Discipline over motivation

How to start your day with Discipline

• Marco • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Discovering the power of a disciplined morning routine can transform your productivity and set you up for daily success. We explore how waking up early taps into your brain's peak performance time and creates distraction-free focus hours.

• Waking up at the same time daily creates consistency and discipline
• Morning hours (3-6 AM) offer peak brain performance and fewer distractions
• Never hit snooze - it's failing your first task of the day
• Make your bed immediately to achieve your first daily accomplishment
• Prepare for your morning the night before to remove friction
• Dedicate 2-3 hours daily to focused research and development
• Set small achievable daily goals that lead toward bigger objectives
• Don't reinvent the wheel - study and adapt successful models
• Accept setbacks as learning opportunities, not failures
• Persistence pays off - some clients respond months after initial contact

Follow us on Instagram @discipline_over_motivation for more tips and to suggest topics for future episodes. DM us with any questions or feedback - we're always here to help you build your discipline!


Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Lionheart of Discipline. This is episode two. This episode is going to be about how to start your morning off and create discipline and set yourself up for the day. I think it was a good episode, but it was a little all over the place. So, going forward, we're just going to really stick to a topic and teach you guys everything that you need to know so you can include them in your morning routine you know, even during your day routine, to keep yourself disciplined and ready to win the day. So, first things first, create good discipline. Wake up at the same time every day.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I learned this thing back in the day where, you know, I thought I'd want to work late to accomplish my goals, you know. So after I finished working you know, dinner and stuff, after even with my first child, I'd do the work when they all go to sleep. You know it's quiet, but it was already like nine, you know 10 o'clock. I would try to do the work but it felt like I was getting nowhere. I was just. I was already tired. My mind was tired. You know I was running and being a manager at my job, so it was very tough on the mind and I feel like I wasn't being as productive. So that's what I introduced. I'm like you know what, instead of staying up, why don't I go to bed at maybe 8.30 around there and maybe wake up at 3 o'clock, 3.30. I know everybody's different. Everybody needs to sleep a certain amount to feel fully energized. I was a guy that maybe six hours of sleep, six hours of sleep, you know I was. There was no point where all I needed was five hours of sleep and I'm still like that. I don't need that much, you know. But you know I try to keep it around six hours. So yeah, back to my point is where I'm like okay, let me go to bed at 830 around there and let me wake up at 3, 3.30.

Speaker 1:

Because your mind is the strongest right in the morning. Like your mind, your brain's always working. Like, don't think when you go to sleep, your brain's not going. You know you have dreams. You have, you know, lots of thoughts, some you don't remember, some you remember, but your brain is always going. Now, is it working at full capacity, like you during the day? No, because your eyes are closed and you're not analyzing a lot of what's going on in the world or in front of you and things like that. So your brain, it is resting, it's not shut off, but it is resting. So after that, rest in the morning, that's when your brain is the most powerful, okay, so I found that Let me try this out.

Speaker 1:

I tried it out, you know got up at 3.30, maybe a week or so, two weeks gotten by, and I was actually getting real production. You know, I gave myself I keep in mind at the time I'd go work. I started at seven. So I gave myself a good about almost three hours of work, steady, every day. And the good thing about this those three hours was I was really focused. Okay, everyone just sleep, there's nothing on the TV, nice and quiet. You really, I truly focused on what I was doing for those three hours every day, whereas at the night I was kind of picking around at things. You know, I'd get distracted, which is fine, that happens to everybody, okay. But that morning routine really helped me because those three hours it was a solid three hours. So that's what, that's what I was able to create, my business, okay, that's what it was. Finally starting to work. So, but hey, that doesn't have to be for you, that's what I'm just saying. Work for me. It's less distractions, so, but it's up to you.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you should dedicate two to three hours every day on the computer. You know, you don't even need to know what you're doing. Go there and get inspired Research. If you have ideas, look it up, because you could be looking up those ideas and then another idea. You can come across another idea and, hey, maybe that's what I want to do instead of this, or maybe that's what I want to do. Just get on there, spend a couple hours on there, and I'm not telling you to go on the computer and go on your social media Facebook Watch videos or YouTube videos Even though there's some YouTube videos that are really good, you know, they're educational, but most of the time people aren't really going to watch that. Okay, they're just wasting time on it. So, give yourself at least two hours a day. You know, even if it's one hour, an hour and a half, you just give yourself that time to really, you know, do some research and brainstorm. Okay, the idea will come to you. Okay, no matter what, it will eventually come to you. If you already know what you want to do, sure, get on there. Find somebody that did the same thing that you want to do. Do a lot of research about it? Okay, copy them.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people think they have to reinvent the wheel. Okay, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. Okay, find out, figure out what you want. Or, if you know what you want, find other companies or people doing what you want to do. Copy them now, don't. You can copy them 100 or, you know, tweak some things, but don't feel like you have to start something completely that's never done before. You know and I'm not saying you can't do that, yeah, you can do that, but you know it's gonna be a little harder and uh, but it's still possible. You can still do it. But you know, if, like every business, every type of tree, whatever you want to call it, there's always competitors, okay, it's that you could be. You could say that over a million times that these two companies are even more. These 10 companies, they're all copying each other's system. Who cares? Okay, they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even more. Who cares? Just copy them.

Speaker 1:

Okay, make it out of, make it into your own business. Like I said, change some things to to how you want it. But overall, don't reinvent the wheel, just use their game plan, it will help. Okay, it's simple as that. But, like I said, you need to give yourself two hours every day on research. Okay, that's how it really goes. Okay, don't be just distracted. You know A lot of people use their phones and everything like you're already on your phone. Okay, you could scroll there for two hours an hour, but you can do some research might as well. Use it, use your screen time and do it. Iphones do everything. A computer basically does almost everything. I'm not gonna say everything, but most of the stuff. So, instead of just using it for screen time or just for watching videos, actually use it for some research.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now we're talking about waking up early. Okay, when you're waking up, do not press snooze. Okay, when you put yourself on snooze like that, you kind of I don't want to say you're failing the first task of the day, but it's pretty close, all right, don't hit the snooze. Just, you know, embed it in your mind. Now, look, I'm not going to tell you, oh, tomorrow you're going to be perfect, you're never going to hit the snooze, because that's not true. Okay, but physically put something in your mind. Okay, that will come to you every morning, or set yourself up, that something that you really want to do in that morning. Okay, so, when that snooze comes or your alarm comes, you're like, ah, you know what? I got to work, I got to get up.

Speaker 1:

You know, mel Robbins had a an interesting, interesting thing which actually helped for me for the first little while. Then, once I started building my, my creation, you know, I was really motivated to wake up early. You know, and if you get enough sleep you will wake up. Okay, mel robbins, she had this thing where she would, she would, um, anytime you uh, doubting yourself or thinking about something to stop what you're going to do, you know your inner voice was telling you not to do it. She had this thing where she'd go five, four, three, two, one, you could even go slower and bam, you would just get up. You would just do whatever. You gave yourself those five seconds, then you would just get up. You know, and I tried, it actually worked for a while. You know, it came to a point where I I honestly didn't even need to do it anymore, because I just wanted to wake up. I was so motivated, I was seeing progress in my company, you know. So I was, I wanted to wake up and I was getting the amount of sleep I needed. So it was good.

Speaker 1:

But like, like I said, for sure that five, four, three, two, one, get out of bed. There's no snooze. Forget the snooze. Once you start hitting snooze, you're setting your your mind back already. You know you're, you're, uh, you're not acting, onze, you're setting your your mind back already. You know you're, you're, uh, you're not acting on what you should be doing. That's like one of the first tasks of the day that you need to conquer. Is that snooze button okay? Because once you hit snooze, you'll just be more tired after. Everybody thinks when you hit, so no, I just get a little bit more sleep to get more. I didn't know that's not true.

Speaker 1:

Okay, your body actually takes 30 minutes, almost 30 minutes, of sleeping. Okay, to actually get into a sleep and for a productive sleep. Okay, you sleep before those five minutes. 10 minutes, it's not going to do you any good, you're just going to be even more lazy when you wake up. It's simple as that. Another thing when you're finally up, make that bed right away, just make it. Okay, I used to be that guy. I'd get out of bed, I'd flip the sheets over and when I came back home I just flipped the sheets back over on me. Bed was never made, okay. So don't be that guy. Make your bed, don't hit snooze. All right, trust me, you'll be, you'll like, it'll be worth it in the long run.

Speaker 1:

Other things that can help you get ready for the morning is prepping the night before. You know, set your computer up already. You know, set your book up, and I mean book, like I always have a book. I have a computer, but I don't like to write everything there. It's easier just to write down a piece of paper, scribble whatever, any idea, just write down. That's how I would start Even the night before. Write down what you want to do tomorrow In the morning. I want to do this. Okay, in the morning I want to do this much work and I gotta go into my actual job. You know, at break maybe I could do a little bit more things.

Speaker 1:

You know, if you have a doctor's appointment or you have some certain chores to do, writing it down makes it a lot easier, you know, instead of winging it always. Once you become more disciplined and have a steady routine, maybe you don't have to write down as much things For me. I used to like to write down everything I was doing that day. You know what I was doing in early in the morning, what I was doing, you know early afternoon, late afternoon, evening, nighttime. You know I wrote it all down every single day. If something came up, I would do that, you know, and I would just go off of that until I physically built myself a routine where it was in my head.

Speaker 1:

You know, thinking things is great, but everybody forgets certain things. Right when you write it down, you're not only you're writing it down on the paper, but it almost forces your mind to really remember it. You know, it's just like at school. You know when the teacher's talking to you. Yeah, you learn things, but what you truly learn is when you're writing down doing homework. That's why, you know, homework was very important back in the day when everybody hated it, but that's why a lot of people remembered things, because they were reading it, writing it down, memorizing it and still writing it down again. So that's what really helps you and creates that routine for you.

Speaker 1:

So write down everything you're going to do that day. If you can plan a few days in advance, do that. Have it already. These are things that you could do and they'll just be ready for you in the morning. You know what you're doing every day. You don't have to write down I'm going to eat a sandwich this morning. You don't have to write that stuff down. Write your chores down, write your duties, what you're going to be doing, stuff like that. You're not going to forget to eat. If you're hungry, you'll eat. But it really helped me when I wrote all my stuff down, and I'm sure it can help you as well.

Speaker 1:

What I like to do when I'm writing my stuff down is I like to give myself maybe two or three goals a day. One of my goals would probably be you know, I'm going to make sure I get at least two, 10, 15 customers of our service. Okay, those are very important. You know you could have one goal a day, you could have two, you could have three, whatever. Set yourself up with little goals for now. Okay, don't set yourself up like I'm going to be a millionaire tomorrow, I'm going to make a thousand dollars tomorrow, because like, hey, it could happen, but they're unrealistic goals. We're trying to get your mind proper right now. Set yourself up for little goals, those little accomplishments. They go a long way.

Speaker 1:

When you succeed certain things. It makes you feel good when you do that work. Like I said, mine was okay, make sure I do this amount of work and make sure I email this amount of customers minimum every day. Okay, so that's exactly what I did and if I passed it, that was even better. So that was my quota. Now, if I emailed 20 customers in that morning, that made me feel even better. Okay, I accomplished what I was going to do. Now did those customers sorry, those clients answer back? No, a lot of them don't. Okay, but I did what I needed to do. I did that work and it felt good that you know what I did.

Speaker 1:

Three days roll, I just emailed, you know, 45 to 60 clients and, hey, I may not have got a response, but I still did it. It's still there. They have it. Okay, you may not think they don't have it, but they do. It stays there. You know you might not get a response, but if it's a service that they use often, maybe they have somebody already doing it, maybe that one time their contractor couldn't do it. They have your information. You could get it. And that's what happened when I started my first company in the cleaning business. A lot of the times I didn't get responses, you know, but they had my information.

Speaker 1:

One of my times, I believe, is actually one of my first, maybe I don't know my first or second customer. I sent them an email a couple months before they even responded, so you could see exactly what happened. They read it because and also, I just wanna touch base when you work in the morning, okay, when you send emails or stuff to clients like that, what do you think's gonna happen? Okay, they're gonna be at the office within the next couple of hours. If even, who do you think's email they're gonna see first, they're gonna see mine. Mine was the most recent email. Okay, yes, everybody sends emails to them trying to get their business, but guess what time that most people are doing? Most people are doing it at nighttime. Okay, you know how emails, you know how text messages work. The most recent message is going to be at the top of the list, okay, so that's what the advantage is also of doing it early in the morning. Now, I'm not going to say that's going to work every time, because it won't.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, this is my third. I believe it was my second customer where I sent that. Okay and yeah. So they didn't respond. I think it was like two months, two or three months after I got a response and I know because I keep track of everybody you know I sent that email. This was the date I sent all these clients. I sent them on this date, on this date, on this date, okay. So it was like two, three months after they responded to me oh, we need a cleaning service. It was two condos, it was no problem. Need a cleaning service? Uh, there was, uh, two condos, it was no problem, we'll take care of it for you and we did okay.

Speaker 1:

So don't think, just because you send an email to a client and they don't respond to you, don't they don't think that's a loss? Listen, you're gonna send emails regardless. I'm talking about my cleaning company, but it doesn't matter. Whatever company you're starting, okay, you will have to cold call people If you really want business. That's how it is. Not to mention, cold calling is the cheapest way for you to get business. You could put ads out there and stuff like that, but hey, maybe you don't have money to do all that right now. Right? So cold calling is free. Well, not free, it costs your time, but time, but hey, you could make money without spending money, okay.

Speaker 1:

So, and that's what I was doing, I was sending, you know, 15 to 20 emails a day well, a morning, I should say and it ended up paying off, because not only that, it ends up happening, it word-of-mouth is a good resource as well, because they might not need your service, but hey, maybe they know somebody that does need your service or, like I said, their contractor might not be available that date or something. Maybe they need an emergency cleanup for me. So I did and, like I said, the business I started, I didn't go clean myself. I never cleaned any of my projects. I did and, like I said, the business I started, I didn't go clean myself. I never cleaned any of my, any of my projects I have. I've never went to a unit condo or a business or a new construction build. I never went to go clean myself.

Speaker 1:

I created this business as a third party. You know I dispatched, you know, I guess, some of the first podcasts. I hired a bunch of cleaners, or I put it. I made them as contract cleaners and whenever work came, I would just send it off and whoever was the best bidder and they would get the job and you know it took me a while to find good cleaners because you know I don't want to just take anybody because everybody could clean, but you want good quality work. So I didn't underpay anybody. I let them always give me their best prices and I gave the price to the customer. I took a percentage of it and, yeah, that's how my business started. And the first was maybe a few condos and I think I did a coin laundry as well that we were maintaining once a week and it was decent money.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, I couldn't just quit my job over this income but it was bringing me extra cash flow. It was good and, uh, eventually, a few months after a few months, by half a year, a year, you know I started bringing in you know, really good uh money and for for something that I wasn't even going to do. So my main objective was to still work and do this was that extra time on the computer, that work. I spent my time on the computer, like I said, two, three hours a day and it really got busy. It was harder. Don't get me wrong. You're researching in the beginning but once you start actually building your company it gets a lot. I'm accounting, I'm getting the cleaning contractors paid, I'm asking for money from the customers we've served, so it becomes a lot right. But that was really what I wanted to do. I wanted to create a business where I didn't have to go do it myself and the work paid off not half the work, but my second business is also doing really good, which we'll touch base on in another episode or maybe later. Like I said, I wanted these episodes to go on as my life does. So when we reach a topic where I can open that second business to you guys, I'll definitely do it alright. So I just want to get back to the mornings, kind of going off topic, but we'll stay.

Speaker 1:

Another thing is don't beat yourself up. Okay, listen, like I, like I was touching base, like you won't get responses on a lot of your cold calls. Don't be so hard on yourself. Okay, listen, you're gonna fail. You're gonna make mistakes on the way, and that's fine. Learn from them. Okay, you're not just gonna have some. You're not just gonna start this work, start your company and just be perfect at it. Okay, so everything's just gonna be smooth sailing. No, that's not gonna happen. You're gonna have mistakes. You're gonna have failures, you know, maybe you'll try to start a business and it doesn't work out, you know, and that's fine. Learn from it, okay. That's why, like when I say cold calling, like you know that's really time-consuming, of course, but like it's free of money most of the time, okay, you don't want to infest all your money.

Speaker 1:

Okay, maybe you don't have much, I didn't have much to start with. You don't want to invest all your stuff into one company, that's. You know you might fail. I don't know if I said that, right, keep your costs low is what I'm trying to say in the beginning. Okay, a lot of companies. If you're doing the work yourself, you don't need much to start up. Okay, don't put all your eggs in one basket. I mean, put your focus on this one project you want to start, but don't infest everything into it. You know it'll be harder to get out of and harder to fix your mistakes.

Speaker 1:

So, like with my company there, it didn't take much to start up, it was a cleaning company. I hired contract cleaners, so I only paid them once the job was done. Sorry, like I said, I only paid them once the job was done and most of the time when customers were already paying, because it's very quick, okay. So it didn't really take much to start this company. I didn't pay much. I wasn't paying much for advertising. Um, I did some online advertising but it wasn't really wasn't really getting me anywhere. My website itself having it online. That helped. I don't know. The ads didn't really push for much.

Speaker 1:

But what I'm trying to say is don't just spend a bunch of money on it. Put yourself in a hole. A lot of people start businesses when they're already down. You don't want to be more down if it fails. But, like I said, if you fail, don't give up. Keep going.

Speaker 1:

Setbacks aren't failures. You're going to come across setbacks no matter what you do. Even when you have a successful company, setbacks will come. It's how you deal with them is basically how far you're going to go. Okay, setbacks in the beginning of your company will teach you how to deal with it later on. So just keep going.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, don't be so hard on yourself. A lot of people are very hard on themselves if they make a mistake, and you know, and they lose motivation after or they put it on hold. They don't wanna do it anymore. No, keep going. Okay, you will make mistakes, that's fine.

Speaker 1:

You could have a bad day, just bounce back tomorrow. That's the important part of having a routine. It's something set in stone that you can follow. You know, if you weren't able to accomplish it that one day, you can accomplish it tomorrow. Try it again the next day, like I said, but just keep going. Like I keep saying, just keep going. You might have a mistake here and there. As like a template, I could say but listen, you don't have to get or accomplish everything every day. That's like you're setting yourself up to try to do it. But you know, if you, if you're not able to one day, don't beat yourself up over it. You know, have you're not able to one day, don't beat yourself up over it. You know, have it there, go back to it the next day. It's just there as a guide for you. All right, that's basically it for this episode. I think we did pretty good.

Speaker 1:

I just want to go over some things we talked about and some things that you should do every morning to succeed your day. So that's your morning routine. Okay, write that down, get it figured out Every morning. You're going to do this, you're going to do that, you're going to do that, okay're going to do that, okay. And then set yourself up for the day. Okay, waking up the same time every day, okay, not hitting that snooze button. That's very important. Those are two things that are very important to your life is waking up the same time and don't hit the snooze button. You're going to make your day a lot harder. Okay, I already said it, you're not going to be perfect and get it right off the bat, but give yourself some motivation in the morning on why you want to get up and you will get up.

Speaker 1:

Okay, do Mel Robbins' trick the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Count it down and just get yourself right out of bed, okay. Also, plan a good night before, if that works for you, whether you're working in the night or the morning, you know. Plan it before, okay. If you're working in the morning, plan it the night before. Set yourself up the night before. Have everything ready. So when you wake up you get to that table or your desk, whatever it is. Just have it ready and laid out for you, okay.

Speaker 1:

And one thing for sure is make your bed in the morning. That's like what are your first uh accomplishments of the day? You will feel better, you know, and everybody loves a fresh bed to go, go lay in Right. So make that bed All right. And, uh, last but not least, don't forget set yourself up for some little goals. Last but not least, don't forget, set yourself up for some little goals. All right, set those little goals, accomplish them. You know, if you don't, don't beat yourself up over it, okay, you can do them tomorrow, whatever it is, but give yourself little goals. You know little milestones, like you know, when you reach to them, you feel better.

Speaker 1:

Like I was saying before, you know, if you set yourself up for three goals in a day, once you accomplish them, three or two of them, or one of them, like you know, it motivates you to get to that next one. Okay. So set yourself up for a few goals every day, you know. Change them up maybe it's the same goals every day to make you a better person, whatever it is, just set yourself up for it. Okay, trust me, when you accomplish those goals, they will make you feel good.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and, like I said, set yourself up little goals, but you know what? Set yourself up with some big goals. Where do you, where do you want to be in a month from now? Two months from now, okay. So right, just write those down. Okay, and uh, don't think you're going to accomplish them tomorrow. I mean, you can, who knows. But set yourself up some goals that you want in a few months. This is where you want to be, this is how far you want to be in your life, in your new business, whatever. It is Okay. But, like I said, there's little goals and there's big goals. Okay, you should set yourself up for these little goals to get to your big goals. You know, you understand. So you have your big goal up there and then you write down all the little goals you need to accomplish to get to that final goal. Okay, trust me, it will work.

Speaker 1:

Okay, when you just set yourself up for those big goals, you, you don't know, you don't really realize what it takes to get there, okay. But when you set yourself up for that big goal and then you're like, okay, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this to get there, okay, so, all right, where you go tomorrow? Okay, I gotta go accomplish this first. Okay, this is, uh, it's a little goal, but whatever, once you accomplish that, you're another step closer to that big goal. Trust me, it will work. It will make you feel good and then, once you're another step closer to that big goal, trust me it will work. It will make you feel good. And then, once you're getting really, really close to it and you have everything figured out, it will work. Okay. So set those goals up. Know the difference from your little goals and your big goals. Okay, a lot of people set themselves up with big goals without little goals and then when it doesn't work, they're like ah, you know, they don't get motivated anymore, they don't want to do it. No, you just didn't have the right plan for it. Okay, set those little goals up to get to that big goal. All right, thank you guys for listening.

Speaker 1:

I have a great episode coming up. Episode number three is going to be great. Make sure you stay tuned, and if you could give any feedback, I'd love it. Just any feedback, I'd love it, just so we know if you had. Also, if you guys have any topics you guys want to me to touch base on, feel free, okay, feel free. And also, I also have uh instagram page that I started not too long ago. It's lionhearted discipline. Okay, it's a gold lion with a white background on it. Don't forget, just hit that follow button. You know, dm me any of your uh suggestions, your feedback, anything you want me to touch base on. You know, dm me any of your uh suggestions, your feedback, anything you want me to touch base on. You know you can reach out for anything you guys want to talk about. You know, it doesn't matter what it is. You know, even if you just want to talk, I'm all. I'm all ears, so hit me up and, uh, I love to hear back from you guys. Thanks, see you soon.