental toughness? When you're doing something tough, like 75 hard you face moments when you don't want to keep going. You're tired, you're sore, but you do it anyway. And in business we hit those moments too the rejections, the doubts, the days when you're not seeing results. Mental resilience is what gets us through. It's about sticking to the course, even when it feels tough. And let me tell you this past week, day one was great. Day two, I might have made a slight error. I went to my CrossFit gym and I participated in the workout of the day and it happened to be a very heavy, intense leg day and for the next two days I suffered immensely as I fought to get through two workouts a day Towards the end.

Dan Woerheide:

I'll give you the basics of what 75 hard is as far as the rules are concerned. 25 hard is as far as the rules are concerned. But suffice it to say that this past week was not just a physical challenge but a mental challenge, waking up sore and tired and thinking man, why am I doing this? And then my reflection hit me because I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough and I have everything I need to do this. I have everything it takes to do this. If I question it, then I'm questioning my commitment, not just to this program, but to each and every one of my clients, to each and every one of my friends, to each and every one of my family members who believes in me and anyone else who supports me. I question the listeners, who you are listening to this episode right now. All of that goes into question if I question my ability to continue through this program. So there's no doubt that I will be resilient and I will continue and I will complete the 75 days of 75 hard.

Dan Woerheide:

Next is planning and preparation, and that's another big one. In 75 hard, you have to plan your workouts, you have to plan your meals, you have to plan your reading and you have to fit all of that into your daily schedule Monday through Friday, saturday and Sunday, so seven days a week. This planning keeps you on track. It's the same in business Having a plan setting goals and taking consistent actions allows you to stay focused, especially when things get busy. Things get busy and if they're not right now, your commitment, your desire, your passion to follow through it will get busy. So how do you fit those things in? And, for me, I have other things going on in my life at the moment. That means I really have to be flexible in how I fit these in. So, trying to find a routine that works for my workout plan because you have to work out a minimum of 45 minutes a day no, excuse me, a minimum of 45 minutes twice a day One of those workouts has to be outside. Again, rain, sleet, snow doesn't matter. One of them has to be outside, and so it's important to do your best to prepare for that. And you know when I have a moment is when I just go to my reading. I get my 10 pages of reading done per day at a minimum, by the way, and there's no substitution with audiobooks or any of that business. It's straight up reading, non-fiction books meant to promote self-improvement, or maybe you have some business books that you're reading, or whatever it may be. It's meant to promote personal and professional growth. Professional growth Next up is accountability.

Dan Woerheide:

75 Hard can be a solo journey. Now, I haven't shared this with many people because for me it started as a solo journey. It was for me, addressing the things that I knew to be true, the things that I needed. I wasn't here to promote this program. I wasn't here to tout to the world that what I'm doing to improve. It was about who I am and how I'm showing up. So it started for me as a solo journey. But when we share our goals or we have someone to help us, help keep us on track, we're more likely to succeed. That's researched over and over.

Dan Woerheide:

In business we need accountability just the same. It could be a mentor, a coach, a group of peers, those people who can push us to keep us going. Accountability is what keeps us from quitting when things get really hard. And here's the big one pushing through that discomfort. I talked about it. Every day in 75 hard has some discomfort, whether it's that extra workout or the discipline to sticking to the plan. In business we face that same level of discomfort in different ways. Maybe it's making that first cold call, or maybe it's stepping up to speak publicly. Growth comes from getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Dan Woerheide:

Accountability I want to go back to that for a second. It can be anybody. It can be a mentor, coach, a group of peers. Here's what I found to be tremendous and extremely effective is find a mastermind group to join, or find a group of people who are like-minded and maybe doing something similar to what you're doing. Maybe it's a group of coaches, maybe it's simply a group of other entrepreneurs who are at a similar stage or maybe even just ahead of where you are. So you can be a community with those like-minded people and people who understand the value of that particular piece accountability they're going to be there to help you push through those moments. They're going to be there to help you push through those moments.

Dan Woerheide:

The last thing, the last lesson, if you will, that I want to share, is focusing on the power of process over outcomes. In 75 hard, you're not focused on some magical end result. It's the daily discipline that matters most, and in business it's the same thing. If we focus only on those big wins or hitting huge goals right away, we miss the value of learning and growing along the way. The process itself is where we build our skills. We build our mindsets and our resilience. It's probably one of the most often overlooked. When people look at 75 Hard or other similar programs and they see the end results in well, now's probably a good time to share the rules with you.

Dan Woerheide:

So the rules are actually I don't overwhelmingly simple. I don't know if that's the right way to phrase it, but they're seemingly simple. It's number one, and I'm not going to put these in any particular order. These five things are required. One a progress photo every day. You don't have to post it anywhere, but you have to take it. Number two you have to read 10 pages from any non-fiction book, ideally designed towards growth, personal or professional growth. Number three you have to drink a gallon of water a day. Number four you have to commit to two 45-minute workouts, one of which has to be outside a day. Now, these workouts don't have to be anything significant. You don't have to go jump into CrossFit or jump back into CrossFit, in my case, and make that one of your first second workouts of the day, but it's really about what movement and activity is going to help you progress, what's going to help you grow right now. That's the idea. It doesn't have to be anything extremely hard or challenging, but the challenge comes with finding the time and committing to two times a day. To two times a day. The fifth thing is choosing a diet and or a eating plan that you're going to commit to through the duration of those 75 days, with zero cheat meals or days. Those are the basic rules, again, seemingly simple until you get into it and you start running into things.

Dan Woerheide:

I ran into a client office the other day and they had a huge bowl of Reese's peanut butter cups and let me tell you, reese's are my favorite treat. They're the death of me maybe, I don't know, but Reese's are my favorite treat. And I looked at that bowl and looked at that bowl and it was extremely hard treat. And I looked at that bowl and looked at that bowl and it was extremely hard. I had to remind myself over and over that I'm in this for the long haul and I'm committed. And then I looked around the other side of the counter and there's a box of nutty bars. Now, if you're not familiar with what that is, basically it's a long, somewhat skinny graham cracker with peanut butter and chocolate all throughout it and they are delicious and that's like my second favorite treat. So both of these things in this office were there on purpose to tempt me. I'm sure I'm sure it was a setup, but I didn't allow it to distract me from my goal. It's easy to look.

Dan Woerheide:

What I was saying is it's easy to look at progress photos that people are posting from the beginning to the end of their journey and see that there are absolutely some physical changes that come as a result of this program. But that is not the goal of this program. The goal of this program is a mental resiliency challenge. The goal of this program is a mental resiliency challenge. It's a learning challenge and it's not designed to produce some specific physical end result. That is a side benefit of participating in this program.

Dan Woerheide:

And I'm here to tell you it's day seven already. I can see a physical difference, but I can also feel the difference in my discipline, in my level of commitment, in the things that I am doing in my work and in my life, and I feel great. So maybe you'll hear from me about this in the future, but for now, suffice it to say that I'm committed to the duration and if you want to check in on me, of course, feel free to hit me up and ask me. I'll happily share where I'm at on my journey. Oh, and I guess I should mention the rules that if you fail to complete any one of those five tasks in any day, you must start over from day one. So let's wrap up.

Dan Woerheide:

If there's one thing that I'd love for you to take away from today, it's that building mental toughness, consistency and being resilient it's not just four programs like 75 hard. These things are essential in business, whether you're just starting out, you're a few years in, whatever it may be, I challenge you to pick one of these lessons and work on putting it into practice today. It could be the focus on daily intentional actions. Daily intentional actions If I could speak clearly, that would be helpful. Huh, showing up consistently. Or maybe it's stepping out of your comfort zone. Whatever it looks like for you, I would like you to decide and commit on one of these lessons and putting it into practice now.

Dan Woerheide:

I want to thank you for joining me today in a slightly different episode of Deep Dive Dialogues and if you're finding value in these episodes, I'd love it if you subscribed, if you shared it with someone who might need to hear this and, more importantly, I'd love to hear from you. You can visit my website at podcastdanwus. That's my podcast website. If you go to my website and click podcast, you'll get to the same page, but on there you can leave me a message in a couple of ways. You can leave me a voicemail, you can send me a note.

Dan Woerheide:

You can also subscribe to my podcasting newsletter. That's specific for podcast listeners who want to get updated next time an episode comes out, and I would also encourage you to take a look at the top of the show notes in your podcast player. You should see a link to send Dan a text. You can also reach me that way and share your thoughts with me. More importantly, I'd love to hear the answer to your question, which is what is the most frustrating thing you're experiencing right now as it relates to growing your coaching business. So until next time, I want you to keep diving deep and showing up for your dreams. Commit fully and see the results unfold.