Small Things, Done Daily

Most people don’t struggle because they don’t know what to do…

They struggle because they don’t do the small things — consistently.

In this episode, Marc and Cole break down what discipline actually looks like in real life.

Not motivation.
Not big, dramatic changes.

But the daily decisions that no one sees.

Because real leadership isn’t built in big moments — it’s built in the small things, done daily.

We get into:

•  Why consistency matters more than intensity 
•  The problem with all-or-nothing thinking 
•  What discipline looks like when no one is watching 
•  How small habits compound over time 
•  Practical ways to stay consistent when life gets busy 

This is the shift from knowing… to doing.

Because you don’t rise to your goals —
 you fall to your standards.

If you’re ready to stop starting over and start building momentum…

This is where it begins.

OperationNextChapter@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The one thing that I have learned is the less chaos I can have in my life, the less stress I can have in my life, the better off my life is. The entire life, my family life, my work life, everything. When I feel myself getting stressed or I feel myself ramping up about something, the little things that I do, the little things that I have learned, bring me back.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Welcome to Operate the Next Chapter. We're Mark Nicole, retired Air Force First Sergeant, and this season is about leadership without the uniform. Because eventually the rent comes up, the structure changes, and no one has given you orders anymore. So who are you when no one is telling you who to be? This season is about reclaiming your standards, your discipline, and your role as a leader at home, at work, and in your own life. The next chapter isn't that time. It's built. Let's get to work.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

What's going on?

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Man, it's been a great week, dude. Looking forward to this next coming week and the temperature going down a little bit. It's been in the hundreds. Not ready for summer yet, because it was pretty extreme, like 60 to 100, you know, in less than a week. But other than that, uh life is good. No complaints. And even if I did, nobody wants to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

That's right. People ask you that, you know, how are things going? I have no complaints. And, you know, people chuckle at that. You don't want to hear about them anyway. So life is great.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Yeah. I don't want to hear people complain. So I'm not going to complain.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I don't want to hear myself complain.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

True. Yeah. Life is too good to complain.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

There's always something to complain about, but it's not worth it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

There's no value added. Again, there's things outside of our control that happen that we can complain about, and that's fine. But what are you doing to change those? Or what are you doing, better yet, what are you doing to deal with those things? You will continue to hear this because I hundred percent believe this to be true. My attitude, my effort, that's the only two things in life that I have control of every single day when I wake up and go to sleep.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Well, and if you think about it, the one consistent thing in life is negative news. There's always some sort of crisis or negative situation going on in your neighborhood, your town, the country, the world. We don't need that in our life. And frankly, most of it doesn't affect our life. We might tell ourselves it does, but honestly, it doesn't affect our daily life.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

When you get up every morning and live your life intentionally and be consistent with the things that you do, your routines, your family's routines, the things that that bring joy to your life and those things. If you can stay in those parameters, that negativity creeps in less. I'm not gonna say it doesn't creep in, right? Because you mentioned it. Even when there's not a crisis in the world, look at Facebook, look at social media. There is a crisis, right? And we're not gonna go down the rabbit hole of is that made up to mind control and everything. I'm not gonna go there, right? But it's the facts. Even when you know life is quote unquote going great for the world, there's going to be a crisis. A crisis that makes no difference. No difference in your daily life. It doesn't matter who the president is, it doesn't matter what's going on, it doesn't matter. Because what are you doing in your life to stay consistent? Discipline when no one is watching.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah, and take a little look into your life. What do you need consistency in? Or maybe what are you inconsistent at? Is it your family, your marriage, your kids, your money, your health, your fitness? Generally, that's where our inconsistencies lie, right? My inconsistency for up until about a year ago, one of the reasons I got this aura ring was my sleep. That's something I've been concentrating on intentionally to get consistent seven to eight hours of sleep a night. And it's been hard. But I had to fix it because it was affecting my daily life. That's just one example. How about you? What's something you're trying to get consistent with?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Uh I'll be honest, my diet. I love dessert. Dessert does not love me. Trying to stay consistent in that. Trying to be consistent with with the energy, the food source that I put into my body, and listening to how my body responds. It is no kidding a constant struggle for me.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

I think most of us can relate to that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm pretty consistent to the point where I still live a little. I'm not so dialed in where I'm restrictive and don't enjoy the food, but it can always be dialed in more. Depending on what your goal is. Like I'm always training for something. What's the next thing? Well, for me, the next thing is the Murph Challenge coming up on Memorial Day. Alright, now I gotta tighten up my diet. The diet's gonna make more of a difference than how much I work out. Right. The diet is 80% of it. And then after that, there's gonna be another thing. Like I'm always there's always a challenge out there. Yeah, most of us can relate to food and the inconsistencies that we put into our body.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah. We're talking a lot about consistency. In my life, things that, you know, things that have happened, you know, me searching for the next thing, right? The next great thing or the next fulfilling thing, quote unquote, has oftentimes led to inconsistency. You get so focused on something else that you neglect what you need to be doing, what I need to be doing on a daily basis, and how I need to be interacting, um, in interacting with food. I travel for a living. It is very difficult. Diet is a very difficult thing for me because I'm flight delays or I'm on an airplane during a normal meal time and everything else, and trying to be consistent, plan, you know, and that's that's the big piece. I don't plan for it, right? I just go and then it's like, oh crap, I'm hungry. Oh, there's nothing but this garbage to eat.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Yeah. It's hard to find the good stuff, especially in an airport or when you're staying at a hotel for a few days. Like, you gotta go seek it out because what's convenient is not healthy. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

And that leads back into attitude and effort. What am I doing? What are the small things that I do to to snap myself back, or to not snap myself back, but stay the course.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Yeah. There's always gonna be a new fire, right? I remember during my career there was always a fire of the day or a fire of the week that leadership concentrated on, and that was everybody's focus. And then next week, it was another fire, and then that previous fire got less attention and fell off the you know the stage, and that happens on our life too. You know, there's another fire burning somewhere or one smoldering, and then it grabs our attention, and then what we were just focusing on goes by the wayside, and so it's hard, right? Consistency is hard. If it was easy, we'd all be have no problems in our life.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, no, no financial issues, no nothing, right? Right. Uh, you mentioned work, let's be honest. There's fires in the household. Kid has a bad day, comes home from school, kid gets in trouble at school, your wife has a bad day at work, or you know, you have a bad day and you come home and you blow the whole household up, and those things happen. That's that's life, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Vehicles break down, appliances break down, like there's always something.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

There's always something, and that's where if you can be intentional and you can be disciplined to do the little things in life every single day, to do the little things to set yourself up every single day, there's peace. There's peace in that. And again, we talk about we should record the before recording conversations. You you said it, we were talking a little bit about things, and you know, Murphy's law, right? Well, when you can have the discipline and the consistency and the and the the wherewithal to stay true to your course and stay true to what you're doing, Murphy knocks at the next door. He's not knocking at your door. When we can do that, when we can stay grounded and go back to the basics of life, and sometimes that's what's needed. Just have the discipline to stay the course. Difficult to do, easy to say, difficult to do.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Yeah. You know, I have a very consistent morning routine, but it doesn't start in the morning. The system starts the night prior.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

It doesn't start the night prior, let's be honest. It starts in the afternoon because that's about the time you're going to bed.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Touche. I'm preparing my gym bag before I go to bed. I set the coffee. It's ready to go. Just gotta turn it on in the morning. I'm preparing my mind to get a good night's sleep. You know, there's all these things are put into place so that when morning comes the alarm goes off, it's already there waiting for me. Like I don't have to scramble around, find my shoes, put clothes in a bag. You know, it's already waiting for me. And I sleep better at night knowing that my morning can be smooth and painless, and it's gonna go off without a hitch. And then the rest of the day is planned too. You know, I've got my GSD list. We talked about this. There's always a few things on my GSD list that this is what I'm gonna do. That's the consistent part of my daily routine, is it's always planned for the day prior. All these things that make my life easier when I'm ready for that to happen. It's a system, and that's how I do it. There's multiple ways. That's just one thing that I do to make not just my life, but me and Tiff's life easier.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Are you saying that having a plan makes a difference?

SPEAKER_02 10:21

What's that famous quote? Failing to plan.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

How many times in life have you failed to plan and found yourself spiraling?

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Plenty. Yeah. That's why we can talk about it because and that's why I do what I do now because we did fail before. And we learn from it. And a plan only goes so far, but at least you're a step ahead of just not being prepared at all.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Right. And your plan requires discipline. When your plans have to change because something happens, having the discipline to pivot. Yeah. Yeah. And keep moving.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

We know it's gonna happen. You don't know when, but it's gonna happen. That's life. Life throws us wrenches. And the more consistency we can have in our schedule and our daily routine, the easier it is to pivot. You're just pivoting to the next thing and like, well, okay, I gotta put this to the side. Now this is important, and let's go take care of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

And if you're out there, and Mark and I just discussed a little bit, we've been there, right? If you're out there and you're like, yeah, but but this and but that and but this, and I again I travel, I'm on planes sometimes during mealtime. I'm also in multiple different time zones every week. So, you know, finding that rhythm and finding that uh rhythm to my bat my battle rhythm and and everything else and being consistent with that is very difficult. I've had to retrain my thinking and retrain my mindset to pick a time zone and try and stay on it. I don't care where I'm at, I'm getting up earlier or later, or going to bed earlier or later, or whatever. I've had to retrain myself. I've had to rethink about things, I've had to make multiple plans, multiple plans, because multiple of them have failed. Going back to having the discipline to first of all realize it. Know that something's not right, something's off.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Well, and I'm guessing that anybody who's listening has traveled via airports and commercial airlines, most likely have encountered a delay or cancellation or something in your travel plans, right? And you have to flex. And it's a little stressful because you obviously are flying somewhere for some reason. Not a lot of people have flexibility in their plans. So apply that to our life. We know things are gonna happen, and not every day is gonna go to plan, and especially not gonna go if you don't have a plan.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah. If you haven't given it any thought ahead of time, then how can you expect it to go as you foresee it going? Yeah. Yesterday's a great example. I was on the road, I was traveling back, I had an hour and a half drive to get to the airport from where from where I was. I left three a little over three hours early to get there, and traffic. I can't control the traffic. I can't control how other people drive, although they weren't driving very great, but I can control how I acted and I control how I responded. And I will tell you this: a few years back, I would have been an absolute basket case in that car. I would have been right on the edge of road rage and everything else. And as I'm driving, uh, and Jenny was with me, and you know, it's back and forth, and and again, I'm not gonna say there was no stress or anything else, but it was like, you know what? If we miss a flight, we'll just catch one tomorrow. No stress. And, you know, we ended up getting there 40 minutes before takeoff, not three hours before the boarding time that I had planned for, but 40 minutes before takeoff. You know, it all went, did we have to hustle a little bit? Yeah, that just means we got some fast-paced steps in instead of just kick leisurely walking through the airport. But it's okay. You know, it wasn't the end of the world. It wasn't a crisis, it wasn't an emergency. It just was what it was.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Yeah, and if you're that person that it is a crisis and emergency and the end of the world, maybe we need to take a step back and refocus on what's important because you know what? Although that might be a pain in your side, I'd rather fly safe than not fly at all. Yep. And that's happened, you know. Planes have problems, pilots have problems, and I've seen people get pissed off at the airport. I'd rather be on a good flying plane, bro. Yeah. With a sound mind pilot or weather delay that is out of anybody's control.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

I sat on a ramp for three hours in an airplane this year. Trust me, it's not comfortable, it's not fun, but I know we're not flying for a reason. And that weather was nasty in DFW.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

They know what they're doing. Getting pissed off is only stressing yourself out.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

And those around you.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Yeah, that too.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Let's be honest, you know, your actions affect those around you. And when it's out of your control, as most things in life are, what's your reaction? Because that's typically what people do. They react, and then everybody around you sees it, feels it. It's not helpful.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah, so maybe some of us need to get consistent with just letting off the throttle a little bit. You know, life's gonna happen. Start being consistent with, hey, it's out of my control. I cannot worry about something not in our control, and I'm just gonna let it happen. I'm gonna let it play out. You're gonna be a little less stressed by just letting that go. I mean, we we travel often for vacations and go see family and things, and we kind of just sit back and laugh. We watch people lose their mind or get out of control with airline and attendance or TSA or whoever, and it's like, man, the stress those people have, and it's they're not mad at that time. I think it's whatever they have going on in their life just coming out. Yeah. Because a wrench was thrown in, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah. When you don't plan for life, when you don't plan for things, when you you don't have a budget, or you don't have a financial plan, or you don't have a plan for who's gonna get the kids to this place or that place, and or you don't have a plan for when you're at work for you know any obstacles that may come, then any little thing, any little wrench that's thrown into life becomes a crisis. And again, I'm not saying that your plans are always gonna go as as you plan, right? But if you're not forward thinking and looking down the road, looking a couple of steps ahead with everything in life, when something happens that throws everything out of whack, it all of a sudden becomes a crisis. It becomes a stressful situation for you, for your family, for your loved ones, for everybody around you, and it doesn't benefit anyone. Mark and I are talking about this because we've been there. Mark and I are talking about this because we're probably going to be there at some time again. It's recognizing what's going on, it's recognizing where you are, what you have control of, what you can do to minimize the stressful situation. I know for me there's been a lot of times in in our family. I have been the stressor in the situation with my family. There's also been multiple times when I have been able to take that step back and I have been able to drop the stress dramatically in the situation because it doesn't do any good.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah. And, you know, for our marriage, I am the stressor, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

I can see that.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Yeah, Tiff has an unbelievable way to not let anything really bug her. So I stress for both of us, but then, you know, I work to resolve the situation, you know, whether it's airlines or whatever, like we'll figure this out. You know, the heart rate goes up a little bit, the the body temperature goes up a little bit, and then I have to bring myself down. Yep. I don't go irate, but yeah, I'm that stressor, right? Like somebody's gotta do it.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Did you used to go irate?

SPEAKER_02 18:33

No, I don't think I ever went irate, but I probably just a little more calm now. Yeah. But something I got inconsistent with over, let's say, the past six months. I had some labs drawn for my annual physical, and uh it revealed some kidney issues. So I had to get consistent with my hydration and my diet. So, you know, going back to my daily routine, like I had to map out when I drink water and electrolytes, and it sounds really stupid, but I know when I'm drinking water, and the next time I'm gonna drink water, and the next time. And that ties into my sleep routine. Because if I drink too much water at the end of the day, well then my bladder alarm goes off at 2 a.m. and that interrupts my sleep. So now I have to cut myself off fluids at 4 p.m. Because we go to bed 7 30, 8 o'clock at night. I need really good consistent sleep and not have to get out of bed in the middle of the night. Like, so it all ties in. I bring that up because it kind of goes with the consistency how multiple things are related to each other. They're not individualized, they're not their own little problem. They can multiply quickly.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Everything is tied together.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

What are you doing to have some sense of influence? Influence, yeah. That's the word. Influence in life. Mark stops drinking at four because he doesn't want to get up in the middle of the night to pee. That sounds a little bit OCD'd it, right? But it works. It works. It helps him plan for the next day by uh controlling his water intake. Simple thing, right? But those are the little things in life that we talk about. Those are the little things that pay huge dividends. It's that mindset, it's that way of thinking that sets Mark up for success.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Yeah, because if I have to get up in the middle of the night, I have a hard time going back to sleep, which leads to less overall sleep and less quality sleep, and then that leads to me hitting a wall earlier in the day the next day, and it just compounds, right? So a very simple thing of hydration and when I cut myself off is a big win for the rest of my day or my life for that matter. It's that simple, it's that dumb, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Yeah, but it works for you, it works for your life, and everybody reaps the benefit of you being that consistent with things.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

And it's not fun being tired during the day, it's not fun hitting that wall and your eyes are wanting to close on you. The consistency piece, like we said, it just leads from one thing to the other to the next. And the inconsistency works the same way too. You're inconsistent in one thing, it's gonna trickle over to other things in your life.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah, no doubt. And it's gonna create some chaos. It's gonna probably create some stress.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

The one thing that I have learned is the less chaos I can have in my life, the less stress I can have in my life, the better off my life is. The entire life, my family life, my work life, everything. When I feel myself getting stressed or I feel myself ramping up about something, the little things that I do, the little things that I have learned. Bring me back and help it not to ramp up into a situation that it shouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

When I'm tired or when people are tired, we're more irritable, we're more short, you know, we might say or do things just because we're tired. And I can't emphasize this enough. Like all those little things add up to that, and I'm sure people can start thinking about things in their life that they need more consistency with, or take out the inconsistency to make their life easier and better for everybody around them, but especially themselves. This is going back to leading ourselves for success. Small things done daily.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Yeah. What are you doing? What are you willing to do to lead yourself? What are you willing to do to live a better life? What are you willing to do to make the change? Change is not hard unless you make it hard. Being inconsistent only makes it harder. What are we willing to do to change our course? To change our family's course, to change your health, to change, you know, all these things. When we get down to it, I knew that there were times in my life that I had to make a change. I had to do something different because what I was doing was not working. No matter how many times I beat my head against the wall trying to knock it down, I just needed to walk around it. I needed to make the change to turn right and walk around the wall because I needed to change.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah. And you made the choice to change. Yes. It's easy to say we need to or know you do, but to do it, that's another level.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yeah. Live your life with intentionality. It comes back to that. Be intentional with your decisions. Be intentional with waking up at three o'clock in the morning or not. Being intentional with not drinking fluids after four o'clock in the afternoon so that you can get that good night's sleep. So that you can set yourself up for success.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Yeah, and that's a very simple example, real life example.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

But again, what can you change in your life to bring a little normalcy or to make it more simple day-to-day? It's the daily stuff that leads to simplicity. But if we aren't doing these daily things consistently, then we are living that chaotic life. You know, crisis comes, Murphy comes knocking at your door more. Like it's funny, we were talking about this off mic, but I feel like we literally never have problems. And if they are, they're very small. But the big things, they just kind of avoid us. Because we have a very simple, boring life, and Murphy's like, well, I'll go bug somebody else. You know? It's weird how this happens. It's not some phenomena. It happens when you're intentional with life and things just kind of steer away.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

If it feels like Murphy's sitting in your living room all the time because there's always something happening. There's always some crisis. There's always something that you didn't plan for that now requires money or time or whatever to fix. Try throttling back on the stuff.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Try throttle throttling back and simplifying life.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Yeah. Maybe start saying no to some things.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Time is something you can never get back, and time is something that never stops. Help, don't miss the opportunity to just spend time with yourself.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah. Be present with nothing. Just inside our own mind. No phone, no computer, no TV, no music, just the environment.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Just be there. Just be present with yourself. That that's a hard thing for us to do these days because we are so distracted by everything in life. And we never take that moment for ourselves to sit and think and let our mind wander.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

And again, we keep talking about this, but that's the level that Mark has taken when in his life. That's the details that he has taken. Those are the things that he stopped and learned and listened and then did.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Yeah, schedule some nothingness. You know you're talking about being intentional. Add some nothingness to your life. Just go sit outside. I mean, it's it sounds really simple. I know we're we're talking about it as if this is some fantasy life, but this is truly how you get to peace and simplicity by being consistent with some nothingness. We all need some nothingness. There's so much noise in life. You gotta turn the volume down, shut it out, turn it off, do whatever you gotta do.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Yeah, man. It's um and it sounds simple, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

It's not.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

We're not coming at this from folks who have always lived this. We're coming at this from things that we've learned. Things that have taken a lot of work, things that have taken a lot of discipline to change.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

A lot of discipline and a lot of time. Yes. A long time for us to get to this point in our life where now it's easy to talk about because we do it, but I guarantee at a time in our life when we were full of noise, we weren't thinking it was possible. Or even thinking about doing it for that matter. Yeah, you're right. It it's because we've been there.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Yeah. Life is hard work. This is part of that hard work. Right. This is developing your routine, figuring out what makes what brings you joy, figuring out what brings your family's joy, figuring out where you want to go, where you want to be, and how you want to get there in life. And then being intentional to do it, to go do it. Taking that step, even when that step is going to be difficult, taking that step. It might be the best step you've ever taken in your life.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Man, that's a good point. I never thought about it like that. What's that? Alright, man. Good talk as usual. Yep. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Hey, thanks for listening. If this episode challenged you, good. Leadership without the uniform isn't loud. It's daily. It's quiet. It's built in a small decision that no one else needs. This is your reminder to reclaim it. Reclaim your standards. Reclaim your discipline. Reclaim your responsibility at home, at work, and in your own life. No one is coming to assign your next mission. The next chapter is built by the person you choose to be tomorrow morning. We'll see you next week.