Imagine having a map to buried treasure, a journey that can change your life in unimaginable magnitude. And yet, after close examination of the map, you decide to sit home and do nothing because the journey looks difficult, or the journey doesn’t come with a mentor that will hold your hand.’
This scenario best describes how most people approach life, and their refusal to embrace their personal power. The fact is, DISCIPLINE has replaced LUCK as the sole thing that stops you from succeeding.
A century ago, education and knowledge was a privilege secured from birth, and having the LUCK to be born in the right family in the right city.Today, the world’s knowledge is at your fingertips and readily accessible with a computer or a smartphone.
Per market researcher eMarketer, 63% of adults on the planet have smartphones— but those phones aren’t making them smarter, they are making them dumber.
A great startup story of this truth comes from Moiz Ali, the founder of Native Deodorant which sold to P&G for nine-figures in 2020. Codie Sanchez tweeted (X’d) a great write up of the story which featured the following statement from Moiz.
“I know nothing, and in six months, I’m going to become one of the world’s leading experts on deodorant. I’m just going to spend my time learning, and I’m going to figure it out.”
Moiz Ali, Founder, Native
You see, DISCIPLINE is the only thing required to unlock a treasure trove of resources, resources which can change your life forever.With the right commitment and focus, you can go from dummy to expert in a matter of months.
Or, you can continue to spend 5 hours a day on TikTok, X, and Netflix while complaining you don’t have the skills to change anything. Sorry, you don’t have the discipline to change anything and until you do, nothing will change.
So how do you become disciplined? Someone asked this in the Unscripted Telegram Network to which I posited, the better question is to ask, “What PREVENTS you from being disciplined?”
If you want to be more disciplined, examine the enemies of discipline… and then remove or defeat those enemies.
Poor Environment: A great example was when I lived in Chicago – I couldn’t be disciplined there so I moved to Arizona, an environment which narrowed my focus and strengthened commitment.
Distractions: Distraction is now a business model. Everything is engineered to harvest your focus and attention which is revenue for many companies, and a distraction for you. The more successful these companies are with their high-paid psychological operatives in stealing your attention, the less successful you become. Remove distractions; delete TikTok, cancel the Netflix, and dump the Roblox subscription.
Lack of Purpose: If you were sitting on the railroad tracks and a train was steaming toward you, how hard would you find it to be disciplined? How hard would it be to have a purpose (I don’t want to get run over by a train!) You see, when you discover your purpose, no matter how vague or specific, discipline becomes as urgent as jumping off the train tracks. Purpose comes with two AWESOME COMPANIONS: companion: discipline and happiness.
The power to change your circumstances is within your control, and within your access.
Unprecedented times.
Take advantage now and let your smartphone make you smart, or allow the world’s psychological manipulators to make you dumb.
MJ DeMarco, Entrepreneur, Author
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