Discipline equals Freedom episode 4 Jocko here also have Carrie and lafe in the house. I was doing a live event think it was the one in New York. I was doing a New York Jack alive and I'm get to the Q&A portion and this guy stands up and ask a question and and basically his question is that he's having a hard time finding discipline staying disciplined type scenario.
Ooh, and he kind of goes through his life. He's you know, I'm pretty happy. I got a good job. I got a good family. I got a nice house. I'm a pretty good shape. So we're doing good. Right and he says but you know, I can't find this the discipline, you know, I sometimes a skip work out and sometimes I sleep in and sometimes I eat bad and sometimes I watch a little too much TV with and I just how can I find more discipline?
Is this question and I'm sitting there thinking about it.
And I thought through all these different possible scenarios that could be going on. And finally I'm like you could be lying to yourself. That could be the problem.
How is that you can be lying to yourself by saying? I'm really happy.
That can be a lie. It can be a lie. Hey, you know what? I'm really happy right now.
And there's a chance you are right. There's a chance. There's a chance that you're really are. Truly happy. I got a good job. I got a good family. I got a house. I'm in pretty good shape. There's a chance that you're truly hap happy in that situation. And if that's the scenario good, you know, what don't worry about getting more discipline. You're happy your content. You got a good job. You got a good family. You got a house. You got a car. Everything's good. That's cool.
That's fine.
But there's a chance that that's not fine. There's a chance that you're lying to yourself and that's why you're asking this question. By the way, the reason you're asking this question is because you can't find more discipline. You want more discipline? Why do you want that because you know, you could be better and there's something in your mind that saying you could be better and you know it and you know that the way you could get better and the way you could do better than the way you could be more is by having more disciplined.
So don't lie to yourself.
That's what we have to do. We have to not let ourselves in this way gpus has this quote a lot because I ended up telling JP like two weeks later or something. We already gig together discipline is rooted in the truth. We tell ourselves that that's what it is discipline is rooted in the truth. We tell ourselves because if you tell yourself the truth, if you tell yourself the truth and the truth is I'm not happy with where I'm at. That's the truth. The truth is I can do more.
The truth is I can't be in better shape. The truth is I can work harder than I'm working right now. The truth is I can do more for my family.
The truth is I can do much better than I'm doing right now. And if that's the real truth.
If that's what you believe if you believe that to be the truth, you won't have to find more discipline discipline will find you it will wake you up in the morning.
It will wake you up in the morning. Have you ever been like preparing for something and you didn't think you're ready and you couldn't sleep and you wake up in the morning because it's happening hundred times million times ever happen to you life. Definitely. Hey when you're in here many times missions going out on a mission. Like let's say you're in Iraq and you're going out on a mission a mission before let me ask you this the first mission you did in Iraq with me when we were there together. How well did you sleep the night before? I don't think I slept at all. Why is that?
Trying to think every every contingency, you know so much work left undone just not confident in knowing that all all the the, you know, all the i's are dotted and the t's were crossed and everything was done and prepared as it should be and you're also thinking about scenarios that might unfold like worst-case scenarios and and it's kind of just spinning. Yeah your head isn't that interesting you the what makes that interesting is you've got a specific scenario.
That's happening that you want to be ready for and therefore it your mind prevents you from sleeping. That's what happens. So when you're going through life and you truly feel like you could do better and you could do more and you truly feel that way you think about that you are here and I have a hard time sleeping and look I'm not encouraging not sleeping every I'm not doing that but when you if you think about that,
You said oh, yeah, I could do better. You can have a hard time sleeping. You're gonna discipline is going to find you. Now. If you lie to yourself, if you lie to yourself, if you would like yourself and say you know what? I'm good to go. Like I'm not worried about this operation. We're good to go. And I know everything will probably go fine. I'm good. You sleep all night like a little baby if you lie to yourself and you like well, you know, I'm in pretty good shape and I got my family is doing fine and I like this house that I'm in and my job. My job is good enough.
If that's the lie that you're telling yourself, maybe you can sleep just fine and maybe it's hard to be disciplined in those scenarios.
So what you need to do is you need to tell yourself the truth about what the hell is going on in your life. That's what you need to do. You need to do an assessment in your breakout a piece of paper and start to write down these things that you claim to be happy about and pull the pull the stops off like, okay. What if I if I could have any house I wanted is this house the house I wanted is it
is it is it really you sure about that? You sure about that sure about that. You see what I'm saying? If you ask yourself. Hey, I'm in pretty good shape right now. You sure about that you sure about that and you write down what if if I could snap my fingers and be in a different physical shape. Is this what I would choose or what I want to be a little bit better what I want to be stronger faster.
Am I happy where I'm at with my Jujitsu? I'm pretty good. I've been training for a while, but I can beat most people that's pretty good, right?
Then you got to ask yourself. You sure about that.
Are you sure about that?
Because we end up lying to ourselves and if we're lying to ourselves, we're not going to find the discipline. It's going to be more difficult you have to do an assessment. You have to detach from it. You have to write it down and then you have to ask yourself. Is this the truth right here that I'm saying? And like I said dude, if you're happy with that and you you pull back you peel back the onion and you look at it you say you know, my house is awesome. Like it's a
A good house and maybe you have to waste some things out and you say you know, my house is pretty good. And if I was to really want a bigger house, I'd have to work so much more that I wouldn't be able to see my family. You know what I'm good with it. That's fine. That's perfectly fine. But maybe you're not getting to spend time with your kids in the morning because you're sleeping late and now they're going off to school and you haven't said good morning to him haven't sat down and eating some some bacon with them or don't a quick workout with him. And you know, that would make you better and you know, what make them better but you're not doing it why because you're being lazy
easy
So tell yourself the truth about the situation that you're in.
That's what we need to do.
And it should hurt a little bit by the way.
It should hurt a little bit. There should be aspects of your life that you know, you can improve upon.
That should hurt a little bit.
Here's the cool thing take ownership of those things. And guess what doesn't hurt at all now guess who's in control you are.
But if you're having trouble finding discipline start by telling yourself the truth about what's going on, I'm gonna go to the book here this point whose freedom field manual where where does discipline come from?
It comes when you make a decision to be disciplined.
Really? Hold on a second. This is a choice. Is that was that what I just said, is that what I just said right there. It's a choice. I mean, I you mean you're not born with discipline. Hey, this is your baby boy. He's got brown hair blue eyes and level 7 discipline. Is that what happens - no, that's not what happens you actually as a human being get to decide if you want to be disciplined or not.
Back to the book when you when you make a decision to be better. Now, if you've already told yourself that hampered pretty good to go. You don't make a decision to be better cause you already think you're there you lie to yourself and you're not gonna make this decision. If you lie to yourself, you're not going to make the right decisions back to the book when you make a decision to do more to be more.
Self-discipline comes when you decide to make your mark on the
world.
If you don't think you are disciplined it's because you haven't decided to be
disciplined yet.
It's because you haven't created it yet. It's because you haven't become disciplined.
Yet.
Because you haven't told yourself the truth and this is going to be problematic. It's going to be very problematic.
So where does this plan come from? It comes from you?
Become the discipline Embrace, its cold and Relentless power.
Hell, yeah, I like that line and it will make you better and stronger and smarter and faster and healthier than anything else.
and most important
it will make you
free.
So that's what we're doing. That's where we're at. Go. This guy sounds comfortable. The guy who is talking to you. Absolutely. What what effect do you think Comfort plays on our ability to tell ourselves the truth? Well Comforts kind of a
It massages lies right? Dang. It makes them feel good. It makes it feel like it's okay and you know that happens in people's lives happens with everybody right? I mean it happens. You know, what happens with Rock and Roll Bounce right rock and roll bands when they're young and they're struggling and they're hungry and they're they're poor and their music is reflects that
But it's hard to you know, write good music when there's someone massaging your freaking throat as your drink eating caviar or whatever. It's hard to be like disgruntled about things. So their music tends to get worse and worse as time goes on. It's like fighters to right. Yeah. It's hard for a fighter.
In silk sheets to get up and go for a run in the cold biting air.
You can't live like that. You can't allow yourself to get there. You got to be careful of that because it's a real thing. Yeah, Comfort breeds
lies
and it breeds a lack of discipline. Absolutely because because that's where you're at and that's you know as much as I talk about look imposed discipline is not our goal, right? We don't want impose discipline.
But you were talking earlier about before we hit record today, you know, one of these one of these other discipline equals Freedom episodes that I did I was saying listen, you're the general you're in charge. You're also the
soldier.
What is it? What do they teach you about discipline in the Marine Corps?
So in
bit Marine Corps basic training in boot camp we have did he's in one of those diseases about discipline and the the first call from a drill instructor is discipline and then all the recruits a discipline and they spell it out disciple26. Then he says discipline is in the recruits a discipline is immediate willing obedience to all orders sir. And that's where in my brain
I try to attach that to the orders on giving myself, right if you're the general and you're giving yourself orders immediate willing obedience to all orders from me. Yes do it do the thing. That's what I try to tell myself. I'm the general the soldier. I am going to obey orders without question and you've heard me talking about this for years right now, right the negotiation the debate
the what the and people say look, what do you tell yourself? I'm Thomas off anything. I'm not allowed to talk. I'm not allowed to talk. We're not allowed to do we're not allowed to come up with these things. Like, you know, the Marine Corps recruits not like well, actually I'd like to wonder why we're doing this why you want me to go over this not happening not allowed to do that. You're not doing it.
Immediate obedience to the orders that's what we're doing with ourselves. And listen. Do we encourage this idea of imposed discipline on other people know, you've heard me discourage it for years. I don't even encouraged it with your kids and lesson Beyond Marine Corps boot camp in the military. I don't encourage. Hey immediate response immediate obedience to my orders. I don't even want to have to give you orders matter of fact what I want is your doing it before?
I even thought of it that's what we really want. That's what we want to get to but the way we treat ourselves as general and Soldier.
What we need is immediate obedience without question. That's what that's what we're moving towards and here's the thing.
If there's lies if the general lies to the Troops, there's no trust there's debate. There's a negotiation if the soldiers lie to the general, there's no trust there's lies there's debate so we can't let that happen.
We tell the truth up and down the chain of command in our heads.
So that there can be no question. You were asking about, you know, first combat operations whether or not I was sleeping, you know good the night before and I think what gives you after that first combat operation realized. Okay. I there's a there's a lot of things that are out of my control. I got to focus on what I can control and you feel you can prioritize and ask you to on those things, but the more discipline that we were in planning and preparation the easier you sleep at night because you know that you've done everything you can and and and you can go to
Leave knowing that we're fully prepared and we're ready. And I think that that's a I don't leader asked me about this recently and she was she was talking about like not being down on herself. Well, you know, we're holding the standard really high we have to be disciplined and you know kind of similar to the question that you got at that you reference of this person. That's that's they know they could do be better but you know, it's but they don't want to like be they they're driving their confidence in the ground because there
Constantly like, you know holding the standard too high. And and so the question was like how do you gain more confidence? And the only way to gain that confidence is through discipline in that discipline preparation is what gives you confidence? It doesn't matter whether you're playing a sport whether you're in school studying for a test, whether you're not preparing for a presentation, you know it work whatever it is that you're doing planning for a combat Mission. I mean the more disciplined you are in that preparation.
The car the more confidence you're going to have and I think for me I notice if I get off the path, it's it becomes
it's
easier to lie to yourself, you know, and so that slip it starts to really that can snowball. Where is the the more that you make that a habit of telling yourself the truth and realizing? Hey, I got a fault there stay on this path of discipline. Its it becomes easier. It becomes easier and easier over time. So I think what seems daunting to people
Initially, it's not that daunting when that becomes habit and it's just part of what you do. I remember when we first started working together to ask a cruiser Seth Stone, they've dealt with to command and I were we're good friends and we go surf all the time and we'd go surf after a we go out and party, you know hard on Friday night and we look we're going to get up early. What we call Dawn Patrol was like 7:30 and then we started work. We started rolling out with Jocko jock was like cool. I mean
Guys at 4:45 and we started going out in the dark and initially that seemed insane like a who can get up at 4:45 on a Saturday morning. That's is that even possible and I remember me is that even even when you were able to join us for surf session we would go out all the time at like 4:30 4:45 in the morning we serve for an hour and a half and we'd paddle in as everyone else is paddling out. So no one else is out there and I was like this is this is awesome. So I did might be the greatest.
First thing I ever taught you there. Is there anyway there's anything better than paddling out when it's dark. It's like it's amazing. It's amazing. It's awesome. And is there anything better than after you've been surfing and catching every wave and other people are paddling out as you're paddling back at that's pretty satisfying as well too because you know like your your day started off like no one can take that time away from you and I think that's a that's a super powerful thing, but it's it gets easier over time and I think what makes it easier for me.
Is what I'm thinking if I gotta think long-term like if I'm it's real easy a lot of myself when the alarm goes off in the morning if I'm not really I don't really look at the schedule and detail and I don't know how busy the day is going to be. It's easier to tell yourself all you know, I'll find some time I can sleep. Yes such a lie. That's such a lie. I'll find some time. It's such a lie. Don't do it. Don't do it a lot it what helps me not do it is the discipline preparation of like looking at my schedule as I know there isn't.
Any time like this is the time so I can't get sucked into the algorithm of you know, scrolling through Instagram or whatever it is. I've got to use the next hour that I have to get a good workout in to set the whole tone for the whole day because there's not going to be another another time for me to be able to do that. So I think that kind of long-term thought of where I want to be, you know on a day-to-day basis if if I'm not if you're not really paying attention and you're just kind of just a slave to the what
Next on the schedule and you're not looking ahead. It's real easy. I think to lie to yourself are easier. Certainly. Yeah, and the more you lie to yourself the easier it gets, you know, when people come to work at Echelon front and the first time they say like well that wasn't really my and you can hear like on a conference call a like and they kind of self correct and then after a while no one says, you know, if you've been at Echelon front for three months, you don't say well that wasn't my fault or I think actually, you know
Lafe should have done that. No, you don't do that. You don't say that if you you recognize that that doesn't work. It's not allowed. So when you when you start lying to yourself, it doesn't get harder it gets easier and it becomes harder to recognize like it stands out like a sore thumb at us on front when somebody says, oh that wasn't my fault or that's because of the client when someone says that it stands out like a sore thumb it just ate everyone hears it well when you lie to yourself and that's the Habit that you're in it doesn't stand out at all.
And that's why I'm a big proponent. If you just writing things down, right? You know what you got an excuse for not working out just write it down. See what that thing. Looks like. Actually we had a conversation on this podcast through the day of and I said, I'm going to I'm going to ask chat GPT to right give me five thousand excuses to not work out today.
And I so I did it like later on in the day. I was like, I want five thousand excuses to not work out and it wouldn't give it to me what it said. It was like it gave me a mental health answer like even though and then I tried to give it a better prompt. I was like if a person wanted to know why you they shouldn't work out and he gave a legitimate reason I tried and it would not give me
Any excuses to not work out is the AI on our side. I think the a I might be but is it an ally it was very strange, but it was very weird. That is weird. Yeah, it wouldn't give me the answer now. I haven't tried barred yet and I'll try the other ones later and we'll see what we get. There's there's a trooper in there like in the coating. Yeah. He's like no excuses. Your excuses are lies. So there is no hack. Yeah, there is no Heather. There's a man on the inside. We've got a man on the inside. Yeah the AI.
Disciplined yes, that's what we're doing. The AI is telling the truth and that's what you need to do to so if you're lacking discipline.
You gotta start telling yourself the truth. And if you do that, the discipline will find you. That's what we're doing. You want to do more of this go to the deaf reset.com sign up. We're getting after it. Come get after it with us. Also Jocko fuel.com Jocko store.com origin usa.com and Echelon front.com.
Where
there come get it?
