#1848 - People Are Lying About Discipline!

In today’s episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros bust myths about discipline and share how doing hard things helps you grow stronger mentally. With insights from former NFL athlete Anthony Trucks, they explain how pushing through discomfort can build your brain’s self-control. You’ll also learn practical tips on staying disciplined by setting up your environment for success. Whether struggling with daily challenges or looking for ways to stay motivated, this episode offers helpful advice to build grit and achieve your goals.

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Show notes:
(1:48) The myth that discipline doesn’t matter for success
(3:19) Anthony Trucks' insights on growing willpower
(6:47) Grit in high achievers and how it builds over time
(9:38) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching. https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

And they said willpower increases when you hold conflict. The second you say to yourself I know, I'm supposed to do something. There's conflict. And it was essentially the second. You let go of the conflict so it's like I'm not going to go to the gym today. You can't build willpower based on that, he said.

Speaker 2 0:21

if you want to go on a hike and you love hiking, it doesn't grow that part because it doesn't take that much willpower to do something you want to do. It has to be the opposite of what you want to do. So all the people out there that are saying go with the flow and do the things that don't have resistance. I do not agree, although I do understand there's an intuitive part of that but honestly I do not agree.

Speaker 1 0:43

Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, Kevin Palmieri, and I'm your co-host, Alan Lazarus. At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Speaker 2 0:57

Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life, love health and wealth.

Speaker 1 1:04

We bring you a new episode every single day on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships, boundaries, consistency, habits and defining your own unique version of success Self-improvement in your pocket every day, from from anywhere, completely free.

The myth that discipline doesn’t matter for success

Speaker 1 1:26

Welcome to Next Level University, next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your will. Today, for episode number 1,848, people are lying about discipline. Some of the videos. If you were to go on YouTube and again I'm not calling anybody out specifically because I didn't look, but I have looked in the past when we've done episodes on discipline you'll see people say discipline doesn't work, discipline isn't the way, discipline doesn't matter. You can be successful without discipline. And again, I'm sure there's rare cases where you can just like. There's rare cases where you can get, you can be successful without improving yourself, or you can.

Speaker 2 2:17

I'm sure there's very, very, very rare cases, but Well, you can win the lottery I was going to say we can't.

Speaker 1 2:23

We cannot set up our lives based on the fact that we may win the lottery, because if we do that and we don't win the lottery, we're going to be in trouble for the rest of our lives, and I don't want that for anybody. I don't want that. I've said this before. There's discipline and design. One of the best ways to not eat garbage food is to have no garbage food in your house.

Speaker 1 2:47

Evan Carmichael, on the set of his YouTube, in his studio, he has a bag of Doritos and I asked him and he made fun of me a little bit. I said why do you have a bag of Doritos in your studio? And he said, kev, you know why? Because I want to stay disciplined. I want to practice my discipline daily. I think that's really cool, but I also understand that somebody who doesn't have that level of discipline yet yet being the key phrase, probably shouldn't do that. It's not. That's like if you have a. Well, I'm not going to go down that route, because I think that would be. It wouldn't be connected and it would be a drastic over-exaggeration.

Speaker 1 3:19

But, Alan, it's the thing about talking so much is you can kind of tell when you're going to say something stupid. I know you don't know what that's like, I'm a professional Burned him, I know for you that's not common. Alright, alan, had book club. Anthony Trucks joined in book club and you discussed something.

Speaker 2 3:47

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:48

About discipline. I am not necessarily privy to this information, so I want Alan to lead the charge on this. So I'm going to give you the floor and talk, sorry.

Speaker 2 4:00

The first thing I want to share Is I, at the end of every book club, shout out to all the book club members what's happening. What's happening we have, we all set intentions, and this is. I'm going to read these anonymously. This is exactly the context of book club. So, intention, continue being courageous and leaning into candor about the actual formulas, teach formulas and transcode effectively. That one's mine, so that's not really relevant. I was going to say that's got to be, you.

Speaker 2 4:27

Yeah, intention To remember, to fall in love with the day in the direction of my destination.

Speaker 1 4:33

Whoa, that was Anthony.

Speaker 2 4:35

Yeah, he said, fall in love with the day, just make sure it's in the direction of the destination. Yeah, that was good.

Speaker 2 4:42

That's fire. Anthony Trucks is a great speaker On a pain scale of 10 to 0, take the nugget of pain and apply it again and again to develop my desired skills. So he has this thing called from 10 to joy, and he says that when you first start a podcast or you first start a fitness journey, it's level 10, painful, but then it becomes 9.9, then 9.8, then 9.7. And eventually you become the type of person where it's second nature. Now, do I think it's 10 to joy? No, I think it's 10 to less painful.

Speaker 1 5:12

I think it's zero. I think it's awesome in the beginning.

Speaker 2 5:17

The grit. I'm talking about developing grit 10.4?. Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:20

I retract my previous statement and also you love podcasting, so don't use that as an example. All right intention keep grinding, although my circumstances are about to change, so it'll be a matter of how versus if. Intention analyze what I'm doing and rate how hard it is. Intention come into better alignment with what I'm grinding on. You can see the theme lean into the hard Intention. Lean into the heart of sharing my truth. Intention where am I still convincing myself to not do the hard things that need to be done? Intention be courageous with the people around you and do not be afraid to speak your truth. Intention take a step back and reassess the future self I want to be and remove the actions in my day-to-day that aren't aligned in getting to my future self. So you can kind of see a lot of the last episode we just did in that, but anthony trucks. So we are reading identity shift by anthony trucks in book club. He came today in the day we're recording this, so it's monday's episode but saturday and he came earlier today and he said something that really I was super intrigued by and I actually interrupted him sounds like me and got him to go deeper on it. He said the people that are really really really high performers now keep in mind. Anthony Trucks was in the NFL. He also speaks on stages with some of the best speakers in the world and he's surrounded himself with certain people. I can name drop a couple Brendan Burchard, tom Bilyeu. He's friends with these individuals.

Speaker 2 6:47

Now, one of the things that I've tried to articulate to people since being in this industry nine years ago I kind of started the self-improvement space is grit is a bigger part of it than people want to believe and you and I you have very high grit, but you don't even talk about it that much and, if anything, you actually downplay it. In my opinion, I think most people do. Most people naturally downplay their levels of grit and how necessary that is. So anthony trucks he he came on our podcast years ago and he said I'm a regular dude. And I said I gotta challenge you on that. You're not gonna run into an Anthony Trucks at the supermarket every day. He was in the NFL. He's a world-class speaker. He's speaking at Best Buy next week. He's written books. He's a regular dude in some regards and I understand why he's saying that. However, he has extraordinary grit and I've seen him behind the scenes and in front of the scenes and I've known him for five years now. I'm not best friends with the guy, but I know him and I study him as well as his peers.

Speaker 2 7:54

One of the things that I he said was there's a part of the brain that they've proven gets bigger in the people who do hard things that they don't want to do. It's called the and we looked it up earlier, kevin and I the anterior mid-singulate cortex, amcc. The anterior mid-singulate cortex is the part of the brain that grows with willpower. Mid-singulate cortex is the part of the brain that grows with willpower. So we say willpower doesn't work and it doesn't in some ways. So, for example, when Kev says discipline and design, design your life in a way where you minimize the amount of willpower that is constantly drained, the way I see it is you wake up in the morning and you have a bucket of water and you have a certain sized bucket, so I have a little mug right here. So let's say, when you're young and you're 12 years old, you don't have that much willpower. Your executive function isn't great. It's very hard to think into the future and to delay your gratification. 12 year olds want what they want. They want it now, especially kev. I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 8:58

All right.

Speaker 2 9:00

So this is a mug with a certain amount of water in it. Now imagine I poke a hole in the bottom every time I have food in the house that I want to eat but shouldn't so. Emilia and I, for example, we have food in the house that's junk food. I am not a saint and I'm not pretending to be, and I don't care what anyone says about it. What I will say is I never have it out in the open. You're never going to catch it out in the open. So I have all kinds of sweets and great snacks that I love. They're all hidden in the cabinets. Because I fast during the day, I eat in the morning.

Speaker 1 9:38

I eat before my workout and I eat in the evening Huge meal in the evening, and I love food Always, have always, will Next Level Nation what is happening? If you've thought to yourself I want to try coaching, but you don't really know where to start, group coaching would be a wonderful place for you. That's really why we created it in the first place. We start a new round every 90 days. So if you're hearing this, go to the website nextleveluniversecom and we have the landing page where you can actually hold your spot right now. Even if there's a group going on right now, you can still lock your spot for the next one. The biggest thing that we've seen is, as we get closer and closer to the date, unfortunately, some people end up missing. The group fills up and they can't do it, and then they end up regretting that. So please head over to the website. The link will be in the show notes and we would love to see you there.

Speaker 2 10:22

I do not allow. We, Emilia and I, do not allow any food out in the open during the day. That's our rule, Because if I walk past a bag of potato chips in the middle of my day, I know myself and they'll call me and they'll say Alan, you love potatoes? Man, You're Irish, you love potatoes, you love me, Eat me Right, and then I will, and then I'll need to nap right in the middle of my day. So my point is you can grow your bucket, you can grow this. So this cup turns into a bucket and then the bucket turns into a bigger bucket and then that bucket turns into. Eventually you have a freaking Mack truck.

How environment design can reduce willpower depletion

Speaker 2 11:04

Anthony has developed this part of the brain, the anterior mid-singulate cortex, to an extreme extent, to where he works from 6 am to 2.45 pm when his kids get out of school every single day and I've seen him. He does not miss, he's always there. And the point that we're trying to make on this episode is that you actually can grow this part, and we were talking about it on book club because I asked him. I said how do you grow that part? Though he said it has to be something that you don't enjoy. He said if you want to go on a hike and you love hiking, it doesn't grow that part Because it doesn't take that much willpower to do something you want to do. It has to be the opposite of what you want to do. So all the people out there that are saying go with the flow and do the things that don't have resistance. I do not agree, Although I do understand there's an intuitive part of that, but honestly I do not agree, Although I do understand there's an intuitive part of that, but honestly I do not agree. And the reason why is because when you study people like Anthony, you realize and there's actual science to prove this, they can measure this. He talked about it and I've also looked it up. You, that size of that part of the brain that I just mentioned, actually is bigger in Olympic athletes, it's bigger in professionals, it's bigger in NFL players. And that makes perfect sense, because the amount of times that I sit down and do something that I don't want to do, I don't feel like doing it, but I know it's what's best, is constant. And I do know, and so do you, Kev.

Speaker 2 12:36

When people come to us and I'm so grateful, I'm so grateful they say how did you guys do it. I was on a podcast earlier today where they said I'm so blown away. How did you guys do it? Honestly, I there's two of us and our work ethic is very high and we show up no matter what, and even Anthony coming to book club today. That was awesome and I'm grateful. He's a speaker at the top of the game with some of the best speakers on the planet, and he comes to book club on a Saturday with me.

Speaker 2 13:07

Why I did book club for three years straight without missing a single Saturday, and that's the part of the equation people aren't telling you. I showed up, whether it was four people, 14 people or 24 people, and I'm showing up no matter what, whether Anthony's coming or not. And so that that part of the brain. I tried to challenge him on this, but he didn't. He has trouble bragging about himself. I get it, but I said, Anthony, if they were to scan your brain, how big would this part of your brain be? And he downplayed it and he said well, you know, I don't know how big mine would be. I don't want to compare. It's like, Anthony, it would be huge. And you and I both know it.

Speaker 1 13:46

And that's the thing you are constantly forcing yourself to do things that you don't want to do and you're developing those muscles fire. Well said, thank you, brother. Well said. I watched when, when taron and I we have a couple minutes here before we get a balance when taron and I were in vermont, I was watching something on youtube and it was talking about and I would have to look at it and really look at the studies. It was, it was a psychologist, I think, that did it, or neuroscientists, somebody did it, and they said willpower increases when you hold conflict.

Speaker 1 14:23

The second you say to yourself I know I'm supposed to do something, there's conflict. And it was essentially the second. You let go of the conflict so it's like I'm not going to go to the gym today. You can't build willpower based on that, because you knew there was conflict, even if you say, okay, this is the conversation. Well, I know I should go. Yeah, it's cold out, but it'll be warm in the gym. I have a remote starter, I'll start my car that whole time. I know I should go. Yeah, it's cold out, but it'll be warm in the gym. I have a remote starter, I'll start my car that whole time.

Speaker 1 14:54

I don't think you're getting rid of willpower. I think maybe you're not growing it, but I'll look it up and maybe we can do an episode on it. I'd want you to look at the science and maybe watch it first, but it was very interesting how the people who do the thing that they know they're supposed to do, even when they don't want to do it, they don't ever let that conflict go Of. I know I should do this. The second you relegate it and say, well, never mind, I don't care that much. That's when willpower goes out the window. So maybe we'll do an episode on that at some point.

Speaker 2 15:25

It's like remember when we watched Laurie Harder's TED Talk before we had her on. We had her on for episode 34. And Kev wanted to jump out the window 100% First floor.

Speaker 1 15:36

I wasn't trying to hurt myself, I just wanted to exit the building.

Speaker 2 15:38

That was it Nice, I appreciate you clarifying this, even though I'm saying it playfully. So, even if it wasn't the first floor, but you did open the window. Yeah, yeah, I wanted to go that was fun.

Speaker 2 15:49

I wanted to go. I'm not kidding. She talked about the weight of the load plus time under tension equals strength and in the gym you can picture that the higher the weight and the longer the time under tension is going to build strength. I think that same thing applies with cognitive labor. Yeah, with cognitive pressure, privileged pressure, the pressure cooker we always talk about the pressure cooker. They always say diamonds are made by pressure. I think that's what this is is.

Speaker 2 16:20

We filled group 16. I'm so grateful, but we were under pressure, both of us and and amy as well. And and if you aren't willing to go through the stress of pressure, cognitive pressure, you won't grow that part of the brain and the people out there that you see doing these things that make it look easy. It is only easy after years and years and years and years and years of being consistently under pressure. And the very last thing, I know we got to jump Kev.

Speaker 2 16:52

The college engineering school was so unreasonably difficult. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and I don't say that lightly because I think school usually came pretty easy to me. I know we got to jump the pressure of before every test, the pressure before every project was due. The pressure before every project was due, the pressure of being the mock ceo in these master's classes, the the pressure that I was constantly under in my life because I'm such an achiever. It developed so much grit and so much willpower that I yeah, it hurt my quality of life and and that is the price you might have to pay to achieve great things.

Speaker 1 17:32

Well, yeah, again, sacrifice is a thing. I can't be with Taryn right now. Saturday afternoons, 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday, I can't be with Taryn. We're recording episodes. That's the sacrifice, right? Alan can't be with Emilia. Alan's got another call after this and then another call after that. There are only so many hours in the day and you are going to have to sacrifice something for something. Alright, Strong work.

Speaker 2 17:56

A little scientific.

Outro

Speaker 1 17:57

Saturday. I didn't really say anything. I appreciate it. I didn't say anything. I opened it. I'll close it. I said a couple things, maybe two or three, nothing necessarily of value. Okay, next Elvin Nation. If you have not gotten your Dreamliner for Q4, make sure you do so. Link will be in the show notes. We're on Amazon, not a big deal, whatever. It's not a big deal, but we're on Amazon, so whatever, it's just a little something. Also, next Level Nation is a free place for you to hang out with like-minded people. We have conversations like this all the time. We also have lighthearted conversations, because Amy is amazing at facilitating a great experience, and that is what we're trying to aspire for in Next Level Nation. We'll have that link in the show notes as well. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and NLU. We're the United Fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2 18:45

Keep working towards your potential Next Level Nation.

Speaker 1 18:51

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the Next Level family.

Speaker 2 18:57

We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes.

Speaker 1 19:06

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.